Disclaimers: More violence, language and the first hints of one of my main
pairings … you might spot some Crawford/Schuldig undertones. Some people
are speaking in Scottish dialect; it's not my spelling. And yes, this is
the first of the Schwarz centric chapters, which is why it took so long,
you might have noticed, but I've been trying to get into their mindset
lately – like things could get any worse for them. Mwah ha ha. Enjoy.
Part Five: Out of the frying pan…
"This is insane," Nagi muttered nervously, as he bit his nails. "This is fucking insane." This manoeuvre was complicated somewhat by the handcuffs and swaying motion of the bus, resulting in Nagi's fingers resembling handiwork Farfarello would be proud of. His eyes were blood-shot and dull from a combination of fatigue, fear and delayed shock and his throat was raw and swollen from the sustained effort of not crying.
Crawford looked over at him from the seat opposite and wondered vaguely if there was anything he could say or do in his sudden reinstatement as the wise and knowing leader that could possibly make the young man feel any better. Probably not, and he wasn't getting any helpful flashes, but it wouldn't hurt to have a go. He shifted, preparing to move over and sit next to the youngest Schwarz, but a certain redhead got there first. Brad settled instead for the seat in front of the pair.
"What's the matter Nagi-chan?" The German nudged the smaller man beside him with a slightly too bony elbow. "Is it the fact that we're going to rot away in some jail, or just that these seats are fucking murder on your arse?"
Nagi gave a snort of laughter in spite of himself, the tension finding any release offered. "Nah," he managed with a nod towards the blacked out window. "It's the fucking view."
Brad felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth and he glanced over at the boy, only to catch the bright verdant gaze of the telepath sitting next to him. What he saw there was probably the biggest source of relief he'd felt since passing the envelope over to Ran. Schuldig smiled at him slightly and there was no blame or accusation in his expression. It was the first time he'd dared to even look at the German since the whole mess started. He'd spent six years waiting, hoping, to see the man again and they got reunited only to drop into a mess like this.
It had been Schuldig who'd been the force of sustaining energy in the run up to the mission, sweeping them all along in a wave a black nihilism that had suddenly possessed the redhead along with a twisted, black enthusiasm for the whole absurdity of -Schwarz- being caught in such a mess. When he hadn't been acting like he was on the ride of his life, he'd simply act as if it wasn't real, just another one of his well-loved mind games.
Until he'd stood silent and pale behind Nagi, watching as the youth stared with incomprehension at the choking, gurgling man leaning back in his arms and bleeding to death all over him four feet away from his similarly slaughtered wife. At that point Brad had been certain, telepathy or not, that the German would spend the rest of his days cursing the American's name. Schuldig's expression flickered slightly as Brad continued to look at the man, and he opened his mouth, obviously about to say something.
Until the shaking hulk in which they sat, suddenly stopped moving. Schuldig's mouth closed and he settled for a roll of the eyes. Brad followed suit. It seemed like the unseen forces at work were once again trying to decide where to put their four newest playthings.
The door at the back opened to reveal a plain clothes man having a heated discussion with one of the policemen from the driver's cab, wearing the very British combination of a submachine gun and a clipboard. He seemed slightly annoyed.
"…not the fuckin' corporation number nine bus. Do you realise who I've got in here?"
"And do you realise who signed this?"
Which apparently had been game, set and match to the plain clothes cop, who moved aside to let another cop complete with rifle and a copy of The Record clamber into the rear before the door was closed and locked from outside by PC Clipboard, who then climbed back into his previous seat in the cab up front beside the driver. The engine struggled back to life and Schuldig glanced over at the policeman. "Where are we going?"
The cop, a rather greasy looking man in serious need of dental work glared at the redhead. 'It's a mystery tour," he sneered. "You'll know when we get there."
/Unless you'd care to fill us in, Brad?/ The mental voice startled Crawford, he wasn't used to hearing the other man's thoughts inside his head these days. He managed an imperceptible shake of his head as he faced the front and heard Schu sigh and slid down in his seat.
The last remaining member, and currently the only one sat on the other side of the bus bobbed his head to an imaginary soundtrack, as oblivious of their situation as it was possible to be while still breathing. Brad shook his head as he looked at him. In fact, Brad shook his head almost every time he looked at him. Schuldig had insisted on feeding the Irishman some drugs of an undisclosed nature before they were taken into custody and it appeared that the effects has still to wear off. "Look, we feed him this and he'll be mellow enough not to get us into any more trouble," Schuldig had argued. "Unless you really want him to go off on a 'hurt God' spiel during an interrogation, but I just don't really feel it'll help our case much."
