I’m from a very small town. One that any minor event gets gossiped to death about. It felt like everyone lived in glass houses at times. If I skipped school the entire neighborhood would know before my last class ended. I wanted to move out of this town as soon as possible. After what happened, I got stuck here for a little while longer.
At the edge of town was a bus stop I’d never seen used by anyone. When a man started to appear waiting at night, rumors started within the day. I ignored such a minor event, but my best friend Duncan refused to drop it. After three days Duncan showed up at my place at dusk. That wasn’t unusual. We often walked down to the corner store for before-bed snacks. My mother called me down and I grabbed some change on reflex. I greeted him and told my mother we would be back shortly.
Duncan talked about the day on the walk. For some reason, he kept going by the store and towards his house.
“Dude, what’s up?” I asked him, my head nodding to the small plaza.
“You left your bike at my place yesterday. Let’s go get it and see the bus stop.” He said with no room for disagreements.
I still spoke up after a long groan. I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to see that random guy that showed up at night. From what I’ve heard the dude was crazy and the kids at school called him a really stupid name.
“We’re not going to see the stupid Bologna Man. Like, who even calls themselves that?” I said with another groan.
“It’ll be cool. I want to record it and put it on my channel. I’ll hit a ton of subs for sure!” Duncan said, eyes bright.
He’d recently gotten into making videos about cryptids and urban legends. Our local legend was a guy standing at a bus stop dressed in clothing from the wrong time period. I doubted this would get him any kind of views. If I refused to go, Duncan would go on his own. That was dangerous. I didn’t want him to get into trouble. For his safety, I relented. Duncan wasn’t overly bright. I didn’t really like him at times, but I really lack choices when it came to friends. Looking back on it now, I wished I let him go alone. It wouldn’t have changed what happened to him.
I sent my mother a text saying I was going to hang out at Duncan’s place for a bit. It was a weekend, so she wasn’t worried. I then turned off my phone because it was low battery-wise. I only charged it when I went to bed at night. If I kept it on, it would have died before we reached the bus stop.
We took our bikes to ride down to the edge of town. It wasn’t very far. The streetlights guided us to our destination, and it felt like the warm late spring breeze on our backs pushed us forward. The ride was nice despite what we were heading off to do.
Duncan got to the bus stop first. It was just a bench on the side of the road with a faded sign. A trail led off into the forest which I’d never taken, and I didn’t know where it led. A man sat in the dark. A streetlight on the other side of the road is the only source of light. He didn’t look over toward us. Duncan jumped off his bike, letting it fall to the side. I treated mine better and leaned it on the kickstand. I stopped behind Duncan hoping he got the shots he wanted so we could leave.
“Hey! Bologna Man!” Duncan said in an abrasive tone making me flinch.
The man slowly turned his head towards us. We made eye contact, and I felt my heart skip a few beats. He was the strangest person I’ve ever seen. He wore a very large-brimmed black hat. The brim was a perfect circle around his head. Wavy light grey hair spilled out from under the hat. He wore a dark wool coat even though it was pretty warm out. When Duncan called out again, the man stood to address us. He moved his coat aside to place a hand in a vest pocket. His pinstripe pants were well-pressed and matched his waistcoat. I realized he looked much like a wealthy man in the westerns my father liked forcing us to watch on Sundays. Aside from his outdated outfit, his eyes freaked me out. They looked far too light as if he was wearing light silver contacts.
“Now, what are you two boys doing out so late at night?” The stranger asked in a cool voice.
He had a hint of a Southern drawl. I half expected him to pull out a pocket watch to check the time and tell us to ‘hurry along now.’ Instead, he just gave a smile that didn’t appear as comforting as he thought.
“We wanted to see the new weirdo that rolled into town. You know you dress like a dork, right?” Duncan mocked.
I raised my eyebrow at him. A dork? Why was I friends with this guy? He had his phone out to record the entire interaction. I doubted he would get any good footage due to the low light. The man narrowed his eyes at the both of us. He didn’t move other than that, but he suddenly felt extremely threatening.
“I think your mothers should review how they raised the pair of you.” He commented in a low voice.
“And I think your mother should be locked up for giving you such a dumb name. I mean, Bologna? What’s that all about?” Duncan pushed.
“Hey, dude this isn’t right. We should go.” I said but lacked any confidence in my statement.
I reached to take a hold of my friend’s arm, but he shrugged me off. The man’s face twitched for a second. I really thought he was going to pull out a weapon. Instead, he let out a long sigh to relax. With an over-exaggerated shrug, he slightly turned away from us.
“I have never had such a thing. Might have been nice to be in the company of a mother. But no such luck on my end. That silly little nickname is something you humans have given me. I do wish it lost favor. However, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a name.” He said clearly trying to stay calm.
This guy was crazy. The outfit should have been a dead giveaway. I wanted to leave but a small part of myself actually wanted Duncan to get the video he wanted. I could see the comments this conversation would get. The idea of the online mockery got the better of me for a second.
“Do you think he’s one of those people who pretends to be a vampire or something like that?” I half whispered to Duncan.
We both let out a few giggles at the idea. We loved watching those cringy videos of people who thought they were wolves in a human body. Duncan was pretty mean-spirited toward the idea. I honestly thought they could believe whatever made them happy, but wished they acted a bit more normal over the idea. Then again. How normal can you act if you think you’re a wolf?
