The Suggestion Box, Vol. 4: A to Z Challenge

Letter C: "The Corvallis Catastrophe"

*NOTE: This excerpt is a scene from an unfinished novel I started a couple years back, The Astonishing Adventures of Jonas Crow, which would be a modern-day adaptation of the Bible story of Jonah. In particular, this scene is the famous "Storm on the way to Tarshish", where Jonah tries to run from God and gets found out, just before getting swallowed by the whale. Enjoy! If you would like to read more excerpts from this story, follow this link: http://upstreamwriter.blogspot.com/search/label/Jonah )

Jonas slumped down in his seat. The others had cracked every window on the bus, but the temperature just kept climbing.

"Sorry, folks!" the driver climbed back into the bus. "As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be anything broken or leaking in the engine compartment, I just can't get it to turn on. I've put in a call to the repair shop in Corvallis, but there is no telling how long it will take them to get a mechanic all the way out here."

The elderly couple from Connecticut gripped each other's hand. "We're all going to die!" the lady yelled, quivering in her Cancun t-shirt.

Jonas crouched even lower and cranked up the volume on his headphones. He didn't need to hear this, on top of everything else that had just happened to him. He was going to Canada, and that was that!

The driver pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his face, but it was already so saturated that the sheen of sweat remained.

"What can we do?" demanded the father of two who had been looking forward to vacationing in the Columbia Gorge with his family. "Do you expect us to walk all the way to Corvallis?"

The driver shrugged. "I'm saying we probably have enough to survive a few hours, but these buses are not typically equipped for a lengthy emergency situation—so you best prepare for that possibility."

"Daddy? I'm hungry!" the little girl complained.

"I want water!" her younger brother chimed in.

"Great," whined the young man traveling with his girlfriend, "Now I'm thirsty, but my water bottle is already empty!"

"I'm so hot!"

"Why isn't anybody coming? What's taking so long?"

"Excuse me," said a middle-aged woman to the passenger sitting next to her. "I need to use the facilities." She stood, edged out of the row, and turned toward the tiny lavatory at the back of the bus.

The driver grimaced. "I wouldn't, ah, do that, if I were you," he muttered.

Her jaw tensed and she turned to him in agony, holding her legs close together. "And why not? Isn't this exactly why buses like this even have a toilet?"

"Yeah, but," The driver gestured to the front of the bus. "With the system outage up front, the, ah, filtration system would be non-functional, as well."

Her face melted at the realization. "Oh, for heaven's sake!" she cried. "Can we get off this bus already?" She sat in the nearest seat, but did not dare relax.

"Great," muttered the man sitting behind Jonas, "now I have to pee too..."

"Hey!" A man in a sweaty business suit leaned forward, "I have a friend waiting to pick me up at the bus station!"

"Any chance of that repair truck showing up?" somebody else joined in.

The driver patiently checked his phone. He prayed that the blinking battery symbol in the corner had only just begun, that he would at least have a few more hours of juice left till help arrived. "No word yet."