Graham Masterton - Revenge of the Manitou

A cop in aviator sunglasses waved Neil to the side of the road.

“I’m sorry, fellow. You’re going to have to turn around and go back. The road’s going to be closed here for quite a white.”

Neil said, “My boy’s on that bus. I’m Neil Fenner. His name is Toby Fenner.”

The cop said, “You got some proof of that?”

Neil handed over his driver’s license. The cop scrutinized it, nodded, and gave it back. Then he pointed to the rough pull-off just before the bridge itself. “Park your vehicle there, please, off the highway. Then cross to the other side of the road and make yourself known to that officer with the bullhorn.” Neil said, “Are they okay so far? The kids?” The cop tugged at the peak of his cap. “As far as we know, sir. But nobody’s been able to get within fifty feet of the bus, and we can’t raise any answers with the bullhorn. A couple of officers got themselves hurt real bad.”

“I heard,” Neil told him.

Turning off the road, Neil parked the pickup where the cop had directed him. Then he and Harry and Singing Rock climbed out, and surveyed the place that Misquamacus had chosen for his battleground.

The creek was deep and wide here, and the bridge spanned almost three hundred feet. It was a straightforward, two-lane bridge, with a crisscross steel balustrade running along each side. A sign warned that it was forbidden to dive from the bridge into the creek, but Neil could remember seeing kids jumping off the railing into the water below just for the hell of it. It was a fifty-foot drop, but if the creek was flowing well, it was safe enough.

On the other side of the bridge was a wide dusty area which visiting tourists used as a motor-home park. The Highway Patrol had cleared it now and fenced it off. A police helicopter had landed there, and Neil could see a very senior police officer climbing out.

Halfway across the bridge stood the yellow school bus. It was parked diagonally across the highway, so that only a motorcyclist could have passed by on either side of it. It was still and silent, and its doors were closed. What was strangest of all, though, was that its windows were all blank white, and it was impossible to see what was going on inside it.

Neil said, “What’s that stuff on the windows? I can’t see a damn thing.”

Singing Rock shaded his eyes, and then nodded. “As I thought. It’s ice.”

“Ice? In this heat?”

“Almost certainly. Within that bus, they have opened a gateway to the outside, and the outside is colder than anything you could possibly imagine.”

“If it’s colder than my apartment on a February night, then it’s cold,” said Harry.

Neil shaded his eyes, too, and examined the bus more carefully. Apart from the whorls of frost and ice on the windows, the ventilators on the roof were encrusted with ice, and even the highway itself sparkled with frozen crystals for ten or fifteen feet around.

“They must be dead,” he whispered. “No human being could survive in that kind of temperature.”

“No, they’re not dead,” Singing Rock told him. “They’re in a trance, of a kind, because they’re preparing the gateway for the arrival of their gods and demons. If you could look inside that bus now, you’d probably see them sitting quite still in their seats, and the whole place would be totally dark and cold. You’d think they were dead, but they’re not. This is what they have to do before Nepauz-had appears, in order to make it possible for Nashuna and Pa-la-kai and Ossadagowah to manifest themselves.”

Neil said, “Hadn’t we better go talk to that officer in charge? Tell him what we know?”

Harry lit a cigarette and shrugged. “I don’t suppose he’ll believe us for one minute. I vote we do what we have to do without telling anybody.”

“But how can we? They may be planning to use weapons, and then what’s going to happen?”

Singing Rock rested his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “NeiFs right,” he said. “There could be terrible consequences if the police decide to use their weapons. At the moment, they don’t know what they’ve got on their hands. A mysterious busload of children with frozen windows, and a police car that’s blown up. They’re going to tread wary. But when the medicine men start bringing down the first of the demons, then it’s going to be all hell around here, and we could just as easily get ourselves killed as anybody else. Bullets, as a New York taxi driver once told me, ain’t got eyes.”

Harry blew out smoke. It seemed to hang where he had exhaled it, a motionless cloud in the still, humid air. Across the lake, it was now so dark that it was impossible to distinguish the hills on the opposite shore, and the water itself seemed to be heaving and foaming in unhealthy excitement.

“Okay,” he agreed. “But if you can convince the Highway Patrol that there are twenty-two medicine men in there, you’re a better man than I am, Singing Rock.”

The three of them walked across the road to where a group of seven or eight policemen were watching the bus and talking among themselves. One of them had a map spread out on the roof of a patrol car, and he seemed to be discussing the possibility of bringing skyhook helicopters in across the lake to lift the bus bodily off the bridge.

“The trouble is, we have a cold factor which is unknown,” he was saying, “and we also have no idea what’s going on in that vehicle. The last thing we can afford is to injure children unnecessarily.”

Neil introduced himself. The police captain was an officer of the old school, with a uniform that looked as if it had only just come back from the dry cleaner, and shoes polished to the brilliance of fresh-poured tar. His face was ruddy and blemished with liver spots, but his eyes were small and intense, like a polecat’s, and his mustache was neat and prickly.

“I’m Captain Myers, Highway Patrol,” he said, extending his hand. “Are these two gentlemen parents, too?”

Harry said, “I wish I was, but you know how it is. My date got the chicken pox.”

The captain frowned. “We’re trying to keep unauthorized people away from this area.

We have a serious and delicate problem here, with a great many young lives at stake, and we really don’t need civilian interference.”

In his quietest, most dignified voice, Singing Rock said, “Captain Myers, we believe we know what’s happening here, and we believe we may be able to prevent a disaster, if you let us try.”

“Who are you?” demanded Captain Myers.

“They call me John Singing Rock. I am a medicine man from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. A Sioux.”

“You’re an Indian medicine man?” asked Captain Myers, in disbelief.

“That’s correct.”

“Well,” said the captain, with a barely suppressed smile, “I’ve had some offers of help from all kinds, of people. Firemen, wrestlers, circus people, you name it. But you’re the first Indian, medicine man.”

“Captain Myers,” said Harry, “he’s serious. What’s going on here is directly concerned with Red Indian magic. If you’re going to get those children out of there alive, then you’re going to have to listen to what he’s got to say.”

“Who are you, his caddy?” asked Captain Myers.

“No, sir. I just happen to be one of the only living people who’s ever seen what the hell it is you’ve got in that bus there.”

“You’re one of the only living people who’s ever seen children? What are you trying to tell me?”

“Not children,” put in Singing Rock. “Not children at all. But the reincarnated bodies of twenty-two ancient Indian medicine men.”

Captain Myers paused for a moment, looking from Neil to Harry to Singing Rock and back again.

“Sergeant,” he said coldly, “I want these men escorted away from here. I want them to get the hell out. I also want you to take their names and their addresses, so that I can bust all three of them for obstructing the police at a critical and dangerous time.”