It'll Come Back...

A car horn sounded, striking an angry interruption through Kate’s muddled thoughts; glad of the temporary distraction, her eyes shot to the right to seek out the source of the continuous blaring. She had to bob her head a little to see between the large middle aged woman directly across the aisle and the suited and booted guy with the beginnings of a bald spot, who sat behind her – both having a good gawk themselves – but through the grimy window Kate caught a glimpse of a man outside. He stood slap-bang in the middle of the right hand lane.

The man wore a hoodie with the hood up and stood partially turned away from the bus, so Kate couldn’t see his face. But she could see a dark stain between the legs of his grey sweat pants. She raised herself up off her seat just a little, balancing on the heels of her silver ankle boots, and watched as the man groped at the air before him with both hands and staggered on the spot as though punch-drunk, while cars backed up in front of him. A few impatient commuters slammed their hands against their horns, urging him to get the fuck out their way.

‘A bit early to be pissed up, innit?’ said the middle aged woman as she pressed her forehead against the glass. Kate noticed her hair was scraped back so severely into a high ponytail that the grease at the roots turned her head into a reflective surface.

‘He could be having a heart attack, or be choking on something for all we know,’ said Kate as she sat back down and smoothed her skirt over her purple tights. ‘Should I call an ambulance?’ She glanced around the bus for approval.

‘Nah, the bloke’s just drunk, love. Look, he’s so drunk he’s peed his pants, the poor bugger. Don’t worry, he’ll wonder off in a bit.’

‘I’m sure someone on the scene has it covered,’ said the balding guy. He turned to glance at Kate; just a brief flash of eye contact before lowering his gaze to the ground. Kate gave him a tight-lipped smile even though he had already spun back to the window and she ended up smiling at his bald spot instead.

On the edge of her seat, Kate frowned as she kept her eyes fixed on the man outside, her head turning to the right as the bus carried on its way, crawling towards the city centre. Soon she had to turn around in her seat and strain her neck to keep him in view as he receded into the distance, before the traffic behind the bus obscured him completely.

Someone outside, back the way they’d just come, shouted something but Kate couldn’t make out the words. More yelling followed and then what might have been a scream, only Kate couldn’t be sure over the continuing sound of blaring horns. She stretched her upper body as far to the left as she could without leaving her seat, but she couldn’t see anything other than the roofs of the stationary cars in the right hand lane.

‘Oooooh, it’s like the Jeremy Kyle show out there this morning, init?’ said the ponytail woman. She had spun herself so that her fleshy left cheek was pressed against the glass, wanting to milk every last drop of the scene.

Kate caught the eye of the balding guy as he turned away from the window. This time he gave Kate a brief but polite smile before he lowered his gaze to the briefcase in his lap. Every morning, Kate noticed, he would spend the entire journey from Folkestone to Canterbury staring at his briefcase like a drunk stares at the bottom of a whisky glass. She wondered, sometimes, what was in there… official state secrets, plans for a bank raid or just his lunch…? But she noticed something else about him that morning, probably because it was the first time she’d
really
looked at him. She noticed just how long and pretty his eyelashes were.

Paranoid she was staring too long, Kate glanced behind the balding guy to a young woman dressed in an expensive-looking white linen jacket. She was another passenger Kate saw every morning on the number 16. She would always be dressed immaculately, making Kate feel like she’d got dressed in a charity shop in the dark – well, that’s how Andrew would describe her style (or lack of), while Kate preferred to call it ‘fun’ or ‘experimental’. The young woman had her back to Kate while she stared out the big window at the back of the bus. The traffic behind must have blocked her view because she spun around and caught Kate’s eye. She didn’t smile or acknowledge Kate in any way and went back to reading her copy of
Vogue
. Next to her, a teenage girl with bleached blonde hair and earphones plugged into her ears stared at the screen of her phone as everyone else, including ponytail woman, forgot about the man in the road and drifted back into their own little worlds.

