One

   The bus floated lazily down the curved roads of the deserted ridges. The sun had just began to descend on this early day of fall. The endless monotonous land had since long put the passengers to boredom. There was only five of them.

   The bus-company had many times talked about closing down this dead-end route between Reno and The Road. But ol´ Red McLear, the president of Redline Inc., had somewhere in time been born in that little fly shit on the map, so the talk had mostly limited itself to silent whisper over a couple of beers near closing-time at the Abandoned Bar. But anything whispered in that joint had never converted to shit.
   Well the Jasper-incident might have begun there, but that has nothing to do with this story.

   So the sleepy bus didn't have to worry about having to trod a faraway route, or to be condemned. It could happily continue its trouble less life along the familiar roads of Winter Hills.

   Richard Bridges was not happy. He had occupied the front-seat, just next to the driver. He wanted to see the road when he went by bus, (or car, or anything). Otherwise he would get travel sick, and throw up.
   Despite this precaution, he now began to feel unwell. The two hot dogs he hastily gobbled at the bus-station had begun to rumble like two restless beasts in his stomach.
   He was on his way to attend his fathers funeral, and he didn't want to meet what was left of his family with puke on his suit.
   He tried to think of something else. It wasn't easy, and the magazine he had bought was no use any longer. The three hours bus ride had worn it out by far. He tried to sleep, but the puking-scene from a Stephen King-movie which title he couldn´t remember, started to roll in his mind the moment he closed his eyes. It was just like there was a tiny man inside his head, in the room just behind his eyelids, cooling in the best chair of the room with a remote control in his hand. Just waiting for his lids to shut down the real world.
   When they did, he would press the play-button on the remote, and the puke-scene would start rolling on the wide-screen in the corner. There would be no escape ´cause he had locked the door.
   He could look out the front-window, at the road. But the only reason he should look at that, was if he planned to puke.
   That was not on his list, so he concentrated on the busdriver. The busdriver was ugly. He also looked mean. And crazy. That was no comfort, but he didn't think he would dare to throw up while looking at him. And that was a step in the right direction.

   The busdrivers name was Bud Owe. He was the only son of Laurence Owe, the crazy man of The Road. Every little place has one. (Right?). And when the crazy man died, his son inherited his cottage in the hills filled with failed inventions. He also took over his old mans status. Buds young twisted mind was well known to the people of The Road, so no one was surprised when he also inherited his fathers insanity. Already as a young boy he had shown clear signs of disturbed behavior. But the boy was also mean and smart. And that was a dangerous combination in a crazy mind. People were more afraid of him than they had ever been of his father.
   He stayed in the cottage after his fathers death, and all day long he worked there with his crazy.....eh.....stuff. No one knew exactly what he did up there (there were no lack of suggestions, though). But they all agreed that it couldn't be anything good. Somehow he  got this job as a busdriver. Maybe ol' Red felt sorry for him. Maybe. But soon he would be sorry for real. Sorry he even thought about hiring that maniac.
   Once a day (except Sundays), young Owe drove to Reno and back. It seemed to go just fine, but in The Road there was used a lot of time, money and imagination to find alternative ways to travel. And who can blame them.

   Beautiful Tatiana Flowers had placed her on the fifth seat, right side. She had spent most of the journey trying to figure why she was going to this last place on earth. She tapped her pen abruptly on her notebook, waiting for inspiration to appear.
   She was a freelance-journalist, and she thought a report from a place like The Road would provide some cash to her hungry bank account. At least she had had this great idea yesterday, in a cheap hotelroom in Reno. Now she wasn't sure. She was beginning to believe that this trip was only another dead-end.
   The feeling had sneaked in on her just as she put her slim ass on the bus-seat. And the feeling had very soon changed to that other familiar feeling; Life sucks. She closed her eyes and devoted herself to the daydreams.
   Daydreams of a world beyond. A world filled with.....she couldn't put words to it, but it was divine. It was a dream.

