Lucian pulled the hood of his sweatshirt tighter, the warmth of the bus a stark contrast to the deserted street outside. His throat rasped like sandpaper as he pressed the stop button. The bus hissed open, revealing a scene straight out of a forgotten alleyway. Cold brick buildings loomed, huddled close like conspirators, casting long shadows that danced in the flickering lamplight. This wasn't his stop. This wasn't anywhere he recognized.
The driver, shrouded in the gloom behind the wheel, simply raised an eyebrow.
"This isn't your stop, kid." the driver rumbled, his voice sandpaper on gravel. Lucian swallowed, the word "kid" stinging.
He wasn't a kid anymore, not since Matthew vanished.
Plus, the driver didn't seem much older either.
"I... I told you to stop here," he stammered, his voice thin and reedy in the cavernous silence.
The driver, shrouded in the darkness of his black high-neck, remained a silent, imposing figure. His gaze, hidden beneath the brim of a nonexistent hat, seemed to bore into Lucian, making him feel like a shuttlecock caught in a downdraft.
The driver shrugged, a ripple beneath his black high-neck. "Just sayin', you're going the wrong way."
He wasn't wrong, Lucian was just desperate to get off.
Lucian swallowed, the warmth of the bus suddenly stifling. He knew he should get out, retrace his steps, but the unfamiliar streets stretched before him like a maze, each corner a potential trap.
The tension cracked with the sudden giggle of the little girl. She skipped towards Lucian, her blue dress and bouncing ponytails a splash of color against the monochrome backdrop. Her teddy bear, clutched in one hand, seemed to wince in the cold.
"Hi! Lost your way?" she chirped, her eyes wide and innocent.
Lucian's unease eased a fraction. "Something like that."
"Don't worry," she chirped, "I know all the shortcuts. Where are you headed?"
Hope flickered, then died. "Home," he mumbled, the word tasting foreign on his tongue.
The girl's smile widened, revealing a gap-toothed grin. "Home, huh? Sounds cozy. Where is this cozy place of yours?"
Lucian frowned, his gaze lingering on the girl's stitched teddy bear. "Near the Shell gas station," he mumbled, forcing a smile.
The words falling flat in the bus's silence. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, a dissonance between the girl's innocent smile and the deserted streets outside. Why would a child be alone on a late-night bus?
"You're all alone?" he blurted, the question hanging heavy in the air.
The girl's smile widened, revealing a gap-toothed grin that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Just me and Teddy," she chirped, patting the bear's worn head. "He likes late-night adventures."
Lucian swallowed, his unease growing. "Adventures, huh? What kind of adventures?"
"Its a secret."
"Oh.. that's okay," Lucian said, unsure if he was reassuring her or himself. "Secrets are meant to be kept."
"Mhm! Today I'm actually going to school," the girl chirped. Her stitched teddy bear seemed to wink at Lucian. His exhaustion was making him see things..
He forced a smile. School at 2 AM? Yeah, right. Still, there was something undeniably innocent about her eyes.
"School at this hour?" Lucian raised an eyebrow. "You must be the most dedicated student ever."
She giggled, a tinkling sound that echoed in the deserted bus. "Mr. Henderson likes extra-early lessons. Helps us become morning larks, he says." A shiver ran down Lucian's spine. Mr. Henderson? The name felt oddly familiar, a name linked to whispers and hushed warnings.
Sensing his shift in mood, the girl leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "There's a shortcut, you know. Takes you right past the gas station. Saves you ages!"
Lucian glanced at the driver, still a shadowy figure in his high-necked black shirt. The man's gaze seemed to pierce through the darkness, lingering on Lucian for a moment longer than felt comfortable. Then, with a barely audible grunt, he pulled the bus into a narrow alleyway, the headlights slicing through the gloom.
The shortcut was a labyrinth of twisting lanes and graffiti-covered walls, the air thick with the smell of damp concrete and something else, something indefinable and unsettling. The girl skipped ahead, her blue dress and blonde braids a stark contrast to the grimy surroundings.
As Lucian steps off the bus, the driver mutters under his breath, barely audible. "Another full moon, another empty chair." His gaze, usually hidden beneath the brim of his hat, fixes on Lucian for a moment too long. It's not hostile, but there's a chilling intensity in his eyes.
