by Rick Hautala
“Don’t say a word to him. No matter what he says. Even if it’s to tell him to leave you alone. If you feel at all threatened, say something to the bus driver—”
“How do I know I can trust him?”
There was a slight pause, then Samael continued: “Then start yelling for help or something crazy to draw attention. He—we can’t bear the scrutiny of large groups of people. We mostly have to keep it on the D.L.”
Claire chuckled to hear him use the slang for “down low.”
But her amusement rapidly faded when she realized that the old man—if he was the demon—was between her and the bus driver…and the exits. If he came back here…if he forced a confrontation, she would be trapped.
“You got that?” Samael said. “Don’t talk to him.” His voice sounded faint with distance, and Claire was all too aware of the miles and miles that separated them.
Even once she was back with Samael, how could she know for sure she was safe?
“He’s freaking me out.”
“What’s he doing?”
Claire shifted up so she could see over the empty seat in front of her. Sure enough, the old man was still turned around in his seat and staring back at her. He never blinked. Claire couldn’t see his eyes clearly, but she was positive they didn’t have ordinary pupils. She was sure she could see golden, catlike ovals. She wondered if someone like, say, the stoners, noticed what he was doing. Would they react, or was this an illusion designed specifically to creep her out?
“He just…keeps staring at me,” she said. The tightness in her throat made her voice sound funny.
“Then ignore him. He can’t do anything to you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! I’m sure,” Samael said, sounding like he was getting a little bit impatient with her.
“Well he sure as fuck is getting on my nerves.”
“Just look out the window. Ignore him. Read. Enjoy the trip as much as you can. It’ll be over before you know it.”
You could say that about life, she thought, and she chuckled grimly.
She wanted to convince herself that—demon or not—the old man was a harmless old coot. She snuggled down in her seat and stared at the back of the seat in front of her.
Samael said, “Call me if you have to.”
“I will…for sure.”
In the short pause when neither of them spoke, Claire could feel her heart being stretched a couple of hundred miles down Interstate 95.
“I love you,” she said as tears filmed her eyes.
“I love you, too, Claire, and I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“Bye-bye.”
Before Samael said anything else, her phone beeped three times. The battery was almost drained.
“I gotta hang up,” she said. “My battery’s gonna die. I’ll call you when I get to Portland.”
“Or if there’s any trouble.”
“Right. If there’s any trouble,” she said, but then realized that if there was any trouble, she was on her own here.
“Love you.”
The phone beeped again, three times.
“Gotta go.”
“Love you, too,” he said before she quickly killed the call.
As she slid her phone back into her purse, the feeling of abandonment was absolute.
I am on my own!
The old man’s gaze was still boring through the bus seat in front of her, still fixed on her. She was tempted to make a scene and go up to the front of the bus to complain to the driver. Maybe she could have the old man removed from the bus as a potential danger or something, but she decided just to let things be.
Like Samael said—stay low…don’t speak with anybody…and try to enjoy the long bus ride.
“As if…”
~ * ~
Claire awoke with a start.
Sunlight was flickering through a stand of pine trees on a hillside, creating a weird, old-time movie effect. For a panicked second or two, she was disoriented and didn’t know where she was.
Then it all came back: the cold night, her panicked hike through the woods, the wandering and the nervousness—no, the outright panic she experienced even after she got onto the bus. She had been at a crisis level for more than twelve straight hours, now, and no amount of dozing was going to replenish her strength.
She sighed, rubbed her eyes, and then sat straight up, looking to see if the old man was still turned around and looking at her.
To her shock, he was not there.
A quick glance around the bus confirmed that he hadn’t changed seats so, unless he was in the restroom, he must have gotten off—
Or disappeared, she thought with a shiver. The way the demon I thought was Samael had.
What if he’s sitting right there beside me—invisible—and watching me, relishing my fear and paranoia?
Had the bus stopped while she was asleep, and he had gotten off?
She couldn’t have slept through that, could she?
She looked around at the passengers but couldn’t be sure if anyone else was now gone or if there were any new passengers. Her mind was slow and hazy with sleep, but it worried her that she might have slept through a stopover. With a sudden surge of panic, she clutched her purse and then opened it, making sure her wallet, cell phone, and other valuables were still there.
They were, so she relaxed a bit.
When she cleared her throat, it felt like it was plugged up with dried mucous.
Had she slept with her mouth hanging open and drooling…like some idiot?
She tried to find the strength to get up and move to the front of the bus. For some reason, she thought she might be safer up there.
Where the Hell are we, anyway? She wondered?
When she looked out at the highway, all she saw was the gray asphalt strip slipping by and the seemingly endless stretch of pine forest. That’s all there ever was to see on this godforsaken part of the Interstate. Years ago, she had heard that a famous travel magazine had designated I-95 in Maine as one of the ten most scenic highways in the US.
As if, she thought. They must not have driven this far north.
