07 Aug Night Coach

For context, I am a middle-aged man who lives on the outskirts of Parbold, a small English village.  My house is the only one on a long, winding country road, but it does have a bus stop.  From my bedroom window, I can see it on the other side of the road.  It’s quite handy, really.  I never miss the morning bus to work, and I know the schedule by heart.  That’s why I was bewildered when I first noticed the 3:17 am bus on Saturday, 14^th October.

It woke me up, actually.  I’m a light sleeper.  I sat upright in my bed, twisted my body around, propped myself up on my knees, and gingerly inched the curtains open.  The old lamppost on my road illuminated an ominous, fully-grey, non-branded, single-decker bus.  There was no interior lighting.  I couldn’t see a driver or any passengers.

Now, this was obviously bizarre.  Buses don’t show up at that time in the morning.  Not in this country. Not in any town or city I know, anyway.  Still, I assumed, as any person would, that times were changing.  It seemed like a good idea.  A bus for those who’ve missed the last train home after a night out, perhaps?  That still didn’t entirely make sense because very few people use my bus stop.  It’s a 10-minute walk from here to anywhere.

I checked the schedule.  Nothing.  There was a bus at 11:07 pm on Friday evening, and there shouldn’t have been another one until 6:05 am on Saturday morning.

I watched the vehicle pull away and considered, perhaps, that it wasn’t a public bus.  Maybe it was a hired coach.  That seemed like a reasonable explanation.  I put it out of my mind and went back to sleep.

However, it returned the next morning.  And it continued to do so for weeks.  Again, I checked the schedule.  Still no mention of a 3:17 am bus.  I called the council, and they assured me that it wasn’t a public bus.  They said that I could contact the local authorities to report any suspicious activity.  So, I rang the police.  They didn’t care.  They passed me over to some civil department with a forgettable name, and that department passed me over to another department.  Nobody was concerned.  It became clear that each person I contacted just wanted me to tire of the whole thing and stop bothering them.

I gave up on seeking help, but I didn’t give up on my quest for an answer.

I started making notes.  The bus always arrived at exactly 3:17 am.  It would linger for approximately 30 seconds.  Nobody ever boarded or departed the vehicle.  I took a picture of it and posted it on various forums.  Nobody could identify the origin of the faceless grey bus, but one comment did stand out.  I remember a user telling me that I should sell my house and move.  They said that the bus was there for me.  Most importantly, they said that I shouldn’t, under any circumstances, board it.

That seemed like a rather obvious piece of advice.  I wasn’t planning on boarding a sketchy, unlisted bus in the pitch-black hours of the morning.

But everything changed on 20^th November.  The bus arrived on time.  3:17 am.  I knelt on my bed and peeked at it through the curtain as it rounded the corner.  Something was different.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  Once the vehicle had rolled to a complete stop, I heard it.  Somebody on the bus was screaming.

I froze.  I didn’t know what to do.  Silence followed, but I knew I hadn’t imagined it.  I knew I’d heard that scream.  I watched the bus and waited.  30 seconds passed.  A lot of time passed.  When I finally peeled my eyes from the road to check my phone, it was 3:29 am.  The bus hadn’t moved.  The world outside was still eerily quiet.

I reattached myself to reality and started dialling 999.  The call kept failing, and then I saw that I had no signal.  None.  I usually had signal at the house.

I was freaking out, so I got up to turn on my bedroom light.  Nothing.  I flicked the switch back and forth.  No power.  The story was the same throughout the house.

I was about to head to the fuse box, but I looked out of my living room window to see a blackened world.  The lamppost was dead.  It had to be a power cut.  That was when I finally understood, for the first time in my 10 years of solitary living, that I was truly isolated.  I had no neighbours.  No friends. No family.  I was all alone.

The gravity of the situation dawned on me.  I would have to leave the house.  My self-preservation instinct was to stay indoors, but I couldn’t ignore the disembodied scream that had echoed through the night.  I knew it had come from the bus.  I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I were to dismiss it.

Armed with a winter coat and a wind-up torch, I bravely ventured into the night, locking my door behind me.  I tentatively strolled down my front path, stopping at the gate to cast the torch light onto the other side of the road.  It revealed the grey, stationary, seemingly-abandoned bus.  There were no signs of life.  Everything was so quiet.  I swore to myself that I could hear my heartbeat in my eardrums.

