Oblation: A Spine-Tingling Crime Thriller set in Small-Town California, page 3
“What’s up?”
“Bus 23 is late,” she said as flat as possible, though she could feel her stomach starting to turn.
“Old Man Crenshaw?”
“Yep.”
He could read the concern on her face, glanced at his watch, then waved her into the room, indicating that she should close the door. Getting up, he walked to the window from where he could see the front drive of the school, half expecting to see the bus turning into the parking lot. Not seeing it, he turned back to his assistant principal, who was standing in front of his desk. Her fingers were intertwined in front of her stomach as her thumbs slowly circled each other nervously.
“The good news,” he pointed out, trying to put her at ease, “is that if they had been in an accident, we would have heard from the police by now.” He knew this was true, but he also knew the police may not have had time to call them yet. But it sounded reassuring, and he saw Mrs. Prebish relax ever so slightly.
“Let’s call Sylvia in transportation,” he said as he picked up the phone and pressed nine for an outside line. He consulted a typed list of phone numbers taped to the blotter on top of his desk and proceeded to punch in the number for transportation.
Mr. Oakes pressed the speaker button on the phone, and the ringing filled the office. After the third ring, the unmistakably husky voice of Sylvia Hernandez came over the line. “Hello, Sylvia here.”
“Hey, Sylvia, Gary Oakes over at Hamilton Combined; how you doing?”
There were only two schools in Alturas, and Mrs. Prebish found it interesting how Mr. Oakes would always say the school when talking on the phone. But she supposed it was a habit he had picked up when he was an administrator in a much larger school district in southern California.
“Hey, Gary. Doing good. What can I do for you?” She sounded upbeat, and Mr. Oakes gave Mrs. Prebish a look that suggested that he was about to give Sylvia Hernandez a headache.
“Just so you know, I have you on speaker, and Mrs. Prebish is here with me.” Sylvia started to say something, but Mr. Oakes continued talking, “Wondering if you know anything about bus #23. It’s not here yet?”
Mrs. Prebish could hear an exasperated sigh on the other end of the phone line, which indicated that Sylvia knew exactly who the driver was, but she remained professional and did not say anything that revealed her frustration. “Let’s see, I haven’t gotten any notifications from the police, and OMC hasn’t called us about a breakdown. Hold on a second.”
Mr. Oakes could hear the squeak of a chair over the speakerphone as Silvia Hernandez stood up from her desk. “Hey Latavia, would you hand me the transportation cell phone?” A few seconds later, the squeak of the chair could be heard again as she sat back down, then a click of a button as her phone was switched to speaker, and Sylvia’s voice came over even louder. “Okay, let’s see if we can locate that bus.”
“How are you going to do that?” Mrs. Prebish asked. “Does the bus have a Low Jack or something?”
“No, nothing that fancy, but every driver has a cell phone which they permit us to track. We had to buy one for Old Man Crenshaw because he didn’t have one, so while we can’t track the bus itself, we can locate the phone. I just hope Old Man Crenshaw has it on. Okay, give me a second. The app is searching.” After a short pause, a concerned voice came over the speaker, “Well, that’s weird.”
“What is it?” Gary Oakes said.
“Well, the app shows the phone on Commerce Avenue, which is where Old Man Crenshaw lives. I wonder if he forgot to take the phone with him.” Then much louder through the speaker, “Latavia, will you come in here?”
Mrs. Prebish glanced at Mr. Oakes over the papers scattered across the desk and mouthed, “What do you think?” The only response was a tense shrug of the shoulders.
“What is it?” Latavia could be heard saying in the background.
“Old Man Crenshaw and bus 23 haven’t shown up at the school. Have we heard from any parents that their children have not been picked up?”
“No, nothing. Have you checked the locater?”
“Yeah, and it says the phone is at his house. Mr. Oakes, have any parents contacted you?”
Mr. Oakes glanced across the desk, and Mrs. Prebish shook her head, then realized that Silvia could not hear her head shaking. “Ah, no, no one has called in,” she managed to stammer.
