The Flames that Engulfed Us

Chapter 4: Kansas?

I don't know when we fell asleep, but when I woke up the receptionist was staring down at me with her same bored glare. I was groggy and barely aware that Lincoln was already talking to her, leaning forward over me and sounding very, very irritated.

"I was told to tell you that the bus you are signed up for is ready. You can do with that what you will, but I suggest you start making your way to the bus."

Was it wrong of me to hate the receptionist in the short time I'd interacted with her? Because I did. Her droning voice was so hard for me to even try to like.

"What bus?" I mumbled, barely making my words intelligible in my sleepiness.

"Make sure you get yourselves there on time."

Then she left. She wasn't helping her case as far as likability.

I craned my neck around to look at the one other person who might explain things to me. Lincoln was already getting out of our bed. His hair was fluffy from a night of sleeping on it, but I doubted he would appreciate my thoughts on that.

"I guess we should get going," he croaked miserably, "I didn't like the way that woman was talking."

"Where are we going?" I tried to soothe.

That didn't make it better. He just said that he didn't know, waited for me to get out of bed, and kept a painfully slow pace down to the parking lot. He turned to me.

"How did you sleep?"

"Fine. You?"

"Good, I suppose. I dunno. Everything about this place just feels wrong. I can't explain it."

It did feel just slightly off. But we weren't in Kansas anymore. We were never in Kansas, but the iconic statement still stands.

"We are dead."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I keep forgetting that."

The bus that everyone was talking about rolled up. It was a commercial bus, or at least looked like it used to be. The outside was all covered in graffiti. The whole thing sank low to the ground. Rust stained everything, only giving way on the windows which were covered in dirt. A door slid open, and Lincoln and I didn't move.

We were intended to get on, but neither of us had it in ourselves. Whether it was a couldn't or wouldn't situation didn't really matter. We weren't getting on that bus. I felt him go rigid.

The driver poked his head out. He had a goofy grin and a hat that looked as though it was about to topple right off his head.

"You kids coming?"

"That depends where we're going," Lincoln challenged, falling back into his same tough guy routine. I wasn't sure a few punches were going to help the situation, but the man held up his hands in surrender.

"It's going to be like that, eh? You'll go where the schedule says you'll go. I don't have control over that."

Lincoln was already clenching his fists. Ugh, did this mean I would have to handle the communication?

"Sir, I don't mean to interrupt this pleasant little chat," I interrupted, very purposefully too, "but where does the schedule say we should go?"

He groaned, turned back around, and popped back up with a thick packet of papers.

"What's your name, miss?"

"I'm Skylar and this is Lincoln."

He flipped lazily through. "You two are going to the movie theater."

That wasn't bad at all. I actually wanted to go there.

"Great," I smiled, "thank you."

Lincoln looked over at me. I looked at him and motioned my head to the bus. Get on, dude. He shook his head. I moved forward to board the bus. He looked at me as though I'd betrayed him. He still followed me.

The inside of the bus seemed to sag and crumble at our touch. A few other people were already aboard, and they just avoided eye contact with us. I had no problem with that. Neither did Lincoln as we fell into our seat. The bus pulled away. It had this gyrating motion that made me feel sick to my stomach.

Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Lincoln was looking over at me with concern filling his beautiful brown eyes.

"Are you ok?"

"Just motion sick."

"You look like you're going to vomit."

Oh, did I? That was hard to believe. The bus lurched to a stop. I gagged. Nothing came out thankfully, but Lincoln was now looking at me with an intent worry.

The doors clanged open and serval people got on. I looked down, focusing on keeping whatever food was still in my system, well inside my system.

"Don't look at them."

I wasn't going to, but now I had to. I raised my eyes to the new people. Lincoln and I still looked like we did when we'd died, but it had been lack of oxygen that had killed us. These people had worse things. Some of them had gunshot wounds still oozing. All of them had something external wrong with them. I needed to get that sick stuff out of me. I was going to puke.

I clutched Lincoln's arm.

"Don't look," he repeated levelly.

A little too late for that warning. We were near the back, so a trash can was just in my reach. I let it all out over the receptacle. Lincoln was there immediately, holding my hair, soothing me. I wiped my mouth, hurrying back to the seat before the bus would start moving again.

We were really dead. As in, not alive anymore. This was hell.

I buried my head in Lincoln, and he wrapped his arms around me. We were really dead.

"We're dead."

"Yeah. We are," he whispered.

This wasn't Kansas anymore. The bus lurched, and the driver started calling names. People would get off, eventually just leaving me and Lincoln alone. Was Kansas still an option? I'd even take the land of weird midgets. I'd walk down the yellow brick road with a bunch of weird almost human people.

"Sky Fleming and Lincoln Carver."

He pulled me up and off the bus. I said thank you to the driver, more out of habit than anything else. There was a movie theater. It looked abandoned, a place that I never would've gone anyway. I pushed the doors open and walked in.

Lincoln took my hand. We were in this together.