“Slow down,” she whispered.
The vehicle’s speed reduced, and Clare saw they were surrounded by bone fragments. The off-white shapes littered the floor, sometimes gathering at the tunnel’s edges like leaves. They had all been broken into fragments, the marrow inside painstakingly sucked out. She didn’t think the bones belonged to humans. Or, at least, they hadn’t been human when they died.
Inside the bus was so quiet that Clare could hear her own heartbeat. Dorran leaned across the wheel, his breathing shallow as he tried to protect them against a threat they didn’t yet understand.
Then a pole-like shape loomed in the shadows ahead. Impossibly tall and thin, it stretched from the ground and towards the ceiling. Clare looked for any semblance of life—eyes, a mouth, limbs, anything—but couldn’t see it. The shape was grey and curved gradually, segmented in two places. It looked more like a street lamp than a hollow.
Dorran hit the brakes, pulling the bus to a shuddering halt.
The shape’s base rose off the floor, seemed to hover as it drifted towards them, then stabbed back down to land on the road. Its base was pointed and looked sharp.
It’s a leg. Clare’s heart skipped. She followed the shape up to where its top nearly vanished among the shadows of the ceiling… to where it merged with a body.
Five more legs descended from the malformed creature. Two of them glided forward, stabbing into the road, bringing the whole being into terrible relief. Legs bent as the body descended. Two heads attached to the distorted torso gaped at them: one near where the shoulder should be, the other in the centre of its chest. The eyes were witless, but the jaws stretched as it moved more of its impossibly long, stick-like legs to pace towards them. It was immense. The tunnel was wide enough for two lanes and high enough to carry trucks, and the hollow filled the entire space.
Dorran barked an involuntary noise, something between revulsion and fear. Colour had drained from his face as his wide eyes stared up at the creature. It raised one of its six legs. The tip looked horribly sharp. Clare had a sudden image of it piercing the roof of the bus, stabbing into them, impaling them. The metal structure was sturdy enough that the regular hollows couldn’t break inside, but something told her the enormous creature could cut through the metal like a can opener.
“Drive!” she screamed.
Clare wanted only to be away from the many-legged behemoth, and as far as her brain was concerned, driving faster would get them away from it. She had no time to reconsider the instruction or think about the fact that the creature blocked the road, because Dorran obeyed as soon as the word left her mouth. The engine roared, and the bus surged forward, ploughing towards the legs with reckless abandon.
He really shouldn’t trust me so much. The inane thought came out of nowhere, and through the haze of panic, Clare had the impulse to laugh. Instead, she reached forward and planted her arms into the dash in an effort to brace herself.
The legs blocked the road, as thick as young trees. Clare knew they had to be made of bone, though. And bone could be fragile if hit hard enough.
The raised leg aimed towards them and began to descend. The bus lurched as Dorran threw the wheel. Rubber screeched as they spun, and the limb stabbed into the place they would have been. A small crater appeared in the concrete as the sharpened tip impacted it.
Dorran swivelled the wheel back in the other direction, checking the bus before it could tip over. They were heading straight for one of the legs. There was no time to correct. Clare put her head down and squeezed her eyes closed. The seatbelt snapped hard into her chest as the impact threw her forward. A horrible cracking sound rattled around them. She saw the leg bend across the bus’s front. The bones splintered like a snapped branch, their shards poking through a thin layer of grey skin.
Then the leg rose, and the bus was charging forward, past the monster. Clare twisted to see behind them. In the faint red glow of their brake lights, the creature toppled. It seemed to move in slow motion, each of the six legs scraping off the floor as its centre of gravity dragged it down. Screams, wrenched out of two inhuman mouths, echoed through the tunnel as the body hit the ground. Clare’s last glimpse was of the sharpened leg tips twitching as they tried to right the body again.
Dorran didn’t make any sound. He sat back in his seat, eyes wide and unblinking, perspiration shining on his face as the odometer rose dangerously high. The bus rattled around them. Part of Clare wanted him to slow down. Another part wanted him to go even faster. Neither thought could be expressed. She had no breath left for anything except feeding oxygen into her racing heart.
Then light appeared ahead of them. The arch-like glow was one of the sweetest things Clare had ever seen.
“Slow,” Clare choked out, grabbing Dorran’s arm.
He tapped the brake, and the dangerous trajectory eased off as they neared the tunnel’s end. They were just in time. The road outside the tunnel curved sharply to the right, and Dorran had to slow to a crawl to handle the bend.
Then they were descending the mountain, once again surrounded by trees and light. The tunnel felt like a feverish nightmare, as though Clare had lost consciousness for twenty minutes before opening her eyes again, as though it couldn’t possibly have been real. But the bus’s front held a new, deep dent. Their memento from the creature’s spider-like leg.
Dorran and Clare didn’t speak as they descended the mountain. Dorran’s pulse jumped in his throat, and Clare let him focus on navigating the twisting roads. There was no chance to stop. Hollows had heard them coming and appeared through the trees. Soon, a new collection of the monsters darted through the shadows behind them, trying to catch up to the bus. Dorran kept the pace aggressive. Within another fifteen minutes, the path eased out into the foothills, and the trees cleared. Most of the hollows gave up as they lost their cover. The few persistent ones were soon lost as the open road allowed more speed.
Dorran drove until they reached a gentle hill with views of the land around them, then he pulled onto the side of the road and parked the bus. He turned to her and ran a hand over her neck. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” Her voice shook despite her best efforts.
Dorran exhaled, his shoulders dropping. “Stay here and keep warm. I’ll check there isn’t any damage to the engine.”
He brushed past her, opening the door, and a gust of cold air coiled over Clare. She shivered then watched through the cracked front window as Dorran wrenched the hood up. He wasn’t dressed for the cold; he wore only a shirt and light coat.
Clare retreated deeper into the bus, looking through the clothing stored in the baskets above the seats. She found two jackets and two scarves then swaddled one set around herself before opening the door and leaping out.
As Clare approached, Dorran lifted his head and smiled at the sight of the jacket. “Ah. Thank you.”
She helped him pull the coat on then tugged on the collar until he bent and let her wrap the scarf around his neck. “How’s it looking?”
“Not too bad, considering. It’s a hardy beast.”
Clare hung to his side as she watched him feel around the engine. The minibus had hit trees, been through water, and now, survived impact with the creature in the tunnel. The metal front had been twisted so badly that the hood didn’t shut properly. She silently thanked the bus for holding on for so long.