The Last Start
At 21:13, Salma closed the door on an umbrella that belonged to no one. She pulled him out of the step, placed him against his seat, and waited another thirty seconds. At Valmorne station, the last passenger could always come up between two wagons, suitcase in hand, furious that the world had begun to leave without him.
No one came. In the small replacement bus, six passengers were already making their nest for the forty kilometers of mountain. Nadège, Brévan's hairdresser, unwrapped a sandwich. Étienne, who was beginning his apprenticeship at the baker’s, slept with his forehead against the glass. A woman occupied the bottom with a boy and a bag of dinosaurs. Closer, a hiker checked his ankle surrounded by a band. The sixth passenger was wearing a grey coat too warm for the season and a sachet of pralines that he had not opened.
— “We’ll roll slowly,” Salma announced. It's been raining since this morning. Those who are in a hurry can always help by pushing.
Nadège raised his sandwich as a sign of encouragement. The bottom boy seriously asked his mother if the children should grow up too.
— "Only the Tyrannosaurs," replied Salma.
She left the station smiling. Four months earlier, she was still leading groups to Venice. Then his mother had begun to forget the burning plates, the faucets, the way to her own kitchen. Valmorne's line paid less, but Salma came home every night. She now knew every stop, every dog chasing the wheels, every portion where phones became useless.
Before the throats, she called for permanence. Luc, the regulator, confirmed that no closure was reported. Radio appointment impossible in the valley: she had to send her arrival message from Brévan, as every evening. In case of significant delay, he would call it back and then trigger the planned research. A rather heavy routine in the past. Salma didn’t find it any heavier since she knew how many things could disappear between two checks.
When the Forges stopped, a silhouette crossed the headlights. A young man ran across, his arm clasped against his stomach. He hit the window even before the bus was completely stopped.
— - Open up. Please.
He had no coat or ticket. Blood had dried under his nose.
Salma opened.
The passenger in the grey coat finally lifted his eyes from his sachet of pralines.
A ticket to anywhere
His name was Tom. This is all he agreed to say, with an obstinacy that first annoyed Salma. At nineteen, perhaps twenty, one could still believe that a closed face dispensed with explaining why one was bleeding in the seat of a bus.
— Do you need an ambulance?
— - Nope. Roll.
— It's not you who decides that.
He looked at the road behind them with such panic that she understood his mistake. He was not trying to give her an order. He prayed with the only word he had left.
She left. Nadège handed out paper towels. The mother of the fund drew her son against her. The hiker asked if anyone had hit him. Tom replied that he had fallen. He was holding a phone whose broken screen was lighting up his palm in jerks.
— “The next area of the network is after the bridge,” Salma said. We'll stop and call for help.
At these words, the grey passenger leaned down the aisle.
— “Sometimes young people mostly need to be allowed to calm down.
He had a soft voice, almost tired. He introduced himself: Serge. He could stay close to the boy, if it reassured everyone.
Tom shook his head immediately. Salma pointed to the seat behind her. The young man fell there with a sound of snatched breath. For a few minutes, the engine occupied the entire bus. Even Nadège ate without crumpling the packaging.
A vehicle appeared behind them. Two high headlights, one white and the other slightly yellow. The same vehicle had passed in front of the Forges stop a few seconds before Tom's arrival; Salma remembered this asymmetrical light. Now he remained in his blind spot, too close in the curves.
It slows down near an enlargement to let it pass. It also slows down.
— "He's following you?" she asked Tom, without turning her head.
— - Yeah.
— Who's in it?
— Hervé. And maybe Malik.
— "And what do they want?"
Tom raised his phone and then lowered it.
— I can’t get to someone who listens to me.
Through the rear-view mirror, Salma caught Serge’s eye. He was still smiling, but his hands had crushed the sachet of pralines.
Then a roar rolled down the mountain. It did not look like thunder. Salma braked before even seeing the stones pounce in her headlights.
The Road Stopped
The bus stopped several tens of meters from the landslide. The silence that followed was filled with small shocks: gravel continued to jump on the asphalt, a branch turned in the brown water, something heavy still cracked above the road.
Salma kept the doors closed. She had already seen people go out to photograph a first landslide and forget that the slope could send a second one. Behind her, the boy in the back began to cry without noise.
— Everyone remains seated. We're stopped far enough. What's your name, Tyrannosaurus?
— - Victor.
— “Okay, Victor. You and your mom will stay together. This is your job for now.
