Back when I was a kid, my folks used to take us to barn dances out in the country. You’d get there an hour or so before the band started up, and there would be picnic tables set out on in the grass outside of the barn. The kids would always eat at separate tables, and the grownups would always arrange us boy-girl-boy-girl at each one. That’s how Piotr had arranged the bus ride, only instead of boys and girls, it was people and monsters.
The seats had been ripped out and replaced with long wooden benches than ran down the sides of the bus so that passengers would be facing each other across the center aisle as they sat. The benches were all one piece, thick and heavy, and coated with once clear but now yellowing lacquer. They had regular bolt holes in them in the center and on the ends, and these were used to secure them to the brackets set into the floor, but the bolts themselves weren’t what was originally in them. Fresh scarring where the nuts had gouged a circular track into the varnish was proof of that. They looked familiar, but I couldn’t place what they had originally been part of.
Two passengers were already seated at the rear on the left side of the bus, one hostage and one bag. The hostage sat next to his monster, leashed around the neck with cords as expected, but with the addition of a sack over his head.
I was shoved into place on the bench on the right while my friends were pushed into position on the left, alternating hostage and keeper all down the line. The wooden handles on the ends of the cords remained clenched in the bags’ fists.
My two escorts sat on either side of me. I was alone on my side of the bus with my keepers, with my friends serving as audience, or maybe jury, in front of me.
Piotr strode briskly down the aisle, nodding to himself in satisfaction at the weird tableau. When he reached the rear of the bus, he put his hands on top of the coarse burlap sack on the head of the hooded passenger and looked back over his shoulder at me. “Care to guess who we have here?”
I didn’t have to guess, I knew Henry’s hands as well as my own. When I didn’t respond, Piotr winked at me and then yanked the sack off of Henry’s head with a flourish.
He looked bad. His lips were cracked and split from both thirst and somebody’s fists, and there was a trail of dried blood that traced a line down his cheek from his left ear. His eyes, however, were as sharp and alert as ever. And angry.
“It’s always a pleasure to reunite old friends.” Piotr gave Henry a few stinging slaps on the cheek and then went back to the front of the bus and slid into the driver’s seat.
A moment later the bus roared to life and lurched into motion. Streetlights swept past the windows, throwing sharp shadows and highlights across our faces, both human and other. Thick tentacles that erupted from stretched lips glistened as the light passed over them, swaying and bouncing with the motion of the bus. Above them glassy eyes stared blankly ahead, neither blinking nor looking away.
In front of me, the gallery of my friends sat and silently regarded me. Anne. Chuck. Henry. I don’t know what they saw in my eyes, but I know what I saw in theirs. Cold anger and resolve and not a single speck of fear or defeat.
Back at the quarry Anne and Chuck had accepted, even embraced the idea that they may have to give up their lives to ensure that Piotr and his creatures paid for what they had done. As soldiers, Henry and I had always been willing to do that. I was touched by their valor and their refusal to give in, regardless of the circumstances. Their quiet resolve in the hands of their captors made me proud and gave me strength.
“He took me from the hospital, not an hour after you left.” Henry’s voice was strong, despite the raspy dryness of his throat and tongue. “He was close by, just waiting for you to chase down his men. Abe, every step you’ve taken has been a step he’s planned for you, right from the beginning.”
“I know. And I don’t think this is the first time. How exactly did we end up in that train station in Warsaw?”
He nodded. “Patty’s nose.”
“Exactly. Patty would smell bags close by and we’d follow. If we got off track, bags would attack us and then run off, and we’d chase them. Remember?”
“Makes sense. We didn’t surprise Piotr after all, he led us to that train station, just like he’s been leading you around the country all this time.”
“I think the surprise was when you pulled me out of that pit before he was ready, and then stole the altar pieces and his journal.”
Henry leaned his head back against his seat and closed his eyes. “This time he took the altar pieces from us, made sure you had a tracker in case you got off the trail, and collected a nice group of hostages that you care about to keep you under control once you followed him to where he wanted you. Obvious in hindsight. And smart.”
“If it’s obvious, then tell me what he needs me for. Why lure us there in the first place, all those years ago? And why now? What’s he trying to accomplish?”
Piotr called out from the front of the bus. “Justice, my friend. No less than that.”