Too Much Noise

The bus hits a seam in the road and Grant flinches.

Mary sees it. “Too much?”

“The seam. Jose’s knee. Somebody opening a bag of chips two seats back.” He presses his thumb into the corner of his eye. “I’m fine. I’m not fine. Keep going.”

Jose takes that as permission to talk. “So are we circling or am I driving this tub to 12th? Because I can do both, I just need you to pick before I hit another curb.”

“Lot first,” Mary says. “Then 12th. I want eyes on Leanne before he walks into another stairwell.”

Grant doesn’t argue. He lets the range open whether he wants to or not.

Campus slides by. Empty quad. A bike on its side. Two blanks way off to the right, outside his comfortable distance, then gone. Inside 500 feet there is nothing until they roll past the dining hall. One blank inside, sitting. Not moving.

He almost says stop.

He doesn’t. The girl in the dining hall is only one person, a skinny brunette. She is cute.

She can wait.

The grocery has food and eight of his claimed. He doesn’t want to wait for something to go wrong. He can feel those eight from here now, and not just as direction. Jaz’s watch. Olivia’s rifle strap. Maya’s keys ticking against each other when she walks.

“Store team’s still there,” he says. “Nobody’s running.”

“Good,” Mary says. “Jose. 12th.”

Ashlyn watches him from across the aisle. She keeps starting to ask if he needs water and then not following through. Wren sits with her hands folded, waiting. Yuki has not looked up since she sat down. Eiza has, more than once, and then put her eyes on the floor when she caught herself staring.

The grocery comes up on the left.

Leanne has not honked. She also has not been idle. The pallet jack is in front of the dock chain. The automatic doors are blocked from the inside with a display rack. Somebody is on the roof. Grant knows it is Sadie before he sees her, which is new and irritating.

Jose parks the bus wrong on purpose so it fills the lane.

Leanne meets them at the painted line with a look that says she has been counting minutes.

“You’re late.”

“Dorm,” Grant says. “Seven more. Anything happen here?”

“No. We stacked water in receiving and put the pharmacy on a second lock. Riley almost shot a raccoon. That’s the report.” Leanne glances at the new girls getting off the bus. “They going to stand there or help?”

“Help,” Mira says, already moving, and the rest follow her without an order.

Inside, the store still smells like bleach and fruit. Grant has to stop just past the tape. The fluorescent buzz is a problem. He can hear Willa tear tape in the pharmacy. He can hear Kelsey drop a can and swear. He can hear a man talking a block over, which he does not want.

Mary puts a bottle in his hand.

“Drink. Then tell me if we’re staying here or going back out.”

He drinks. It helps less than it should.

“There’s a woman in the dining hall on campus. Sitting. Alone. There are two more I lost when we turned. I don’t like leaving the store empty again, but I don’t like sitting on my hands.”

Eve leans on a dead register. “Split up too much and somebody fucks up. We already split once today.”

“Then we don’t split more than needed,” Mary says. “Leanne keeps this place. We take the bus back for the dining hall and that’s the last grab until he can walk under lights without looking like he wants to crawl out of his skin.”

Grant almost says no because fifty-four still feels like a lot. He also knows she is right. The lights are getting to him. So is the fact that he can hear Garret in the Explorer whisper, “He looks weird,” to Jose.

“Dining hall,” he says. “One stop. Then home. Leanne, if a van shows up, you honk. I don’t care if you feel dramatic.”

Leanne snorts. “I’ll honk.”

They don’t linger. Maya tapes a note on the office door, no address, no names. Riley stays on the roof with Sadie until the bus is moving. The new girls load two extra cases because Grant looked at the cases, and that is enough.

On the way back toward campus he keeps the range open.

The dining hall blank is still there. Same place. Sitting.

A second blank has joined her. Closer to the kitchen.

“Two now,” he says.

Mary nods once. “Then we do two and we leave.”

Jose pulls up on the handicapped spots and does not apologize. Grant is off the bus before the door finishes folding, then has to wait for Paige on purpose.

The dining hall doors are unlocked. Trays still out. A cereal dispenser on its side. He hears both girls before he sees them: behind the serving line, whispering about the bus, one telling the other not to look.

She looks anyway.

They both run.

Paige gets the nearer one at the milk cooler. The girl slams a tray into Paige’s shoulder and tries to go over the counter. Grant is there too soon. He hates that. He gets her wrist while she is still saying no.

“I claim you.”

She goes still, then soft, then his.

“Ryn. I’m yours. I work mornings. I can open the back.”

Fifty-five.

The other one makes it into the dish room. He hears her hit a rack of pans and keeps going anyway. Eve is much slower than him. He catches the girl by the service door, takes the “don’t,” and claims her against stainless steel.

“Ivy. Don’t send me away. Please. I want to go with you.” Grant sighs and nods for her to follow.

Fifty-six.

Both blanks are gone. The dining hall is just pans and the smell of leftovers. Grant stands there longer than he needs to because the metal room makes every sound bounce and he has to pick which ones to keep.

Mary appears in the doorway.

“That’s two. That’s enough.”

“Yeah.”

They walk them out. Ryn and Ivy get on the bus and sit where they can see him. Jose starts talking, sees Grant’s face, and does not finish the sentence.

12th is secure. Campus just lost two more girls who were hiding behind cereal.

Grant sits again. He counts fifty-six and does not look for a prize this time. The prize already arrived in a dorm bathroom and it is still turned up too high.

“Home,” Mary says.

He nods, then adds, “Lock the door.”

Eve stays long enough to throw the deadbolt. The bus turns toward the penthouses. Grant closes his eyes and can still hear too much, including Ashlyn quietly asking Wren if Grant is angry.

He isn’t.

Everything is just too loud.