Under the Beetle's Cellar (2 page)

Walter Demming leaned way down until his face was just inches away from the small ear. To do the count right, he needed to see some sign of movement, some sure sign that life still resided there, that Bucky had made it through another night. He watched the delicate eyelid. After
a few seconds the lid quivered slightly. He kept watching until it happened again, just to be sure. Then he exhaled slowly and straightened up. Good. Bucky made eight.

He thought of something and leaned back down. The boy looked different. What was it? He studied the small, finely molded head. His hair. Yes, Bucky’s dark hair had grown so shaggy it covered most of his ear. Even the cowlicks that used to stick up seemed weighted down now. In only forty-six days it had grown that much. Haircuts—one more thing to think about, or to add to his list of things he should be thinking of, but wasn’t. God knows they hadn’t devoted much effort to personal hygiene, but they didn’t have much to work with—no hot water, no soap. He put his head closer to Bucky’s and sniffed to see if Bucky smelled. He couldn’t tell. He probably smelled like sin himself after all these days with no shower, but he seemed to have lost his sense of smell. At first the stench from that foul hole in the back had revolted him. Now he was slightly aware of the dank, musty, trapped air, but it didn’t really offend him—proof positive that you could get accustomed to any damn thing fate threw your way. Anyway, in comparison with their other concerns, body odor and shaggy hair were just not up there at the top of the list.

And after the dream he’d had last night, dirty, shaggy kids who were alive looked pretty damn good to him. Last night he had jerked instantly awake, sweating and panicked. He had dreamt of flying past thatched cottages where tiny corpses, stiff and dry, were stacked like firewood. A new variation of the nightmare he’d had ever since Trang Loi.

Walter Demming stood up straight again and tried to keep his eyes lowered, away from the windows, but the problem with buses was that they had windows everywhere. There was just no avoiding them, and no avoiding the black dirt pressing in against the glass. It was craziness, of course, but the dirt seemed to press harder, more relentlessly, every day, and there were moments he thought he could hear the glass creak and groan under the pressure, and the worms and beetles that tunneled right outside the windows seemed marshaling to spill in on top of them all. It made him think of that ditty the kids used to sing on the bus. The words went something like this:

Never laugh when the hearse goes by

For you may be the next to die.

They wrap you up in a dirty sheet

And put you down about six feet deep.

All goes well for about a week,

And then your coffin begins to leak.

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,

The worms play pinochle on your snout.

He hated it when they sang it. But he hated it more now when they didn’t sing it.

He walked to the next seat and squinted down at the lumpy body curled up there. Josh. Oh, Lord, this one really worried him. He didn’t need to lean over to check for signs of life here. Josh breathed in raspy gasps, his bare chest heaving with the effort. Asthma, all the kids had chorused on the first day, when Walter had thought Josh was going to strangle on his own breath, when they were all so terrified by what was happening to them it had seemed reasonable to him that one of them might just stop breathing from the terror. But on that first day Josh still had medicine left in his inhaler. The medicine had run out after the first week, and the attacks had gotten progressively more frequent and more intense. Yesterday, in the night, he’d had a choking spell that had lasted for two hours. It had turned his lips blue and made his eyes pop. The other children had wept in terror. If Walter could have one wish answered—just one—it would be to get Josh out of here and into a hospital.

Today he would make another plea for Josh’s release, but trying to reason with Samuel Mordecai was like trying to reason with a whirlpool when you were caught up in its furious spinning. Everything just got swept up and flushed away in the torrent of words the man spewed out. Walter was going to have to think of something better to do or say, some better approach than he had been using.

It was silly, but he felt sure he would be able to think clearer, do better, if only he had his glasses. There was something about not being able to see well that interfered with his thought processes, made him more passive. Although, God knows, he’d rolled over and played dead even before his glasses got smashed. It had happened so damn fast. The last thing he expected early in the morning on that country road outside Jezreel, Texas, was a bunch of men with AK-47s surrounding the bus. Before he even realized what was happening, they had dragged him off the bus and smashed his glasses on the road.

Then he had simply followed their instructions. He’d left six of his charges behind, six young children he was supposed to deliver to school. He’d left them alone on the road, as instructed. He had driven the hijacked bus with eleven whimpering kids and eight armed men to Jezreel, as instructed, even though he could barely see without his glasses.

