Free Pack Animals by Peter Anghelides Page B

the passengers more audible.
    A black and white cab was squished up onto the pavement between Wendleby’s and the overturned rear section of the bus. Owen jumped on the bonnet, then over its cracked ‘For Hire’ sign and up onto the side of the bus. He traversed the length of the coachwork, sensing the metal panels give beneath his weight as he approached the front. The DragonLine emblem, a stylised motif in red and green, twisted its way down the painted body, as though marking out a path for him. At the snarling head of the painted dragon, the orange lights of the destination board in its jaws flashed intermittently, unable to decide where the bus was headed; 207 Lisvane via Llanishen stuttered into 102 Victoria Park and back again.
    There was a banging sound from beneath his feet. Owen looked down and saw a scared face looking up at him in desperation. A middle-aged woman hammered with a bloodied fist against the entry doors, slamming against strips of glass that had now become the ceiling that trapped her inside the bus. She forced her fingers through the rubber seal, desperate to pry the doors apart. The blood on her fingers made it too slick to grasp, and her fingers slipped out of sight. She smacked against the glass in utter frustration, leaving a smeared bloody palm print on the glass.
    Owen waved her away, hit the emergency door control, and kicked hard on the doors. They flick-flacked open, and he dropped carefully through the gap.
    The bus was filled with terrified shouts and screams. The noise worried Owen most. Since he’d lost his senses of touch and taste and smell, he’d become more attuned to sights and sounds. With one side of the vehicle pressed against the pavement, half of the windows were now obscured which meant the flickering lights cast a twilight pall over the interior.
    An angry man in his twenties tried to seize Owen’s lapels, but Owen eased him aside. ‘I’m a doctor,’ he said loudly but calmly. ‘Let me help these people. You seem to be mobile?’
    The angry man looked a little cowed.
    ‘Good,’ continued Owen briskly. ‘So help these people climb out of the front doors. I’ll check on the others.’
    In the crash, passengers on the left had been thrown forward and to the right. People struggled to free themselves from the piled bodies crushed against the roadside windows. As the walking wounded struggled forward to the newly opened doors, Owen decided to start his triage at the back of the vehicle. He stepped gingerly on the edges of seats, making his way to the rear, calling for calm. Bodies slumped against windows that were etched in red where blood had seeped through the cracked glass. And beyond that, the stark grey of the road. Hands grasped at his legs as he passed. He muttered apologies for not stopping, and promised to return.
    Owen reached the rear of the bus at last, and started to offer advice about raising injured limbs and applying pressure to wounds. He knew he himself would be unable to detect pulses, so he directed willing passengers to assist, indicating where they should feel for the carotid or radial arteries.
    A woman who might have been in her forties was crying softly, saying over and over that she couldn’t stay, her daughter would be waiting, she needed her mobile phone.
    ‘What’s your name, my love?’ Owen asked her.
    ‘Shona,’ said the woman. ‘I’m going to be late for my daughter.’
    She was wedged in among the bent steel of a seat. She stared up at Owen, her hands clutching the mangled metal frame. As Shona tried to lever herself out, her eyes pleaded with him.
    ‘Give me a hand,’ demanded a grey-haired man, nudging Owen’s arm.
    ‘It doesn’t hurt, Daniel,’ said Shona. ‘It’s just, I’m stuck.’
    ‘We only just met,’ said the grey-haired guy. ‘Bloody funny time to make new acquaintances. Anyway, barely a scratch on her. Let’s get her out of here.’
    Owen tugged him aside and spoke directly into the man’s ear.