Cold Case

Bright yellow novas of pain erupted in the back of Matt’s eyeballs. He lost his hold, and both he and David went skittering along the thrumming floor to the rear of the autobus.

Matt’s cheek felt wet. Oh, man, he thought, have I landed face-first in somebody else’s mess?

As he came to rest in the back of the bus, he tried to wipe off whatever was on his face. But the barest touch sent a new twinge of pain though him. His fingers smeared some slimy/sticky gunk across his skin.

“Matt!” David’s voice sounded oddly far away. “Are you all right?”

“ ’M I awri?” Matt slurred. “Howze ya leg?”

“Bad,” David gritted. “How’s your face?”

“Face?” Matt blinked his eyes, trying to get them to focus. He wasn’t seeing stars anymore. Now he could make out David’s concerned face leaning over him.

Matt raised his hand. Now he could see what the slimy/sticky stuff was. Blood.

His blood.

Matt tried to rise up from his prone position, but either the sudden movement was too much for him…or maybe the crazed bus had just whirled end for end. He thumped back, trying hard not to throw up.

“Easy — easy!” David said.

Matt tried standing up again, much more slowly this time. His attempt to turn was more like a flop. But he managed to lever himself up, first on his elbows, then on his hands, until he was halfway into a push-up position. He was also wondering who was sitting on his shoulders.

David grabbed him as the bus wildly shimmied through another lane change. “I think you just split the skin where you hit,” he told Matt, looking closely at his forehead. “But it’s bleeding like a sonova—”

“Frack!” Megan’s shout from the front of the bus drowned out David’s words. “Stupid fracking hammer! Where is it?”

While David and Matt had been bowled to the back of the autobus, she’d fought her way to the front — and the emergency cutoff switch. This was supposed to stop the bus dead in its tracks. Every kid who rode an autobus had it drummed into his or her head that this button was to be touched only in the direst emergencies.

Well, that’s what this is, Matt thought as he tried to see what Megan was doing up there. His right eye — the one under the cut on his head — seemed to have its lids gummed together somehow. Matt couldn’t quite see—

Wait — Megan was pounding with her fist on the transparent plastic plate that protected the cutoff button. What was she doing that for? There was supposed to be a little metal hammer chained in place—

Oh. That’s what she’d been swearing about. The hammer wasn’t there. And the button couldn’t be pushed until she got the protective plate out of the way.

Matt’s head sank back to the floor. He noticed a grinding noise entering the whine of the autobus engine. Of course, the motor wasn’t built to power the kind of high-speed maneuvers the vehicle’s out-of-control computer was attempting. It might just blow a valve or something and they’d end up rolling to a stop. On the other hand, the engine might blow or start a fire, and they’d be trapped in a fast-moving inferno. Or they might stop by crashing into something — maybe even killing all of them plus some innocent bystanders. Megan had to get to that button — now!

He looked around for something to use as a tool — and his hand fell on David’s cane.

“Megan! Here!” Matt tried to toss the cane under-hand. His arm didn’t move as well as he wanted it to, and the cane clattered to the floor about four feet short of Megan’s waiting hand. Luckily, momentum made the cane skid another foot or so, and Megan was able to stretch out a leg and catch the handle under her foot. Holding on to a pole by the entrance door, she crouched down, pulling the cane in with her foot while reaching with her free hand.

She grabbed on to the shaft of the cane and rose to both feet. With a yell she swung the cane handle against the protective window. It didn’t break.

“What the—” Megan snarled, smacking the supposedly brittle plastic again — and again.

As if it knew what Megan was trying to do, the autobus began jinking back and forth from lane to lane. Megan was tossed one way, then the other, clinging des perately to the pole. The bus doors opened. If the vehicle succeeded in throwing Megan loose, she’d become a smear on the pavement.

“Megan, get away from there!” David called.

Megan glanced over her shoulder. Even from a distance and with one decently working eye, Matt recognized the stubborn jut of her jaw. She braced both feet against the autobus dashboard, pressing her back into the pole. Then, using both arms, she brought the cane down on the clear barrier. It finally broke.

The bus careened again, and Megan lost the cane out the doorway. But somehow she managed to hold on to that pole. Regaining her balance, she launched a martial-arts high kick, nailing the emergency stop button squarely with her toe.

“Way to go, Megan!” Matt cheered.

The only problem was, the bus still wasn’t stopping. Megan punched the button again, and again. The bus wobbled, but it didn’t stop. The mutinous computer was apparently fighting the cutoff order. Now the ominous smell of frying circuit boards up front joined the increasingly scary engine noises in the rear.

“Megan, get away from there!” David pleaded.

“Why? So I can put myself into the best position to get hit when the turbine throws a vane?” Megan shouted back. She glared around the autobus interior like an Amazon searching for a weapon. “You guys get up here. These passenger poles are only screwed in place. We could work one loose and ram it into the computer housing. That should kill it.”

And maybe us, too, with who knows how much electricity coming up the metal rod, Matt thought. But it beats dying in a crash and taking out the whole bunch of us and anybody in the way.

“Megan! Come back! We’ll meet you in the middle!” he called. Maybe Megan’s cutoff attempt had enjoyed some success. The autobus changed course again, this time veering to the right across the boulevard traffic. It didn’t seem to be an attempt to self-destruct — at least the autobus wasn’t aiming for a building. Bare trees, bushes, and bleached winter grass showed through the windows. They were heading into a park.

Not wanting to meet a tree trunk firsthand while moving at near light speed, Megan began making her way back from the front window. Matt and David struggled painfully to meet her halfway. David was crawling along the floor, his injured leg trailing behind him. Matt wasn’t all that much better. He felt dizzy whenever he tried to raise himself higher than his knees.

The three friends met just as the bus jumped a curb.

“Hold tight!” Megan yelled, wrapping both arms around a pole.

The front tire bumped onto the sidewalk, turning the autobus at a steeper angle. Ahead was a steel-rod fence. They tore through as if it weren’t there.

“I think we’re slowing down a little,” Megan said, peering out the window. Matt and David were both too low to see anything but tree branches whipping past.

“Probably because the dirt under this grass is soaked from snow melt and rain,” David said. “Pure mud.”

“I think we’re going slightly uphill, too,” Matt added.

“We’re still going too fast to try a jump.” Megan’s face reflected her obvious thought. Especially with the two of you so badly banged up.

Matt pulled himself into a position where he could see through the front windshield. The bus plowed its way through a planting of brush. Then came a clear area, and—

“This may be it!” he yelled. “We’ve got a tree coming up at one o’clock!”

The autobus was still moving at an angle and might have made it past the large, old oak with only a body scrape. But the right front wheel hit a boggy spot, and the whole bus sheered around as it pushed its way out. In the windshield, the tree moved from well to the right to dead center, then slightly to the left.

Megan dropped down to Matt and David’s level. “We’re not going to miss,” she said. “Hold on tight!”

They all climbed between seats in the back, bracing themselves as best they could.

Matt closed his eyes.

The autobus hit the tree with a bone-shaking crash! Then the front windshield shattered, sending shards of glass tinkling all over the place. The bus heeled round as if some giant had punched it in the face. It bounced free,