“Okay,” said Sylvia, “he probably just broke down and doesn’t have his phone, so he can’t contact us.” While the words sounded calm and reassuring, they both could hear the tension behind the words. “We are going to call the police. They will retrace OMC’s route backward starting at the school.” Mr. Oakes and Mrs. Prebish heard the closing of a door over the speakerphone and knew Latavia had walked back to her desk to call the police. Sylvia Hernandez continued, “So don’t be surprised when a police car shows up outside the school.”
Mr. Oakes voiced the next obvious question. “Sylvia, even if Old Man Crenshaw didn’t have a phone, surely they could use one of the students’ phones to call in.” Even among the younger kids, cell phones were commonplace.
“You would think, but let’s not jump to any conclusions. We’ll let the police do their job, and right now, let’s take it one step at a time. This is the protocol set forth by the district in collaboration with the sheriff’s office, so let’s see what happens.”
“Okay,” Mr. Oakes replied. “Do you think the police would mind if I rode along once they get here?”
“I don’t see why not but double-check with them when they get there.”
Mr. Oakes clicked off on his end and looked across his desk at Mrs. Prebish. “Now, I guess we wait.”
SIX
Roselyn had left the windows and doors open to allow the cool morning air to move through the house, and when she heard the car pull into the driveway, she walked to the front porch from Michael’s bedroom, where she had been folding laundry.
She stepped through the screen door onto the porch and watched the sheriff’s car proceed down the driveway and swing into a grass parking area in front of the steps. A deputy opened the driver’s side door, and Principal Oakes stepped out from the other side. The knot that had formed in her stomach when she initially saw the police car constricted into a hard cramp upon seeing the principal of the boy’s school. She slumped down toward the front step, and the deputy made a quick dash to support her. “What happened?” she said, looking past the deputy at Mr. Oakes.
The principal wasn’t sure what to say. His gut told him something was terribly wrong, and they needed answers, but he also did not want to cause any unnecessary concern to a parent. After leaving the school, they backtracked along the bus’s route but found no sign of it. They had stopped at the Nguyen’s house, but no one was home, so they decided to check with the Guerros. Looking at Mrs. Guerro with the deputy supporting her, he decided to be straightforward. He needed the answers that might help locate the children. “Mrs. Guerro, did the bus pick up your two boys this morning?” He knew it sounded like a stupid question, but it was the most important information he needed right now.
“Yes, right on time,” she said. Leaning against the deputy, she looked up at Mr. Oakes. “Why are you asking? Was there an accident?”
He was getting nervous and was not sure what to say. The deputy stepped in and took over. “The bus did not show up at school, and we are backtracking the route. Yours is the second to last stop. There was no one at the Nguyens’, so we came here.”
“What do you mean the bus didn’t show up at the school? Where is it?” she asked, looking first at the deputy and then at Mr. Oakes. When she got no response, she started to get up. “I have to find my boys!” Then, looking at Mr. Oakes, she said hopefully, “Maybe the bus driver just got lost.”
He could only hope that was the case, but Mr. Oakes also wanted to be honest. “I hope so, but Old Man Crenshaw has been driving the route for years, and I doubt he got lost.”
Roselyn looked at Mr. Oakes. “Old Man Crenshaw wasn’t driving. It was a substitute driver.”
“Are you sure?” asked the deputy.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she answered incredulously. “I watched him set my Michael into the chairlift and get him into the bus.” Then a realization came into her eyes as she looked at the two men. “You didn’t know there was a substitute driver, did you? What’s happened to my sons?” she screamed back at them.
The deputy stepped away from Roselyn Guerro and toggled the microphone attached to his shoulder before speaking into it. “Dispatch, this is 63.”
“Go ahead, 63,” came the quick response.
He looked over at Roselyn and took a couple more steps toward his car, where the door still stood open. “We need to put out a wider APB on bus #23.”