A sudden sharp turn to the left, followed by the unmistakable sensation of driving over speed bumps broke through the indefinite period of travel. The four members of Schwarz felt the bus stop and waited for the engine to cut out. Nagi groaned slightly, obviously not looking forward to the awaiting experience.
The engine failed to silence. Instead PC Clipboard opened his door and hopped out of the van. The muffled sounds of more voices, posh accents and authoritative tones could be heard before the back door opened and a new prisoner climbed in, cuffed and smirking. Brad glanced at him briefly and instantly recognised him as what, in the local parlance, would be called a Wee Shite. Bruising for a fight and unconcerned with whom the partner may be. Personally, Brad half-hoped he would try something. Farfarello was sitting closest and therefore fastest when it came to reaction times. The guy would be less bother dead, anyway.
"Woo," The Wee Shite announced as the door was shut behind him and he made himself comfortable on his seat. "I'm in presence of greatness here. Yous kill't that Dutch cunt, didn't yous."
"Fuck off," Nagi snapped
The Wee Shite raised his hands in a show of mock fear. "Awright. Nae bother. I'm no' messin' wi' yous cunts. Yous are fuckin' mental. Fuckin' hard bastarts, eh? Better watch my fuckin' mooth, eh?"
"Just ignore him, Kind," Schuldig stated flatly to the youth beside him. A slight frown was playing across his forehead, and the German glanced back at the Wee Shite again.
"Aye, that's right, ginger," the Wee Shite agreed. "Don't be consorting with the likes of that scruff," he added with theatrical articulacy in an obvious dig at Schuldig's accent. "You might end up in the jile." With this he cackled loudly for a while before leaning back again, content that he had claimed the honour of the world's wittiest man, and whistling Sex Pistols.
PC Clipboard climbed back into the front of the van, missing the aforementioned item and looking decidedly unhappy about it. "Bloody circus," he grouched to the driver. "Waving orders from on high and expecting us to jump every time they clap their hands. As if it's no stupid enough comin' over here to pick that wee shite up, they've took my records off me. All this Top Secret, Need to Know crap."
"So what happens to the order, the file?" The driver asked.
"Fuck knows, mate. That cunt's away with it. I says I need a copy as well, but he gie'd me more shite about orders from above. I tell't him, I says if anythin' happens, I've no record of who's on this bus. Wanker just says 'Well you'd better not let anything happen then."
"But he's got a record of it, hasn't he?"
"Aye, but …"
"Well it doesnae matter if you haven't."
"Aye, but it's the principle."
"Och, haud your wheest," the driver said with a small laugh, putting the bus into reverse and driving away.
* * *
Time seemed to dissolve after that. The jolts of junctions, the pull and drag of turns had ceased, suggesting a motorway. Brad squinted through the blacked out windows, but was only able to ascertain that the light was fading. The disorientation increased, with nothing to suggest changes in direction, speed or distance. For all he knew, they could be driving in fucking circles.
"I'm bored," Farfarello suddenly announced, at least an hour after everyone else had come to that decision. "Anyone for I-Spy?"
Brad felt the back of his neck tickle as Schuldig sighed heavily behind him.
"Aye," shouted the Wee Shite, thereby proving himself to be the only one who didn't get the joke. "I spy with my little eye, somethin' beginnin' with … M.C."
Schuldig sighed again, and let his head drop forward, where it fell against Brad's shoulder. Brad just shook his head.
"A million green bottles, hangin' on the wall," sang Farfarello.
Schuldig banged his head against Brad's shoulder again, this time slightly harder.
"Do yous give in?" asked the Wee Shite, ignoring the fact that none had given any indication of taking part. "Awright, I'll tell yous," he announced triumphantly. "It's…"
"Miserable cunts," said everyone else, including the guard, in monotonal unison. This had the effect of shutting the Wee Shite up, but also made it unclear whose go it was next, had anyone been inclined to continue.
The driver and PC Clipboard, sitting in the cab at the front, were not included, but had they been, what they saw with their little eyes, for all of a quarter of a second before they hit it at sixty miles an hour – began with C.