I looked up to catch the stranger’s gaze and any kind of humor quickly died. His silver eyes flashed, and I swear they glowed for a second. I shook my head thinking I was just seeing things. Fear spiked through my body, and I was way done with all of this. We had our fun and we bothered a poor guy that wasn’t entirely with it.
I pulled on Duncan’s arm wanting to leave. He pulled back not at all ready to be done.
“You kids should head home before the train arrives.” The stranger said and it almost sounded like a threat.
“Train? I think your head is full of bologna. This is a bus stop. A dead bus stop. Nothing comes here. You’ll be waiting all night for nothing.” Duncan said with a smirk on his face.
I tugged at his arm again. Stress pooling in my stomach. He refused to stop or leave. To him, things were just getting good.
“I think you’ll get hungry staying up all night for a bus that isn’t going to show up. I brought you a snack, but it might be cannibalism.”
I watched in horror as Duncan pulled out a Ziplock bag from his pocket with two slices of warm lunch meat. This was taking it too far. And he took it even further. With grace I didn’t know he had, he pulled the slices from the bag and tossed them like a frisbee with one hand. He recorded the round slices flying and landing on the brim of the man’s hat.
He didn’t even move. His expression never changed from the narrowed eyed unimpressed look. I couldn’t help but let out a single snicker at the entire thing. Shame and guilt flooded my stomach. Laughing was just a response to an uncomfortable situation.
“You did bring me a nice late-night snack. I thank both of you.” The man said in an oddly kind voice.
He reached up and took the lunch meat between two fingers and lifted his head slightly. He never broke eye contact with us as his mouth suddenly looked far too wide as the meat slid right between his teeth. He didn’t even chew it as he swallowed down the slices. The scene made my skin crawl. Duncan finally looked a bit nervous. And that was the last expression he ever made.
The man slightly raised his right hand and pointed a finger at my friend. He then pointed downwards on the ground. A terrible sound along with a strong breeze followed. It happened so fast that I didn’t even realize Duncan was no longer standing in front of me.
My eyes slowly went to the ground to something I couldn’t understand for a long while. The entire street was soundless besides a single cricket chirping. A scream started in my throat that never came.
I stared at what had been my best friend. A stupid friend that didn’t deserve this. His body was pressed into the ground completely flat. I wasn’t able to fully process what happened when the man raised a single finger again.
He lowered it and I fell to the ground, my left arm in agony. I screamed at the sudden pain. Rolling off to the side, I screamed again when my left arm just simply wasn’t there. Frantic I looked trying to figure out what the hell happened. My shoulder throbbing with pain and so damn hot. A smell came that nearly made me sick when I finally understood what happened.
The man took a few careful steps towards me making me skitter backward holding my empty shoulder. Somehow, he was able to force gravity to push down into a certain spot crushing things as flat as pancakes. But the flesh also got cooked as well as crushed. I sat breathing so hard I thought I might die. My arm pressed into the ground and the same color as the lunch meat Duncan had thrown at the man.
I suddenly realized where this monster got his stupid nickname. He got down low and sat on his heels. A wide smile on his face as he looked over at me. His teeth were sharp and inhuman.
With two fingers he picked up what had been my arm off the ground. With a few mocking wiggles, he let out a small laugh at my expression.
“I don’t really mind my nickname. After all, we are all just the same. All just meat. Don’t you agree?”
Without breaking eye contact, he leaned back his head and lifted the flat cook hunk of flesh over his ever-expanding mouth. Without chewing, he let the entire thing slide between his smiling teeth. A sound started that I didn’t realize was myself screaming.
Suddenly a blinding white light covered the area. Another loud sound came, and it took me a few seconds to adjust to the light. My mind didn’t want to believe anything I was seeing. The train this man claimed to be arriving on stopped in front of the bus stop. An old-fashioned steam engine sat in the road as if this was normal.
“Right on time. I think I’ll share my snack with my friends on the train. Don’t worry, I won’t let them touch you. I think you learned a valuable lesson tonight.” The man spoke as he stood up.
After he finished talking, the doors started to open on the carriages of the train. I did not stick around to see what got off that train. Adrenaline fueled my escape. I ran until I simply could not run anymore. Aside from the pain, my missing arm wasn’t that much of a problem. The wound had been burned shut, so I didn’t lose any blood. I was lucky I only lost an arm that night.
I was found and sent to the hospital. No one could explain what happened to my arm or why Duncan disappeared. There was simply not a single trace of him besides his bike at the old bus stop. I refused to tell anyone what really happened because who would ever believe me? For a town that talked about everyone’s business, they all let this odd event drop. The entire town was too scared to talk about what might have happened to two dumb kids that one fateful night.
I wanted to forget as well. But recently I’ve been hearing whispers of that man going around again. I wonder if people gave him such a non-threatening name, or if he picked one that made it easier for people to approach and mock him.
I decided to tell what happened on the off chance someone hears a silly rumor of a Bologna Man coming to town. I know it’s tempting to not take him seriously with a name like this. But please, promise me one thing. Stay away from him. No matter what happens, it’s not worth investigating such a simple rumor. I just hope this story reaches the right people and that man goes hungry.