They are dead 3

2

"I said, stay back!" she screamed again, feeling her way towards the back and hoping she would find the railing that would lead to the door. At that moment she felt something behind her. It wasn't the door or the railing that led to it. It felt like a human body that she had slid up against, warm and rigid. She gasped and turned around to find a boy standing behind her. Blonde and scruffy, green eyes and stubble on his chin. She had thought that she was cornered. Somehow a terrifying thought of this guy working with the bus driver had made its way into her mind but the uncertain look in his eye gave his innocence away when he dropped his gaze towards her. He then looked back up at the bus driver, having made a decision when he saw the fear in Nomonde's eyes and opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by his shouting.

"She said back the hell up, man! So stay back!"

The man with the lifeless eyes had no response other than inching towards them slowly.

"The lady said you should back away so I suggest that's what you should do!" the blonde, scruffy-looking guy said now, peering over Nomonde's shoulder. She was relieved that he had come, even though she had not known who he was. She turned around now to look at the bus driver again but there was no response from him. No backing off because there was another man on the bus or that he had threatened him. He was still coming, like a freight train not seeing a squirrel on the track.

"Stop!" she shouted now at the bus driver but nothing was happening. It seemed as if this guy could also see that there was no reasoning with this man.

"I think that we should just go!" the guy said, looking down at her.

"And leave her?" Nomonde responded quickly, looking at Tracey on the furthest back seat now, her legs on the seat and curled up in a ball. She saw the difficulty in his eyes to decide but then he did. He walked up to the man, knowing that he was going to have to get physical, his fists tightening. What was he going to do? She could see that he was thinking the same thing and when the bus driver had gotten close enough, it happened! The bus driver grabbed at him, trying to take hold of his shirt or some body part. The blonde boy now struggled to keep the bus driver at bay and when he had the chance, pulled him into one of the seated cubicles and pinned him between the seats. He raised his eyes over the headrests and shouted at Nomonde, confused by her frozen state.

Then she moved and ran towards the back of the bus, past the blonde man and the bus driver and straight towards Tracey at the back of the bus. She instinctively grabbed at her arm, pulling hard and heaving her towards herself, guiding her back past the two struggling men. After they had passed she heard the struggling stop and the boy make his way after them towards the door. They all stumbled out of the bus after the blonde guy had pressed the button for the doors to close automatically, just-just making it out.

"Are you okay?" Nomonde asked Tracey, looking down at her and making sure that she had no injuries. She nodded at her in silence but she could see blood on her arm.

"Did he bite you?" she asked, seeing a rippling of teeth marks on her forearm. The girl tried to cover it with her other hand.

"That sick fuck!" the blonde guy started.

"What did he want?" Nomonde asked.

"I don't know." she said and started sobbing. Nomonde felt the pain, the fear and the confusion that was now radiating from Tracey. She held her tight where they sat on the pavement, next to the bus, the heat burning through their jeans. The blonde guy stood next to them, keeping an eye on the bus driver's silhouette as he walked through the chairs now, not being too far from the door. As he stumbled down the steps of the bus that lead to the door he cracked the glass with his forehead upon tripping. His head-smacking so hard that it would knock a normal man unconscious, but it didn't. Instead, he got up, peering through the - now cracked - glass and sneered at them, blood flowing down his eyebrow and the side of his face.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" Nomonde asked no one in particular, and the blonde guy looked down at her.

"I don't know but he looks crazy," he said and moved away now to see if he could help with Tracey's injury.

"What's your name?" he asked, the girl and she shyly looked up at him.

"Tracey," Nomonde replied in her place, not knowing why he had asked.

"Okay, Tracey. My name is Luke. I'm trained in first aid and I see you have an injury. Do I have your permission to help?"