12:45pm. Wednesday, 12th.
Will's palm itched to turn on the radio but earlier when he did, the old lady in the bus started yelling that he should turn it off saying that her husband hates listening to the radio. The funny thing is that her husband wasn't even on the bus, it was just the old lady accompanied by her granddaughter but with the way she made a show over him turning it on, he just had to turn it off. He felt his head aching and he just wanted the radio on to take his mind off his pain.
He sighed, focusing his eyes back on the road. He had better things to think about. For one, the marriage he had agreed to before leaving. His fingers drummed on the steering wheel as he ruminating on the deal.
By this time tomorrow, he'd be engaged and he could finally find out what really happened twelve years ago with one of Tigey motor's drivers. Somebody was covering up something. He didn't know who. But when he marries Catherine and once David is out of the way, he'd know for sure what was going on.
He cringed at his thought process. Once David is out of the way? He liked the old man but he didn't want him dead. The cancer he mentioned was so sudden and Williams couldn't help but get suspicious.
Beside him in the passengers seat, the girl pulled her phone away from her ears slowly and it fell landing on her laps. Finally, she was done with that long phone call. Not that it disturbed him or anything, she was just too quiet through out the call that he started wondering what the person on the other end was telling her.
From his peripheral, Williams could see her muttering something. This girl was clearly out of sorts.
He glanced at her, "Are you okay?"
She didn't bother to answer him or even look his way.
He tried one more time. "Is something wrong?"
Again, she ignored him and continued her muttering but it was getting a bit... loud.
"... disgrace..."
Williams caught just that one word. The road before him was clear and there wasn't a car insight so he took his eyes off the road.
"Are you okay? What are you saying? Is something wrong?" He asked all at once.
The first role of passengers behind his seat looked up to see what was going on.
Williams stretched his hands to touch the girl. Her palms were fisted and when he pulled at them, he saw the sharp edge of a blade and his breathe caught in his throat as he glanced back at her.
What was she doing with a blade?
How did she even get one?
She must have grabbed it from wherever she got it between the time of her phone falling and him turning back to the road.
The passengers behind him must have seen the blade too because they started fidgeting.
One of them, a young man in corporate clothes, sat up and leaned into the space between Williams' seat and the girl's.
"What is the problem?" His question was directed at the girl.
Williams turned his eyes back to the road. Still no cars. Then back at the girl.
Her words were now clear.
"They don't want me. There's no need to go back. They don't want me." Her grip on the blade was so sharp that it started cutting into her palm. Blood trickled down her hand but still she wasn't moving. Just speaking.
"You're hurting yourself, girl." The man said. He attempted to pry the blade from her hands but immediately his hand touched hers, she screamed out punching him and he fell back against his chair.
She turned to the window, her head bent and Williams couldn't see what she was doing but he knew.
She was going to cut her self.
He pulled back on her shoulders to get her to face him but she kept shrugging his hand away.
"Stop!" He yelled.
She wasn't listening.
The man from behind him appeared again and dragged both of her arms behind her.
"ARGHHHH!" The girl screamed out, hysterical now. "Leave me alone, let me do it! Let me do it! Let me do it!"
By now, everyone was already on edge. Trying to see as much as they could from their seats.
"Calm down! Calm down!" The man screamed. "Just calm down!"
"They don't want me! Let me do it!"
Williams pressed his hands down on her leg when she started kicking around. This girl was crazy.
Somewhere at the back, that old woman shouted too.
"Stop yelling. My husband doesn't like that!"
"Grandma calm down. Grandpa isn't here." Her granddaughter said.
"You leave me alone, you can't see him? He's right there."
Williams couldn't see where she was pointing too, and heck, he didn't even care. Why did he have to be on bus duty today of all days?
"Just stop moving!" The man was still trying to calm the girl down.
"Okay, okay. I'm calm." The girl screamed out silencing every other chatter in the bus. "I'm calm."
Williams stared at her still cautious, his hand slowly lifting from her legs.
When he glanced back at the road, there was a man standing there, smack dab in the middle.
Williams panicked and in a bid to avoid him, he swerved the bus right into the woods.
12:45pm. Wednesday, 12th.
A faint call back rang in his ear. He was somewhere laying down on his back, he tried lifting his hand to put little pressure on his banging head but it didn't budge.
It was stuck.
He tried opening his eyes and what was at first blurry became a bit clear. He was still in the bus but not in his seat.
Glancing down, he caught sight of what was keeping him from moving. Someone was laying on his arm and he couldn't get a good view of who it was.