And like she had so many times before, she wished these tedious miles could somehow magically melt away.
She was still wondering about the old man and where he had gone to. It was entirely possible that while she was asleep, the bus had stopped—maybe even in Bangor, if they were already that far south—and he had gotten off. She was working to accept that was what had happened when the door on the bathroom beside her clicked. The sound hit her ears like a gunshot. She looked up and saw the old man exiting.
A lance of ice ran through her, and she couldn’t help but gape at him.
Instead of returning to his seat, he braced himself with one hand on the wall, the other on the back of a seat, and stared down at her. Up close, Claire was positive she saw a golden glint in his catlike eyes, but she turned away quickly and stared out the side window.
The muffled thumping of her pulse in her neck was painful.
Claire watched his pale reflection in the window—
At least he has a reflection.
She wanted to turn to him and challenge him, but she remembered Samael’s warning not to speak to or even look at him. Still, she couldn’t ignore his reflection that loomed in the bus window with the pine trees flickering by.
“You seem lonely and frightened,” the old man said. His voice had a mellifluous tone—soothing, trusting…“Where are you headed, child?”
Claire continued to ignore him and kept her gaze fixed on the scenery. She was running through her options. She could get up, push past him without saying a word, and sit up front directly behind the driver. If her cell phone hadn’t been dead, she could call someone—who? The police?…Samael?…the bus company?—and report that he was harassing her.
Maybe she should reach into her purse and pretend to grab something—a gun or a can of pepper spray—and hope the old man recognized the threat and bac
ked off.
But if she did that, she’d be the one who ended up in trouble and probably get arrested at the next stop for terrorist activities or whatever. Maybe they’d even have a squad of police cruisers pull the bus over and arrest her on the highway like they did to a guy a few years ago in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
“If yah want, we could talk about whatever’s bothering yah.”
His voice was still laced with honey smoothness, but she detected a wicked edge lurking like a hidden serpent underneath it. She kept staring straight out the bus window until her eyes hurt. The bus was in the passing lane, and she jolted with surprise when she saw a car, speeding up on the right side until it was beside the bus, directly outside her window, keeping pace.
“No way,” she said. Her breath steamed the bus window, obscuring her view.
It was Samael’s black Mercedes!
And Samael was driving! In spite of the cold day, the windows were rolled down, and she could see him clearly.
A surge of desperate hope filled her.
She stared down at him, but he was staring at the road ahead as if he didn’t know she was there. Claire had no idea where they were. She hadn’t seen a road sign for the longest time, and she wondered how he could have gotten this far north so fast, turned around, and found her bus, heading south.
“Samael,” she whispered, tapping furiously on the window with her forefinger. For a moment, she forgot all about the old man in the aisle beside her. She clenched her right hand into a fist and started banging harder on the window.
As if he can hear me…
“Samael!”
She kept knocking, harder, until a passenger—not the old man—shouted, “Hey! Yah wanna keep it down back there? I’m trying to sleep here!”
Claire felt defeated as she watched Samael, wishing—praying he would glance up and see her.
He has to know I’m on this bus…
But he sure as Hell wasn’t acting like it. She gazed down at him, admiring his handsome profile with the morning sun beaming through the windshield, lighting up his face. As she stared at him, he slowly rotated his head much further than was possible for a normal human, like a mechanical toy, until he was looking straight at her. His eyes were huge, black pits—like holes punched into an icy pond. A wicked smile spread across his face, exposing long, pointed teeth that dimpled his lower lip as he looked at her and clearly mouthed the words: “Fuck you!”
Claire’s heart froze.
Still not looking at the road ahead, Samael—
No!…That’s not Samael!
—started to speed up, pulling away from the bus.
Leaning forward in her seat, Claire pressed her face against the window as she watched him go. His head had now rotated a full hundred and eighty degrees, and he was staring at her over his back, not looking at the road ahead. Before he pulled out of sight, he raised his left hand from the steering wheel and slowly extended his middle finger until he jabbed it in her direction. Then, still not looking ahead but watching her with a cold, pitiless expression, he sped away.
Claire was crushed, but at least she knew now that the demon that was tormenting her was not on the bus. Blinking back tears, she turned away from the window. Already what she had seen outside seemed unreal—like a fragment from a nightmare. She slumped forward, face in her hands, and sobbed low, dry sobs that wrenched her hard.
“I see,” the old man said, his voice still dripping with so much kindness and understanding it was sickening. “Problems with your boyfriend…maybe your husband, huh?”
He paused as if expecting Claire to answer or at least acknowledge him, but as she stared down at her lap, all she could wonder was: Why the Hell does he think I want to talk to him about anything?
In a sudden rush of anger and hurt and fear—yes, genuine fear that the danger was far from over—she raised her head and looked at the old man.
Only he wasn’t a man.