Brad had had a split second's worth of warning. A sudden vision of a tremendous jolt and had barely been able to brace himself, let alone alert the others, before they were flung to right. Schuldig's head left its earlier resting place on Brad's back as he crashed into Nagi. Farfarello collided with the seat opposite, rather than directly across the aisle, as the angle of swerve altered erratically.
The guard was thrown like a stuffed toy from his rear facing seat, meeting the outside wall with a hard crack, but luckily below the glass. The Wee Shite, with both hands gripping the rail and his foot wedged hard against the seat in front was able to not leave his position. Then, as the driver began to turn against the swerve, everyone was flung towards the left, although with less force and suddenness. Everyone in the rear was able to grab onto something as the bus swung back against its previous momentum. However, this didn't prove quite so effective when the bus tipped on to its side.
There was a screaming sound of metal as the bus skidded along the tarmac before coming to a halt. There was a brief moment of intense silence, as everyone anticipated further onslaught, which gave way to sighs of relief and moans of pain from the injured.
They had all ended up corralled on the side of the bus, partitioned off from each other by the rows of seats. Facial cuts seemed to have come as standard. Nagi was clutching his upper arm, which was bloody and raw looking through a rip in the sweatshirt he'd been given by the police to replace his original blood-stained shirt. With the window shattered, his shoulder had been scraping along the hard road surface before he'd had the presence of mind to throw himself away from the gap.
Brad himself had rattled his legs against something metal, probably a seat back went he'd been sent into the air with the tipping motion, but despite the dull pain which felt like the entire bus was resting on him, knew he'd be alright to walk after a few moments. He readied himself to stand, when a hand was placed directly in front of him in a silent offer to help him up. He looked up to see Schuldig grinning at him. Apart from a small cut on his right cheek, the German appeared totally unharmed.
"See what not having a stick up the arse does for you Bradley?" He teased as he helped the American to his feet. "Suppleness decreases your chance of injury." A wink at the end of that statement earned him a suspicious frown from the older man.
The Wee Shite was clutching his knee with his cuffed hands and swearing out of what seemed to be annoyance, rather than distress. He seemed furious that you couldn't get through a high-speed crash without hurting yourself. Brad watched him before an exclamation of frustration caused him to turn back to Schuldig.
"For fuck's sake," The redhead muttered as he squatted beside Farfarello. The Irishman's foot was trapped amidst a tangle of bent metal, a long splinter of wood from the wrecked seatback jutting into his calf from which blood was steadily trickling. "Want to give us a hand here, Brad, Nagi?"
The other two members of Schwarz made their way cautiously over to the rear, watching their footing amongst the mess of metal and glass that covered the bus.
"Jesus," Nagi said, but he wasn't looking at Farfarello.
Beyond the last double seat of the bus, lay the guard in a crumpled heap. His blank eyes stared forwards above a smashed and gushing nose, his neck snapped like an expired credit card by the strap on his gun, which had caught on a loose bolt as the bus had tipped to the side. Nagi crouched beside him, fingers going automatically to the man's wrist to feel for a pulse, despite the futility of the gesture. He dropped the limp arm and let his head fall on his hands, taking deep breaths and swallowing hard.
From behind there was a groan of concentrated effort as Brad pulled at the crushed metal frame gripping Farfarello's foot, wrenching the splinter free. Schuldig held the Irishman from behind, gently helping him pull himself a yard back, clearing his feet from the mangled seat.
Farfarello looked down at his leg, taking in the messy wound and also his twisted ankle that would probably swell to the size of a melon in a few moments. "Awwwww FUCK!" He lamented in pure annoyance.
Brad remembered about the pair in the front cab and rapped on the tinted panel. "Hey, you alright in there?" There was no reply. He hammered harder. "Are you alright in there?"
He heard a noise from above, and looked up to see a figure staring down at him from one of the smashed windows on what was now, technically, the ceiling. "You need to get us out of here," Brad yelled at him. "There's a man dead and another in bad shape."
"The polisman's away with the keys," returned the driver. "You need to hang on."
"Where the fuck is he away to with the keys?" Schuldig spluttered in exasperation as he made his way over to join Brad.
"He cannae reach the lock with the bus on its side. He's lookin' for somethin' to stand on."
"Jesus Christ," Schuldig spat, shaking his head. "So what happened?"
