on their lives. Not even an intrusion, just a ghost. One time he twisted his ring to appear among them. They scattered in squeals, a hail of 'get out' and 'what the fuck?' Running out, he didn't care. He just wanted to matter. To be seen.
Other days he listened to his men. How they talked about him. Their ambitions. The ruminations on the minutiae of their lives. Pussy. Cars. Pussy. Sports teams. Pussy. Music. Pussy. Money. Pussy. Speakers. Pussy. That was all of life to them. And he'd appear, make sure they were on point, but his mind was no longer on his work. He had disappointed. A blank spot where a person should be. A lifetime of learned shames reducing him to what he already believed himself to be. Nothing. And nothing could do anything.
Creeping out the car, he made his way to the back patio. The rear wall was no obstacle. It wasn't too many years ago he used to run along the patio walls just like these, chasing his friends and playing tag. Running and jumping from them for the sheer exhilaration of being alive. Part of the thrill was watching those drawn to their upstairs windows by the nearby racket and seeing knucklehead children dash past at nearly eye level. Right now, anyone peeking out their window would only see their patio. Nothing special or out of the ordinary. Nobody important.
All of the condos had the same set-up, either a back window which led into a kitchen or a sliding back patio door. This place had the sliding door. Thing was, few of them latched properly. A few years of use and kids slamming them too hard either knocked them off their tracks or knocked the latch too far in to catch properly. Most owners of such doors had a security bar which acted as a lock. Those security bars cost money, about a week's worth of groceries, and the needs of an empty belly were always more pressing than the possibility of a bogeyman breaking in. Most made do with a stretch of fitted broom handle popped into place. No cost, same function. Thing was, there was a little-known workaround to the broom-handle lock: a swift, strong kick could usually displace it.
As was the case here.
Garlan slipped in. Though no more than a couch, a love seat, and a couple of chairs around a coffee table, all centered around a television, the room had a warmth to it. The furniture was well worn but not ratty. Care was taken in their arrangement, in the placement of knick-knacks and photos. The room had been cleaned, things put away, except for some scattered toys in the corner, but even those added a sense of life to the space. The room exuded family.
A telltale squeak gave him away as he stepped on the first step of the stairs. Frozen, he waited to see if anyone stirred from bed. He pressed himself to the wall and spider-slinked up the stairs.
Feigning sickness, Lady G had stayed home. Solitude, a chance to think and sort things out in peace was what she required. Propped up by pillows, she colored, as Rhianna had convinced her would help clear her mind. Not quite ready to get out of bed, Lady G drew a picture of a church in her book. She scorched its doorway with streaks of brown and black, traced a crack down its windows, and canted the cross hanging above its archway until the building resembled the abandoned church where they first convened their little circle. When it was just them, the core, before things got so big and drifted from what she thought they would do and be. To her, it would always be their special place. The place where the magic happened. When they believed nothing could get in their way.
The crayon ceased its scribbling in mid-scratch. Some primitive part of her brain alerted her with a prey's warning. Nothing she could point to, not unlike sensing the footfalls of a cat padding across carpet. Merely the nearness of another. Considering the racket made when she came home filled with the Holy Ghost, Big Momma and Had were still at church.
'Who's there?' Lady G asked the air. Suddenly too conscious of how her braless breasts hung through the thin material of her T-shirt, she drew up the bed sheets. The familiar click of a gun being cocked paralyzed her. Cold metal pressed against her temple.
The idea of being known, of being revealed while so carefully hidden intrigued Garlan. 'How'd you know I was here?'
'I just knew is all. Just have to pay attention to what's going on around you.' Lady G closed her eyes and took a deliberate breath. She wondered what her death would feel like. A sharp pain as the bullet exploded from its chamber and slammed into her skull. If she'd hear the splintering of bone and the shattering of her skull. If she'd feel the bullet tunnel through the soft, great pulp of her brain. What the sensations of life being extinguished would be. If she'd see a bright light or fade into the darkness of eternal sleep. She prayed the end would be quick.
'You scared right now?' Garlan withdrew the pistol from her skin.
'Make you feel good knowing I was?' The bravado of her words couldn't hide the shake in her voice. It wasn't the first time a gun had been pointed at her, but it wasn't an experience she longed to repeat.
'Heh. Come on, we need to go somewhere.'
'I ain't going nowhere with you.'
Garlan jabbed the gun at her head again. 'See, you thought that was a request.'
'Can I get dressed?'
'Go head.'
Lady G backed across the other side of the bed. Piles of jeans stacked at her feet. 'You looking?'
'You want me to lie to you?'
Lady G turned her back to the direction of the voice. She pulled the top pair of jeans up quickly, doing a bit of a bounce to get her full behind into them. She thought about how best to maneuver into a bra. A hand brushed the side of her breast. Not caring about his gun, not being able to see it anyway, Lady G lashed out, shoving at the area the intrusion came from.
'Hands off the temple.'
Garlan slapped her with an open hand which she could neither see nor defend herself against and sent her sprawling into the standalone lamp. The bulb flashed with a lightning burst and went out.
'Girl, have you lost your Goddamned mind?'
'You gonna kill me, do it now. But you ain't get to just touch me any which way.'
'Come on. Let's go.'
Lady G grabbed a sweater and a jacket. 'Where we going?'
Where were they going? Garlan hadn't thought that far ahead. Lady G's colored page caught his eye. 'I know a place.'
The sky charged with a dull luminescence. Threatening clouds like glaring corner boys. Assuring them that he knew how to find Colvin, Merle led the group to the bus stop in front of the church. An Indy Metro idled at the stop. Though it was five o'clock in the morning, the bus was still driverless. What few passengers that waited at the stop behaved as if they didn't notice it. Or them. The six of them boarded the bus. None of the bus stop throng gave them a first glance, much less a second.
'There are people all around us,' King whispered. 'What's up?'
'Relax and act natural,' Merle said.
'I don't get it,' Rok said, 'there ain't nobody fixin' to drive this mug.'
'They won't have to. No one living travels these lines,' Dred said.
'Do what?'
'These rides ain't for the living,' Dred repeated. 'Didn't you notice the people? They seemed more concerned about their own affairs than anything we were up to.'
'So?'
'These are the dead lines. The ghost lines of the Metro Buses. Those in the know can simply board them and travel along the unlit paths. You sure you know what you doing, old man?'
'I got this,' Merle said.
'The toll's yours to pay, then.'
'Where are we going?' King asked Merle.
'When the bus stops, we've arrived.'
The city landscape passed in gray and brown blurs. Through the bus windows, the city took on an alien aspect. The buildings canted at odd angles, the geometry of the city bent by shadows. Though they passed though areas of the city they knew intimately, the landscape was as unfamiliar as the moon's surface. For nearly an hour they rumbled along 38th Street, occasionally stopping to take on and drop off passengers while the night held its grip.
