Read John Gone for Free Online Page B

feet below. Police say the bus was carrying
two-dozen people and crashed when the driver and passengers were
simultaneously stricken unconscious by an unknown cause. With the
driver asleep behind the wheel, the bus drifted off the road and
eventually down to this drainage ditch below, as you can see here
in the accident’s aftermath. Authorities say the injured are being
treated at a nearby hospital and that most survivors are not in
serious condition.
     
    The feed changed to a man lying in a hospital
bed with a bandaged eye. John recognized him immediately as the man
who’d been sitting across from him on the bus.
     
    We were just sitting there, you know, and all
of a sudden there was this like, blue light, but, uh, I only
remember seeing it for about a second. That’s all I remember. I
couldn’t really tell where it was coming from, but I think it was
inside the bus.
     
    The camera returned again to the attractive
young newscaster, who stood out starkly against the smoking
wreckage behind her. The right half of the bus was almost
unrecognizable, a twisted nest of metal and plastic caused by its
impact with the ground.
     
    What you just heard is the story told by most
of the survivors: a strange blue light, and after, everyone on the
bus, including the driver, unconscious. Here’s Jordan Ford speaking
with Detective Irving Meller who will attempt to speculate on
what’s happened here tonight. Detective Meller, what do--
     
    The story continued, but John could no longer
hear it. Twelve dead , he thought. Did I do this? His
head spun as his mind remembered each of the faces he’d seen on the
bus earlier that night. Who were they, and where were they headed
so late? Did some of them have families? Children? Which of them
survived and which are now crushed in that smoking wreckage he saw
on TV?
    John dropped to the couch in front of his
mother’s mug. Four used tea bags were strewn across the coffee
table next to it. So this is why Mom left. She must have seen
something about the crash on the news. What’s going to happen when
she doesn’t find me in the hospital? Damn it, Mom, why don’t you
have a cell phone like normal people!
    John heard a car pull up outside of the
house. That must be the policeman they were sending over, he
realized, jolting from his seat. He turned and saw the front door
still open behind him. A cruiser with its lights off was sitting in
the driveway, driver still inside. Further news on the accident
drew his attention back to the television.
     
    We’ve just had an update on the bus crash in
Clearwater that happened only half an hour ago. This footage was
pulled from the bus’ interior camera and clearly shows the light
that many of the victims reported. It seems to have come from this
man, who has not yet been found among the survivors or the
deceased.
     
    John looked at the screen and was surprised
to see a low-quality, black-and-white video recording of himself on
the bus and a bright light beetling out from his arm. As the light
faded, the bus’s twenty-two passengers were motionless, and he was
gone.
    The policeman’s voice called from just
outside the front door. “Hello? Is anyone in there?”
    John lowered to the floor and swiftly crawled
his way across the carpet to his mother’s bedroom. Softly, he
closed the door behind him.
    Making his way to the back door, John stopped
and looked at the top of his mother’s dresser. A dark-blue eyeliner
pencil rested against other small containers of assorted
make-up.
    He lifted a tissue from the nearby box and
quickly wrote: I’m fine. I promise. Don’t believe anything you
see or hear about me. I’ll explain. I love you.
    John carefully set the note on top of her
dresser and turned his attention back to escaping the officer in
the living room. Quietly, he opened the sliding glass door at the
back of her room and stepped out into the night. He could hear the
policeman inside his living room only a few feet away, offering the
house