And he hadn’t done much better since then. He’d been unable to
affect their situation in any way. Glasses or no glasses, today he needed to think of something new to try.

He turned to look at the seat across the aisle and, in spite of everything, the sight made him smile. Kimberly’s pale red hair was swirled together with Lucy’s wild brown curls. Kimberly and Lucy, nestled together like two kittens, as usual. They were both awake and starting to stir. Lucy began making a tiny mewling whine—the very noise Walter Demming had been feeling the urge to make himself. He watched as Kimberly put her arms around her friend and rocked her slowly until the whining stopped. Kimberly and Lucy—numbers ten and eleven. All accounted for, all eleven. All still alive on this, their forty-sixth day of captivity.

Behind him, the morning noises were underway—the scuffle and thumps and whines and skirmishes of kids getting up and heading to the back of the bus to the hole the Jezreelites had made for them to use as a latrine. They had cut a hole right through the bus floor and dug a pit underneath for the waste to fall into, lined it with lime. Most of the kids wouldn’t use it at first. They were embarrassed by the lack of privacy and unsure how to use it. But nature took over and they had learned to squat. And there was a general agreement not to look when someone was using it. Since several of them had suffered with intestinal problems, they actually spent a lot of time sitting right next to it. It was now routine for all but Philip, who still wet his pants occasionally because he waited too long.

“Mr. Demming. Mr. Demming.” Josh’s raspy voice called out as it did every morning. “Is it time to get up?”

Walter checked his watch. “Quarter to six, Josh. Quarter to six in the morning.” He walked back to where the boy was sitting up on the seat and reached his hand out to smooth Josh’s dark blond hair. It felt greasy and damp under his palm. “It’s April tenth, so the sun will be rising soon, in about fifty minutes. You could get up or rest for another half hour, Josh. They’ll probably bring us something to eat pretty soon.” The boy was breathing heavily; he kept both pale hands pressed to his chest.

Across the aisle, Kimberly was putting Lucy’s socks on for her. Behind them, Philip Trotman still lay on the seat with his arms wrapped around his head. He’d been getting quieter and sadder each day. Walter hadn’t heard a word from the boy for many days. Depression probably. Walter certainly knew the signs of depression in adults, but he wasn’t sure about children. He just hadn’t had enough experience with them. He was the last person in the world, the very last, who should be entrusted with eleven children. He had never had any children of his own, never wanted to; he had no younger brothers or sisters; he’d never babysat.
He’d never even
liked
children very much. He’d only applied for the job as bus driver to augment his gardening income.

He felt pressure against his leg and looked down. Lucy was leaning against him, resting her cheek on his hip. “Hey, Lucy goosey,” he said, bending down. “Sleep okay, sweetheart?”

She turned her face up to him. “Mr. Demming, how much longer is it going to be?” Her mouth turned down in a perfect red arc. “I’m hungry. My stomach hurts. I’m forgetting what my mom looks like, and Winky.” Winky, Walter now knew, was her cat. “How much longer do we have to stay here?” Huge tears started to ooze out of her eyes.

He knelt down so his face was level with hers. “Honey, I don’t know. Maybe five more days, but I’m not sure. I’ll ask him again.”

With his face close to hers he could feel the heat of her tears and her fear radiating off her skin. Her voice came out quivery and a little shrill. “But he says the world is going to end. The Beast is coming, he says.” She shuddered. “I think it did end already. While we were sleeping it happened.” She pointed upward. “Now there’s nothing up there anymore. My mother’s gone and our house. All the people are gone, just like he says. And we’re left down here. And—” She stopped to gasp for air. The tears spilled down her face.

Watching the tears drip off Lucy’s chin, Walter wondered where all that moisture came from. These kids never seemed to dry up. They cried and peed, cried and peed all the time, losing far more fluid than they seemed to replenish by drinking from the big water jug that sat on the driver’s seat.

