This is the fourth installment of the short story "Ink" by Steve Metcalf as it first appeared in the second Event collection "Iron Bay."
INK
Steve Metcalf
Chapter Three
The Book Deal
It was fun because the big, yellow bus was almost driving itself. Almost. The GPS lady reminded Jones that they had an upcoming right turn, so he reached down and adjusted the proper radio-knob. A song came on the speakers. It sounded like Robert Johnson – the OG bluesman of devil’s contract fame – had been reincarnated. With the proper song playing, the bus seemed to prep itself for the turn.
Kira, lounging in the passenger seat – when did school buses start having passenger seats? – pulled the hoodie up over her head and cinched the cords. She could feel him looking at her.
“Just keep your eyes on the road, maestro.”
Jones nodded.
He had his hands on the steering wheel but still didn’t feel in control. Almost on its own, the bus slowed and began the right turn. Almost.
It was dark on the prior street, but after the turn, Jones nearly had to shield his eyes from the glaring sunlight. The sun was setting right at the end of this street. How did that right-hand turn take six hours?
He looked in the huge rear-view mirror to take in the enormity of the bus. Forty feet long. Twenty-two red faux-vinyl seats. All empty. Save for the front two.
“Stay right. Prepare to merge.”
Jones glanced at the radio. This instruction actually came from the radio, not the GPS unit mounted on the dash. The Robert Johnson-esque singer was telling him not only that he cries alone, but also that he should prepare to merge. Jones looked over at Kira, who had her naked feet resting on the dashboard and her hands in the pockets of her sleeveless hoodie. There was no reaction from her. She had a tattoo along the outside edge of her left foot. It looked like a chemical formula. Something with letters and lines and dashes and little boxes. It was the first time that Jones had noticed it.
That had to hurt, he thought absently. Not a lot of meat there. Not a lot of meat anywhere on her, to be fair.
She saw him looking.
“That had to hurt,” Jones said aloud.
Kira shook her head.
“Nah,” she said. “It’s not even real. It’s a super-adhesive ink but I can rub it off with a very specific chemical mixture.”
“Kooky,” Jones shrugged and moved the bus slightly to the right – preparing to merge. He did this by adjusting the side mirror with his left hand.
Darkness again, after the merge. The somber blues tune gave way to a chipper, hipster track that seemed to be all percussion with a chorus of moaning floating above it.
“Do you know how much farther?” Jones asked while checking all eight of the bus’s mirrors. “It feels like we’ve been driving for days.”
Kira pulled a folded slip of paper out of her pocket, checked it, looked out the window and stuffed the paper back home.
“Soon, now.”
In perfect harmony with the moaning, the original GPS lady sang.
“Turn left in 723 meta-koopas.”
Jones nodded at this completely normal unit of measure and spoke back to the radio.
“Yep. Got it,” he said. “I see the parking lot.”
Kira finally perked up. She sat up straight in her seat, slipped on her sneakers and ran her left hand down the sleeve tattoo that covered her right arm.
“Showtime,” she said, breaking a rare smile.
“I’m so excited to meet this guy,” Jones said, grinning. “I can’t believe he wants to publish my book.” He thought for a moment. “You know, I knew a guy in high school named Gustavson.”
Kira barely reacted.
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah. He was a bit of a dick,” Jones said. “Real bad with the ladies.”
“Well,” Kira said, pulling the hoodie cords back into place. “They can’t all be as smooth as you, Jones.”
The bus slowed, almost on its own. Almost. And made the left-hand turn into a large parking lot. It was a lot with numerous commercial buildings butted up against it. Almost as if the lot was designed specifically for employee parking for these particular buildings. Jones wasn’t sure if this was standard practice wherever it was they were, but figured he’d go along with it.
“There,” Kira yelled, leaning forward and pointing to a man walking across the nearly empty lot. It was dark, now, almost too dark to see.
He wore a workman’s outfit and his clothes looked stiff. Canvas pants and a heavy, wool shirt. Button-down shirt. Boots. A lunch pail in his hand. His hair was dark and close-cropped. He looked to be about the same age as Jones and Kira – maybe a handful of years older. Kira didn’t think he looked like a book publisher, but that didn’t deter Jones in the least.
Jones hauled the bus to the right by actually using the steering wheel, and piloted the vehicle toward his new friend. The new man panicked when the headlights of the speeding bus played across his face. He froze for just a moment then leapt across the bow of the vehicle.
Inside the cabin of the huge, yellow truck, Jones pumped the brakes. He was worried that he had let his excitement get the better of him and had stopped too late. That is, until he saw the man leap across the bow of the bus, from right to left across Jones’s vision, and then pirouette out of the glare of the headlights.
Jones looked at Kira who was already on her feet and running down the miniature flight of stairs. He slammed the bus’s transmission into “park” and jumped out of his seat, following Kira.
Outside the bus, they both ran to the man. He was sitting on the hard pavement, his back against a parked vehicle. He looked at the two of them, from Jones to Kira back to Jones. He squinted his eyes.
“Hi?”
“Hi,” Jones said, excited. He knelt beside the man. “Mr. Gustavson, I’m sorry if I scared you. I was so excited to meet you. I think I came in a bit hot.” Jones smiled. He held out his hand to shake Gustavson’s own hand.
“Hi? What are you,” Gustavson said again, and then looked at Kira. She was standing back a bit, between two parked cars. Her hood was pulled tight around her head. One of the huge lights illuminating the parking lot flickered. There was no one else around.
“Mr. Gustavson, yes, hello,” Jones said. “I wondered if this was a good time to talk about my book idea. Or if we could schedule a sit-down later today or tomorrow?”
Jones, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, pulled his hand back to his side. It had gone unshaken. Mr. Gustavson’s head lolled from left to right and back. His eyelids started to droop. Jones put his hand down on the pavement but didn’t realize he had placed it in the center of some shards of broken glass. He lifted it up again, leaving a bloody handprint on the ground.
“Are you okay, sir? Did you twist your ankle when you jumped?” Jones asked, starting to get worried that this meeting wasn’t going as well as he had hoped. “It was a beautiful jump, by the way.”
Mr. Gustavson was silent for a moment, then he made a gurgling sound.
“Hi,” he said and then his eyelids drooped. “I can’t …”
Kira came over and looked at the situation. She stood about six feet away. She cleared her throat. Jones looked back at her and then to Mr. Gustavson.
“I think he’s thirsty,” he said over his shoulder to Kira, and then turned his attention back to the man on the ground. “Would you like some water?”
Kira didn’t move an inch, but cleared her throat again. Finally, she took a hesitant step forward. She crouched and said something to Gustavson. Jones couldn’t hear it, exactly, but the book publisher certainly did. What remained of his blood drained completely out of his face. He was white as a sheet and attempted to back away from Kira … through the car if that was possible. His face was a mask of pure horror, and Jones was busy looking at his hand, noticing the rips in his flesh for the first time.
“I think we should go,” Kira said, standing.
Jones nodded.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, standing up. “I should have called. I’ll call to schedule something with you first thing tomorrow.” He paused. “You have a great evening, sir.”
Jones turned to leave.
Mr. Gustavson reached out a hand toward the departing Jones, and then let it drop to his thigh. His head was still resting against the wheel of the parked vehicle. The parking lot light flickered again. Jones made for the door of the bus and Kira shook her head.
“Leave it,” she said as she turned to walk out of the parking lot.
“But,” Jones said, but Kira was already gone.
He yawned, and turned to follow her.
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