Monster Factory

Chapter 9

"There's a bomb under the bus driver's seat." I mumbled under my hand to Ruby.

"What?!" She screamed. "Why are you still on the bus?"

"The whole point of the running through half the town was to get on the bus, remember?"

"Well, at least we know why the buses disappeared." She said exasperated, "They blew up!"

I was barely halfway down the aisle of the crowded school bus when it lurched forward.

I stumbled down the aisle; my arms flailed out and, as the bus made the next right turn, I tripped over something and fell face first into the bus floor.

Kids all around exploded into laughter, and I could feel my face burning as it turned bright red with embarrassment.

"Smooth move, new kid!" some joker said.

"Don't worry," he continued. "Not everyone saw it." And everyone laughed even louder, especially Ruby. She was back in her student costume, with the black framed glasses slipping to the end of her nose.

I looked and saw that I had tripped over a pad lock that had been attached to the access panel in the floor of the bus.

Who would padlock the access panel?

"Get up, Milo," Ruby said, "Try to be cool."

"I am cool," I hissed.

I slid into an open seat next to a kid studying his iPhone.

"Yeah, super cool," the kid studying his phone said.

Ruby sat across the aisle next to a little kid who clutched a Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle lunchbox to his chest.

"Why would anyone put a padlock on the access panel of the bus?"

"Who you talking to?" asked the kid sitting beside me.

"No one." I replied.

"Is that padlock always on the floor like that?"

The kid beside me shrugged and went back to swiping his blank cell phone screen.

"Do you have your phone with you?" he asked.

I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and handed it to him. It was encrypted by MOM, so I wasn't worried about him seeing anything on there that he shouldn't. The kid tapped the home button, but the screen remained black.

"Yours is dead too." He handed it back.

"What?"

I thumbed the home button again and, sure enough, the phone was dead. A brick.

Dr. Bodkin was gonna kill me if it was busted.

"It had a full charge," I said.

"Same with mine," he said. "I'm Nate."

"Milo."

Nate tapped the boy in front of us in the seat.

"Hey, Jay, does your phone work?"

Jay turned and, through a mouthful of trail mix, he told us it had been working on the street while he was waiting for the bus. After he got on, it went dead.

This wasn't good. Whoever had control of the bus had a way to kill not only our cell signal, but our phones as well.

All around me, the kids studied their blank cell phone screens. Swiping this way and that and shaking their heads. Every cell phone was dead. I checked my watch.

Dead.

Blank.

I was on my own.

Beyond the windows of the bus, the little town of Cripple Creek faded away; we were heading into a warehouse district. We drove for another few minutes turning left and right, getting onto the highway and then exiting onto dirt roads.

With all of their phones dead, the kids looked away from their blank screens and realized something was wrong. The bus slowed and turned right, following the long driveway of a giant, broken down factory. Kids pressed against the bus windows , their eyes wide.

"Where are we?"

"Where's the school?"

"What's happening?"

The bus's front tires rumbled over a pitted parking lot and grumbled toward a large building built like an airplane hangar. The huge doors opened as we approached.

Around me, kids gripped the seat backs in front of them. Some were crying, some were confused, some were still looking down at their dead phones, oblivious.

The bus glided into the hangar, and the solid metal doors closed behind it. Inside the hangar were more busses lined up in perfect rows. I counted eight; every school bus in the town was here. Our bus pulled into the last spot and braked to a gentle stop.

The joker from the front of the bus stood and addressed the bus driver. "What's going on? Where are we?"

A bunch of other students asked the same thing, but the bus driver wouldn't turn around. Probably because he couldn't, due to the bomb under his seat.

"Just relax, kids," the hippie bus driver said weakly staring into the rearview mirror. "Everything is gonna be fine."

The bus beside us was empty. As far as I could tell, they all were.

Where were the other kids?

I looked at Ruby, she looked at me.

"Now what?" I said.

POP!

Everyone jumped as green smoke hissed out from under our seats.

The bus filled with screams as every kid raced into the aisles and charged for the front door. The crush of kids bottlenecked with everyone piling on one another as the accordion door refused to open. There was no escape.

With the main exit jammed, the kids rushed to the windows, yanking and pulling down on the glass partitions as tendrils of the green smoke climbed higher and higher, but every window held fast as if they were welded shut. One hint of gas and my brand new hoody snapped into action, extending and wrapping my face in a tight black mask. I heard a whirring as the power cells and tiny cameras installed inside the hood spun to life. Immediately I felt cool clean air flood over my face. Kids all around me were choking and coughing and slipping to the floor.

I had to get out of here, and fast.

I dove for the access panel and the padlock that I had tripped over earlier. Stampeding kids stomped all around me, climbing over me, freaking out. But it was short lived. The effects of the gas quickly took the fight out of the kids. One minute they were losing their minds, and the next they were dropping like flies, snoring loudly where they fell.

I pulled the stylus from the dead phone, stabbed the pointy end into the lock and clicked the end. I twisted the stylus, and the lock opened easily. With the access panel unlocked I slipped beneath the bus and onto the hangar floor.

I rolled out from under the bus and scrambled to the next one in line.

"Now what?" Ruby asked. At least she was getting into it. She was back in her ninja costume, complete with mask and crossed silver swords.

I had no answer.

For a while, the giant room was silent until a creaking metal door opened at the far end of the hangar, and the sound of boots marching toward me.