Martin continued. “Would Carli Ferguson please stand up?”
Still nobody moved. Cars cruised by in the parking lot, and people walked in and out of the stores at the other end of the pavement, none of them paying any attention to the drama playing out in the stationary school bus out near the road. Martin had known they wouldn’t, but he also knew that if a police car should happen to drive by and see the bus parked where it didn’t belong, the complexion of the entire scenario would change in an instant. It was time to move things along.
He scanned the rows of drab green, vinyl-covered double seats quickly and his heart soared when his eyes came to rest on his angel. She was there! Carli sat by herself, cringing, pushing herself into the back of her seat as if she thought she might be able to disappear, her eyes wide and terrified. Apparently, her friend Lauren had not taken the bus home today. Martin wanted to tell her not to be afraid, that he would never do anything to harm his girl—provided, of course, she did exactly as she was told.
He began opening his mouth to tell her, “Look, I’m pointing the gun at the ceiling so nobody gets hurt!” when he sensed rather than felt furtive movement diagonally off to his left. Immediately, he pivoted and found himself face to face with a big kid, a junior or a senior, probably a football player pumped up and strong; full of himself.
It was arrogant bullies just like this that had made Martin’s life miserable back when he was in school, and this fool was obviously just as stupid as all of them had been. The moron had been going to make a play for Martin’s gun, he was sure of it. Martin leaned forward, jamming the barrel of the pistol against the middle of the hero’s forehead, remembering his humiliation at the hands of that busybody Bill Ferguson who had refused to mind his own business. This guy was younger, but otherwise, they were two peas out of the same pod.
The kid whimpered, yanking his head back reflexively, smacking the back of it against the window, murmuring “No, no, no.”
Through gritted teeth, Martin asked, “Something I can do for you?”
The kid shook his head. He looked like he was about to crap his pants. Maybe he already had.
“What part of, ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ did you not understand?” he asked, and the kid said nothing. His lips were trembling, and his face was sheet-white. Martin said, “Sit down, and don’t you move again. Not one inch.” The kid nodded and sat back down quickly.
Turning his attention back to Carli, Martin was surprised to see her standing in the aisle, hands raised with her palms forward, held in front of her face in a gesture of submission. “Please,” she said softly, as if afraid she might spook him, “please don’t hurt him, and I’ll come with you. I won’t be a problem, just don’t hurt anybody, please.”
The bus was deathly silent. Martin could hear the hero breathing heavily in the seat to his left. It sounded like he was sobbing. He could hear Carli Ferguson’s footsteps as she moved slowly up the aisle, dragging her feet on the floor as if her body was resisting what her mind was telling it to do. The students who had risen from their seats and moved into the aisle stepped aside en masse, taking their seats, clearing the way for their schoolmate to move toward the man with the gun, any thoughts of heroism choked back by Martin’s brutal response to the one alpha male who had tried to interfere.
Martin backed toward the dashboard of the bus, pointing the gun in the general direction of the students huddled in their seats. There was no real reason to be careful now that he knew Carli’s location. He had been afraid before that if the gun went off he might strike his girl by accident, but there was nothing to worry about now on that score. He had no desire to hurt or kill any of the snotty brats, but no real problem with it, either, if it should come to that.
By now, Carli had reached the front of the bus and stood facing him. A look of terror marred her beautiful features but there was more: a quiet dignity that surprised Martin. He had expected to have to deal with a screaming, hysterical mess, but Carli Ferguson seemed composed beyond her years, further confirming Martin’s conviction—not that he needed any more confirmation—that she was special.
For a moment, Martin had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Carli’s father had stood facing him just days before in virtually the same position at virtually the same distance, just before everything had gone to hell. He felt a palpable sense of victory. He wished that no-good busybody Bill Ferguson were here so he could see this moment, but took solace in the knowledge that the testimony of an entire bus full of witnesses would ensure the wannabe hero learned every detail of how his daughter’s disappearance had gone down.
A wide smile creased Martin’s features, and a look of alarm filled Carli’s eyes. This was not what she had been expecting. “I’m not going to hurt you, baby,” he whispered, and reached over with his free hand to pull the lever which would open the bus’s door. He looked down the aisle of the bus for one last time and said, loudly, “Don’t anybody move for at least ten minutes, or I’ll come back in here and kill every last one of you.”