Chapter 23
Time had passed, and it was Monday at 2:45 in the morning.
Gus drove the bus west down Interstate 80, maintaining fifty-five miles per hour.
They were halfway across the state of Pennsylvania. T
he highway was quiet with no cars since it was four in the morning.
Inside the closet in the bus, Danny and Cindy were passed out from being whacked on the back of their heads by Victor.
Then Danny’s eyelids slowly opened. He looked around the dark closet. He cringed in pain as he had a splitting headache from that 38 Special. He was a little dazed and confused as to where he was and what happened.
He felt the bus sway a little while Gus drove it down the Interstate. He heard the engine of the bus. It dawned on him where he was and what happened.
He should feel Cindy’s body leaning against him.
Danny squirmed to free his hands from the bonds of the duct tape.
“Ah,” Cindy moaned out from behind the duct tape. She opened her eyes and was a little dazed and confused. Then she cringed in pain from that 38 Special.
Danny and Cindy squirmed to get freed from their duct tape bonds. They could not.
Then Danny could feel the Gibson Acoustic guitar by his right side. He had an idea. He leaned over and ran his mouth across the strings on the fretboard. The strings sang out. He kept on running his mouth across the strings.
Over by the seats, The Rocking Tones were asleep.
Jackie’s eyes opened, as he was a light sleeper. He heard the sound of the strings of the Gibson guitar ringing out from the closet. “That’s odd,” he said while he got out of the seat.
He walked down the aisle and headed to the rear of the bus.
He walked to the closet where he still heard the strings of the acoustic guitar ringing from inside the closet. He got curious and opened up the closet door. “What the hell?” he said the second he saw Danny and Cindy sitting on the floor of the closet bounded by duct tape.
Danny and Cindy looked relieved when they saw Jackie looking down at them.
Jackie leaned down and ripped off the tape from Danny’s mouth.
“Ah,” Danny cried out in a little pain.
“Who did this?” Jackie asked.
“Roger,” Danny replied while Jackie slowly pulled off the tape from Cindy’s mouth.
“I need a knife,” Jackie called out then looked at Danny and Cindy. “I need a knife,” he yelled out a little louder.
A few seconds passed, and Delmar walked over to Jackie after he woke up. “Why do you need a knife?” he asked then he saw Danny and Cindy bounded in the closet. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Something strange is going on with Roger,” Jackie told Delmar.
Delmar reached in his pants pocket and removed a pocket knife. He opened it and started cutting the duct tape away from Danny’s hands.
Carter, Burt, and Sig walked up to Jackie and Delmar.
“What is going on back here?” asked Sig.
“Roger,” Jackie replied.
Then Sig, Carter, and Burt saw Delmar cutting away the duct tape bonds from Danny’s ankles.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” said Sig.
Jackie helped Danny out of the closet.
“Roger had some guys plant a bomb under the bus,” Danny said while Delmar started cutting away the duct tape bonds from Cindy’s hands.
“What?” Jackie asked as this sounded way too weird.
“Roger had some guy named Victor Burrows plant a bomb under the bus. It’s going to explode soon,” Danny said while Delmar cut away the duct tape from Cindy’s ankles.
“He’s telling the truth,” Cindy said while Delmar helped her out of the closet.
“What time is it?” asked Danny.
Sig looked at this watch. “Three in the morning.”
“We need to get off the bus, now,” Danny said then he grabbed Cindy’s hand.
He rushed her down the aisle and headed to the front of the bus.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Carter while they watched Danny and Cindy head toward Gus.
Danny rushed up to Gus while he drove with his mind on the road.
“What is going on back there?” Gus asked, thinking Danny was one of The Rocking Tones.
“Gus, you have to stop this bus. Roger had a bomb planted under by the engine,” said Danny.
Gus looks surprised it the sight of Danny and Cindy while he glanced over his right shoulder. “How did you get on this bus?”
“Stop the bus. There's a bomb underneath it!” Danny yelled out in a panic.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” said Gus, then he got a strange deja-vu feeling. “Why does this sound so familiar?”
“It's going to kill everybody in less than fifteen minutes,” Danny yelled out then he pondered his next move. Then he had an idea, a stupid one but his only choice.
Danny opened up the bus door and rushed down the stairs.
“What the fuck are you doing,” Gus asked while he saw Danny at the bottom step by the opened door. He slowed the bus down.
“We don’t have a choice, Cindy,” Danny said then he jumped out of the bus.
“What a dumbass!” Gus yelled then he slammed on the brakes.
Danny cleared the shoulder of the highway and landed in the grass.
Cindy rushed to the bottom of the steps and watched while Danny stopped tumbling in the grass on the side of the highway.
She jumped off the bus.
“What the fuck is wrong with those kids?” Gus said then he slammed on the brakes.
Jackie rushed up to the front of the bus. “What happened?”
“Those two reporters kids jumped off the bus. The one kid yelled out something about a bomb being on the bus,” Gus said.