   «Why does it all seem so clear to me when I reach the sixth can?», Joe Johnson wondered. His eyes were nailed to a nonexistent point far off on the horizon. He had another gulp of his Bud. The last it was, and he crunched the can easily in his big hairy hand. He got another from his bag, and opened it, still focusing on the spot in the air.
   «I know exactly what I'm gonna do when I get home», he started to drink the fresh, but yet so warm beer.
   «I'm gonna tell Jim Derren that I accept the offer he gave me about the job at the station last month. I'll take it and smile, despite the fact that he does it just to be nice. The man wants to help, and it's mean of me to turn him down», he continued in his mind.
   «And money is money, that's for sure. And on the first pay-day, I'm gonna ask Joanne if she wants to go out with me. I'll clean up, and be a real gentleman. And I'll have only one beer the whole night. Or maybe two».
   Those thoughts ran through his mind for some time. And they got better and better. After a while he crunched the empty can just like the last one, and let it join the others on the floor.
   «I'll pick it up later», he thought, and leaned sleepy towards the window. «Then maybe she'll come with me to my place.....then later we'll get married......have kids.......lotsakids...». He closed his eyes and fell asleep with a warm smile on his marked face.

   Joe Johnson fell asleep in the fourth seat, left side. Two seats in front of him, Katy LaRue sat with red eyes. She had finished crying now. She had no tears left. She had left them at the clinic, and now she just sat paralyzed with her eyes wide open, not seeing anything.
   Her hands were twisting a napkin while her mind was busy with other things. Like self-pity for instance.
   She had killed a human being. Her own flesh. And she felt like a murderess.
   It had been so good when she and Josh had lay in the back seat of his Mustang, some two months ago. The moon had been so yellow, and the night-air had been so clear. They had played Guns'n Roses on the stereo, and no one of them neither spoke nor thought about protection.
   Why, it had been so beautiful. When she found out it hadn't been that beautiful. It had been a nightmare, and she hadn't woke yet. She had told no one. Why, they couldn't wake her.
   She had told her mother that she would sleep over at Marys house that weekend, and sent a prayer to a God she only knew by name, that she wouldn't check with Marys mum.
   The people at the clinic had been nice and the bed had been clean. Nevertheless she had felt so guilty, so filthy. How could she go on living after this. Everybody would notice there was something wrong with her. And if her mother by some unexplainable reason could not understand it, looking at her eyes, she surely would find out that there was 500 dollars missing from the jar in the kitchen. 500 dollars that should get them a new TV-set.
   And when she also found out that she hadn't been to school on Friday, there would be questions. Serious questions. A lot of serious questions. Thoughts ran through her mind with the speed of light. She didn't seem to manage to hold on to any of them.

   Bud focused on the road. Thoughts also ran through his mind with the speed of light. He had never managed to hold on to many of them. But the few he brought up to the surface were still faithful to him.
 

 Two

   Richard Bridges had returned to his magazine. There were certain limits as to how long somebody can look at a busdriver. Especially when he continually gives you ugly glances. He was now trying to concentrate on the article about russian nuclear power-plants. It was the third time he read it, but it was far better than - How Hot dogs are Made -. His hot dogs were still uneasy down there, and he held them down only with pure will.
   For the moment.

   Bud threw one last assuring glance in Bridges direction, before he slowly reached down his right hand to the valve. And with his eyes calmly on the road, he carefully unscrewed it. He heard the gas whizzle fast into the bus, just like right after a bicycle-tyre has been too intimate with a sharp stone.
   It was a happy sound, Bud thought while he put on his mask. He smiled, and looked in the rear view mirror. The fools hadn't seen a thing. They sat there like imbeciles. He didn't know them all, but a couple of the faces were familiar. He liked that. Now he waited for the action.

   «Uhu, here it comes». That was the only Richard Bridges reached to think before puke came like a fountain out of his mouth. It came like a waterfall.
   On his suit, on his newspaper and on the unwashed floor. Even the front-window became covered with light brown sticky throw-up. And the funny thing was......it never stopped.
   Richard Bridges felt like he was about to be ripped apart. His mind was crazy with pain. «I'm dying, I'm dying», he screamed in his mind.

