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The Boy on the Bus
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A/N - By the way, in case anyone was wondering, I get nothing but pleasure from this…
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Gwen Rardin was worried.
When her son, Max had come home from baseball practice today, he'd been very quiet. Usually he was full of tales of who hit one (nearly) out of the park - who Coach had yelled at - who was going to be first at bat for Saturday's game... Today he'd dropped his equipment by the door and gone straight out to his tree house.
Concerned, she'd tried calling him down, but had finally climbed up to talk to him. That was when he'd finally told her what he'd seen on the bus: A man: quiet, almost sleepy, who'd had a lot of blood on his shirt.
"It was worse than the time Jimmy cut his finger! I asked him if he was okay, Mom. I asked him what happened to him. He said the weirdest thing. He said, 'I think I quit my job,' Then he buttoned up his coat and got off at the the next stop." His big eyes looked up at hers. "What did he mean, he quit his job?" Before she could respond he'd told her what he was really worried about: "Dad's not going to quit his job, is he, Mom? 'Cause I don't think it's a very good idea."
She'd hugged him then, and reassured him that Dad had no intention of quitting his job for a very long time, and not to worry about strange men on busses.
Now, Max was in bed and she was watching the news. The lead story was of a brutal and bloody murder in New Rochelle. They hadn't found a body, but the police were saying there was too much blood for the victim to have survived, although they would continue to search. Poor guy had lost his wife a little while ago only to come home to someone waiting to kill him.
She was no detective, but she couldn't help but wonder about the man on the bus. Could the two be connected? Should she get involved? Call someone?
She decided she wanted no part of any of it. She generally believed that everyone had some good in them, and she could not understand what kind of horrible things had to happen to people to twist them into cruel, violent, murderous creatures.
What could this poor, innocent, grieving husband possibly have done that would attract the attention of such a monster?
Was it possible her sweet boy had ridden the bus - even spoken with one of these monsters? She was horrified.
She knew one thing for sure: that was the last time Max would ride the bus home from practice.