"..."
Another full moon, another empty chair?
What the hell?
As they walked, the driver's words echoed in Lucian's mind. Was he messing with him? That intense gaze was all Lucian could think about.
The girl, with her unsettling knowledge and strange demeanor, only fueled his paranoia.
Finally, they emerged from the alleyway, the gas station's orange glow a beacon in the night. Relief washed over Lucian, mingled with a lingering unease. He turned to thank the girl, but she was gone, vanished like a spirit in the shadows.
Lucian walked towards the gas station, his steps heavy. He walked a bit until he was home, but the events of the night clung to him like cobwebs.
Lucian stumbled through his front door, exhaustion clinging to him like a second skin. He trudged up the stairs and collapsed onto his bed, the mattress groaning under his weight. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. His mother's night shift had ended hours ago, but as he squeezed his eyes shut, he could almost hear her quiet snores from her room down the hall. The knowledge twisted in his gut, a bitter mix of resentment and despair. A kidnapper stalked the streets, yet her sleep remained undisturbed. Had she noticed he wasn't home? Did she even care?
Lucian shook his head from these thoughts. That wasn't important right now.
Lucian on his bed, a prisoner of his racing thoughts, thrashed like a fish on land, sleep a distant shore his tired mind couldn't reach. Every twitch of the sheets whispered of the Midnight Bus, its every bizarre detail replaying on the projector of his insomnia. The driver, a skulking shadow, the drenched men, their sodden silence clinging to the air, and the little girl with eyes that held too much midnight – it was blurring the edges of reality.
He tossed and turned, the sheets tangling around his restless limbs. The strange bus, a chariot defying explanation, dominated his every waking moment. He wasn't crazy, he assured himself, not entirely. Everything about that bus, from its strange passengers to the driver's chilling aura, screamed 'unnatural'.
Then, a name flickered in the recesses of his memory – Mr. Henderson. Spoken by the little girl, it resonated with a peculiar familiarity. He had heard it on the news, amidst the grim tapestry of missing students. Was it a coincidence, or something more sinister? A cold knot formed in his gut as he lunged for his phone, "Let's see, Mr. Henderson..." He muttered, fingers tapping against the screen with frantic urgency.
Headlines, stark and unforgiving, unfolded before him. Each missing face, a haunting echo of lost youth, tightened the knot further. But amidst the recent cases, a faded obituary caught his eye. Mr. Henderson, a beloved teacher fallen protecting children. The school name below made his breath hitch – his own, a place buried in the fog of ten-year-old memories.
"Did I know him?" Lucian whispered, the question hovering in the air like a cobweb catching moonlight.
The question gnawed at him, leaving a hollow ache he couldn't quite name. His childhood, a hazy watercolor painting, seemed to shimmer with a new, unsettling clarity. Lucian closed his eyes, straining to remember. He scoured the corners of his mind, but the memories remained stubbornly out of reach.
A decade ago.
Nine years old, he had been then, a whirlwind of scraped knees and sticky fingers.
Childhood memories swirled in Lucian's mind like dust motes in a sunbeam – fragmented, hazy, and clinging to the sharper edges of neglect. His parents, a storm cloud of arguments and shattered dishes, loomed large, casting long shadows over the sunnier patches of love he desperately clung to. Fourteen, the age of the storm's breaking, had ripped him away from his father, leaving him adrift in a mother's harbor that felt more like a cold, lonely dock.
"Why'd that girl even mention Mr. Henderson?" Lucian muttered, chewing on his lip. "He's dead, ain't he? Like, buried-and-worms dead." The little girl haunted his thoughts. Was there another Mr. Henderson? Some doppelganger teacher haunting the shadows at midnight? He squinted at the phone screen, the faces of missing children, their innocent faces staring back at him like accusing eyes, bore no resemblance to her strange, unsettling smile. None of them were her.
The girl was... different. Too different. Her eyes, pools of shadowed wisdom in a porcelain face, held secrets older than her years. Her smile, a sliver of moonlight against the bruise of night, was unnerving, familiar yet alien. "Human, I think," he murmured, a shiver tracing its way down his spine. "But not quite."
Sleep eventually claimed him, but it was a restless slumber.