   Further back in the bus, Katy LaRue began to feel something strange taking place inside her stomach. (It was nothing at all like his pain, Richard Bridges would have claimed if they had had the possibility to compare stomach-pain).
   It was just like if her belly was stuffed with hundreds of needles, pointing outward. The pain grew sharper, and now it began to hurt for real. She was definitely ripped out of her trance. She lifted her shirt, and looked.
   With horror she saw her stomach begin to grow right before her eyes. It grew bigger and bigger, and soon it was almost twice as big. She wanted to scream, but not a sound came through her mouth.
   The pain began to crawl down towards her vagina. «No, no», she mourned. She pulled up her skirt. her underwear had gone dark red.
   - I'm bleeding. Now her scream came through, and her panic rose.
   - What is happening to me?, she cried and ripped her off her underwear with strength she didn't have. Black hair was coming out from between her legs. And it couldn't be hers, because she was a blonde. Like it was no longer a part of her body, her left hand reached for her purse, and the knife.

   Tatiana Flowers didn't hear the desperate screams from the young girl beside her. A cartoon beetle had just materialized on her notebook. And what was a couple of screams in despair compared to that.
   - Hi, Tatiana, it said with a big cozy cartoonbeetlesmile. - Do you want to be my friend?, it blinked through large glasses.
   - So cute, she whispered smiling. - Who are you?, she asked glad and surprised.
   - Oh, you know, don't you?, the beetle crawled clumsily up on her pencil.
   - I am Billy the Beetle, and you are the Princess, and this........, he pointed with his four-fingered little green hand out the window,
   - .....is your kingdom.
   She looked dazed out the window, and the sight was breathtaking.

   They were driving through a cartoon world. They were surrounded by smiling cartoon-trees, cartoon birds, cartoon houses, and in the sky a big yellow cartoon sun twinkled friendly to her.
   - Wow, she whispered. All the smiling cartoons ran and flew along the cartoon bus, cheering and saluting her. It was like a dream. Her dream. She smiled and waved back happily.

   Then at the top of a hill, it all changed. Not suddenly, though. More like it all gradually lost its colors and faded away.
   The bus began to move faster and faster down the hill. She screamed, but it didn't help.
   And just as she thought they would crash into something, the bus stopped. Just like that. She began to doubt that they had moved at all.
   She looked out the window. It wasn't a dream any longer. That was for sure. It was more similar to a nightmare. The smiling sun was gone. Darkness embraced the bus. There were still trees out there, but now they were ugly and crooked, with no leaves.
   There were no smiling cartoon-creatures. They were replaced with a thousand threatening eyes staring at her from the darkness. Frightened, she looked down on her lap to see if Billy the Beetle was still were on her side, but Billy was gone. And a big, black cockroach had taken his place on her pencil, rapidly advancing to her hand. And out of her bag, dozens of his companions tumbled out.
   They started crawling all over her. The flow of cartoon cockroaches never seemed to end. Before she could argue, her whole body was covered with crawling bugs. They had occupied her arms, her legs, her belly, and some perverts had even found their way under her blouse.
   Suddenly she realized that she had screamed all the time. But she didn't realize that her screams became inhuman when the bugs began to eat.

   Joe would have helped her, but he was busy drinking. For what do you know? A beautiful woman had appeared and offered him a drink.
   A beautiful white lady had offered him, Joe Johnson, a drink? Where she had come from he didn't know, but he sure as hell wouldn't have cared if the devil himself had introduced her to him.
   She was gorgeous; Long blond hair, red inviting lips, long slender legs, big hooters, perfect, white skin. She was a goddess.

   She gave him a glass filled with something.
   - Drink, she whispered with her gray eyes fixed on his bleak brown ones. He drank wondering if she might join him for a beer at The Razor later on. The booze was good. It tasted like nothing he had drank before. He was amused that she served something he had never tasted. He was about to tell her, but she just filled his glass with a low, intense, «drink».
He drank again, and she filled his glass the second he was finished.
   - Drink, she whispered.
   - Hey lady, easy now, I have to.......
   - Drink, she didn't raise her voice, but the long, sharp nail of her index-finger began to play seducing and lethal with his troth. He drank.