Kate sat back in her seat and gazed at the fine, lilac/grey hair – like spun sugar – of the old lady in the seat in front of her. So fine was the lady’s hair that Kate could see her scalp beneath. As she focussed on the liver spots on top of the old lady’s head, Kate couldn’t shake off the feeling that maybe she should have done something to help the man on the street. He might well have needed medical attention. Maybe she should get off the bus and go back…? Should she call an ambulance… but surely Balding Guy was right and someone on the scene would have already done that by now…? But maybe–

Before she could think any further on the matter, her phone rang. Kate gritted her teeth as she frantically unzipped her bag and riffled through the receipts, half used tissue packets, comb, hand sanitizer, and random bits of make-up that she would get a bag for one day, and yanked out her phone, sliding to the ‘answer’ setting with one swipe of her finger – Pharrell Williams’
Happy
sounding so out of place (and oh so fucking loud) this early on a work day morning.

‘Hi Andrew,’ she said, trying to keep her voice low. ‘What’s up?’

‘You sound tetchy.’

Kate knew the man in the road had unsettled her but she couldn’t be bothered to get into it with Andrew. She had shutdown her emotions where Andrew was concerned and, as a result, shared less and less of herself with him – it helped with the denial. ‘I’m okay, just tired.’

‘You should’ve pulled a sicky like I suggested – it’s really cosy here in bed.’

‘Yeah yeah and it wouldn’t have anything to do with you wanting me to wait on you hand and foot all day, would it?’

‘I can’t walk with my leg in this bloody cast!’

‘Yes you can.’

‘I can get as far as the bathroom, and even that takes me twenty minutes on my crutches. I have to decide to go to the loo twenty minutes before I think I might need to go,’ said Andrew.

‘You’ll survive,’ said Kate.

‘You’re all heart. Anyway, don’t forget there’s nothing in for dinner.’

‘I’ll grab a few bits on the way home from work.’

‘Get enough for the week while you’re at it then you’ll only be late back just the once.’

Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Andrew, there’s not a lot I can get if I’m coming home on the bus. We can always order takeaways.’

‘We can’t afford it.’

‘Yes we
can
afford it, especially if it avoids me having to drag–’ Kate jolted forwards in her seat as the bus screeched to an abrupt halt. She lowered the phone from her ear and glanced up, craning her neck to the left to look down the length of the windows on that side. They had stopped as the bus entered the roundabout into Upper Bridge Street, just outside the city wall. It was always busy here just before 9am and the bus would crawl around to the left on its way towards the station, but today it was quite clear it wouldn’t be going anywhere at all – cars stretched off down the road, all bumper to bumper, all forced into an unexpected stop. Car horns blared.

Kate raised her backside off her seat just enough to peer out of the windscreen ahead, but before she could make sense of anything, the clang of metal hitting metal as something crashed into the back of the bus preceded Kate sailing forwards. She smacked chest first into the back of the seat in front of her.

‘Ow!’ she squealed.

Whatever hit them must have been big, and the impact forced the bus forwards and into the back of the car in front. The sound of crunching metal continued as more vehicles behind joined the pile-up. Car alarms and horns sounded from all directions.

‘Is everyone okay?’ Kate heard someone say but she wasn’t sure who. She spotted the little old lady in front had fallen forward into the space meant for pushchairs and wheelchairs.

‘Andrew, there’s been a crash. I’m okay but I have to go. I’ll call you,’ said Kate, ignoring his little tinny voice as she lowered the phone from her ear. She switched it off before shoving it back inside her bag where it was swallowed up by the clutter. She slung her bag over her shoulder and darted out of her seat.

Leaving the passengers behind her to sit in silent shock now that the initial impact was over, she grabbed the old lady – dressed in a woollen coat, despite the fact that it was late spring – under the arm and hauled her onto her feet.

