Chapter 1 – Nice Pants

Zann wasn’t looking forward at the time, so she never saw exactly what caused the accident on the overpass.

She was sitting next to Gary Peet, who was rattling on about the party he would throw after the game with Central Friday night, but out of the corner of her eye, she was watching Charlie Peters pretend not to flirt with Kim Yang in the back of the bus. He was in the aisle next to Kim and her boyfriend Dan, imitating Mr. Lopresti’s slump-shouldered shuffle. He glanced up at Zann for a moment, as if this show was more for her benefit than Kim’s.

And then the bus’s brakes locked up with this godawful loud squeal, and she was thrown sideways into Gary.

Screams filled the bus as something slammed into them from the front, shoving the bus backwards. Zann was thrown forward, hit the seat in front of her, then fell to the floor. She pulled herself up and looked back to see if Charlie was okay, idiot Charlie who’d been clowning in the aisle (see, this was why you needed seat belts on the school bus). She felt a moment’s relief when she saw him pull himself up off the floor, but through the glass behind him, she saw a gaping hole in the guard rail, the metal on either side of the gap twisted up into weird curlicues that reminded her of beckoning arms.

The bus rolled back through the gap. There was a drop and a thump as the rear tires rolled off the edge of the pavement, prompting fresh screams among the students. Metal screeched as the bus kept sliding, then Zann’s stomach rolled as she felt the front of the bus lift off the ground. Charlie toppled back and slammed into the emergency door, which popped open, and then he was gone and the bus was still tipping.

Zann screamed. She meant to it to be Charlie’s name, but her mouth wouldn’t work right. The bus was still sliding over the edge, and pretty soon it would fall to slam onto the speeding cars below. Zann closed her eyes and prayed it would be quick.

The bus’s backward movement stopped with a jerk and a lurch, and then the front tires slammed back down on the ground again. Zann opened her eyes and looked out the door where Charlie had fallen.

She saw a golden glow, and within the glow was a man, holding the back of the bus. He was surrounded by little sparks, and his blond hair flowed and rippled in a nonexistent wind. She’d seen Carl Bruttomesso sparkle like that one morning in gym class, but that had only been the sun reflecting off his leg hair, which was just gross.

There was nothing gross about this man. He was tall and slim, wearing a black sleeveless shirt that showed off the muscles in his shoulders and arms. Those muscles rippled as he flew up, tilting the bus forward, and then he looked at her, right at her, and smiled. The bus pivoted on its front tires as he bought the back end around to rest firmly on the overpass once again. It seemed to Zann as if she and the glowing man were perfectly still and the entire world revolved around them.

And then Gary Peet was pushing at her, saying, “Come on, we have to get off,” so she tore her eyes from the handsome stranger and stumbled to the front of the bus.

She lined up outside with the rest of the kids in a daze, saying “Here” when the driver’s voice said “Suzanne Avogadro.” She only came out of it when the driver’s voice said, “Charlie Peters,” and she heard herself saying, “He fell out.”

“Don’t worry about Charlie,” said a voice. Zann turned and looked up. The sparkling man hovered over their heads, his cheap costume–the black T-shirt with the red “R” crudely painted across the front, the obscenely tight blue jeans–a stark contrast to the perfection of his face and body. “I caught him before he hit the ground. You’ll see him at school. Drive safely.”

He glanced at Zann again as he lifted into the air and she felt something flutter within her. As she watched the figure dwindle into the sky, Zann heard Kim Yang say, “So that’s Rev. Nice pants.”

They were stuck there for almost an hour, waiting for the mess to be cleared up. While they waited, the kids wandered over in ones and twos to gawk at the broken guard rail and the wreckage below. Zann heard someone say that a truck had crashed through the rail and crushed a car. She had no interest in seeing some bloody carcass pulled out of twisted metal, but eventually, she got bored and took a look.

Down below, she saw what was left of a semi, the trailer folded into some complex metal origami. The ass end of a small car was just visible to one side, like the witch’s feet sticking out from under Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz. The car’s trunk had popped open, and two officers poked through the contents. Zann heard one of them say, “Oh shit.”

“What is it?” asked the other.

“This.” The first cop, older and fatter than his partner, held up a shirt. It was black, mostly, with alternating yellow-and-black stripes down the sleeves.

“It’s an ugly shirt. So what?” the second cop asked.

The fat cop dropped the shirt and pulled something else out of the trunk. It looked like a toy ray gun, plastic and bulbous, a blow-dryer crossed with a .44 Magnum. It shook and buzzed ominously in the cop’s hand.

“Zann!” somebody called from behind her.

The cop pointed the gun at a nearby billboard, a picture of a smiling kid holding a glass of milk.

“Zann, come on! We’re leaving!” But she didn’t move.

He pulled the trigger and the other cop ducked as a swarm of bees shot from the barrel of the gun. They dispersed briefly into a small black-and-yellow cloud, then all converged into a single stream again and shot toward the sign, each one exploding as it struck.

“Jeez!” Zann said, jumping back.

When the smoke cleared, there was a scorched hole where the kid’s mouth should be. A lone bee that had somehow gotten separated from the swarm buzzed in aimless circles around the cops’ heads. “See?” the fat cop said.

“What the hell was that?” asked the other one.

The final bee suddenly seemed to realize its mission, for it turned and shot like an arrow at the billboard. It detonated slightly off target, in the kid’s right nostril.

As Gary took her arm to pull her away, Zann heard the fat cop say, “More of these guys showing up every week. All hell’s gonna’ break loose pretty soon.”