He bobbed his head sideways to get a good look at where he was. A broken window was right beside him and outside the window, he saw grass and that's when he realised that the bus was on its sides.
The crash.
The bus has crashed. He remembered the sound of the tiers screech on the paved road and the screams of the passengers.
Everything rushed back into his head so suddenly.
The person beside him was Tunde.
Winn's eyes came into full focus as he pulled his hand out from under Tunde. When he had gotten it free, he tapped Tunde trying to get him to wake up but Tunde didn't budge.
He heard movement from the back of the bus as people came to. They had crashed and didn't know who was injured and who wasn't alive.
"No!!!" A shrill cry came from one of the passengers but Winn couldn't see. "Anne! Anne!! Hei! Anne!!"
Like a drunkard just waking up with a hangover, the cry pierced into his brain and he almost passed out again.
Tunde still wasn't moving.
"Tunde." Winn voiced out thinking calling his name would work since touching him wasn't. "Tunde, get up." Still nothing.
Winn sat up and looked at the people at the back. Passed all the bags that had falling out of their compartments. Some people were trying to find a way out, and others focused on the girl, Anne. Winn recognised her as one of the teens he saw before boarding the bus. He hoped she was okay.
He turned his focused back to his seat partner but Tunde still wasn't moving.
"Is everybody okay?" The driver asked.
Tunde wasn't moving.
"Driver, what happened?! Why did you just turn like that?"
"Ma'am please calm down. Let's come out and make sure everyone is okay first."
"Make sure everyone is okay? Are you not hearing that woman at the back trying to get her daughter to wake up? Everyone is not okay! You've almost killed us!"
Winn curled his fingers into a fist and hit Tunde on the arm. He didn't care if he was being rude or not, he wasn't moving.
"Let me open the door, you guys at the back can start coming out, I'll find a way to open this passengers door."
Winn heard a faint click and the bus door opened above him ushering in a bright wave of afternoon sun.
But Tunde wasn't moving.
Winn went back to the time his dad had died. It was the first time he had witnessed death and he prayed never to see it again. But Tunde wasn't moving.
People squeezed out of the bus one after the other.
Somewhere at the back, Anne's mother had found a way to lift her out with help from a boy Winn guessed was roughly around his age.
It was just him and Tunde left and the driver squirming his way to the back seat so he could come out.
He noticed Winn.
"What are you still doing here?" Then he noticed Tunde. "He's not waking up?"
Winn shook his head.
"Help me, let's carry him out."
Winn didn't know how he was able to move but he and the driver successfully lifted Tunde out of the bus and onto the grass outside.
The rest of the passengers were littered around the bus. Their faces held anxiety, fear, and some held anger.
Anne was a few feet away coughing vigorously and her mother had her pressed against her chest.
So Anne was alive.
Winn knelt beside Tunde to check for a pulse, something he had always wanted to do since he chose medicine as his field of study.
He didn't feel a pulse. Maybe he wasn't doing it right.
"Is he still alive?" The driver asked.
"I don't know, I can't feel anything."
"Let me check." A young lady in trousers and plain t-shirt moved into Winn's view and squatted beside Tunde. She pressed two of her fingers to the side of his neck and waited.
"Are you a doctor?" Winn asked.
"My sister is a practitioner, she showed me how to do it."
"Does he have a pulse? Is he... dead?"
The lady paused for a moment, a very long moment before taking her hands off his neck and resting back.
"He didn't make it." She sounded sympathetic like she knew Tunde. Winn didn't know him either. None of them did. But here was laying dead on a grass with no family to give his last words to. "Was he your brother?"
"No. I met him on the bus."
From his peripheral, he saw the woman from before who was yelling at the driver storm towards them.
"What happened? Don't you know how to drive again? People could have died!"
Tunde had died.
"I'm deeply sorry." The driver pleaded. "This man just came and stood in front of the bus, I didn't want to run him over."
"That's because you were not paying attention! If you were, you would have seen him on time. You would have avoided him."
"Which man did you see?" The person that asked that emerged from behind the cluster of passengers beside the bus. An man well into his 60's with grey hair and beard. His hand held a white handkerchief that he used to dab his forehead every now and then as he spoke.
"You saw him too, right? You were the one in the passenger seat. He just came and stood right there."
The old man stared at the driver with narrowed gaze. "I'm afraid I didn't see anyone on the road. Are you hundred percent sure you saw someone?"
The driver went quiet.
"I... I'm positive. But..."
"But what?" The woman asked.
"It was my uncle I saw." He glanced up at the old man. "But my uncle is dead."