Chapter 80

Chapter 80: Chapter 14 Bus Terminal

Wells has been ‘working’ in Grande for six days already. Zach has overestimated the efficiency of this civil servant, and his investigation was only halfway through! Looking at Wells who was ‘going to work and getting off work’ on time every day, Zach was a little disappointed, because we all know that he wanted the bait to be bitten, but now, Wells seems to be still hanging on the hook.

With the investigation of the funeral records, Zach also got busy during the day. There were many phone calls from the Western District discussing the grave removal, and a lot of them had a similar status to Quinn and Barton, so Zach didn’t dare to neglect any of the calls. Benjamin also got busy, and some farmers around the Grande were recruited to clean up the tomb area on a large scale. The barren scene that Mrs. Quinn once saw became more in line with the neatness of a cemetery.

Alice could have been very free, but for the charity of her friend Lola, she prepares snacks for sale in the kitchen every day.

Zach’s night visits using hypnotizing eyes for several days in a row were not effective, because “Word of mouth” is too difficult to track, even with the help from the mainline analyzed by James and the sixth sense of witchcraft by the Gale couple. But the news that Wells wanted to win the lottery and resign was like a dandelion blown away by the wind, scattered everywhere. All Zach could do was wait.

Two more people committed suicide, which was not surprising because Zach had already seen these two names in the list given by the Gale couple. James Rance followed the advice of the vampire and tried to find out who might have died once, but his investigation was not going well. He called up the list of accidents that happened around the last month, except for the Port of Massa where Trisha’s husband Todd worked, accidents have occurred everywhere, especially in Ford’s cemetery.

Because construction and public outrage were going on at the same time, there were often large and small incidents. The names of those who might have been brought back to life by Papa Midnight after their death could only be given to the Gale Couple to check one by one, so the progress was very slow. What made James feel helpless the most was that the kidnapping case he and Coulson investigated has not made any progress and was about to face closure and return to the suicide conclusion.

It may be nothing to Coulson, but for James, who already knew part of the truth, it was simply torture! The result of that was that James often came to harass Zach, making Zach a little annoyed.

At about three o’clock in the afternoon, Lola arrived as scheduled. Benjamin and Alice had prepared their tools and were waiting. Zach also wanted to change his mood, and more importantly, avoiding James’ frequent phone harassment, so he prepared for a while, left the Grande Funeral Home to Old Hank and Louise, and went to the Parker Primary School as well.

Today is Friday, and Lola did not skip class. She had withdrawn from the cheerleading team and founded her own club. With the support of Mrs. Barton and Raiput High School, there was now a club similar to a volunteer group. Their task today was to clean up an abandoned bus stop on the southeast side of [Parker Primary School].

Everyone knew the origin of the name Passing District. It connects Newton City with the bustling North District of Barton, and this is just a place to pass by. In the past, the city government hoped to build this place as another way into Barton besides Barton Western District.

However, there are Highway 27, the Charles River, and the train station that leads directly to the Northern District. The roads between the south and west of Barton and the center have all been built. The Passing District has never achieved the results expected by the city government, so it was abandoned. Various facilities that were once built, such as schools, houses, and transportation, have gradually declined and become what they are now.

The others are still okay, at least people are still using them, but no one really cared about the bus terminal located southeast of Parker Primary School, so it could only be abandoned.

Anyway, it was abandoned, Lola wanted to use this place to build a bazaar, and the income could be used to improve the environment of Parker Primary School. Today is the day Lola decided to clean it up.

When arriving at the bus stop, it could be seen that Barton’s last name was very useful. Lola ‘borrowed’ Raiput’s school bus, and there were 20 or 30 high school students on the bus. The teachers and students of Park Primary School stood in two rows, watching a bunch of teenage boys and girls wearing volunteer white T-shirts designed by Lola, holding brooms and tools, with a kind of unspeakable excitement on their faces.

More than a dozen old and dusty buses were left in the courtyard. The glass of the surrounding buildings was broken, the paint peeled off, and occasionally there were waist-high weeds protruding from the ground. It was hard for the pampered teenagers to imagine that this was still on the north side of Barton.

Zach and Benjamin did not enter the bus terminal, but opened the back cover of the truck, took out the shelf made by Old Hank, and began to help Alice to put out the cakes, biscuits, and donuts she made at the entrance. Do you think those teenagers do volunteer work the day before the weekend? Of course not. The rhetoric used by Lola was, ‘a delicious snack in exchange for a little labor.’

And Raiput high school students who have long heard about Alice’s delicious pastry from Lola didn’t want to give up this opportunity to eat the legendary Alice pastry. The reason they came was not Lola’s ‘righteous deed’ but Alice’s craft!

“Wait!” Lola knocked away a boy who had already stretched out his paw to the food: “Go and remove those weeds first!”

