I used to work as a bus driver. The pay was nice, or nicer than other jobs in my area. I usually took night drives because there wouldn’t be many cars on the road, and that made me feel safe, or at least safer than in the day, when anxiety made me fear every car on the road. There was one night that I just cannot forget, it just lives in my head, sitting on my brain. The night was still young, around midnight, and there was less people on the bus than usual. I had just picked up someone who asked to be dropped off at stop 15-10, which was the last stop of district 15. I continued driving until around, attempting to pick up more passengers, but eventually I had reached stop 15-10. At the stop, the guy got off, payed his fair, and another person got on. He was around 6’8, much taller than the usual passengers, and he was pale. Very pale. His eyes were almost sunken in, and he was wearing a face mask. Now, as the lockdown had recently ended, this wasn’t unusual, as people were still in the habit of having a mask on their faces.
“Hello, I gotta get somewhere,” the man said. “Stop 16-10 please.”
“That’s what I’m for,” I said. “Hold on, and I’ll get your ticket.”
While the machine was generating the ticket, I tried to make small talk. Nothing controversial, just the rainy weather, a game that had recently been on TV. Stuff like that.
“I’m not really a man that likes games.” He said that in a monotonous way. In fact most of what he said was indeed very monotonous.
When the ticket finally generated, which didn’t take too long, I handed it off to him, and he went back to sit down. I looked back into the cabin with the mirror that was mantled to my left, slightly above the door, I could see the man take off his mask. Underneath the mask, was a nasty scar on his mouth. Think the joker from The Dark Knight, but not covered by make-up.
“How’d you get that?” I said.
“I’d rather not talk about it.” He said. I felt bad for mentioning it, and berated myself in my head. 4 stops later, at stop 16-4, everyone except that man got off, all paying their fair’s. It was just me and this guy on the bus. I then realized something that made me more confused than anything else. The stops beyond 16-5 didn’t exist. There wasn’t a 16-10 to drop the man off at.
“Hey man-“ I said, “that stop you wanted to get off at, doesn’t exist man.”
“That can’t be right,” the man said. “There should be a 16-10.” This time everything the man said sounded kind of fearful.
“You all right man, you look kinda shaken up.”
“No, I’m not all right. There should be a stop 16-10!” He almost shouted, but it didn’t sound like he was trying to be disrespectful.
“Look man, there isn’t a stop 16-10, the last stop on my route is 1-“ I was cut off by the man standing up, and walking towards me, saying “Please man tell me your joking!”
This time the man sounded extremely scared. When he got up to me, he kind of grasped my jacket collar, but he could tell I was kinda rattled as well, and decided against it. Eventually, he went back and sat down, shaking a bit.
“Man, I don’t know what to tell you. The least I can do is take you to 16-5, and the most I can do is take you back to the bus landing and figure something out.”
“Yeah man, I guess I’ll go back with you and figure stuff out.” As I was pulling up to stop 16-5, the man suddenly shook his head towards the mirror, and for whatever reason, I didn’t want to open the door, and I’m glad I didn’t. No one was at the stop itself, but in an alley of the the house behind the stop, Something was just, standing there. It was tall, and human shaped. Much skinnier and taller than the man.
“Don’t stop.”
I listened. In fact I sped up. In the rearview mirror, I saw the thing come out of the alley, and start on all fours. It started scurrying in the opposite direction the bus was going. When we were about halfway to the bus landing, the man started looking out the window.
“Hey, what’s that out there?”
I looked out of the driverside window, and saw that thing, scurrying alongside the bus. It was keeping up well, and when I started going faster, it started swerving the to the side opposite the bus. After that, I don’t really remember what happened.
I woke up in a hospital, and I was told that I was found in the driver’s seat of the bus, with the doors ripped off of their hinges. The man was nowhere to be seen, and the only witness of the “crash” were an old couple which were out on a late night drive that came across the bus. The company I drove for suspended me because it couldn’t be proven that I was attacked by something. The only proof that I had of an attack is the doors being ripped off, and because of how plausible it is that the bus ran into a sign or skidded on the road and the doors got ripped off from that.
For all I know, that could be a blessing, but I know that I’ll never be taking night routes anymore.