She knew that the sentence was addressed to herself as well. One job at a time. Brake, passengers, slope, recoil possible. The widening they had just passed gave access to the old house of the cantoniers, set back from a low cliff. She could put the bus back in the shelter of the slope that had just yielded. Don't cross the flow, don't go around blind.
The asymmetrical headlights stopped behind them.
Two men got out of the vehicle. One was wearing a hunting jacket. The other, younger, stayed close to the hood. The first walked to the door, lighting the windows with a lamp.
— “You picked up a boy,” he shouted. He's hurt. He's my apprentice.
Tom had flattened against the seat.
— Don't tell him I'm here.
Salma opened only her small side window.
— We have a road problem. Get your car back, I've got to get out.
— I just want Tom back. He stole something from the garage. He's not in his head tonight.
He spoke every word, looking at it frankly, like a man used to being believed. Salma felt behind her the movement of Serge, who had risen.
— “The boy is here,” said this one. Maybe we should settle it quietly.
Tom closed his eyes.
Salma did not look at Serge. She continued to fix the man on the lamp.
— - You're moving back. Then I'll call the police as soon as the network comes back. She'll settle what needs to be settled.
The man stopped smiling.
— You really don’t know who you’re transporting.
— Right now, I’m carrying seven people. I want to keep them all seven.
The House Without Fire
Hervé finally backed down, but just enough to allow them to win the enlargement. Salma maneuvered slowly. Victor's mother, Ariane, asked if the road behind was still passable. Yes, she answered. To his knowledge, yes. Only, Hervé's vehicle had stopped across the access, and she refused to turn a full car into a ram.
The house of the cantoniers had kept an open shed and a small office whose windows were protected by bars. Teams were still storing equipment there, although the housing was empty. Salma had a break with a communal agent during the winter. An outside staircase went up to a maintenance trail and, higher up, a lookout. She knew it, sometimes the phones picked it up. Not always. You had to go up to find out.
She shut down the engine after installing the vehicle remotely from the wall. The heating stopped blowing. Immediately, the sound of the rain became immense.
— “Now, Tom,” she said. You're going to tell me.
The boy looked at the others as if he were looking for the least bad place to pose his shame.
He had been working for six months at Hervé, who was restoring old cars. His sister Claire, a mechanic in the same workshop, understood that some cars arrived with a too simple story and left with another. She kept photographs and warned her brother. She had also written to a customer: a mark on a chassis made him think he had bought a stolen car. The client promised to check discreetly. Since then, Claire had been monitoring her phone during meals. Tom thought she was exaggerating. Hervé lent him a scooter, had offered him training. He treated him as a useful person.
Claire wasn't home tonight. Hervé had asked Tom to deliver coins to the former fruit depot of the Ravine. The boy had heard his sister behind a door. She was required to return a USB stick and indicate where she had sent her photographs. She refused. Tom had filmed a few seconds through a window before he was discovered.
— "She was alive?" asked Ariadne.
— - Yeah. She saw me. She screamed to run.
Tom had jumped from a loading dock, joined the Forges on foot, waited for the last one because he usually took Friday. He couldn’t reach anyone. His phone, dropped with him, went out as soon as he tried to call.
He launched the video. We saw a low room, cages, a woman tied to a chair. His face appeared for a second. Then the image turned abruptly to the ground.
— "Give it to the police," said Nadège.
Tom squeezed the phone.
— Above all, I would like them to go looking for her.
The Name of Too Much
Serge sat on the other side of the aisle.
— “Your sister will not risk anything if they get their things back. We can negotiate.
— “You know what?” asked the hiker.
Her name was Pauline and she worked for an association that maintained the paths of the valley. His ankle prevented him from running, not from spotting a strange phrase.
Serge opened his hands.
— “I’m just saying you have to think of those who didn’t ask for anything. The child, for example.
Ariadne brought Victor against her. The boy didn’t need to understand every word to know that we had just put him in the middle of the conversation.
Salma interrupted Serge. No one would go out to talk alone. First, call for help. The depot was several kilometres behind them, served by another road from the plateau. Even with the throats cut, a team could access it. It was necessary to convey the name, the situation, the presence of Claire.
She asked everyone to check her network. Six screens were lit. That of Serge remained in his pocket.
— I almost no longer have a battery.
— "One call is worth the rest," said Nadège.
He finally took it out. No network displayed. Salma saw him delete something before showing the screen. She could have seen badly. For twenty minutes, his mind turned every detail into a warning.