“I’m not a farmer!”

“You have hands!”

In this way, the high school students started to move, and Parker’s teachers also joined the primary school students who had no extracurricular activities anyway. Soon, the students who experienced a sense of accomplishment began to work seriously.

Zach and Benjamin were guarding Alice. For the sake of her friend, Alice has tried very hard to adapt to this environment, but whenever a boy approached her whether for food or for her, Alice would still be afraid. At this time, the vampire and the werewolf came in handy.

“Benjamin!” Lola ran over with a few boys, “Come and help us! You, another brother also needs to come too!”

Zach was helpless, Lola seemed to never be able to remember his name!

Several Parker Primary School teachers came to take over the job of taking care of Alice. Of course, they were mainly protecting food. Zach and Benjamin followed Lola and walked inside the bus terminal.

The abandoned buses lined up in the courtyard have revealed their original colors under the washing of the students. Unlike the bright yellow of the current buses, the original buses used dark red paint. There are also no advertisements covering the car body now. Basketball-sized headlights, anachronistic rearview mirrors, and time-torn patent-leather give people a feeling that those buses should be presented in a museum.

Most of the surrounding buildings have been opened. On the south side is the former staff dormitory and data room, and on the north side, the ground is sunken downward, it is a bus repair room.

Lola walked directly to the rear west. In the opened front door, students were already cleaning the interior, broken glass was removed, collapsed shelves were lifted up, and the old-fashioned telephones hanging on the wall were wiped clean. After blowing off the dust, the previous notes can still be visibly seen. Old-style communicators, buttons, and monitors of various colors can be seen on the workbenches that stretch along the wall.

This is the main control room, the headquarters for dispatching buses.

“Here.” Lola continued to walk in, removing a collapsed shelf. There was already a male teacher standing here with the Parker Primary School logo on his chest. It should be Parker’s physical education teacher. The sturdy man saw that an adult was coming, patted the shelf that diagonally blocked the innermost door. “There should be a warehouse in the back, which is connected to the maintenance room, but the doors on the west and north sides are locked from the inside. This side is open. Let’s remove this.”

Zach and Benjamin nodded, rolled up their sleeves, and began to remove the debris on the slanted shelf, then moved the shelf away, revealing the door that was buried inside. Lola found the key, tried several times, and the door was opened.

The dank and moldy smell that rushed out from inside was not better than warehouse 13! A few people at the door waved their arms to disperse the smell, and a few high school students had already moved far away and didn’t want to come close.

“You can check elsewhere, we will check inside.” Zach and Benjamin looked at each other and suggested to those around them.

“Okay.” No one refused, no one wanted to endure the smell! After all, Lola was still a high school student. She was not fully prepared and did not prepare anything like masks.

After they left, Benjamin took over the key in Lola’s hand and entered the warehouse with Zach. Their task was to open the door to the maintenance room, at least to let the smell dissipate.

But they knew that things started to deviate from here. Because both the vampire and the werewolf are sensitive to blood, and they noticed a trace of blood in the moldy smell!

The werewolf Benjamin used his thick arm to cover his nose, frowned and the rotten and moldy smell was too strong, which confused his senses, making him very uncomfortable. The vampire’s sensitivity to blood was the most useful at this time, but Zach also frowned, waving his arms in front of him. Who knows how many years this place hasn’t been ventilated, and although it’s chilly enough, it’s definitely not a vampire-friendly environment.

The cold concrete floor slanted downwards, and the spacious space was indeed extending to the maintenance room. The two had seen the door on the north side after passing the slope, but they did not open it and continued to walk inside. Rusty tools, iron tracks, jumbled piles of mechanical parts, and dismantled buses…

Zach approached a bus with the shell removed, then a slight click came from the bus. The smell of blood came from there, and the two looked at each other and approached one after another.

There was a crowd of students and teachers outside. The two did not change their bodies. The werewolf put one hand on the trunk of the bus, and jumped onto the bus with a little force, approaching the place where the sound came from, and the moldy smell has been replaced by rotten smell. The werewolf arched his back, the muscles of his legs were stretched, his palms held the back of the seat on the bus, ready to charge!

“Whoosh!”

The gray figure jumped out of the rows of seats like a bouncing crab! The werewolf’s body also charged out! Zach’s eyes turned red, his fingertips were close together, and his figure turned into a gray shadow in the air, moving toward the thing that bounced up, trying to stop it! Just when this ‘creature’ that appeared suddenly attracted all the attention of a werewolf and a vampire!

“Clang!”

The sound of something hitting the metal door sounded from the west side of the warehouse! Suddenly, from a ray of sunlight shone into the cold room, Zach and Benjamin didn’t even see what the ‘creature’ was intercepted by them, and looked back to the west at the same time!

A figure quickly stepped out of the cold warehouse, disappeared in the afternoon sun!