   Billy Kensington sat in the back of the bus listening to Metallica on his walkman.
   He had left home two years ago, and now he was on his way back to The Road. Disappointed. He had traveled across the states in search for success. There had been some hard days, and some not so hard days, but mostly it had been bad.
   And had they lead him to Mr. Success? Nah, he had kept his distance of about two thousand light-years. But success had just been a dream. The kind of dream everyone has. And they mean nothing in the real world. But he had been aware of that from the start. The real reason he left, was that he had wanted to prove he made a difference. The journey had proved the opposite. That he didn't make a shit of difference no matter where he went. Not to anyone.
   But it had taken him two years to discover that. So two weeks ago he had resigned and phoned home. His parents reaction had moved him more than he ever would admit. It had almost brought tears to his eyes. The old folks had cried in pure happiness. He almost felt like the long lost son returning for forgiveness.
   He pictured his parents; His father with a cold beer in front of the old TV, not giving a shit if he was watching commercials or a soccer-game. His mother dancing around, making the house look like a castle. Delicious smells from the kitchen. «Maybe it wouldn't be bad coming home», he thought almost happy. But good memories always drags a tail of bad ones as they march across your mind. And the bad ones were real bad. He turned them off. He also turned off his walkman. (He'd had his doze of Metallica for this century).
 

 Three

   It wasn't the screams that startled him in the first place. Well, maybe it was, but as he ran to the source of the screams, there were stranger things going on than hysterical female screams. The whole scenario was, pardon my french, fucking outrageous.

   The man in front was hanging over the front-bar, trying to cough his stomach, lungs and the rest of his guts out. Billy was no medic, but it seemed to him that he had a fair chance to succeed. His face had already gone purple. Black purple.
   The young girl on his left had pulled up her skirt, and was staring at her naked sex while screaming her brains out. «That's no reason to scream, baby, you should have a look between my legs, mother», he thought slightly amused. In the confusion (or was it because of her revealed pussy), he failed to see the knife in her determined hand.
   The negro, two seats behind the half naked girl, didn't behave like a regular bus passenger either. He was squeezing himself frightened against the side-window while he continually drank form an empty crushed beer-can. His eyes were so wide that they threatened to pop out any minute, shining with fear.
   And in the middle of this insanity the busdriver just cruised along, just like this was an ordinary busdrivers day. Billy shock his head and turned to the lady screaming loudest of the females. It was a close call, however. The young girl was closing the gap fast now. It was quite annoying.
   The lady was acting like a lunatic too. She was trying to brush something from her body while she was tearing off her clothes. In her hand she held a pen. Billy wanted to tell this poor lady that there was nothing on her, but a familiar voice from the rear froze him just as if something long, hard and cold had been shoved ten inches up his ass.

   - Hey prettyboy, come here!.

   Brad was as ugly as he used to be. A million zits still shone from his greasy face. His teeth were still yellow and rotten, (but he didn't seem to care about showing the world, ´cause he, (as always), had a big grin on his face). His body had changed from a little sack of potatoes to a big sack of potatoes.
   - Come here, prettyboy, he ordered again, still smiling.
   The brisk command awoke the memories again. None good this time. Billy looked around. Why, you are on a bus, there's no escape. Brad began to laugh. There had never been an escape. Slee would always stand behind him, and trap him in an iron grip. He turned, and there Slee was. The mute had sneaked up on him as usual. Now he stood drooling with his idiot-grin. Ready to grab him, pull down his pants, and bend him over, so master Brad could have his piece.
   He knew the routine. It had happened a hundred times before. First Brad, then Slee, and then maybe Brad again, if he was in the mood. Slee grabbed him. Brads laughter grew in volume and insanity. Slee couldn't laugh, but Billy knew he laughed in his mind. Slee briskly ripped off Billys trousers. It felt like heed never had been away.
 

Four

   The Road was not a real town. It was just a handful of stores haphazardly tossed along a poor 500 feet dusty street. There was a drugstore, a barber-shop, a gas-station and of course a bar. The Razor was the place where most of the farmers of the county spent close to all their spare time and money. It was the place for drinking, bragging, singing and fighting.
   Apart from the Razor, the rest of the town lay dead most of the evening and night. So it was, as usual, a ghost town Bud Owe drove his bus through this late Sunday afternoon. But he didn't care. He never did. He rarely looked into the world of the others. He drove the bus to the garage by the gas-station, threw one last glance on his unfortunate passengers, locked the doors and went on home. Smiling.
 