Hervé returned to knock on the door with his lamp. He had lost his lovely tone. He wanted the phone and the boy. Malik was waiting near the vehicle. He could, said Hervé, stay there all night.
— “Me too,” Salma replied.
The sentence was wrong. She thought of Claire in the depot, of her mother who would soon ask where she was, of Victor who was trembling. Hervé did not have to protect seven people.
As he walked away, Serge breathed:
— "Hervé is brutal, but Malik will do nothing serious. I know him enough for that.
This time, Salma had not heard badly.
— Do you know him?
Serge remained motionless. In the front row, Tom raised his head slowly.
— "It is you," he said. In the office. You came to buy the cabriolet.
The sachet of pralines slipped from Serge's knees. The sweets rolled down the aisle with a tiny, almost ridiculous sound.
The one who was already waiting
Serge did not deny it for long. He had to be at the station to pick up a car that Hervé would have him deliver in the evening. After Tom fled, Hervé called him: the boy might take the last bus. We had to go up, warn him if he saw him, prevent him from talking to anyone. Nothing violent, Hervé promised.
— "I had not imagined that.
— “What do you imagine?” asked Nadège. A conversation with sweets?
He looked down. He had bought two cars in Hervé knowing that it was better not to ask questions. Then rendered services. parked a vehicle for a while. Presented a buyer. Now he was afraid that everything would come back to him.
Tom made a move towards him, but his leg betrayed him. Pauline held him by the shoulder.
— Did Claire recognize you? asked the boy.
Serge picked up a crushed praline in the fold of his coat. He kept it between two fingers, not knowing where to put it.
— “She asked me about a car,” he said.
— What questions?
— I don't remember exactly anymore.
Salma looked at his face. He remembered without difficulty the promise made by Hervé, but nothing of what Claire had asked him. She asked Pauline to remember this phrase as well.
Salma felt her anger getting very cold. She had welcomed the man because he had paid for his ticket, had let him approach the boy, had almost found his sweetness reassuring. But punishing him would not clear the road and would not free Claire.
— Give me your phone.
He protested by bringing the phone against him.
— “It is mine.
— “Did you call Hervé with it?”
He looked at the window. Outside, the lamp passed over the windscreen.
— He called me, he corrected.
— “Then put it down. And stay here, where I see you.
Nadège pushed his sandwich over the seat to make room for him. This ordinary gesture seemed to disarm Serge more than Salma’s voice.
Serge ended up dropping the device on a seat. Nadège sat down in front, without touching it any more. Étienne, awake since the collapse but until then silent, approached the rear exit to watch the outside.
— "The deposit is large," resumed Salma. Do we know what part she's in?
Tom described the loading dock and the low window. Serge moved to his seat, then added that this room was the old expeditions office, behind the main hangar. He knew the building. He had left a car a fortnight before.
— "Note it," said Salma to Pauline. Also note who said it.
She saw Serge understand the second part. Every detail could help Claire and compromise her own. He remained for a long time without speaking, and then indicated the color of the exterior door. Pauline wrote on the back of a ticket, with the pencil that Étienne kept for his working hours. This piece of paper suddenly seemed to him more important than all the useless screens of the bus.
Salma pointed out the lookout to Pauline. The hiker knew the trail: it stayed away from the landslide area, but the rain made the steps slippery. It needed a lamp, good shoes and someone who could accompany the youngest without letting him rush. Pauline could walk slowly. Étienne, eighteen years old, agreed to go with her.
— “You are not going as a hero,” Salma said. You are looking for a place to call from. If there is any doubt on the way, you will come back.
— “What about you?” asked Pauline.
Salma looked at the headlights that blocked the exit.
— I’ll give them something to look at.
Ten minutes to win
She could not hide for long the absence of two travelers. She could only divert attention enough for them to reach the top of the stairs. Malik had joined Hervé in the rain; they were talking near the hood, like men dissatisfied with a late delivery.
Salma lit the headlights of the bus, then called Hervé by his window.
— We need to talk about your car.
— - Of what?
— It blocks the passage of relief. Landslides are important. When they arrive, they'll see this first. Then they will see your plates.
Hervé advanced, his hand raised to protect himself from the light. Behind Salma, the rear exit opened. Pauline and Étienne went down to the side of the tent, then went up the stairs into the darkness. Nadège closed immediately. Salma continued to speak, obliging herself not to look at the rear-view mirror.
She offered to let Tom tell his story through the glass. Hervé insulted the boy. She asked him why a mechanic was tied up in a fruit store. This time he approached so fast that she closed before he reached his height.
