Dark Wings

Dark Wings

1

I was on the twenty-second page of Stephen King’s Misery when it all happened. Annie Wilkes, the novel’s antagonist, just had her first outburst, one of the many to come. I was so immersed in reading the book that I didn’t even look up when the bus stopped and admitted another lone passenger. Why would I? It was the morning of my eighteenth birthday. Misery was a present I gave to myself for surviving all the hurdles I’ve been through, thus far, in my life. It was the last of Stephen King’s book missing in my collection, and I was just so happy to care much outside of my bubble. At that exact moment fiction was better than reality.

Until the sound of gunfire roared and echoed inside the half- filled bus.

The old driver was slumped over the steering wheel, his hands hanging limply by his sides, his eyes wide open and unseeing to what just happened, dark, red blood oozing out of his holed temple dripping to the floor like a leaking faucet. He was dead before he knew he was shot. An easy, pain-free death. A death nonetheless.

Everybody started screaming and crying. Man, woman, child, old, and young. Terror and fear spared no one. I closed the book gingerly and held it close to my heaving chest. I was meaning to do something, maybe utter a prayer or join in in the clamor of voices desperate for help or mercy, but the explosion of the second gunfire easily made me forget.

I couldn’t do anything but stare and stay as still as stone.  My body didn’t dare tremble.

“Quiet!” The man with the hand-held gun shouted, cutting through the din. My eyes were instantly magnetized to his face. I frowned. He couldn’t be much older than two years, maybe three, maximum. His face was covered not by a thin sheen, but large beads of sweat. His mouth kept on twitching, almost on the verge of spitting out curses and made-up profanities. His eyes were big and bright, going round and round in circles. The hand holding the gun was dangerously unsteady, pointed in every direction. It was a no- brainer to know that this was his first time. The thought brought a poisonous heat in the pit of my stomach. There was nothing scarier than a first- timer in an already scary… job?

I took a millisecond glance outside the glass window and into the open. An unmistakable shiver ran up and down my spine in addition to the boiling heat in my belly. We were in the middle of the dirt road, in between the bustling and crowded town center and the peaceful and crime-free residential areas. The in- between. The driver must’ve taken the shortcut to avoid the early morning rush hour traffic while I was devouring the first pages of Misery. If it weren’t for the gun-wielding guy in front, I’d be thankful of the driver’s prudence and good common sense. There was nothing I’d love more than to curl up in bed with a cup of hot chocolate by the bedside reading the whole day away. But the driver’s practicality had brought us to this place, this deserted road, hidden by two, tall corn-stalk filled land on both sides, perpetually isolated except for the occasional flight of a mouse-hunting bird…and very much alone.

The first drop of rain hit the window on my side with a stunning intensity, almost startling me. I suppressed any sound that wanted to escape my carefully pursed lips and closed my eyes. No. Not today, please. A few seconds more, the drops of rain came thundering down like an unleashed storm. The wind was whistling and crying…for us? I couldn’t hear any human sounds anymore. The surroundings were darkening and foreboding. We were trapped. There was no place to go.

“Now let’s get the fun started,” the crazy guy whispered with a crazy smile. When I opened my eyes, our gazes met, his full of mad fury and passion. And then he grinned at me, flashing all his perfectly set, white teeth.

Lightning and thunder went incredibly unnoticed.