Bus Ride
Jan was tired, she was late home from school again; Mr Grenier had kept her back for the third time this month for no reason. " It wasn't my fault!" She muttered to the air around her.
It was raining hard, her fringe was flattened to her forehead and her school uniform stuck to her skin like a wetsuit. She had left her umbrella at school but refused to go back and get it. She was already late enough as it was and she didn't want to give Mr Grenier the satisfaction of seeing her disheartened.
'Maybe he'll be sorry when I've died of pneumonia,' she thought as she finally reached the safety of the bus stop. There was no one else there it was just Jan and the sound of rain hitting the roof of the bus shelter.
It was already dark outside, the cold winter taking away the warmth of sunlight. Jan was shivering and the chatter of her teeth joined the sound of the rain. There was a flash of light through the air closely followed by the deep roar of thunder, making Jan jump then wince. She hated thunder.
Two round yellow lights appeared in the distance; Jan stood up slowly and gingerly stuck her hand out of the bus shelter, waiting for the vehicle to stop. But the car passed her sending a huge plume of dirty rainwater over Jan's soaked brown mop. Jan swore before sitting down again.
After she had finished wringing a stream of brown water out of her school jumper another pair of headlights appeared, standing well away from the curb this time, Jan waited for the vehicle to get close.
Jan carefully stepped onto the bus and immediately began looking for a seat, the bus was not as she expected it to be, packed full of angry pensioners and loud teenagers, it was empty. Completely empty.
Jan sat down at the back of the bus, in the middle seat, because the engine would be right behind her so it could dry her uniform. Of what she could see out of the almost steamed up windows Jan noticed that the bus was taking a different route. "Erm… excuse me, is the bus taking a detour." She called out to the bus driver, but she got no reply.
Jan started shifting in her seat; parts of her school uniform had started drying so she was really uncomfortable, but it wasn't just that, something was wrong, really wrong and whatever it was, was sending a shiver down Jan's spine. Jan pressed the bell, she wanted to get off.
The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, literally. Jan couldn't see anything out of the windows because they were all fogged up and there was no light penetrating the cloudy windows. She called out to the bus driver to open the doors, but got no reply.
She looked into the long rectangular mirror by the driver's booth and blinked repeatedly, but the mirror showed nothing but darkness.
Then two shrewd golden eyes flickered in the reflective glass. The two golden globes looked at her two thick black lines piercing through each eye. The creature blinked, its eyelids opening and closing vertically. A large, red, scaly hand opened the door of the driver's booth and an almost human frame climbed out. It made it's way towards Jan, long thick arms hanging down beside it's knees, the skin on one side of it's face hanging down, the ripples of flesh a mangled bloody mess. On the other half of its face was showing part of its eerie green skull, with black spots left from the rotten skin that had been pulled off. Between the rips of its shirt hanging of its broad red shoulders Jan could see a pulpy mass of flesh and specs of bone. Behind the creature was a trail of blood, the thick bubbling substance staining the floor. The thing grinned at her, lopsided because it only had half a face but it was grinning all the same. Its elongated arms reached out to her, it wanted her. An orange snake-like tongue escaped from the mouth of her captor and licked what little lips it had left. It was hungry.
Jan sat there frozen in her seat her knuckles white from gripping the yellow plastic arm rests. Lewd laughter filled the surrounding air filling every nook and cranny of the Double Decker bus. The harshness stung Jan's ears, the lights started to flicker and the bus started to shake. Jan screams joined the commotion. Her high-pitched cries in harmony with the beast's low chortle, music to the creature's ears.
But no one heard Jan's cries for help, no one heard her screeching in pain, no one had seen the rusty 102 bus pick up a 13 year old girl on a cold rainy winters night, and no one missed her at school. Well, all except Mr Grenier, even though he kept her back, often for nothing, he liked Jan. The beast in him couldn't help having her for a pre dinner snack.