 Five

   Criminal-inspector James McDarron flipped tired through a pile of worn pictures. He had started going through the pile this morning. He had continued after lunch, and in the afternoon he went through them once more. Now it was late at night and he still held them in his hand.
   - Why, why, WHY! He smashed them into his desk so empty coffey-cups, ashtrays full of cigarette-butts and unimportant papers jumped nervously off and down on the floor. His assistant, Robert Harrow, didn't care to look up from his computer print-outs to see what his boss was yelling about. He already knew. The question had been screamed a billion times before. And there had been no answer yet.
   Media was screaming highest while cheering behind closed doors. This case had been a gift from above. The world had been germanizing in the mud. The pictures McDarron had thrown on his desk, had shocked and pleased the whole world. There's nothing like a massacre before breakfast, or in the subway, for lunch, at dinner or before bedtime. But they all screamed unisonly; «Why?!». It was terrible. A truly horrifying story. Poor people, they said, and demanded the killer locked up for life or fried. There had to be a killer. They couldn't possibly have done those awful things to themselves.

   But the investigation was stuck. And our man, criminal-inspector James McDarron of the FBI, roamed restlessly through the office. Kicking at innocent chairs and cursing abruptly. Red-faced he called his assistant, (the last victim of this case), over to his desk.
   «Oh, no! Not again!!», Robert Harrow mourned in his mind. But he went obediently over to his boss. Of course he did.

   McDarron had picked up a handful of the pictures, and was ready to empty his heart and soul again.
   - Can you tell me, Harrow, he started calmly, - why has this Richard Bridges, or should I say how, managed to cough his stomach so far up his throat that he choked, laying a picture of a deep purple-faced Richard Bridges on the desk.
   - Doctor Arrowead said it was possible, but you had to be a superman to do it, Harrow answered. - Maybe it was something he ate, the assistant continued politely.
   - Two hot dogs and a coke?!, McDarron raised his voice. - We brought in the hotdog-seller at the bus-station, but he was clean, and so were his dogs.

   McDarron provided another picture from the deck.

   A bloody Katy LaRue stared passed them, an ugly knife was sticking out of her vagina.
   - Why the hell did she do a thing like that?, McDarron reached for a cigarette, (his forty-fourth that day, but who's counting?).
   - Now!, he barked when the other didn't answer.
   - I don't know, Harrow said and looked away from the picture of the mutilated girl.
   - She had just had an abortion, but I can't see........
   - This nigger...., McDarron took no notice of the rest of his answer, and lay down a picture of a stone dead Joe Johnson,
   - ....was dead drunk. He had drunk himself to death on six cans of Bud! The sentence ended in a cry.
   - My mother could have had six Buds and six more before even beginning to giggle.
   - Maybe he drank for the first time ever, Harrow had to play McDarrons game.
   - The man was a fucking alcoholic for crying out loud, McDarron snapped. The criminal-investigator kept going like he was an actor who did the same show every night. He produced another picture. This time with a short laugh.
   - The freelancer stabs herself to death with a pencil. What a crack!
   The investigator began to roam the office again, smoking like a madman. Harrow hoped it was over for this time.

   But chance. The investigator suddenly walked determined back to his desk and slammed down the last picture from his selected pack. Just like a poker player with a royal flush.
   But he didn't scream, «my hand wins», like a poker player surly would have done. Nope. McDarron screamed;
   - How The Hell Could This Boy Get His WALKMAN So Far Up His Ass That He DIED OF IT!!.
   He looked at Harrow while he breathed heavy. Harrow nervously met his eyes. They stood like this for almost a minute. Like two gunslingers in the afternoon sun, waiting for the others move. Then suddenly McDarron capped his cigarette on the desk and grabbed his jacket.
   - Oh, fuck it. Let's have a beer, Robbie. My treat. He went towards the door, - Cut the lights on your way out, will ya?
 

 Six

   The busdriver was never found, despite the biggest manhunt in history. Not a stone was left unturned. Thousands of people all around the world had been brought in. But none of them had been Bud Owe. He had never been found.

   He could be anywhere. Maybe driving a bus.

   Your bus?