"We hit a motor. Came oot o' nowhere. No lights or nothin'. Just appeared, headin' straight for us, then bang." The driver broke off as his face was suddenly bathed in bright light from outside and he shielded his eyes, looking away from the bus to the source. "Aw, thank fuck," he said before looking back into the wreckage below. "Another motor. And here's Alec back as well. We'll no be a minute."
More silence followed. Brad glanced over at Schuldig, but the German seemed disinclined to conversation, his face set back in the slight frown of earlier. Brad heard muffled sounds from outside but the content could not be deciphered, only a final "NOW" as one voice got louder and more heated towards the end of the sentence. Then they could hear activity at the front of the bus, a metallic clinking and scraping, before further footsteps alongside the crippled bus.
Only the Wee Shite seemed to remain unperturbed, and indeed was sniggering to himself as they looked amongst themselves in nervous confusion.
"The hell's going on?" Nagi asked no one in particular as the door remained frustratingly closed and the anticipated contact from outside remained suspended. A laugh turned his attention back to the Wee Shite, who was leaning against what had been the floor with exaggerated nonchalance.
"Wee surprise boys," he said nasally.
With a rusty creak and a slam, the door was finally swung open and down in much the same manner as a gangplank on a ferry. The colourless face of PC Clipboard appeared in the gap, looking quickly around at the scene of devastation within, before focusing intently on the Wee Shite. The prisoner raised an eyebrow at him, and astonishingly, the policeman threw his ring of keys at him, whereupon he proceeded to unlock and remove his handcuffs. The Wee Shite then made his way down to the front of the bus and now that he wasn't obscuring the doorway, Brad could see the tall figure at PC Clipboard's side, pointing a pistol at his head. The policeman's semi automatic was slung around the man's neck, his sidearm tucked into the front of his belt. This was no accident. It was an ambush.
The Wee Shite extricated the heavy weapon from the dead man's head and pulled it over his own, then knelt down and searched the body, producing a pistol from an under-arm holster. He got up and clambered back to the door, ignoring the other four frozen and gaping prisoners. The young officer outside offered a shaking hand as the Wee Shite climbed onto the makeshift gangplank. Before jumping down, he turned to face his erstwhile travelling companions. "Don't say I'm no good to you," he said, tossing the keys to Nagi, whose handcuffed swipe in the dim light failed to catch them. They clattered across the floor and out of sight.
It took a few minutes to them, nestled between a particularly nasty looking, twisted pile of metal and yet more time to find the right key for each set of handcuffs. Brad climbed onto the gangplank first, noting with confusion that there was no one outside. No matter, he thought, one thing at a time. He crouched on one knee and took hold of Farfarello as he was passed up by Schuldig and Nagi, hauling him through the gap before descending to the road. Soon all four Schwarz were on the ground.
"Where the hell is everybody?" Schuldig asked as he stood one the tarmac, one shoulder hooked under Farfarello's arm to support the Irishman.
A sudden, shuddering BANG shattered the relative silence, causing the men to glance over at the bus to see if it had been hit again. Such thoughts were dispersed by another BANG, less than a second later. There was a sound of footsteps from behind, and Brad looked past the exposed underside of the bus to see the Wee Shite and the tall figure jog briskly to a car sitting across the road, it's headlights trained on the wreck. The Wee Shite hauled off his prison overalls and glanced towards his four co-passengers. "I'll treat it as gratitude if yous you're your fuckin' mouths shut," he shouted to them.HeHwevb The tall figure opened the boot of the car and they each threw in their semi automatics, then he produced some clothes and passed them to the Wee Shite. The prisoner quickly dressed in the top and trousers and climbed into the passenger seat as the car moved off, swinging around 180 degrees and passing the stunned gathering. The four watched in glazed incomprehension as the Wee Shite's hand waved - royalty style – from out the rolled-down window and the vehicle accelerated into the deepening twilight, unimpeded, unpersued.
Nagi was the first to find his voice. "So … where's the policeman?"
Brad looked at Nagi's worried and then over at the German, who slowly closed his green eyes. "Jesus," he heard himself saying, walking at increasing speed around the wreck. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."
He made it to where the driver's cab edged a surface of grass and gravel by the side of the hard tarmac, and saw what he saw. He turned to stop Nagi, who had been following him, but it was too late. The youth halted and recoiled like he had run into a glass wall. He shook his head minutely, then closed his eyes, clenched his fists and breathed out heavily, before being convulsed by body-shaking sobs.
