The entire sequence had taken less than 2.5 seconds.
The bus was dead silent. The passengers were paralyzed, their brains struggling to process how the hulking, aggressive alpha male had just been folded like a cheap lawn chair by an arthritic senior citizen.
In the back, Greg, Liam, and Cody jumped to their feet. Cody, the heavyweight, let out a roar and charged down the aisle.
“You’re dead meat, old man!”
Arthur stepped over Trent’s writhing body. He didn’t take a fighting stance. He just stood there, waiting in the narrow aisle. Cody threw a massive front kick, aiming to push Arthur backward into the windshield. Arthur sidestepped the kick with the grace of a matador. As Cody’s leg extended past him, Arthur delivered a devastating piston-like kick with his heavy work boot directly to the side of Cody’s knee. The joint buckled inward with a horrific snapping sound. Cody shrieked, collapsing into a heap in the aisle, clutching his leg in pure agony.
Arthur looked up at Greg and Liam, who were frozen halfway down the bus. The two young men looked at their gym leader crying on the floor by the stairs, and their heavyweight enforcer screaming in the aisle. Arthur didn’t say a word. He simply raised one hand and pointed a calloused finger toward the back row of seats.
Greg and Liam didn’t hesitate. They scrambled backward, practically climbing over each other to get to the furthest corner of the bus, raising their hands in terrified surrender.
Arthur calmly reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a small heavy tactical flashlight, and clicked it on, sweeping the beam over the two downed men to ensure they were no longer a threat. Satisfied they were neutralized, he turned his back on them, stepped over Trent again, and sat back down in the driver’s seat. He picked up his radio microphone.
“Dispatch, this is Route 42. I have a 10-39 on board. Two aggressive passengers subdued. Requesting law enforcement and EMTs at the mile marker 14 turnout. Over.”
“Uh, copy that 42. Units are en route. Are you injured, Arthur?” the dispatcher’s voice crackled back.
“Negative, dispatch. Just a bit of a delay.”
For the next 15 minutes, no one on the bus moved. The only sounds were the howling wind outside, the idling engine, and the pathetic, agonizing moans of Trent and Cody. The college student in the front row stared at Arthur, his mouth slightly open, looking at the back of the driver’s head as if he were looking at a superhero or a monster.
Blue and red lights soon began to cut through the blizzard, reflecting off the white snow. Two Oak Creek Sheriff’s Department SUVs pulled up behind the bus, followed shortly by an ambulance. Deputy Sheriff Mike Carlson, a massive bearded man who had been with the department for 20 years, boarded the bus, his hand resting on his sidearm. He took one look at the carnage in the aisle—Trent Lawson, the local tough guy, weeping and clutching a dislocated elbow, and Cody, the heavyweight, unable to put weight on his leg.
Carlson looked past them to the driver’s seat. Arthur was calmly logging the incident on his clipboard.
“Jesus Christ, Art,” Carlson muttered, stepping over Trent. “What happened here?”
Trent looked up at the deputy, his face pale, spit and tears mixing on his chin. “Arrest him!” Trent sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at Arthur. “He assaulted us! He’s a psycho! I want to press charges!”
Carlson looked down at Trent. He recognized the kid. Everyone in town knew Trent and his abrasive gym crew. Then Carlson looked back at Arthur. The deputy let out a long, heavy sigh. He unclipped his radio.
“Dispatch, we’re going to need a tow for the suspects and run a background for a formal report.”
Carlson knelt down next to Trent, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “What are you doing?” Trent screamed, panicking as Carlson secured his uninjured wrist. “I’m the victim here. He attacked me.”
Carlson leaned in close, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper that only Trent could hear. “Listen to me very carefully, you stupid kid. You don’t know who you just swung at.”
“He’s a bus driver,” Trent hissed, wincing in pain.
“His name is Arthur Hayes,” Carlson said, his eyes hard. “Ten years ago, he was Commander Arthur Hayes, United States Navy. He ran SEAL Team Three, Task Unit Bruiser. He spent four deployments in Ramadi clearing houses in hand-to-hand combat against insurgents. The only reason you are currently breathing is because he decided to let you.”
Trent’s blood ran cold. The pain in his elbow suddenly felt secondary to the icy dread pooling in his stomach. He looked past the deputy’s shoulder to the front of the bus. Arthur had taken off his aviators to wipe the lenses. For a split second, Trent saw his eyes. There was no anger in them, no adrenaline, no pride—just the empty thousand-yard stare of a man who had seen the darkest corners of the earth and survived them all.
“You’re going to jail, Trent,” Carlson said, hauling the young man to his feet. “And you’re going to pray to whatever God you believe in that Commander Hayes doesn’t decide to press charges of his own.”
The fluorescent lights of the Oak Creek Memorial Hospital emergency room buzzed with a sickly pale hum. Trent Lawson lay on a stiff gurney, his right wrist handcuffed to the metal bed rail. The adrenaline had long since burned out of his system, replaced by a nauseating throbbing agony that radiated from his right arm to his jaw. His elbow was swollen to the size of a grapefruit, locked at a grotesque angle. Down the hall, he could faintly hear Cody groaning as the orthopedic surgeon explained the devastating reality of a shattered patella and torn ligaments. Cody’s fighting career was over before it had even truly begun.
Deputy Mike Carlson stood by the door, a cup of terrible hospital coffee in his hand, watching Trent with a mixture of pity and disgust.