Roselyn Guerro overheard the deputy’s call. She was shaking and on the edge of hysteria and realized she needed to call her husband. Giuermo needs to know, she thought as she stood up slowly and walked back up the front steps and into the house. The cordless house phone was on its cradle in the central hallway, and as she picked it up, she remembered that they had given Michael a cell phone at the beginning of the school year. They wanted him to be able to call in case something happened with the wheelchair or if he was feeling ill. He had been so excited to get it, and they had stressed to him that it was only for emergencies because they could only afford to put a limited amount of data on it. Even with the restrictions, Michael had seen it as a sign that he was now an adult and could be trusted with such an expensive device. They had used it a few times—not really for emergencies—but for a teenage boy, forgetting lunch money probably did qualify as an emergency. She smiled at the memory and fought back the tears rising in her eyes.
Holding the phone, she tried to remember Michael’s number, but stress kept the number locked somewhere in her head. We wrote it down somewhere. Where is it? She looked at the paper taped to the wall that was filled with the phone numbers for grandparents and pizza parlors, and there at the bottom of the list was “Michael’s cell.” She started dialing the number while she walked back out to the front porch. She wanted so much to hear his voice. She needed to know that Michel and Alex were safe.
“I remembered that Michael has a cell phone. It’s only supposed to be used for emergencies.” She wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, but the two men looked up at her with expectation. “I guess this qualifies as an emergency. It’s ringing.”
Mr. Oakes moved around the front of the police car and stood at the base of the wooden stairs. The deputy who had been on his shoulder mic stopped talking and watched the mother reaching out to her son using the only means available to her. His head was running through multiple bad scenarios, but he also knew that there was no way he could, or perhaps should, stop her from making the call, so he just waited.
After about thirty seconds, Roselyn pulled the phone away from her ear and said to the air, “It just went dead?” Redialing, she waited, and as the deputy watched and anticipated what would happen next, he walked up the steps toward Roselyn Guerro. She looked at him. “There’s nothing? No ringing, just a crackling sound.”
The deputy struggled to make his face an expressionless mask, but she read what he was thinking in his eyes. “Oh God,” she said and slumped again to the steps. “What have I done? What have I done?” The tears that she had kept in check erupted from her, and she buried her head into the shoulder of the deputy sitting next to her.
SEVEN
Michael could hear a phone ringing but could not figure out where it was coming from. In his half-awake state, he was walking around a bus searching for a phone. Up and down the aisle of the bus he went, looking everywhere for the ringing phone, but he could not find it. He looked under the seats and between the cushions, but the phone kept ringing. Why wouldn’t it stop? He just wanted to sleep. Finally, the phone stopped ringing. At the same time, Michael realized he was no longer walking. He was still strapped to his wheelchair inside the bus. But what was that smell? Was he still dreaming? It smelled like rotten meat.
He struggled to move away from the smell but couldn’t because he was in the chair. The smell was overwhelming. Where was it coming from? Opening his eyes, he saw the face of the bus driver leaning in close and watching him.
When Michael opened his eyes, the driver fell back onto his butt but quickly recovered. “Well, hello. You surprised me. I thought you were asleep like all the others.” Then, looking at Michael’s shirt, he saw the wet red stain across the front. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since you didn’t drink all of your juice.”
Michael, groggy and not sure if he was still dreaming, stammered, “…… I spilled it when we hit that bump.” Then, as if remembering a memory from years past, he added, “Amanda, she shared her drink with me.”
“Really?” the driver looked over at the girl who lay across the seat in front of Michael. Getting up, the driver turned Amanda over and pinched open an eyelid. He looked back at Michael and smiled. “Well, unlike you, she is still asleep.” Thinking a moment, he added, “Probably because she weighs so much less than you, but we don’t want her waking up, do we?”
For as small as the driver appeared, he had no trouble cradling Amanda between his two arms like a groom carrying a bride across the threshold and made his way down the aisle, looking back toward Michael over his shoulder. “I’ll have to give her more medicine. Don’t want her waking up.”
