There was nothing useful in the dead man's pockets. Credit cards and cash had no value now, and the other desiccated citizens of the Route 19 bus had yielded little, other than a couple of tins of soup and a cheap penknife.
Judging by the school bags and clothing, many of the occupants had been school kids, and of course the back seat was crammed with them. He screwed up a discarded piece of paper and chucked the missile at the uniformed skeleton of a long dead teenager, smiling mirthlessly as it bounced off the bleached white skull. He'd always been the nerdy kid near the front who'd had things thrown at him when he'd been at school. He screwed up another piece, but stopped as his solar powered watch beeped the hour.
Clancy glanced at his wrist. Technology had provided a watch that didn't need batteries, and he kept the beep to remind himself there was still sound other than the soughing wind. It had a date too, so he knew exactly how long it'd been since he'd last talked to someone other than his reflection in the empty windows.
The man sighed and glanced at the stairs to the upper deck of the double decker. Shaking his head, he started walking to the front of the bus, but a scratching noise made him pause.
"Bloody rats," he muttered, his voice harsh with disuse.
A rhythmic tapping noise responded to his voice, and his head snapped around to look at the stairs.
"Hello?" he called.
Tapping again, louder this time.
"Oh my God. Hang on, I'm coming!"
The man in his stained and travel weary clothing leapt at the stairs, devouring them two at a time to get to the upper floor as quickly as he could.
But what greeted him wasn't salvation from loneliness.
The upper deck was carnage. Desiccated and savaged forms of a score of victims were strewn across broken seats, and the iron rich stench of blood permeated the air.
Tap, tap, tap.
Clancy locked eyes with what sat in the back seat of the bus, and his fingers clenched around the paper missile in his fist. It wouldn't be enough...
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Short StoryREAD my SHORTS! ('cos eating them isn't very tasty) - A collection of very short stories, micro-fiction, one-shots, drabbles, flash-fiction and other random stuff. Call 'em what you will, they're bite size little morsels from the brain of me. Crossi...
