The fire is everywhere. I watch in horror as Klansmen press their shoulders against the door, trapping the unlucky souls inside the bus. The passengers bang on the door with their fists and somehow scream loud enough for me to hear the high-pitched noise over the mob’s own yelling and the roar of the fire. BANG! A gunshot sounds. The mob’s noise slowly dies down, but I could hear the screams even clearer. I saw one black boy, maybe 8 years old, just standing on a seat, hand pressed against the glass of the window, left half of his face burned. He made no noise but there were tears streaming down his cheeks. BANG! Another shot from inside of the bus. The men holding the doors now stepped back and 2 white men  fell out. They instantly got up and tried to push their way through the crowd, but hardly got through a row of people before they  were pushed back onto the ground. I saw that the rest of the passengers were now off, huddled together for protection. There was an eerie silence, the fire making the only sound now. Then a white man stood up, gun now holstered.
“I’m from the Alabama Highway Patrol. I was sent undercover to see what these --- people were doing.”
He took a step forward towards the crowd and to my surprise they let him in. He walked further in and took a spot right by me. Eyes were now on the passengers, wheezing and coughing. A black man stepped forward from the huddled group.
“We just want to-”
“Shut up!” the Highway Patrolman spat.
I looked to my left in disgust.
“Kill ‘em!” another man from the crowd yelled.
The crowd roared in approval. I struggled to not get trampled as they collapsed on the small group and pulled out weapons like baseball bats. My last sight of the passengers was the little black boy, now shielding himself from the oncoming crowd. I turned my back from it all and pushed my way out of the crowd. As I ran back to town, all I could hear was the roar of the crowd. And the sound of breaking bones.