The Bus Ride

Chapter Seven

My heart stops, and I hear a collective gasp from the people around me. The people who were dragged up start crying in fear, and I'm shocked.
"Excuse me?" The girl says shakily.
"You heard me. Kill them." The leader replies, almost bored. The girl takes a deep breath and steps towards the first victim. She looks back, uncertain, and the leader waves her ahead. She takes a deep breath, and mutters an "I'm sorry" to the first victim, and stabs him right in the neck. Blood sprays out, coating the girl and some of the people in front of her. I hear cries of shock and fear, clearly not all of them have someone die before. The girl is now shaking and trying not to cry as she moves on to the next victim. She doesn't even say anything now, and just stabs them. Perhaps she thinks the quicker it is over with, the easier it will be. It seems to work too, until she reaches the last victim, which is the little boy.
"Please don't kill me." He cries, begging for her to spare his young life. I can see Nicole wipe a tear from her cheek as Dallas hugs her. The girls face changes from composed to completely broken, and she drops the knife and begins to sob uncontrollably.
"I don't care what you do to me!" She says in between sobs.
"I won't kill him, I won't!" She continues before screaming in despair. I can see other people crying, and the little boy still has tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Are you done?" The leader says in a bored tone. She looks at him with hatred and fury in her eyes. The leader stares back at her for a moment, then takes his gun and shoots the little boy. I jump unwillingly, and stare at the corpse. The girl, if anything cries even harder, and doesn't even see when the man points his gun at her head and fires.

You know, most movies and TV shows get it wrong. When someone gets shot in the head at close range, there isn't just a neat hole in their head. No, bits of skull and brain fly out and hit anyone who is near. There's the smell too, the smell of blood and brains that fill the air. All I can say is that I'm glad that I wasn't too close to them. You know the expression "I want to look away, but I can't"? That expression is true, I want to look away from the bloodied corpses, but I can't. All I can think about is that the death toll is at seven people. Seven people murdered in cold blood. Seven families that won't get their kid back. Seven people who still had their lives ahead of them, but were cruelly killed. Any of could be next. The scariest part about all this is that I don't think the leader is crazy. This is just who he is, which is definitely the most worrying situation.

After a little while of everyone just staring at the corpses, everyone begins to look away and try to focus on something else other than the six people that were just murdered. I turn to my friends and they are all pale, Dallas and Nicole more than Luke and I. I have to remember that they have never seen somebody die before, and that this was the first time. For a little while we just sit in silence. I pull out my small compact mirror out of my bag and open it. I look like death. My hair is a mess from sleeping, I have dark circles under my eyes, and to top it all off, a pretty impressive bruise on my cheek, courtesy of the leader. I sigh and try to put my hair in order. At least my eyes are bright as always. I love my green eyes, I truly think they are my best feature. A bright emerald green, I get many compliments on them (as well as people asking if I wear coloured contacts, which I don't). I slide on my glasses, and open my notebook. Time for this next incident to be recorded. Everything that has happened in the last half an hour, the crying, the body hanging from the tree, and most recently, the murder of six more children. As I write I realize that writing down everything comforts me. That this helps me cope with what is the equivalent of a horror movie. As long as I have this notebook, I'll stay sane. However, if any of those gang member catch me, they will probably rip up the notebook, and kill me.

The leader walks into the clearing again and whispers something in a gang members ear and he hurries away. Moments later he appear with a large, professional, camera.
"Alright, who here likes movies?" No one answers.
"Answer me!" He shouts and a few hands go up shakily. After seeing what just happened, no one wants to get on his bad side.
"Good, that is good to hear. Now we are going to make a little movie, to broadcast all over the town, and two of you will get to be the stars!" He says with a smile. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that no one wants to be the star.
"So stay out of the way." He continues, suddenly turning deadly serious. The man with the camera starts filming the children, getting closeups on some, focusing on the body hanging from the tree, the bodies on the ground. The leader is walking through the kids, trying to find his "stars". He grabs one little girl and hands her to another gang member who hauls her away. The leader comes closer and closer to where we are sitting and I'm praying please not me, please not me, please not me. He finally is right in front of us and his eyes lock onto me. Please no, not this again. His eyes linger on the bruise on my cheek and his face breaks into a grin.
"You'll do." He says happily as he yanks me up. Luke starts to protest but I shush him and shake my head. I appreciate Luke looking out for me, but I can take care of myself. I allow myself to be lead away and stand next to the little girl who is crying quietly. Immediately my hands are tied and a gag is inserted into my mouth so I can't speak. I'm going to assume that this is for the sake of appearances.
"Alright, so one of you are going to die." My heart stops as I start to panic. This is the closest I have ever been to death. I turn around and see my friends looking at me, scared to death. I turn back around and concentrate on the ground. We are dragged into position and the camera starts rolling.
"Greetings, citizens of this lovely town. We are terribly sorry to interrupt you, but we have an urgent message for you. See these two lovely ladies standing in front of me?" He says, gesturing to the little girl and I.
"They are just a fraction of the kids we have at our mercy. How did we get them you ask? Well, the hijacked buses, that was us. Clever huh? Anyway, we now speak directly to the mayor. If you do not resign your post and appoint me as mayor, my men and I will slaughter every single one of the kids in this clearing, then hang their bodies around your mansion. That's about two hundred kids, which means that would be two hundred families that would be very mad at you for not saving their children. So we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Don't believe me? Watch." With that I can feel the cold barrel of a gun pressed against my neck, and without a single warning, a shot rings out, and I feel myself falling to the ground.

Yay cliffhanger! This is probably my biggest one yet. Thank you all for reading and remember to comment, vote, and follow me. Love you guys!
Cat