Brad wanted to lead the young man away from the sight, but he felt too exhausted, dazed and disgusted. He leaned back against the bus and looked to the darkening skies, then turned away from the corpses handcuffed to the radiator grill and punched the unyielding metal hard. "Fuck."
Part Five: Out of the frying pan…
"This is insane," Nagi muttered nervously, as he bit his nails. "This is fucking insane." This manoeuvre was complicated somewhat by the handcuffs and swaying motion of the bus, resulting in Nagi's fingers resembling handiwork Farfarello would be proud of. His eyes were blood-shot and dull from a combination of fatigue, fear and delayed shock and his throat was raw and swollen from the sustained effort of not crying.
Crawford looked over at him from the seat opposite and wondered vaguely if there was anything he could say or do in his sudden reinstatement as the wise and knowing leader that could possibly make the young man feel any better. Probably not, and he wasn't getting any helpful flashes, but it wouldn't hurt to have a go. He shifted, preparing to move over and sit next to the youngest Schwarz, but a certain redhead got there first. Brad settled instead for the seat in front of the pair.
"What's the matter Nagi-chan?" The German nudged the smaller man beside him with a slightly too bony elbow. "Is it the fact that we're going to rot away in some jail, or just that these seats are fucking murder on your arse?"
Nagi gave a snort of laughter in spite of himself, the tension finding any release offered. "Nah," he managed with a nod towards the blacked out window. "It's the fucking view."
Brad felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth and he glanced over at the boy, only to catch the bright verdant gaze of the telepath sitting next to him. What he saw there was probably the biggest source of relief he'd felt since passing the envelope over to Ran. Schuldig smiled at him slightly and there was no blame or accusation in his expression. It was the first time he'd dared to even look at the German since the whole mess started. He'd spent six years waiting, hoping, to see the man again and they got reunited only to drop into a mess like this.
It had been Schuldig who'd been the force of sustaining energy in the run up to the mission, sweeping them all along in a wave a black nihilism that had suddenly possessed the redhead along with a twisted, black enthusiasm for the whole absurdity of -Schwarz- being caught in such a mess. When he hadn't been acting like he was on the ride of his life, he'd simply act as if it wasn't real, just another one of his well-loved mind games.
Until he'd stood silent and pale behind Nagi, watching as the youth stared with incomprehension at the choking, gurgling man leaning back in his arms and bleeding to death all over him four feet away from his similarly slaughtered wife. At that point Brad had been certain, telepathy or not, that the German would spend the rest of his days cursing the American's name. Schuldig's expression flickered slightly as Brad continued to look at the man, and he opened his mouth, obviously about to say something.
Until the shaking hulk in which they sat, suddenly stopped moving. Schuldig's mouth closed and he settled for a roll of the eyes. Brad followed suit. It seemed like the unseen forces at work were once again trying to decide where to put their four newest playthings.
The door at the back opened to reveal a plain clothes man having a heated discussion with one of the policemen from the driver's cab, wearing the very British combination of a submachine gun and a clipboard. He seemed slightly annoyed.
"…not the fuckin' corporation number nine bus. Do you realise who I've got in here?"
"And do you realise who signed this?"
Which apparently had been game, set and match to the plain clothes cop, who moved aside to let another cop complete with rifle and a copy of The Record clamber into the rear before the door was closed and locked from outside by PC Clipboard, who then climbed back into his previous seat in the cab up front beside the driver. The engine struggled back to life and Schuldig glanced over at the policeman. "Where are we going?"
The cop, a rather greasy looking man in serious need of dental work glared at the redhead. 'It's a mystery tour," he sneered. "You'll know when we get there."
/Unless you'd care to fill us in, Brad?/ The mental voice startled Crawford, he wasn't used to hearing the other man's thoughts inside his head these days. He managed an imperceptible shake of his head as he faced the front and heard Schu sigh and slid down in his seat.
The last remaining member, and currently the only one sat on the other side of the bus bobbed his head to an imaginary soundtrack, as oblivious of their situation as it was possible to be while still breathing. Brad shook his head as he looked at him. In fact, Brad shook his head almost every time he looked at him. Schuldig had insisted on feeding the Irishman some drugs of an undisclosed nature before they were taken into custody and it appeared that the effects has still to wear off. "Look, we feed him this and he'll be mellow enough not to get us into any more trouble," Schuldig had argued. "Unless you really want him to go off on a 'hurt God' spiel during an interrogation, but I just don't really feel it'll help our case much."
