The Night Run

It was just after two in the morning when I passed the bus.

Every inside light seemed to be on and the interior was eerily yellowish.  I could clearly see the empty seats and the colors of the advertisements as it rumbled by me, swaying slightly from side to side, and for no reason that I could think of, I felt a sudden shiver down my spine.  There was not another vehicle in sight and most of the grand old houses in this part of town were dark and sleeping but I could see the destination header above the windshield distinctly - "Night Run", I read and felt a sure and certain chill.  A goose walking over my grave, my grandmother would've said.  I had a sudden and unnerving notion that things aboard the bus were wickedly wrong, that if it were to stop, a dozen dead and decaying bodies would tumble out, that the driver would be a  ghastly ghoul with cemetery dirt clinging to his boots.

I wondered about the route of the "Night Run" as I watched it disappearing in the rear view mirror, chugging a little drunkenly down the deserted street toward downtown.  I even had a second or two of curiosity so intense that I contemplated following, just because I'd never known a bus to run so late and so empty.  Would it return to the station or dim that brightly illuminated interior and drive through the graveyard?  And would it pick up more passengers?  Did even the dead have some destination?  A leftover whiff of exhaust brought me back to reality with its stench of diesel fuel (and death?) and I cursed my runaway imagination.  I was on a quiet city street at two in the morning, on my way home from a bar, hot and tired, and the city bus was just a city bus. Except that I was sure it wasn't.  

The chief trouble with my imagination is that it doesn't come with a kill switch.  The "Night Run" had been out of sight for several seconds before I realized that I was still in my idling car, sitting in the middle of the street with my foot firmly on the brake.

That's it, then, I said outloud, No more horror movies for you.

I was only a few minutes from home and just a few hours from daylight, but it was more than enough time to summon up another handful of apparitions.  I drove slowly, paying attention to the shadowy side streets and taking care not to get caught in the spaces between the street lamps.  Who knew what might be lurking in the dark, what might be waiting, what might've missed the bus.  I had visions of rotting corpses staggering down the sidewalk, of monsters behind the wrought iron fences and vampires slinking through the dark.  I drove a little faster, thinking that there would be safety if I could reach the intersection at St. Mark's where there would be light and open space and the nearness of a church.  Of course, I knew that there really were no demons or walking dead but if there were, they'd retreat.  

I crossed the intersection and drove the rest of the way in the clear, forcing the image of the bus with its unnatural, jaundiced light, its empty, abandoned seats and its unseen passengers out of my mind.  Wherever the "Night Run" had originated, whatever its destination was, and whoever was riding on it, were questions for another night and someone else's imagination.