Burt, Delmar, Carter, and Sig appeared behind Jackie.
“Where’s Chris and Sally?” asked Sig.
“They jumped off the bus,” replied Jackie while Gus pulled the bus off to the shoulder of the road.
“He must be serious about that bomb,” Delmar said.
Then the guys all looked at each other, and they all had the same feeling. They did not want to take a chance, so they all tried to squeeze down the stairs at the same time. Once they knew that would not work, they took turns running down the stairs and jumped off the bus.
Once they got out of the bus, they saw Danny and Cindy running toward Roger’s parked Corvette. He was parked way down the highway at a safe distance.
“What is going on here?” Jackie said then he rushed away from the bus and headed to Roger’s Corvette.
Gus, Burt, Delmar, Sig, and Carter all ran after Jackie.
Roger stepped out of his Corvette when he saw that the bus was stopped and everybody was out running after his car.
He rushed over to the front of his car. “Get back on that bus. We’ll be late getting to Chicago,” he yelled out.
“Give it back to me,” Danny yelled out while he ran closer to Roger.
Then to Roger’s surprise, Danny lunged at him. They tumbled to the pavement.
Roger got on top of Danny and started squeezing his neck. Danny gasped for air.
Then Cindy body slammed Roger knocking him off Danny. They both tumbled to the pavement.
Danny sat up and rubbed his neck. “He stole something vital to me,” he said, and his voice was a little strained from being chocked.
“What the fuck is going on here, Roger?” asked Jackie and started to get suspicious of Roger.
“Nothing is going here. We never should have let these two nut cases tag along with the band that’s all. Now get back on the bus. We have to be in Chicago for a noon concert,” yelled Roger.
“Roger had a mobster named Victor Burrows to place a bomb under the bus!” Danny blurted out.
Then Roger felt the iTravel 2 device start to buzz in his suit coat pocket. He got curious, reached in his pocket, and removed the device. He stared at it.
Danny jumped into action and quickly snatched the iTravel 2 device out of Roger’s hand.
Cindy knew what was going to happen next, so she jumped off Roger and jumped on Danny, sending him on his back.
Danny immediately wrapped his arms around Cindy’ body and hugged her tight with the iTravel 2 device in his hand.
Roger started to lunge after Danny but stopped the second he saw psychedelic colors shooting out from the iTravel 2 device. There were blue, red, orange, yellow, lime green, and blue that appeared in abstract shapes.
The colors slowly circled around Danny and Cindy’s body.
Roger, Gus, Walter, Harvey, Jackie, Delmar, Sig, Carter, and Burt watched in awe. They stepped away a little scared of those lights.
“What’s with those wild colors?” asked Sig.
They all watched while the psychedelic colors in abstract shapes engulfed Danny and Cindy’s body.
“What a crazy show,” Burt said.
“What the hell’s going on?’ asked Gus.
“That's totally amazing,” added Jackie.
Then everybody watched while those psychedelic colors started spinning at supersonic speeds around Danny and Cindy.
Then they watched Danny and Cindy suddenly disappeared, and the psychedelic colors were gone in a trail of light that dissipates into the sky in a flash.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Burt.
“Man, I never had sex like that with a chick,” Sig replied.
“Go figure,” said Delmar.
Carter and Burt chuckled.
Sig shrugged off their snide comment.
They saw that the gravel in the lot where he vanished was now a four-foot circle of glowing psychedelic colors in the road.
While they looked at the glowing psychedelic colored circle, they did not notice while Roger gingerly headed back to his Corvette.
Sig bent down to grab one of the rocks.
“I wouldn’t do that, you might burn the tips of your fingers clean off,” said Jackie while he was leery of that circle and stepped away.
“How can he just vanish into thin air?” Delmar asked while he looked up in the night sky.
“Do you think he was some type of Alien? And a spaceship beamed him back?” asked Burt while he looked up at the sky for an Alien spaceship.
Jackie looked like he had a déjà-vu feeling. “Why does this seem so familiar?
Carter, Burt, and Sig glanced over at Jackie. They all had that same déjà vu feeling.
Then they all look confused while they stare at the empty spot where Danny and Cindy were once alive.
Then the sound of Rogers’s Corvette racing in reverse was heard.
“Where's he going?” Jackie asked while they all watched Roger’s Corvette to a screeching one hundred eighty turn.
They all watched while Roger's Corvette raced away down the highway in the wrong direction in the right lane.
Then the bus exploded into a massive fireball. The shock waves sent Gus and The Rocking Tones in the air and slammed on the pavement.
Meanwhile, back at Walter’s Diner, Harvey was cleaning up the kitchen.
The door of the Ladies Room opened, and Walters stepped inside with a mop in hand.
He went inside the stall to the left. Then his eyes widened the second he stepped inside and saw “Tell the FBI that Roger planted a bomb on the bus of The Rocking Tones" written with red lipstick on the stall wall.
“Nothing but bullshit,” he said then he grabbed his mop, and he started to wash off Cindy’s message.