A sudden sharp turn to the left, followed by the unmistakable sensation of driving over speed bumps broke through the indefinite period of travel. The four members of Schwarz felt the bus stop and waited for the engine to cut out. Nagi groaned slightly, obviously not looking forward to the awaiting experience.
The engine failed to silence. Instead PC Clipboard opened his door and hopped out of the van. The muffled sounds of more voices, posh accents and authoritative tones could be heard before the back door opened and a new prisoner climbed in, cuffed and smirking. Brad glanced at him briefly and instantly recognised him as what, in the local parlance, would be called a Wee Shite. Bruising for a fight and unconcerned with whom the partner may be. Personally, Brad half-hoped he would try something. Farfarello was sitting closest and therefore fastest when it came to reaction times. The guy would be less bother dead, anyway.
"Woo," The Wee Shite announced as the door was shut behind him and he made himself comfortable on his seat. "I'm in presence of greatness here. Yous kill't that Dutch cunt, didn't yous."
"Fuck off," Nagi snapped
The Wee Shite raised his hands in a show of mock fear. "Awright. Nae bother. I'm no' messin' wi' yous cunts. Yous are fuckin' mental. Fuckin' hard bastarts, eh? Better watch my fuckin' mooth, eh?"
"Just ignore him, Kind," Schuldig stated flatly to the youth beside him. A slight frown was playing across his forehead, and the German glanced back at the Wee Shite again.
"Aye, that's right, ginger," the Wee Shite agreed. "Don't be consorting with the likes of that scruff," he added with theatrical articulacy in an obvious dig at Schuldig's accent. "You might end up in the jile." With this he cackled loudly for a while before leaning back again, content that he had claimed the honour of the world's wittiest man, and whistling Sex Pistols.
PC Clipboard climbed back into the front of the van, missing the aforementioned item and looking decidedly unhappy about it. "Bloody circus," he grouched to the driver. "Waving orders from on high and expecting us to jump every time they clap their hands. As if it's no stupid enough comin' over here to pick that wee shite up, they've took my records off me. All this Top Secret, Need to Know crap."
"So what happens to the order, the file?" The driver asked.
"Fuck knows, mate. That cunt's away with it. I says I need a copy as well, but he gie'd me more shite about orders from above. I tell't him, I says if anythin' happens, I've no record of who's on this bus. Wanker just says 'Well you'd better not let anything happen then."
"But he's got a record of it, hasn't he?"
"Aye, but …"
"Well it doesnae matter if you haven't."
"Aye, but it's the principle."
"Och, haud your wheest," the driver said with a small laugh, putting the bus into reverse and driving away.
* * *
Time seemed to dissolve after that. The jolts of junctions, the pull and drag of turns had ceased, suggesting a motorway. Brad squinted through the blacked out windows, but was only able to ascertain that the light was fading. The disorientation increased, with nothing to suggest changes in direction, speed or distance. For all he knew, they could be driving in fucking circles.
"I'm bored," Farfarello suddenly announced, at least an hour after everyone else had come to that decision. "Anyone for I-Spy?"
Brad felt the back of his neck tickle as Schuldig sighed heavily behind him.
"Aye," shouted the Wee Shite, thereby proving himself to be the only one who didn't get the joke. "I spy with my little eye, somethin' beginnin' with … M.C."
Schuldig sighed again, and let his head drop forward, where it fell against Brad's shoulder. Brad just shook his head.
"A million green bottles, hangin' on the wall," sang Farfarello.
Schuldig banged his head against Brad's shoulder again, this time slightly harder.
"Do yous give in?" asked the Wee Shite, ignoring the fact that none had given any indication of taking part. "Awright, I'll tell yous," he announced triumphantly. "It's…"
"Miserable cunts," said everyone else, including the guard, in monotonal unison. This had the effect of shutting the Wee Shite up, but also made it unclear whose go it was next, had anyone been inclined to continue.
The driver and PC Clipboard, sitting in the cab at the front, were not included, but had they been, what they saw with their little eyes, for all of a quarter of a second before they hit it at sixty miles an hour – began with C.
Brad had had a split second's worth of warning. A sudden vision of a tremendous jolt and had barely been able to brace himself, let alone alert the others, before they were flung to right. Schuldig's head left its earlier resting place on Brad's back as he crashed into Nagi. Farfarello collided with the seat opposite, rather than directly across the aisle, as the angle of swerve altered erratically.
