Behind a skip-bin in an alley off Main Street, lies a man. He’s unshaven, with a dirty flannelette shirt and ripped blue jeans, and he appears to be watching for something. Slow minutes pass with the man not moving, apart from his eyes, which flicker between the darkness of the back of the alley and the bright street outside.
   
   Finally the man moves. Seemingly satisfied with the wall he has been watching, he stands up and looks towards the street. He turns and walks into the alley, the darkness slowly swallowing him. Just as he disappears, a bus drives past - slowly.
   It is yellow, with six wheels, two at the front and four at the back. It has many windows on its sides and a large bull bar at the front. Somehow it looks as if the bus is smiling…but everyone knows busses can’t smile.
   
   The man is walking down a back alley that parallels Main Street, his hands in his coat pockets. He pulls out a cigarette from one pocket and a lighter from the other, and lights up, taking a long draw and sighing with pleasure. He stops for a while, leaning against the wall and looks towards Main, over a fence top. His eyes widen with fear, and he immediately ducks below the fence, and begins crawling away very quickly. The sound of a large engine echoes through the alley.
   
   Suddenly the fence splinters with a massive crash. An engine roars and the bus hurtles through, bearing down on the crawling man, who is now sobbing with fear. With a flick of it’s swinging door the bus scoops him up, and he is thrown into the front seat. The man puts his face into his hands and begins to cry in earnest. With a piercing beeping noise the bus begins to back out of the hole it made, and a three-point-turn later it is heading down to the police station with its bawling cargo.
   
   The Yellow Bus didn’t, technically, have a mind of its own. It did, however, always seem to be in the right place at the right time, sometimes going quite far out of its own way to do so. It had a busy schedule aside from its crime fighting, it had to take the kids to school, pick them up and then take them home, and it had to report to the bus depot at least twice a day. These things didn’t seem to stop it from catching every criminal in the city, though.
   
   The police station was bustling with people, some in handcuffs, some holding handcuffs and some eyeing the handcuffs nervously. Chloe was none of these people. Her handcuffs were hanging on a nail behind her door. She generally didn’t need them, as she held a desk job at the station. She stared at the clock, waiting for the big hand to tick over to the five, so she could finally go home. It had been a long day, Most of the cells downstairs were full of criminals that The Yellow Bus had picked up.
   
   As soon as the clock hit five, Chloe was up and packed. She practically ran out of the office and down the front stairs to her Honda Excel. She put the keys into the ignition and turned them, but nothing happened except a sick sounding “waao, waaao, waaa”.
   “Damnit, not today, Car!” exclaimed Chloe as she tried again, which proved even less successful than the last try.
   “Come on you little bugger!” she swore, as she got out and pulled open the bonnet*.
    “Hmm,” Chloe said to herself as she inspected the insides of her car’s engine.
   “Looks like the battery has been disconnected…”
   She reached in and picked up the wire that had fallen out of place and put it back where it should have been.
   
   “Hey there sweet heart, lost something have ya?”
   “I’m fine now, thanks. My battery had been disconnected.”
   “I know. You know how I know? Coz I disconnected it, that’s how. You’re coming with me, girly.”
   Chloe pulled out her can of mace from her pocket and sprayed the strange man in the eyes. He fell to the ground screaming, while Chloe got in her car and went to turn her keys again. Only they weren’t in the ignition any more…
   “Hey there, Chloe. Can you tell me if this rag smells like chloroform to you?”
   
   Chloe watched the world fade to black. The rag definitely smelled of chloroform.
   
   Out in the streets, The Yellow Bus patrolled. It could sense the petty crimes happening everywhere, the parents allowing their children alcohol underage, the people crossing the road when the light was red…but these were forgivable. The crimes The Yellow Bus searched for were bigger than that. And it had just sensed a huge one.
   
   Chloe woke up in a dark room. She was quite comfortable unless you count her hands being twisted behind her back and tied tightly with strong rope. She was on what felt like a feather bed, her head propped up with plump fluffy pillows. She tested her strength against the ropes, but only chafed herself badly.
   “Ow! Rope burn,” She cried, as her hands grew hot from the chafing.
   “Ah, Miss Chloe, you’re awake. I trust you are comfortable?”
   The voice spoke from the darkness on all sides, Chloe couldn’t tell where it was coming from, as she couldn’t see more than two metres in front of herself.
   “So long as you don’t count my arms being twisted behind my back, yes I’m comfortable. Thanks for asking.”  Chloe answered. “What the hell is going on here?”
   “You have been…acquired. Yes, I collect young women just like you. Short brown hair, green eyes, large…ahem…ears.”
   “My ears are NOT large!”
   “Oh ho! Not large, she says! Tell me Chloe, what names were you called in Primary School?”
   Chloe went red. How did he know this sort of thing?
   “Yes, I thought as much. Yours ears are perfect. You shall be framed as the centrepiece of my collection, next to some other lesser eared females.”
   “You’re sick.”
   “Hahahahahahaha! Haha! Yes, maybe I am. But if I enjoy it, is it still bad?”
   “Yes.”
   “Oh…well, nevertheless, your ass is grass and I’m the lawnmower. Haha. Bring in the framer, Lucas.”
   
   *Everyone does this, no matter their knowledge of cars. In Chloe’s case, however, she knew quite a lot about cars.
   
   
   
   The man that had accosted her in the car park sidled into the room, carrying a machine with long metal arms, each holding one side of a giant wooden frame.
   Attached behind the frame was a glass box with a velvet cushion on a stool inside. It didn’t look very big.
   Chloe was lifted into the frame by Lucas, and as she sat down the machine gave a whirr and liquid glass ran down the empty space inside the frame. None of it went inside the glass box, it just filled the middle of the frame and hardened.
   Her box was then lifted out of the room and through a corridor, then into another room filled with similar boxes, most containing a woman. Chloe’s box was taken to the middle of the room and lifted high onto a pedestal, where it stayed. The machine left the room by itself.
   
