(5.1) Greyhound Blues

Chapter 5, Part 1

Apparently, I’d killed so many people in California, Summer had decided it would be best to recruit somewhere else. Preferably somewhere that had a high population of people who were susceptible to more “shady” dealings. And what better place than Vegas? You can always find someone who’s down on their luck.

I thought it would be a pretty sweet gig, you know? Kill a few people and then head for the strip. What wasn’t sweet about the whole deal, was the way they wanted me to get there. They wanted me to fly commercial to Reno, and then bus to Vegas.

A bus! Unlimited resources from multiple realms of existence, the power of the universe bent to my will at my fingertips, and I’m riding on a fucking Greyhound.

I’d complained, but it didn’t really do me much good. According to some time-guru that was on the payroll, this greyhound held a few people who were “differently endowed.” People that Summer was going to try to get their hands on.

So as I sat in the too-small seat that had a texture only slightly softer than burlap, I watched around the bus, trying to pinpoint my target. The sun had set while I was waiting for the bus to show at the airport, so any supernatural being that was there should have been setting off at least one of my senses.

Sadly though, I only caught a hint of wet dog combined with the stench of sweat and unwashed bodies.

Yum.

The bus itself wasn’t as full as I would have thought. In fact there were only about 10 people on this trip, most connecting from other cities. One man, a Russian by his accent, sat across from me. He was incredibly large in a muscular way, his eyes said only one thing when I looked at them. “I have killed, and will do it again.

Behind him, a squirrelly looking fellow barely old enough to shave let alone be called a man, sat tapping away at his laptop. He seemed nervous, darting glances towards the haggard looking man that sat at the back of the bus.

The man in the back looked to be homeless, spending most of his time either staring blankly at nothing or mumbling to himself. It looked to me like he was the product of a lifetime of habitual drug use. A fact which was more or less confirmed when I saw him repeatedly placing sugarcubes in his mouth.

In front of me, sat an uninteresting man dressed solely in a tank top and jeans. He had a hard look on his face, his general posture and constant knuckle-popping, combined with the way his eyes sized up every person he saw led me to believe he’d spent a majority of his life getting into fights.

The last person that piqued my interest was a man who sat as close to the door of the bus as he could. He was quiet, never uttering a word and sat so still at times it was easy to forget he was even there. The only distinguishing thing about him was that one of his hands was wrapped in bandages, obsessively checking them every 10 minutes or so.

Any one of these could have been my target. However, since the time-guru wasn’t guru-ish enough to tell me anything about who my targets were it was kind of a moot point.

My train of thought was interrupted as the bus’ intercom crackled to life. “Ladies and gentlemen,” sounded the driver’s voice, “We’ll be arriving in Las Vegas in about 30 minutes. This is the final destination of this vehicle and at this time I’d like you to start gathering your belongings in order to -FUCK!”

The bus swerved. Some of the passengers started screaming when this happened.

The rest followed suit when the bus flipped onto its side without losing any momentum.