The Bus Ride
David Frederick II
I’m a big fan of Halloween. I like to think it’s because of the masks and the costumes. It’s less that people run around in silly costumes (And some of them are outright ridiculous), but it’s more that people feel free to cut loose. It’s the Night that Daemons come out to play, after all, why shouldn’t we play a little? The thing that’s interesting is that, the better the costume, the more a person cuts loose. I like to call it the “Ring of Gyges effect”, after that magical invisibility ring that Plato mentioned. The tricky part is that, inevitably, the masks come off, and then the ring turns and people become visible. And, if your mask stays on, you can learn a lot about the person.
What’s really a kick is if you knew the person you ended up observing. Quite a number of my relationships have started in early November. More have ended, though. I have no patience of a woman who lies to me about what she does – on that night or any other. Call it a pet peeve, if you must.
On a semi-related note, I’m also a fan of Death. No, it’s not like that. I don’t wear guyliner and moan about the unfairness of the cosmos – especially towards me - as I sip a latte and remain blissfully ignorant of the poor sods in Africa starving. I like to blame my parents for this one. There are only so many ways school children can pronounce the initials “D.A.F.”, and only two of them sound like actual words. Three guesses which one the children I went to elementary school with settled on. It’s a silly place to put the blame, but there we go, and there it is.
And so, every year the two big things I’m a fan of collaborate and we get Halloween. Nowadays, I have this cheap little store-bought, but well-hidden and well-maintained Grim Reaper costume. Just a black robe with one-way mesh covering the face, and those gloves and shows that you usually see attached to skeleton costumes. And then I go to the costume party my friends always throw. And, for the first few years, I brandished an excuse why I couldn’t go before the actual day of the event. I had to watch one of my nephews, or my grandmother was sick, or something. They weren’t the most inventive, elaborate of excuses; they just needed to think I wasn’t going to be there. For all I cared, all my friends thought I sacrificed Goats to the Dark Gods of Pain and Torment or whatever. And, lo and behold, the “Death Kid” was always let into the party. He had been there since our Freshmen year of college when the whole tradition began, and he’d been there every year thereafter.
Occasionally, some kids who are still in college hear about us, and dress up as the Grim Reaper themselves to get in – and they’re usually let in. They like the free food and the booze, usually. And I like it because, well, it’s hard to keep track of one Death wandering around when there’s actually seven.
To help preserve my precious anonymity every year, I leave the care at home and take the bus. Two-fifty is, to me, a reasonable price for a night of complete invisibility. People tend to recognize their friend’s cars. Mine, for example is a pretty non-descript red four-door I don’t take pride in it or show it off. But when we hang out or go play pool or go to the bar, my friends recognize it as “mine”, despite the two or three similar ones that, without fail, populate the lot.
And so, this year, like every other, I donned my costume, took my ID out of my wallet, and caught the bus to the central terminal. It was a short, uneventful walk to the bus stop I used, but it was for a route that didn’t go near my house at all. Maybe I’m paranoid that one day a partygoer would be drunk enough to want to follow “Death Kid” home and discover he was me, but I didn’t want to leave any clues as to who I was. As always, to facilitate keeping an eye on the bus, I sat in the back. When I first got on the bus, there were three other people. Persons one and two were a young couple, probably late high school age. She was most definitely under eighteen, but I wasn’t sure about him. Probably over, and hey, far be it for me to condone any relationships. Love is Love and whether it’s between a man and a woman, a man and a man or a man and some teenage girl who ought to know better, I don’t interfere. Those things work themselves out. Anyway. She, like most young women took the Halloween opportunity to “Slut it up” wearing one of those awful “Naughty whatever” costumes. I think this one was supposed to be “Naughty Nurse.” A perennial favourite amongst those of little imagination. He did one worse, just wearing jeans and a black hoodie emblazoned with the words “Halloween costume” in that dark, pumpkin orange people tended to favour alongside black.
Critiquing other people’s costumes may sound strange coming from somebody who was wearing a cheap, store-bought Grim Reaper get-up, but I was wearing it as a disguise. They were obviously doing normal Halloweeney things. Probably going to a party, like myself. They might even be going to the same party. This is why I take alternate routes.
The third passenger was an older woman, bundled up in a brown and pink sweater, loudly and rather angrily tut-tutting at what I can only assume to be the other female’s mode of dress. I dropped the dollar twenty-five in the slot and snatched up my transfer ticket, giving the bus driver – an elderly black man in uniform – a quick nod and a smile that would have been difficult to perceive in normal circumstances. He probably didn’t notice.
Young Couple and Old Lady were sitting near the front, which left my favourite seat in the back corner empty – and I dropped into it without hesitation, pulling a scrap of paper from a my jeans pocket and through the costume robes as I did so. I had left my phone off at home, to help further cement my anonymity. It wouldn’t do to have a buddy recognize me because I really wanted to run something by a search engine. I did have an old, worn-down pencil and a pad of paper, though, in case I wanted to take notes of something or jot down an idea. It’s a habit I picked up from work, and not a particularly identity-revealing one, so I didn’t drill it out of my routine for the day.
Written on the paper, in my non-descript handwriting was the address. I just wanted to fix it in my head, and, doing so, immediately pocketed the paper afterward.
The bus only made two more stops on the way to the central terminal, which were the only pauses on an otherwise uninspiring trip. The disgusted old lady got off at the first stop, about five minutes into the ride, apparently fed-up enough with the schmoozing couple, because she stood at the station even after the bus left – apparently waiting for the next one.