The lamp hit the body. Victor uttered a cry. Salma wanted to apologize to him, and then realized that the excuse could wait. She pulled back down the aisle with the emergency kit. His hands were trembling now that they no longer had the steering wheel.
— "Are they going to break the windows?" asked Ariane.
— It's possible. Stay away from the front ones.
Nadège helped them to change places. She was talking to Victor about imaginary dogs coming to get their hair done in her living room, a poodle demanding a fringe, a bulldog dissatisfied with her ears. His voice was not natural. She continued anyway. The boy listened to him with huge eyes.
Serge, sitting alone, looked at the pralines scattered under the seats.
— He didn’t want to kill her, he said.
Tom turned around.
— Do you still want to ask him?
The rain redoubled. Outside, Hervé opened the trunk of his vehicle. He came back with a short bar. Salma checked the door lock and then asked Ariane to move further with Victor. She spoke too fast. The mother made him repeat.
The first shot reached the doorpost. Victor shouted; Nadège was silent in the middle of his poodle story. Hervé knocked a second time, on the window this time. A white star appeared in the glass.
Salma turned on the interior lighting. She wanted him to see the seats, the child, the people in front of whom he was doing this. He placed his sleeve in front of his eyes to look.
— “Shut it off!” shouted Serge.
— "Stay seated.
Salma spoke to Hervé through the window, without opening it.
— Look behind me.
He looked. He raised the bar again.
She thought, for a second, that seeing their fear could stop her. She turned back to the passengers. Nadège unfolded her coat in front of Victor, whose face Ariane protected against her.
Malik grabbed Hervé's arm before the next shot. They fought near the door. Salma did not hear their words. Their two shadows moved in the headlights, in turns long and short. She crouched down near Tom to clear the aisle.
— "If it opens," said the boy, "I can go down."
— They have already said what they wanted. You don't have to help them.
He nodded. His hand remained on the back of the seat, ready to lift it.
Salma's phone still had no network. She forced her fingers to leave the screen. What she could still do was in the bus: bring the kit closer, listen to Tom breathe, ask Nadège to repeat his story. She looked at the starry glass, then invented a poodle that demanded a blue dye. His voice broke on the word “blue.” She started again.
Above the roof, very far in the dark, a light slipped for a second between the branches, and then disappeared.
A voice above the rain
Three minutes later, Étienne ran back to the armpit and knocked on the protected side. Nadège brought him in. He was soaked and breathing so hard that he had to lean against a seat before he could speak.
They had joined the rescue. Pauline had stayed at the lookout to keep in touch and guide the teams by phone. She had passed the depot, Claire, the two men, the vehicle, the blocked bus. She said Serge's presence. The operator had asked them to stay under cover and not to try to cross the flow. One team had to approach by road from Les Forges; another would go to the depot from the plateau. No time guarantee. Only this phrase: they came.
Salma felt her knees weaken. She sat down for a second on the armrest.
Hervé saw Étienne through the glass. He understood. His face changed less than his shoulders: something released, then closed all at once. He called for Malik, who looked towards the path.
— "They know," cried Salma. The police have been warned. The deposit too.
Malik pulled back to his vehicle. Hervé grabbed him by the jacket. The dispute broke out of the reach of words, but not of meaning. One wanted to leave. The other wanted to take back what he had come for.
Tom stood up.
— If they go back to the depot before the others...
Salma had no answer that could appease her. She's not lying. She only took her forearm to prevent it from opening.
Malik finally tore off his jacket and rode up to the driver’s side. Hervé gave a blow against his door, then abandoned the bus to join him. The headlights rotated. The engine screamed for a moment in the turn before descending towards the Forges.
They were gone.
No one applauds. Salma did not restart to follow them. She had custody of a child, of an injured boy, of five adults, of whom a woman was still waiting in the mountain. She could not turn their deliverance into prosecution.
Étienne went up to warn Pauline that the immediate danger was receding. He walked this time, despite the hurry. Salma followed him with her eyes to the stairs.
Then Tom asked him, in an almost ordinary voice, if he could lay his head against something. Nadège rolled his coat and handed it to him.
What we leave to others
The first lights appeared forty minutes later. Salma had checked the time so often that each of the numbers seemed to have carved into her retina. Meanwhile, Pauline was back down. The rain was decreasing. Victor was sleeping on his mother's lap and Serge had not tried to get his phone back.
