See How They Run

Fineen Hingston

Tapping her foot against the corrugated iron wall of the bus shelter Sarah checked her watch again. The bus was already two minutes late. She needed to get home quickly because she had an assignment to finish. A light drizzle of rain beat a mournful tune against the metal roof. Sarah shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and glared angrily at the dark and empty street. It replied with the wheezy death rattle of the wind.

“Is it normally this late?” she asked a man who was sitting calmly on the bench. He looked up from his book.

“Sometimes. But have a little patience, it always gets here eventually.”

“Hmph.”

Sarah continued to stare disapprovingly at the damp street. The only sign of movement was a stream of water running along the gutter. Against the tar of the road, it looked as black as ink. Suddenly there was a roaring sound and she saw the warm lights of the bus come into view.

“See,” said the man. “Here it is.” He returned to his book.

“Aren’t you catching it?” she asked.

“No, I’ll catch the next one,” he replied.

When the bus swung to a halt Sarah could hardly get through the doors fast enough.

The only other passenger on the bus was a man in a black suit. He didn’t look up from his newspaper as she entered. The driver didn’t close the doors behind her. She was about to inform him that the man with the book wasn’t catching this bus when a young kid came running along the path.

“Wait for me!” he cried, splashing through the dark river in the gutter. When he had clambered aboard, he took out a little envelope with ‘bus money’ written on it.

“I’m catching the bus all by myself.” he informed the driver with a crooked smile. “My mum says I’m a big kid now, so I’ll be catching the bus every day.”

The driver passed him a ticket which the kid carefully stored in his pocket.

“You’re very mature.” said the driver with a note of regret in his voice.

The kid sat down across the aisle from Sarah and stared at her curiously. Sarah stared back but he didn’t look away. So she turned her attention to the window where she met the gaze of her ghostly reflection instead. The bus was quiet, apart from the sound of the driver whistling to himself. It was a slow tune that sounded a bit like Three Blind Mice.

As the bus meandered slowly along the road Sarah cupped her hand against the window and peered into the darkness. She tried to work out how far she was from her stop but all she could see was the indistinct shape of what could be the church, yet that couldn’t be right because her bus route didn’t go by the church. A few minutes later they started travelling steeply uphill. Hang on, thought Sarah, there aren’t any hills before my stop. Sure enough, she began to smell the unmistakable stench of decay that could only belong to the sewage ponds on the edge of town. Shit thought Sarah. I’m on the wrong bus.

She pressed the stop button and tried not to panic about the steadily decreasing amount of time she had to do work. And it was due tomorrow. Oh, why wouldn’t the bus just stop? She pressed the stop button more firmly and glared down the aisle at the driver. He wasn’t stopping. She grabbed her bag and made her way towards him, she had no time to spare and every inch the bus travelled was an inch she would have to walk back.

“Excuse me,” she said to the driver, “I need to get off the bus right now, it’s urgent.”

The driver was perched over the steering wheel like a spider on a web. Slowly he turned his head towards her, an ominous smile slid across his face.

“Why the hurry?” he asked. “You might never come this way again, you should enjoy the ride.”

“But I didn’t intend to come this way, I’m on the wrong bus and I have places to be, so I’d really like to get off the bus now.”

“It seems that everyone has places to be, but there are also places you are, and you are here.”

“But I don’t want to be here, I want to be home so I can do my homework.”

“And then what will you do, catch another bus? Do more assignments?”

“I guess, but that’s not…”

“So it’s very fortunate that you caught this bus isn’t it?”

“This is ridiculous, you have to let me off!”

“I can only let you off at an official stop. You’ll have to wait.”

“Please, can you just pull over and…”

“No. I will let you off at the next designated stop.”

They drove on. The rain was much heavier now, it beat against the window in waves as steady as a heartbeat. A cool breeze came in from under the door and danced around her ankles. Finally, the bus jerked to a halt. They were at another bus stop. The door swung open and the driver leapt out of his seat and addressed the passengers.

“Welcome,” said the driver, “to the end of the line. The last stop. The point of no return. This is where you step off the bus, once and for all.”

“But I need to catch a connection,” said the man in the black suit.

“No need to get ahead of ourselves,” said the driver with a broad grin. “I need to leave for a moment so I suggest you enjoy the view and I will be back soon to bring you to your final destination.” He spun dramatically and stepped off the bus.

“Didn’t he say that this was the last stop?” asked the kid.

The man in the black suit shrugged his shoulders and returned to his perusal of the business page.

“My shares are up five percent this week.” He said with a smile.

Sarah angrily kicked the seat in front of her. She wasn’t sure where she was exactly, but it was clearly very far out of town. Sarah didn’t even know how she would get home, let alone finish her assignment in time. Climbing out of the bus and onto the pavement, Sarah looked around for another bus or even a timetable. But the bus stop was empty. The rain had finally stopped and left a deathly silence in its wake. The wet pavement glowed white in the moonlight. The kid pulled on her sleeve. Sarah looked down at him.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

Sarah stepped towards the curb, rested her hand on the signpost and glanced at her watch.

“We wait.”