Chapter 12
After about 5 minutes, the lights on the bus went out. Remember this was about 7:00 at night, so its dark outside. I started looking all around me to find something I could see; useless. My heart was racing and my head was pounding. I was freaking out, but I didn’t move an inch. I didn’t get out of my seat. Then, came a scream to my left. It was so loud and right in my ear. It was high pitched-enough to brake glass (surprised that it didn’t)-and real squeaky.
I think I was def for a split second. Ow! I heard shuffling, but with a little dim light from outside, I couldn’t see much. I didn’t see a few silhouettes bumping into each other. What the hell is going on was the only thing running through my head. I wanted to ask it out loud, but something wasn’t letting me speak. It felt as if my heart would beat right out of my body.
I could have swore that everyone heard it beating several thousand miles an hour. A bright light came from a little behind me and shadowed my left. They opened the back door to let us out. I heard one woman ask what the hell is going on.
Guess she didn’t hear the driver. There’s traffic all around us, I noticed. Some people are out of their cars watching the whole thing go down. In the next minute, I heard sirens going off in all directions (except the front of us since we were falling off the bridge!) Cops. Some stopped, some kept going. I still haven’t gotten out of my seat, but I turned my body a little to the man saying,
“Ma’am.” I realized I have to get off the bus. I will my feet to move, but for another minute, I stay still. I finally stand up and quickly make my way to the back of the bus. My walk is wobbly and my legs shake like a son of a bitch. At the very edge of the back of the bus, I reach out for the man’s hand.
His hand felt cold and stiff like a statues. The bus rocked a bit which made my grasp on the man’s hand loosen. I thought I was about to go down, but as I tried to steady my stance, it stopped. I reached out for the man’s hand again. As soon as I touched his on finger, the bus started to tip downward. I tried as hard as I could to grab on to the man, but it was useless. I started freaking the hell out. I could feel my heart lodged in my throat and tears rolled down my cheeks. I was scared as hell. Then, there was nothing I could do to stay where I was. In the next minute, I lost my footing and slammed into the front of the bus.
It hurt the hell out of my back. As I tried to look out the window behind me with my head spinning, I couldn’t see much. But I knew that, with the bus, I was falling off the bride. My head was spinning so fast. But, it wasn’t just my head. I was spinning. Spinning on a bus down 75 feet to cold, painful water of a river. My back ached like never before and I knew it was about to get worse from the fall.
There was nothing I could do. How could I stop falling 75 feet with nothing to hang onto? I wanted to scream. I tried to scream, but (again) nothing came out. There was nothing to do, but wait for my life to come to an end of hitting the water. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to calm down, tired to breathe better, tried to stop the pounding in my head.