For now, he stared nervously behind them and felt his guts clench up when the silver car came into view two lanes over. It was still far back, but accelerating. Clearly, they knew they had been evaded. Up ahead two big rig trucks blocked the two righthand lanes, and Carter could see the next bus stop not far ahead of them. “If you can pass these trucks, you could drop us off at the next stop,” he told the driver, who immediately stepped on the gas and switched into the leftmost lane in order to pass the eighteen wheelers.
But this lane change did no go smoothly, for just as he switched into the new lane, the driver of the car in that lane ahead of them braked suddenly, and the car rammed into the back of it. Carter and Jayden braced for the impact, now thankful to be wearing seatbelts, as the small SUV ahead of them was pushed left until it spun out and tipped on two wheels. For one horrifying second, Carter thought it was going to tip over, but it plopped back onto all four wheels amidst a screech of rubber that left deep black skid marks. But the incident started a chain reaction. The cab was rear-ended by the car behind them, not terribly hard, but just hard enough for Carter to wonder if they were going to have whiplash. Another car careened into their front right quarter panel, sending a column of steam up from the hood.
The cabbie uttered a curse as he lifted his hands from the wheel in a gesture of futility. He turned around to address his passengers as all traffic slowed to a stop behind them, in all lanes. “If you want to catch that bus, go now. This is not your fault, it was mine. But my company will pay for it. You do not need to stay, you have done your part,” he said, patting his shirt breast pocket which was full of their cash.
“Thank you,” both of them said. “We’re sorry for the damage,” Carter added. He pushed open the right-side door and he and Jayden exited the cab, closing the door after them. He looked around, mostly behind them, but also ahead and laterally, but couldn’t see the silver car. He thought it might be about ten cars back, but couldn’t be certain. He pointed to the bus stop. “Let’s get to it before the bus does or we’ll be sitting ducks on the side of the road.”
For right now, the bus had pulled over to the shoulder of the right lane, but most of the pileup was in the left-most lane, and already other vehicles in the right lane were starting to ease back into traffic. This opportunity to reach the stop before the bus wouldn’t last long. He and Jayden ran toward the stop, which featured a simple open bench with a sign on a pole next to it. No other people waited there.
Jayden threaded his way through traffic with the grace of an NFL running back, while Carter, a tad slower, took an alternate route that was more in his comfort zone. After enduring a few choice gestures and horn honks from frazzled drivers, along with one person who asked them if they were all right and were they in the accident, the pair of treasure-seekers reached the other side of the road in front of the bus stop.
“Nothing like a real life game of Frogger to wake you up!” Jayden exclaimed, resting with his hands on his knees.
“I like being able to put another quarter in if I die,” Carter huffed. He eyed the traffic to their left and saw that the bus was almost to them. He raised a hand to indicate to the driver they wanted to board.
“Any sign of our tail?” he asked Jayden, who also stared in that direction. He replied in the negative.
“Then let’s get on.”
“Only one problem with that,” Jayden said. “I’m out of cash. You got any?”
Carter shook his head. “Gave it all to the cabbie.”
Jayden shrugged. “When I was a kid going to school on the public bus in Seattle, sometimes I’d spend my bus fare on candy bars at the 7-11 and then have to talk my way onto the bus.”
“How’d you do that?” Carter asked as the bus air brakes belched and the doors opened. “Just kind of pretend like I’m digging around in my pockets for the fare and then, if the bus was crowded enough, sort of shuffle off down the aisle and hope the driver didn’t notice.”
Carter laughed. “And if he did notice?”
“Usually some adult would take pity on me and give me the fare.”
“Somehow I’m not so sure that’ll work for you these days. But let’s hope it does, because don’t look now, but I see the silver sedan coming up back there. Let’s get on before they see us!”
He and Jayden waited for an elderly couple to disembark at a painfully slow rate, the man helping the woman down step by step, steadying her when she was on the ground before hobbling off together. Jayden boarded the bus first, while Carter was close behind, glancing back behind the bus at the silver sedan as it switched from the same lane the bus was in to the middle lane.
“You go to the airport, right?” Jayden asked the driver, an older woman with curly silver hair.
“Just like the sign says,” she said, pointing to the electronic sign inside the bus that read, AIRPORT.
“Perfect, thanks!” Turning to Carter, he said, “Yep, it goes to the airport!”
“Great.” He and Jayden took a couple of steps away from the driver toward the back of the bus, hoping she would start to drive away, but she only sat there, looking at them expectantly. The bus was not crowded, with plenty of empty seats stretching all the way to the back. “So much for your childhood ways,” Carter muttered to Jayden under his breath.
“I need your fares, gentlemen,” the driver said loudly in an exasperated tone.
“Uh, right, hold on,” Jayden said before beginning a show of looking through his pockets, then his small backpack he had purchased at the hotel gift shop. Carter did the same. “I’m flat broke,” he grumbled to Jayden. “Turn around!” He could see the silver sedan approaching the bus in the next lane. He and Jayden faced the sidewalk, hunching over a little.
“Listen, you two, if you don’t have the fare ready, you’ll have to get it ready while you wait for the next bus. There’ll be another one coming along in twenty minutes.”
“We could ask if anyone has it, just straight up beg,” Jayden said in a low voice.
But Carter shook his head. “Probably it would work, and it’s not that I’m beneath it, but I don’t like the idea of calling that much attention to ourselves. Bus isn’t that crowded, but there’s still like twenty people back there. I’d rather just make a deal with the driver directly, that way only one person will remember us.”
“Okay, you got anything to trade for fares?” Jayden looked his body up and down, lingering on his Omega dive watch, a gift from Carter’s grandfather upon graduating naval officer school worth thousands of dollars.
“Not that,” Carter said shaking his head.
Jayden nodded and instead glanced at his own wristwatch, a relatively cheap Casio digital with high-tech bells and whistles such as a barometer, compass, and elevation readout. He unstrapped the gadget from his wrist. “I don’t know how I’ll know what time the moonrise and low tide is anymore without this thing, but I suppose it’s the price I’ll have to pay.”
He held out the watch and stepped up to the driver. “Look, this thing’s all I got. It’s worth a couple hundred American. We can’t wait for another bus or we’ll miss our flight. It’s not refundable and we’d be out thousands of dollars.”