Standing in the aisle was a large misshapen mass that had only the vaguest indication of a human shape. Claire’s eyes widened with shock which jacked up even higher when she realized the old man was in reality made up of a swarming mass of wasps. They buzzed and crawled, vibrating their wings and making loud, clicking and crackling sounds that vibrated madly in her ears. The old man’s figure shifted and shuddered as the mass of wasps seethed, their buzzing sounds getting steadily louder, as if they were irritated.
Claire was frantic to get away from him. Without thinking it through, she lurched out of her seat and pushed past the old man. Her knees started to fold up under her, and she bumped into him. Immediately, her hand and wrist got stung in at least a dozen places. Her winter coat protected her arm, but her hand and wrist felt like it had been peppered by numerous tiny heated pinpricks.
When she looked up at the old man’s face—the wasp demon—what appeared to be his mouth opened wide, and a swarm of wasps shot out like darts. Claire squealed and ducked down just in time to avoid them. One caught her on the side of the face and stung her under the eye. Whimpering, she made her way to the front of the bus where the seat directly behind the driver was now available. The mother and two kids were sitting a few seats back. The older child was asleep, and the baby was nursing.
Claire sat down, her hand covering the sting on her face. A prickling sensation washed over the back of her neck, and she imagined dozens if not hundreds of wasps, crawling all over her skin. When she swatted herself, the loud smacking sound drew the attention of the young mother, but Claire didn’t dare make eye contact.
Who’s to say she isn’t a demon, too…that the whole bus isn’t filled with demons, determined to torment me and wait until I slip up and damn my soul?
The thought was like a wedge of ice slicing through her gut—
They’re following me…tracking me…watching me all the time…maybe so I’ll lead them to Samael.
Hands shaking, she took her compact from her purse and looked at the sting under her eyes. It pained her with a fiery jab, but in reflection, she couldn’t see even the tiniest mark.
What the Hell is going on here?
She wished she had the courage to look behind her at the old man—the wasp demon—but she knew she’d scream in terror if she still saw the buzzing mass of wasps that she knew was his true form. Instead, she sat there, frozen with fear and leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
She took her cell phone from her purse and stared at it. She wanted desperately to call him. It would be so reassuring to hear the quiet, measured calm of his voice again.
But she also had to save her cell’s battery for emergencies. As the bus rumbled along, all she could think was—as much as she had suffered from the cold in the forest last night, her problems—and Samael’s problems—were far from over.
In fact, they were just beginning.
Chapter
12
Ding Dong
The thought crossed Claire’s mind that she might already be damned and in Hell, forced to ride on this bus forever.
It seemed as though the bus took every exit off the Interstate to pick up or drop off passengers. More often than not, though, there was no one waiting or getting off at the station. Still, they had to keep to their routine and schedule, just in case. It was looking like all of the passengers—even the wasp man at the back of the bus—were heading to Portland or points south.
She didn’t know what she would do if the wasp man approached her, either on the bus or when they arrived in Portland…
Would she be safe in the bus terminal?
Terminal…Now there’s a good word!
Well, she figured she’d have to make sure she didn’t get into a situation where he could corner her and get her alone.
But what if she had to use the restroom, and he barged in?
Would he be that bold?
What if he manipulated her somehow and got her alone?
And when they finally arrived in Portland, what if Samael, or whoever appeared to be Samael,
was waiting there in his black Mercedes. She had no way of knowing if it was really Samael or an imposter.
She moaned softly and pressed her head against the headrest of the seat, wishing to God that none of this had ever happened, but that didn’t extend to not meeting Samael.
That she would never change!
Demon or not, he was the love of her life…“for better or worse”…and being trapped on a bus with a wasp demon was right up there with “worst.”
There were so many infinitesimally small things that could have gone differently, and she would never have met Samael…or he might have noticed Sally first…or if she, not Sally, had gone to the restroom in the restaurant, then Ron LaPierre might have attacked Sally, not her.
Infinite possibilities…especially when you’re dealing with a demon, but it all came down to this—
It doesn’t matter because this is what’s happening now, and come Hell or high water, she had to deal with it…or else.
“Right,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes tightly. “Or else…what?”
Feeling somewhat secure sitting directly behind the driver, she settled. The monotonous hum of the bus’s wheels on pavement soon lulled her, and she drifted into a hazy half-sleep. Before she settled down, she found the courage to look into the driver’s huge rearview mirror and check on the old man—the wasp demon. He was sitting straight up in his seat, not hunched over, as she had expected. His hands were folded in his lap as he stared forward, straight at her. He looked perfectly normal…except for that creepy stare. The mask of wasps—or had she seen his true form and was looking at the mask now?—was gone.
Claire didn’t like him staring at her, but what could she do?
Telling herself she was safe, at least right now, she cuddled up as best she could and drowsed. One thing that kept coming back to her mind…buzzing like a bothersome wasp…was wondering what Samael’s true shape was.