Where’s he going? What’s he want with Amanda? Where am I? So many questions, including whether or not he was still dreaming. He made a quick snapping motion of his head and hit it against the back of the wheelchair providing him with a jolt that ran down his spine and assured him he was still awake. That was a trick he had taught himself when he was first in therapy. He was so afraid that he would end up fully paralyzed that he would jerk his head just to feel the raddle down his spine. It was a reminder to himself that he was not completely paralyzed. But now, the jerking only reassured him of the terrifying realization that he was not dreaming.
Looking around, he confirmed what he had already realized but needed to verify. He was on the bus, but why? Using his arms, he pushed himself into a straighter position in the chair and craned his neck so he could better see out the window toward the ground. The man was placing Amanda into a white van. He could just see inside the van where legs were lying across a hodgepodge of blankets and pillows. The legs and feet were too small to belong to adults. These belonged to other kids who, like Amanda, were asleep. Gazing across the small feet, his eyes settled upon a pair of green Chuck Taylors. “Alex,” he said out loud.
Turning his head as far as he could, he looked toward the back of the bus. “Alex!” he called. No answer came back, and he couldn’t see his brother. “Alex, you there?” Still no answer. He saw other children slumped forward or lying across their seats. He could see the top of Jerry Nell’s head. Jerry was Alex’s best friend, and they always sat together in the same seat. Jerry’s head lay across the bench toward the aisle with his feet curled up behind him. There would be no room left on the bench for Alex. One last time, hoping against hope, Michael called to the back of the bus. “Alex, come on! Answer me!”
“He’s not there, little man. I need him.” The driver was looking at Michael from the steps of the bus. He rested his hands on the bar separating the front seat from the steps and placed his chin on the back of his hands. “Yes, I need him.”
“Why?” It was the only thing Michael could think to say.
“Good question,” he said as he lifted his head and climbed up the final steps into the bus. He walked down the aisle toward Michael, caressing the back of each seat as he approached. Periodically, as he made his way toward Michael, he would slow down just long enough to stroke the head of a sleeping child. He settled into the seat in front of Michael that had been, only a few minutes before, occupied by Amanda. Crossing his arms across the top of the seat back, he rested his chin on his forearms and looked at Michael. “Yep, that’s a really good question. Why?”
He stared at Michael for a moment while Michael waited for him to continue. Then said, “But I’m not going to tell you.” A glimmer came into his eyes, and he grinned like he had a secret. “But I will tell you this. I initially wasn’t going to take your brother. I was going to take you.”
He stopped and stared at Michael, waiting for that thought to seep into Michael’s head. “But why?” Michael said.
“Again, with the ‘why?’.” He looked up at the ceiling of the bus and then back at the boy in the wheelchair. “Well, I’ll tell you. I’m not taking you because you are damaged goods, and I need undamaged goods.” He got up and started toward the front of the bus. Stopping at the top of the stairs, he turned back toward Michael. “Just so you know. Don’t think of yourself as lucky that I didn’t take you because you are going to be missing a great honor. Be happy for your brother. He is going to be taking part in a great awakening.”
He started down the steps of the bus toward the door before stopping once more and looking back at Michael for the last time. “You are supposed to be asleep, but I don’t have any more medicine to give you, and since your girlfriend will probably need the last bit that I have, I’ll have to give what I have left to her. I did want everyone on the bus to just sleep until it was all over. So, I am truly sorry.” Strangely, he did sound contrite to Michael. “It’s going to start getting hot, so I’m sorry. You really should be asleep. By the way, I’ve disabled the chairlift, and I am locking the door, so you won’t be able to get off the bus.”
Stepping off the bus, he started to push the double doors shut but stopped and popped his head over the front rail. “I also had to destroy your phone.” Reaching over the rail, he dropped the busted-up phone onto the front seat of the bus and closed the folding doors.