   Chloe waited for a few minutes to pass. When no one else came in, she took off her work shoe and threw it at the newly formed glass in the frame. It ricocheted off and collided with her knee painfully.
   With tears forming in her eyes, Chloe looked about her helplessly. Most of the other women were looking at her curiously. Chloe tried yelling at them, but apparently they were unable, or unwilling to answer.
   
   The Yellow Bus knew something was amiss. Something big had happened, and it had failed to find out what. It wasn’t used to failure. The Yellow Bus began to search for clues.
   
   Chloe sat down in the middle of the cage and thought about what to do next. She had already tried throwing stuff at the glass, and that had failed. What was a logical next step? After a few minutes of thinking like this, she looked up. The top of the cage was as solid as the front of it. She looked to the back of the cage, and saw a glowing green light.
   
   The Yellow Bus rolled slowly into the police station car park. It sensed the patch of mace on the ground, felt the signs of a struggle. So, this is how it had happened…
   
   “Wow, an exit sign…how convenient,” Chloe said to herself, as she walked underneath the glowing sign. The door beneath the sign swung open at her touch, and she wandered out into the giant room. All around her the women in their glass cages watched her curiously. She headed for the door of the giant room, and it took a surprisingly short time to reach it considering how far away it had seemed. She pulled it open and stepped into the dingy corridor outside it.
   “Ah! Chloe, what a lovely surprise,” The Creepy Man said. “I’m not sure I introduced myself properly earlier. I am Count Countenstein.”
   “Countenstein?” Chloe replied. “What a stupid name.”
   “That’s Count Countenstein to you, girl.”
   “Fine, Count Countenstein. What are you doing here? Why are all those women in those cages?”
   “Ah, but Chloe, I have already told you the answer to that question. They are my collection, and you are the centrepiece.”
   
   Chloe kicked Count Countenstein in between the legs before he could draw breath after this sentence, and made a break for it. She reached the end of the corridor, and took the right turn on a whim.
    “The right hand turn, Chloe? Oh, I thought you were smarter than that…” muttered Count Countenstein, as he carefully sat down against the wall.
   
   The Yellow Bus trundled up a hill, on the trail of some tyre smoke it didn’t smell*.
   In the distance, Count Countenstein’s manor loomed. Of course, The Bus couldn’t necessarily see said manor, but it damn well knew it SHOULD be able to see it.
   
   Chloe wandered through corridor after corridor, peering into the rooms as she passed them. Mostly they contained furniture with white sheets over them to protect them from the dust, but occasionally she would find a room with some kind of weird machine, or unfinished glass cages. Eventually she found a giant set of stairs that led into a massive foyer area. She looked over the banister and saw The Count’s lackey standing at the front door. He didn’t appear to be doing anything, but she knew he wouldn’t be easy to sneak passed. With her can of Mace in her hand, she set forward.
   
   The Yellow Bus drove up the manor’s drive way. It sensed a whole lot of unhappiness emanating from it. It could also sense a lot of crime. Being a Duke Nukem fan, The Yellow Bus spat out its proverbial bubble gum and prepared to kick some ass.
   
   Chloe crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, sticking to the shadows the massive banister cast. At last she reached the bottom, and with her can of mace held in front of her, charged at the man in front of the door. At that exact moment, the door splintered into pieces and the roaring of a big engine reverberated around the foyer. The bus ran down the man on the door and swept past Chloe. She sprayed the dead man’s eyes just in case and ran out the door.
   
   Count Countenstein stood in his control room and surveyed his collection. It was beautiful in his mind’s eye, and he was very displeased that his centrepiece has escaped. But no matter! He would capture her again. He was good at capturing.
A noise sounded in the distance.
    “That sounded like my front doors splintering to pieces and my lackey being run over by a giant yellow bus!” yelled Count Countenstein, always the literalist.
   
He sprinted out into the corridor and up the secret set of stairs behind the painting of his mother. He shut the door behind himself and looked out the bullet proof glass window that overlooked the foyer of his manor. Sure enough, his doors were splintered and his lackey wasn’t moving, in the wreckage.
   
   The manor was silent. Count Countenstein looked around nervously. He had supplies in this room to last him weeks, but he was up against The Yellow Bus. Who knows its limits?
   
   
   
*It didn’t smell it because it has no nose, or senses. It knew it SHOULD have smelt the smell of tyre smoke, though.
   
   
   
   Count Countenstein turned around. There, in the shadows at the back of his room, was a large bull bar. Attached to the bull bar was a large yellow bus, and it’s engine was ticking over…angrily, it seemed.
   
    “But how can an engine sound angry?!” Count Countenstein asked of it, before being swept into the busses’ interior and carried off into the setting sun. There was the silhouette of a cactus in the distance*.
   
    Chloe reached her house just after sunset. She fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and inserted one into the lock. It clicked open, and she stepped inside, flicking on lights as she went. She moved into her sitting room and sank down onto her couch with a sigh. As she turned on her television, a yellow bus drove past her window. If she looked hard, she might have seen a figure in the back seat, hunched against the cold. The figure might have looked a whole lot like Count Countenstein if she had really looked hard. But she didn’t.
     
     
     
     *There always is when the hero travels towards the sunset. It’s one of the many laws of literature.
A GLASS CAGE OF EMOTION

Janika Humphries 3/10/07