The couple, on the other hand, made their egress only a block later. Which left me alone and feeling very exposed the rest of the trip.
After being disgorged on to the central terminal, I made a bee-line to the little map they had inside the building which sat on the island where the buses docked. Presumably, it was in place to allow people to sit and wait inside, where it would be warm against the chill of winter and during any thunder storms. The rain it kept out well enough, I knew from experience; but as for warmth – the place was barely adequate now. In October. It was quick and unexciting business to find out which bus route I wanted to take, and it was long, even more dull business waiting for it to arrive.
Most of the people at the station may have well been carbon copies of the people on the bus on the way over. Occasionally a mother or teenager would be leading a pack of costumed children around so they could trick-or-treat in relative safety. It wasn’t very dark, yet, but quite a few of these packs had glow sticks strung about their necks, to announce their presence.
When the bus I was waiting for (The number seven line, for those curious), I immediately boarded, alongside my only companion – an small Asian girl not more than seven years old, with a pillowcase full of what I assumed to be candy and the wide girl only a child wears. I fought the instinct to introduce myself and make sure she got back home safely. Line seven went though some pretty bad parts of town, if I remembered correctly. The last thing I needed was a strict, protective father assuming I’m of the criminal element and commence chasing me down the street with a sword or a shotgun. Our driver – when he boarded nearly before departure was an elderly man of the kind I often cursed when driving my own vehicle, bent over and shuffling slowly. I can’t be sure because of the distance between myself and hi, but I thought I spotted a small, flesh-coloured hearing aide tucked inside one ear.
The first stop our transportation made was to pick up a small gaggle of loud college-age kids, each and every one of them smelling so heavily of alcohol that I could smell it from the back of the bus as they boarded. About four hundred yards later, we picked up another traveler. He (or she) melted out of the darkness surrounding a streetlight’s gaze nearly too late to flag the bus down. He (or she) stepped aboard and paid by swiping a card frequent rider’s card and I was instantly amazed.
Our newest passenger was also a death – therefore the gender confusion. Except this costume was infinitely more elaborate. With large, life-like wings curled protectively over black robes which seemed to drink in the surrounding light hungrily. The costumed individual elected to go with an almost terrifyingly skull-mask instead of the one-way black mesh I had on, and the skeleton loves and shoes almost fooled me. Flosting in his/her hand, seemingly unattached to the bony fingers – but I knew really just held tough the black part of those gloves was a tall, magnificent scythe. Blade painted so that it glinted murderously in the streetlights, giving the illusion of real metal.
The smiling little girl visibly paled – even from my far-off perch. She got off the bus a block later, shaken to the core.
I decided to forgo the party this year. This was the person I’d follow.
My quarry almost immediately joined in with the college crowd’s conversation, standing serenely as the bus bumped along, politely declining to take any one of the multitude of empty sets. Some of the college students sounded un-nerved when my Death joined in, and a few got off the bus – obviously well before their stops.
The bus stopped an almost unsettlingly high number of times, but I had given up on taking detailed observations, instead letting my eyes track my target. He (or she) glided with smooth, practiced ease between passenger and passenger, engaging a few in conversation. He or she must have been a particularly bad conversationalist – or intentionally driving them away, as quite a few elected to make their exit from the bus shortly after.
The large amount of people embarking –and disembarking – made the ride slow-going and sluggish. The machine was quite obviously running behind schedule, as the slow-driving elderly man began to accelerate, attempting to catch up to where he was supposed to be in the schedule, and his driving became slowly – but notably – more reckless. It must have had an effect ton me, somehow, because I felt myself growing suddenly light-headed. I had those moments sometimes, though, and chalked it up to needing a quick shot of some energy drinks if there was a chance during tonight’s stalking. The hour was growing late and the darkness steadily increasing, and by this time, there were six people on the bus – not counting the driver. A bleary-eyed mother with her two children, both of whom were dressed like super heroes, a shabbily-dressed man, who appeared to be homeless, but, this being Halloween, I assumed he was just a guy in a well-crafted costume, my quarry and myself.
The other Death glided softly towards the back of the bus – those skull-mask eyes set upon me. I felt both excited and nervous. My cover was all-but blown. Maybe I’d be heading to the party anyway if I couldn’t discreetly follow him or her. Then the Death sat down, albeit a little stiffly, for the first time in the past fifteen minutes.
“Y’know,” he said – for the voice was most definitely masculine – and tinged with a familiar quality I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “I’ve seen you watching everyone. Is that why the cheap costume?” I blushed, facial expression hidden safely behind the black mesh. Most definitely busted. I guess I’d be going to the party after all, tonight. In the interest of conversation, however, I nodded numbly. As I did so, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an encroaching light, and felt a suddenly rush of light-headedness again. I felt sick.
“Knew it.” The familiar-voiced Death said, a hint of smug satisfaction creeping into his tone.
“Oh, and by the way – you’re not going to make it to that party tonight.”
“How’d you know I-“ I started, before four things happened near simultaneously.
The first was me recognizing the voice, finally. It was exactly what I sounded like when I played back the notes to myself which sat on the old tape-recorder I had.
The second was a shudden, sharp, piercing note.
The third was another note, definitely the sound of a truck’s horn honking, the driver leaning on it in frustration.
The fourth was the ambulance crashing into the rear of the bus – right where I was sitting.
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