Driftwood: Tales

The Horror of Route 57

Friday, January 13, 1995
10:00 AM

"Good morning, Mrs. Briar. My name is Bret Belmont. Are you familiar with Eye on Driftwood? I host the show."

"Yes, Mr. Belmont. I'm familiar with your news entertainment show. You're that tabloid reporter. Making your money off the misery of others, right?"

Bret stood in the doorway of Francis Briar's room. He nodded to the orderly, and stepped into the room, the door shutting behind him.

"Are you aware of where you are?"

"Since January Thirteenth of nineteen-fifty-six, I've been a resident of the Hillside Driftwood Medical Psychiatric Ward. South-East Wing. I'm not crazy you know, Mr. Belmont. They put me here as a punishment."

"They."

"They call their selves The Order."

"The Order." Bret stood close to the door, suddenly hesitant to continue on.

"Have a seat, Mr. Belmont. I'm not going to hurt you... not that I could if I wanted. I assure you, all the fight is taken from me." She raised her arms and showed him layers of bruising on her wrists, and forearms. "It is so rare that I have it in me to get out of line anymore."

Bret crept across her small room - a well disguised cell - and sat himself in a comfortable looking arm chair. He sat on the edge of the seat, cautious not to get too comfortable. "Mrs. Briar, before we begin... I forgot my pocket calendar. Could you tell me what day it is today?"

"Today is Friday... January the thirteenth, nineteen-ninety-five, Mr. Belmont."

"Do you understand why I'm here? Did anyone tell you why?"

"Yes. You're here to discuss the accident."

"Thirty-nine years to the day. Do you remember the accident?"

Francis Briar's voice was faint; a whisper of dry leaves cracking in the wind. "I remember it... all of it. So clearly... so clearly..."

"Are you okay?" Bret Belmont sat rigidly on the edge of his seat, feeling uneasy.

"...a moment please, Mr. Belmont. To gather myself." The elderly woman offered him a smile

"I remember it clearly," she paused and then released a sigh. "Clearly."

The room was quiet a long time; a decent room, for someone committed, a few photographs fixed to the walls as never to be removed. A black and white photograph of a bus - the bus - held in a simple, modest frame.

The room suddenly felt cold. Bret cleared his throat with a forced cough. "Mrs. Briar?"

"Please," She grinned through a mouthful of long, cracked and yellowed, crooked teeth. "Call me Fran."

Bret stared at her, taking in the image of a woman, Fran Briar sitting at the end of her bed, her thin frame a living scarecrow, fragile looking hands folded neatly on her lap; her wispy white hair was a little wild, and Bret spotted old bruises around her neck, her wrists, and forearms as though she were the victim of many unspoken abuses.

"...Fran." Bret shifted. "I'm distressed. A bus full of high school students careening off highway route fifty-seven, and you stood by and did nothing?"

"It wasn't like that at all, Belmont. I tried so hard to save them. I was thrown from the bus. I was injured. There was nothing I could do. If I could have, I would have... that is... I would have followed them down to the end if I could have."