Free Draugr by Arthur Slade Page B

perfect.
    A short while later we pulled up at the bus depot. Two cars and a pickup truck were parked in front. There was a coffee shop right there and a laundromat. Neither seemed very busy. A Grey Goose bus sped past us, momentarily blocking the sunlight.
    â€œIs this where we catch the bus?” Angie asked once we had parked. “It looks different in the day.”
    â€œThis is it.” Althea opened her door. “I’ll go inside and get your tickets. It’s plenty hot out, so why don’t you three have a seat over there?” She pointed at a bench next to the depot. “The bus should be here in about ten minutes.”
    We got out of the truck, our suitcases and overnight bags in hand. My luggage felt like someone had stuffed twenty bricks inside. We trudged over and collapsed onto the bench. Althea disappeared into the station. The door squealed as it closed.
    â€œThis sucks,” Michael announced. “It’s just completely wrong.”
    I agreed with him. But I had no will to move or to say anything else. I felt sapped of my strength. Empty and tired.
    A hot, dry wind came up, twirling with dust and scraps of paper. It twisted its way against the side of the building and right over us and seemed to hover there. I coughed, rubbed at my eyes. A second later the mini-tornado was gone, but I was still trying to clear my throat. A pound of dirt had found its way onto my face and into my hair.
    I heard the door squeak open again.
    â€œAre you alright?” Althea asked. Her voice sounded muffled. Were my ears filled with dust? She had three tickets in her hand. “You sound like you have something stuck in your throat.”
    â€œThe . . . wind,” I answered. Then coughed again before I could say any more.
    â€œMaybe I’ll get you all a drink before you go.” She turned and went back into the depot.
    At the same moment I heard a screeching, scraping noise that sounded like metal being twisted and torn in two. The bus was here, slamming on its brakes, bringing another cloud of dust with it. My coughing doubled. The bus went by only a few feet away from us and I glimpsed tinted windows and a bus driver with sunglasses. I knew already that I was doomed to sit beside the most boring person in North America and listen to his or her stories about what it was like to be a kid.
    For hours on end.
    I stood, choking now.
    â€œSarah?” Angie asked. “You gonna be okay?”
    â€œNo . . .” I mumbled. The dirt was clinging to the inside of my throat. “Just gonna go . . . to the bathroom. Wash my face. Gargle water too.”
    I stumbled away from the bench and into the coffee shop. I pushed open the door into the ladies’ room. There I twisted on the taps and wet my face with cold water. Then I bent down and gulped a few mouthfuls of icy, bland-tasting water. It woke me up and my coughing slowly died. I ripped off a paper towel and dabbed at the excess water. It was like drying my face with sandpaper.
    When I looked in the mirror, I almost scared myself. My hair was wild. There were black bags hanging below my eyes. The stress of the night before had worn lines in my face, deep creases. I looked like one of those old rock stars who should have settled down years ago. Was my face going to stay this way?
    But there was something else I hadn’t seen before in any of my family pictures. A hardness. A strength. It was revealed in the shape of my jaw, in the steadiness of my eyes—a look that reminded me of my grandfather. A similarity. Passed down through the ages.
    Blood of my blood. That’s what he was. And he was in danger . . . a danger I was beginning to realize even the police couldn’t save him from.
    I drew in my breath. Straightened my back, heard it crack.
    I looked around, not sure why—like there was something in the bathroom that I needed to find.
    The window was set low in the wall, open to let in the