The guard was thrown like a stuffed toy from his rear facing seat, meeting the outside wall with a hard crack, but luckily below the glass. The Wee Shite, with both hands gripping the rail and his foot wedged hard against the seat in front was able to not leave his position. Then, as the driver began to turn against the swerve, everyone was flung towards the left, although with less force and suddenness. Everyone in the rear was able to grab onto something as the bus swung back against its previous momentum. However, this didn't prove quite so effective when the bus tipped on to its side.
There was a screaming sound of metal as the bus skidded along the tarmac before coming to a halt. There was a brief moment of intense silence, as everyone anticipated further onslaught, which gave way to sighs of relief and moans of pain from the injured.
They had all ended up corralled on the side of the bus, partitioned off from each other by the rows of seats. Facial cuts seemed to have come as standard. Nagi was clutching his upper arm, which was bloody and raw looking through a rip in the sweatshirt he'd been given by the police to replace his original blood-stained shirt. With the window shattered, his shoulder had been scraping along the hard road surface before he'd had the presence of mind to throw himself away from the gap.
Brad himself had rattled his legs against something metal, probably a seat back went he'd been sent into the air with the tipping motion, but despite the dull pain which felt like the entire bus was resting on him, knew he'd be alright to walk after a few moments. He readied himself to stand, when a hand was placed directly in front of him in a silent offer to help him up. He looked up to see Schuldig grinning at him. Apart from a small cut on his right cheek, the German appeared totally unharmed.
"See what not having a stick up the arse does for you Bradley?" He teased as he helped the American to his feet. "Suppleness decreases your chance of injury." A wink at the end of that statement earned him a suspicious frown from the older man.
The Wee Shite was clutching his knee with his cuffed hands and swearing out of what seemed to be annoyance, rather than distress. He seemed furious that you couldn't get through a high-speed crash without hurting yourself. Brad watched him before an exclamation of frustration caused him to turn back to Schuldig.
"For fuck's sake," The redhead muttered as he squatted beside Farfarello. The Irishman's foot was trapped amidst a tangle of bent metal, a long splinter of wood from the wrecked seatback jutting into his calf from which blood was steadily trickling. "Want to give us a hand here, Brad, Nagi?"
The other two members of Schwarz made their way cautiously over to the rear, watching their footing amongst the mess of metal and glass that covered the bus.
"Jesus," Nagi said, but he wasn't looking at Farfarello.
Beyond the last double seat of the bus, lay the guard in a crumpled heap. His blank eyes stared forwards above a smashed and gushing nose, his neck snapped like an expired credit card by the strap on his gun, which had caught on a loose bolt as the bus had tipped to the side. Nagi crouched beside him, fingers going automatically to the man's wrist to feel for a pulse, despite the futility of the gesture. He dropped the limp arm and let his head fall on his hands, taking deep breaths and swallowing hard.
From behind there was a groan of concentrated effort as Brad pulled at the crushed metal frame gripping Farfarello's foot, wrenching the splinter free. Schuldig held the Irishman from behind, gently helping him pull himself a yard back, clearing his feet from the mangled seat.
Farfarello looked down at his leg, taking in the messy wound and also his twisted ankle that would probably swell to the size of a melon in a few moments. "Awwwww FUCK!" He lamented in pure annoyance.
Brad remembered about the pair in the front cab and rapped on the tinted panel. "Hey, you alright in there?" There was no reply. He hammered harder. "Are you alright in there?"
He heard a noise from above, and looked up to see a figure staring down at him from one of the smashed windows on what was now, technically, the ceiling. "You need to get us out of here," Brad yelled at him. "There's a man dead and another in bad shape."
"The polisman's away with the keys," returned the driver. "You need to hang on."
"Where the fuck is he away to with the keys?" Schuldig spluttered in exasperation as he made his way over to join Brad.
"He cannae reach the lock with the bus on its side. He's lookin' for somethin' to stand on."
"Jesus Christ," Schuldig spat, shaking his head. "So what happened?"
"We hit a motor. Came oot o' nowhere. No lights or nothin'. Just appeared, headin' straight for us, then bang." The driver broke off as his face was suddenly bathed in bright light from outside and he shielded his eyes, looking away from the bus to the source. "Aw, thank fuck," he said before looking back into the wreckage below. "Another motor. And here's Alec back as well. We'll no be a minute."