The police separated the testimonies, examined Tom, asked where the men had gone. They didn't promise anything about Claire. An ambulance followed. When the boy was offered to settle there, he refused first, and then gave in on the condition that someone kept his device. A police officer took it with caution. Salma observed this gesture as one observes a door finally locked on the right side.
Hervé and Malik were intercepted below. That's all they were taught at the time. Tom immediately asked if they had time to go to the depot. The policewoman checked her radio before replying that she did not yet have this information. He closed his eyes. Salma stayed near the ambulance door, far enough to let the team work, close enough to see him when he opened them.
Luc arrived in a second transport vehicle. He had started the calls even before the belvedere report was sent to him. Upon discovering Salma, he opened his mouth for a joke, then closed it. He just brought her a bottle of water.
— Your mother is with your sister. I told her as soon as we found out where you were.
Only then did Salma begin to cry. Not long. A few upset tears she almost wiped with anger, because she still had passenger lists to check.
Tom was already in the ambulance when the police officer returned. Claire was found alive at the depot. She was conscious and taken care of. No further details at the moment.
The boy put his hands to his face. His shoulders raised without noise. Nadège looked elsewhere to give him some room, and then began to cry too, with much less discretion.
We took Serge in a car. He looked for Salma before leaving.
— I finally gave the phone.
He was waiting, one foot in the car. The policeman held the door and looked at his watch.
— You can tell it, she said.
She gave him nothing more.
The Return of the Lights
Six weeks later, the throats reopened. A new barrier protected the bare slope. The fruit depot remained closed, this time by court order. The investigation into the garage was progressing without Salma knowing all the details. She had been heard twice. It was nothing like the end of the film: hours to specify, phrases to repeat, the embarrassing memory of what she thought she had seen and what she had actually seen.
Claire wrote to him. She talked about her recovery, Tom’s difficult nights, their decision to leave the workshop together. She didn’t thank him for saving everyone. She thanked her for opening up when her brother had knocked, and then for continuing to talk to her like a person when others offered to give him back.
Hervé's key had been left in Claire's toolbox at home. She handed it over to the investigators. But her letter was mainly about the client to whom she had sent the first photographs.
It was Serge.
She thought she was warning him of a scam. He had asked her not to speak to Hervé until they had compared the documents. Then he wanted to know where she kept the original images. She told him she had made a copy, not where. The next day, Hervé had summoned her to the depot to examine documents.
Claire understood when her warning changed when her boss placed the photographs sent to Serge in front of her. He had printed them. One of them could still see the edge of his thumb.
Salma put down the letter. She saw the passenger's calm hands again, his offer to stay close to Tom, his way of saying that he had not imagined all this. She had heard him as a man who had arrived too late to refuse. Claire showed him the beginning.
One sentence, in the client’s last message, stopped him: “You did well to tell me about it. We’ll settle it quietly.”
Salma had heard her in the bus, almost word for word.
Serge had not only tried to bring Tom back to those who were pursuing him. Before him, Claire had already believed in that voice.
Tom was still angry that he believed his boss. His sister reminded him that she too had begun to trust him. They did not heal at the same rate. For now, they were having dinner together on Tuesday, and no one was asking the other to get better before dessert.
Salma read the letter in her kitchen. Her mother, sitting in front of her, was peeling a spiral tangerine. Some days she didn’t know how old her daughter was. That morning, she asked why she had red eyes.
— "A bad night away," replied Salma.
His mother placed half of the mandarin near his cup. She asked for nothing else.
On the first night of the revival, Nadège came up with a sandwich for two. Pauline sent a photograph of her ankle getting rid of her tape. Étienne had left a bag of brioches too cooked to be sold, according to him, and perfectly good according to everyone. Ariane and Victor did not take the line again; they had returned home, several hundred kilometres away. They had sent a drawing.
Salma stared at him behind her seat, without masking the safety instructions. A yellow bus was moving between two blue mountains. Eight characters occupied the windows, the exact count of those who had gone through that night together, including Serge. Victor didn't know that sometimes you had to take someone out to embellish a story.
Above the vehicle, a huge tyrannosaurus was carrying an umbrella.
At 21:13, Salma looked one last time between the wagons. She waited for her usual 30 seconds. Then she closed the door.
The mountain didn’t seem safer than before. Neither do people. She only knew something that she had not been able to name during the night: she had not had to find, alone, a road to the end.
She placed her hand on the opening command, time to check that no silhouette was yet arriving between the cars. Then she took the road. Behind her, the passengers were talking. She no longer confused a quiet voice with a reason to trust her.
End
