Frank's Bad Day Part XI

The Lost Souls boarded the bus one by one, inserting their tokens into the farebox. Each token went down through the works of the box ending with a hollow, sad clunk. The lights ended on the red "INF" light for each person, which Frank finally understood that it stood for The Inferno, the lake of fire...Hell.

They were bound together with dirty black ropes. They were still in the clothes they died in, but their clothes were dirty and ripped.Their faces, hands and legs were dirty and had scratches and cuts. Many of them had a look of terror, some were confused, as if this was a nightmare, and some had a look of sad resignation, as if they had expected this all along. Taariq pulled them along by the rope to the back of the bus and seated them roughly, like he was packing a cattle carrier; pushing, shoving and punching those who weren't moving fast enough.

One lady kept repeating the 23^rd Psalm over and over with her eyes closed like she would wake up any minute. Taariq started laughing and screaming in her ear, “It’s too late you stupid woman! You should have done that on earth! You should have sought Him when you had time, now its too late!”. He squealed in delight. “Now shut up and sit down! You ain’t getting’ out of this!”. He cuffed the side of her head as she fell into her seat whimpering.

"That's enough Taariq! That's not necesary! Take your seat NOW!!", Charon roared from the driver's seat. He had no public address system on the bus, but the volume shook everyone.

"You said you were running late, I'm just trying to help," Tarriq said with a toothy grin and sat down next to the whimpering woman.

 
Charon turned away and said something that was indistinguishable. He released the air brakes and put the bus in gear and drove away into the straight long road of the grey town.