More silence followed. Brad glanced over at Schuldig, but the German seemed disinclined to conversation, his face set back in the slight frown of earlier. Brad heard muffled sounds from outside but the content could not be deciphered, only a final "NOW" as one voice got louder and more heated towards the end of the sentence. Then they could hear activity at the front of the bus, a metallic clinking and scraping, before further footsteps alongside the crippled bus.
Only the Wee Shite seemed to remain unperturbed, and indeed was sniggering to himself as they looked amongst themselves in nervous confusion.
"The hell's going on?" Nagi asked no one in particular as the door remained frustratingly closed and the anticipated contact from outside remained suspended. A laugh turned his attention back to the Wee Shite, who was leaning against what had been the floor with exaggerated nonchalance.
"Wee surprise boys," he said nasally.
With a rusty creak and a slam, the door was finally swung open and down in much the same manner as a gangplank on a ferry. The colourless face of PC Clipboard appeared in the gap, looking quickly around at the scene of devastation within, before focusing intently on the Wee Shite. The prisoner raised an eyebrow at him, and astonishingly, the policeman threw his ring of keys at him, whereupon he proceeded to unlock and remove his handcuffs. The Wee Shite then made his way down to the front of the bus and now that he wasn't obscuring the doorway, Brad could see the tall figure at PC Clipboard's side, pointing a pistol at his head. The policeman's semi automatic was slung around the man's neck, his sidearm tucked into the front of his belt. This was no accident. It was an ambush.
The Wee Shite extricated the heavy weapon from the dead man's head and pulled it over his own, then knelt down and searched the body, producing a pistol from an under-arm holster. He got up and clambered back to the door, ignoring the other four frozen and gaping prisoners. The young officer outside offered a shaking hand as the Wee Shite climbed onto the makeshift gangplank. Before jumping down, he turned to face his erstwhile travelling companions. "Don't say I'm no good to you," he said, tossing the keys to Nagi, whose handcuffed swipe in the dim light failed to catch them. They clattered across the floor and out of sight.
It took a few minutes to them, nestled between a particularly nasty looking, twisted pile of metal and yet more time to find the right key for each set of handcuffs. Brad climbed onto the gangplank first, noting with confusion that there was no one outside. No matter, he thought, one thing at a time. He crouched on one knee and took hold of Farfarello as he was passed up by Schuldig and Nagi, hauling him through the gap before descending to the road. Soon all four Schwarz were on the ground.
"Where the hell is everybody?" Schuldig asked as he stood one the tarmac, one shoulder hooked under Farfarello's arm to support the Irishman.
A sudden, shuddering BANG shattered the relative silence, causing the men to glance over at the bus to see if it had been hit again. Such thoughts were dispersed by another BANG, less than a second later. There was a sound of footsteps from behind, and Brad looked past the exposed underside of the bus to see the Wee Shite and the tall figure jog briskly to a car sitting across the road, it's headlights trained on the wreck. The Wee Shite hauled off his prison overalls and glanced towards his four co-passengers. "I'll treat it as gratitude if yous you're your fuckin' mouths shut," he shouted to them.HeHwevb The tall figure opened the boot of the car and they each threw in their semi automatics, then he produced some clothes and passed them to the Wee Shite. The prisoner quickly dressed in the top and trousers and climbed into the passenger seat as the car moved off, swinging around 180 degrees and passing the stunned gathering. The four watched in glazed incomprehension as the Wee Shite's hand waved - royalty style – from out the rolled-down window and the vehicle accelerated into the deepening twilight, unimpeded, unpersued.
Nagi was the first to find his voice. "So … where's the policeman?"
Brad looked at Nagi's worried and then over at the German, who slowly closed his green eyes. "Jesus," he heard himself saying, walking at increasing speed around the wreck. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."
He made it to where the driver's cab edged a surface of grass and gravel by the side of the hard tarmac, and saw what he saw. He turned to stop Nagi, who had been following him, but it was too late. The youth halted and recoiled like he had run into a glass wall. He shook his head minutely, then closed his eyes, clenched his fists and breathed out heavily, before being convulsed by body-shaking sobs.
Brad wanted to lead the young man away from the sight, but he felt too exhausted, dazed and disgusted. He leaned back against the bus and looked to the darkening skies, then turned away from the corpses handcuffed to the radiator grill and punched the unyielding metal hard. "Fuck."