‘Deary me!’ said the old lady.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Oh, yes, dear,’ said the old lady after a moment’s delay as though she was running through the itinerary of bones in her body and checking nothing was broken or displaced. ‘Thank you.’

Kate glanced back into the bus. The other passengers – mostly consisting of commuters and students of Canterbury’s various colleges and universities – sat gazing about themselves as though waiting for someone to step up and decide what the protocol of this type of situation might be. Kate turned her back to them and, squeezing past the old lady, headed up to the front of the bus.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked the bus driver. Like the passengers, he sat looking about himself in wide-eyed shock. ‘Are you okay?’ Kate repeated when he didn’t answer. She gave a little tap on the security screen between them.

‘Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay.’

Kate glanced out the windscreen to see cars, buses, lorries and vans at a complete standstill in all four lanes – some, like the bus, had crashed into the backs of other vehicles. Horns beeped, distant sirens sounded, someone yelled something that Kate couldn’t quite hear, while some people ventured out of their vehicles to see what was going on… fingers scratching heads.

Kate watched as the driver of the car they’d hit – a short woman with long poker-straight hair – climbed out of her vehicle and walked to the rear to inspect the damage.

‘I think she wants you,’ Kate said to the bus driver, nodding down to the woman on the street below who was trying to catch the bus driver’s eye by bobbing on her heels and waving a hand.

‘Don’t worry about her,’ said the old lady as she came to stand alongside Kate, ‘and worry about what they’re doing.’

The old lady raised the tip of her umbrella and Kate and the driver both followed it with their eyes. A fair way down the road, Kate could see people climbing over and between the gridlocked vehicles, while more scurried and staggered on the pavement as though they were escaping from something but…

Kate squinted and tilted her head, trying to figure out what was going on. She shuffled forwards a few inches, frowned and placed her palm on her forehead, not quite believing what she was seeing; a blood covered mob ran, climbed and stumbled forwards – heading towards the bus.

‘What the fuck…?’ said Kate.

‘What are they doing?’ Kate glanced over her right shoulder to see that it was Balding Guy, clutching his briefcase to him, who had spoken. Ponytail stood next to him, while the rest of the passengers edged their way down the aisle behind them.

Back outside, Kate stared at what appeared to have developed into a mass sprawling fight with people attacking others as they swept ever forwards. Kate saw blood – lots of blood – but it was hard to focus on any one thing amongst the madness. The woman whose car they’d hit turned to see what the bus passengers were looking at. She raised herself up on tip toes to get a better look over the tops of the other vehicles then with a quick glance back at the bus passengers, she scarpered up between the bus and the cars in the next lane, running in the opposite direction of the crazed horde.

Up ahead, people clambered over cars, and squeezed between the tightly packed vehicles in order to escape the random violence of the swelling mob. The passengers on the bus edged forwards as one, watching the scene play out before them.

‘What the hell…?’ began the bus driver.

‘Fuck me!’ said Ponytail.

‘Oh deary me,’ said the old lady.

‘Is it some kind of riot?’ asked a teenage boy.

‘I don’t know what it is, but we should get the fuck out of here!’ said the young woman in the white linen jacket.

Outside, a woman fled from her car as the frenzied crowd were in danger of engulfing it. She hadn’t got far when a bloody man caught up with her, grasped her arm and pulled her back. The woman screamed and struggled but the man used his other hand to grab her hair and draw her closer to him. He bit into the side of her face.

Kate clamped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She heard someone behind her retch, followed by the splatter of their breakfast hitting the floor. With the smell of vomit meeting her nostrils, Kate watched as the man outside yanked his head back, tearing off a chunk of the woman’s flesh with his teeth. Her screams became frenzied as she tried to fight him off, but, having swallowed his mouthful, he sank his jaws deep into her throat, while another man and a woman grabbed at her arms and legs and, they too, began tearing at her with their teeth.

‘Fuck me!’ said Balding Guy.

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