I swung the creaky gate open and began to cross the road, futilely attempting to steady my quaking knees.  My torch wobbled in my shaky left hand, so I clasped my wrist with my right hand.  I shone the light into the windows of the parked vehicle.  There was definitely no driver, but it was an elevated coach, so I couldn’t see whether there were any passengers.

I walked around the front of the vehicle, summoning the courage to enter it.  When I reached the other side of the bus, I stood still.  I tried to control my breathing.  I eyed the doors for what seemed an eternity, and then I felt my entire body clench.

The doors opened.

My torchlight still wasn’t revealing a driver.  I couldn’t see or hear anyone.  I thought, for a brief moment, of that internet stranger who told me not to board the bus, but I couldn’t get the scream out of my head.  My gut told me that somebody was in danger.

I stepped onto the bus and started to climb the stairs.  The doors closed.  I held the torch before me as if it were a weapon, and I gradually climbed the next set of stairs to the elevated passenger platform.

I spent several seconds on each step, savouring what I felt could be my final moments on earth.  Then, I illuminated the passenger area before me.  I half-expected to see nothing.

No.  There was somebody on the bus.

The young girl was sitting in the middle seat of the back row.  Her head was in her palms.  She was crying.  I couldn’t see her face.

“Are you okay?” I asked, timidly.

No answer.

So, I started to walk forwards.  I didn’t know whether there was anyone else on board, but I couldn’t leave her.  Once I was standing only a few yards in front of her, I knelt down in the aisle.

“Are you okay?” I asked a second time.

The girl’s crying abruptly ceased, but she didn’t lift her head from her hands.

“You shouldn’t have boarded the bus,” She replied.

My torch died.  I furiously wound the lever at the side, but it didn’t spring back to life.  The girl and I had been plunged into darkness.

Then, I heard the bus doors open.

I slowly turned my head to face the front of the bus.  I could hear the sound of low, guttural breathing. It was followed by clunking footsteps.

Dim moonlight shone through the front window, but it was sufficient to display a hulking figure at the other end of the aisle.  A black spectre with gangly limbs was moving towards us.  He was hunched forwards, and his elongated arms dragged along the tops of the seats.  He was too tall and too wide to fit in the aisle.

I turned to face the girl.  She had lifted her head from her hands.  I could barely see her.  I could barely hear her.

“This is the last stop,” she whispered.  “I was really hoping you wouldn’t board.  I wanted more time.” Before I could even comprehend what was happening, I felt an icy limb coil itself around my ankle.  It yanked, and I fell.  My nose connected with the floor of the aisle, and I heard something crack.  I thought that was it.  I thought that was the end, but I looked up to see the demonic creature coil its other limb around the girl’s neck.

It hoisted her from her seat.  She screamed as she was lifted towards the indistinguishable figure in the aisle.  I couldn’t really see what happened in the darkness, but I’ll never forget the sound her body made when it was consumed by the black entity.  It sounded like leaves crunching beneath walking boots.

I had almost entirely lost my sense of reality at this point, but some vestige of survival instinct persisted in my fractured mind.  I twisted onto my back and looked down at my ankle.  I couldn’t really see what I was doing in the dark.  I just knew I had to act.  So, with my free foot, I stamped on the creature’s limb.  I stamped as hard as humanly possible.

The demon, which had been devouring the poor girl, unleashed an inhuman wail.  It pierced my eardrums and shattered every window on the bus.  The limb retracted from my ankle and returned to the shadowy being.

I seized my opportunity.  Catapulting to my feet, I spun around and lunged for the now-glassless back window of the bus.  Clinging to the frame of the window for dear life, I took one last look at the dark entity that was hurtling towards me.  Then, I dropped to my feet on the road.

I sprinted away from the bus.  Adrenaline fuelled me onwards.  I didn’t look back.  I just kept running. At the speed I travelled, I think it only took me a few minutes to reach the warm and welcoming lights of civilisation.

I looked at my phone and cried when I saw that I had service.  I booked a taxi.  I wanted the farthest possible destination.  I chose Manchester, then I took the first train to London.  For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been living in a hotel.

I know I was a little late, but I finally took the advice of that online stranger.  I moved away.  I moved far away.

I don’t go outside at night, and I definitely don’t look out of the window after 3 am.

---

🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

Written by Dominic Eagle
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

🔔 More stories from author: Dominic Eagle

Publisher's Notes: N/A

Author's Notes: N/A

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