“Lucy, honey,” he said in a low voice. “Remember what I told you, our secret? He talks about all that stuff and we have to listen to him, but we don’t
believe
him. He’s wrong. He believes it, but he’s wrong. Remember all the times we’ve talked about this—that he’s like some phony fortune teller at a carnival who pretends to tell the future, but he doesn’t know any more about it than anyone else. I promise you”—he put his hand under her chin and tipped up her wet, smeared face—“look at me, Lucy: I promise you the world has not ended.” He stopped talking because she had begun to tremble. The trembling quickly accelerated into a shaking of her whole body, so violent he was afraid she would shake herself apart. He reached his arms around her and pulled her in tight, gasping at how thin she had gotten. He held on, trying to steady her, trying to hold her together, to hold himself together. He had moments of feeling the same thing she did—that there was nothing up there aboveground, no one who cared, no hope, no rescue, no nothing.

“I’m so scared,” she said.

“Now listen, Lucy goosey,” Walter whispered into her ear. “Picture
this: Just a few feet above us, it’s spring. A spring morning. Today is Monday, April tenth, and the wildflowers are out in the field up there above us—bluebonnets and pink evening primroses and the red Indian paintbrush, and my absolute favorite, the Texas prickly poppies. There are flowers everywhere, in the field and along the road. It rained a little last night, so the grass is wet and the leaves are all shiny. When the sun comes out everything will dry quickly and it will be a beautiful spring day. Your mom’s at home waiting for you, and your cat, too. What’s that cat’s name?” he asked, even though he knew.

“Winky,” she whispered in his ear.

“Yeah, Winky.” He loosened his grip a little to see if she had calmed down, but the minute he relaxed, her body resumed its shuddering. He tightened his arms around her again and said, “Honey, you remember what Jacksonville does when he gets scared?”

She didn’t answer.

“Remember last night when he was captured by the Barbecue Tongs and they put him in a cage?” He tried to look down at her face, but it was pressed under his arm. “He sees them building a fire and heating up the big cooking pot and he thinks maybe it’s for him. He gets so scared that he starts to go all crazy, flapping his wings and hitting his head against the bars. Feathers fly around the cage and he hurts the bare skin on his head—you know, the red part where there are no feathers to protect him. Then he remembers who he is, that he is Jacksonville the turkey vulture, from Austin, Texas, and that he is on an important mission, sent by the President of the United States himself. To calm himself, he does what he always does in times of trouble. Remember?”

He drew his head back and looked down at her. She looked up and said, “He makes pictures in his head?”

“Yeah. That’s right. He thinks up this beautiful picture in his head and he goes there in his mind. Here’s what he pictures: He sees himself soaring through the air with his wings spread out wide, riding high on the warm air currents that rise from the earth. He looks down at the rolling hills and lakes below. He feels so free. The wind blows through his feathers. He watches the other vultures soaring right along with him. You can do that same thing too, Lucy. But your picture would be different from Jacksonville’s. Maybe something like this—picture Winky. He’s lying—”

“She,”
Lucy interrupted firmly. “Winky’s a girl.”

“Oh, yeah. She. She’s lying on your bed on a Sunday morning and she’s rolling over with her paws in the air and the sun is pouring in your bedroom window warming her fur and you—”

A voice behind him said, “Mr. Demming, Philip wet himself again.”

Hector Ramirez, at twelve, the oldest of the boys, stood holding a
pair of wet jeans out toward Walter at arm’s length. Their sharp ammonia smell made Walter’s nose twitch. He slowly released his hold on Lucy, who for the moment had stopped shaking and even had a tiny smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. Walter was about to take the wet jeans when he noticed Lucy stiffen. She’d turned and was staring toward the front of the bus. He turned his head to follow her gaze, knowing what he would see. In the small black pit outside the open door, two black boots dangled in space. A sprinkle of dirt sifted down past the boots and the lightbulb began to sway on its cord.

The boots descended slowly. Long thin legs clad in tight black jeans followed, then lean hips. With a thud the boots hit packed earth and the whole man appeared, filling the pit. It was a shock every time, Walter thought, even though his arrival was expected each day. It was like an alien dropping suddenly from another world. The man stood near the bulb, which swung wildly until he reached a hand up to stop it. The light illuminated the gold strands in his curly hair and glinted off the gold star earring in his left ear and the gold stubble on his cheeks, as if he’d absorbed sunshine from the world above and brought it down to the underworld.