by Shannon Cook
Dick rolled his eyes and stomped out of the garage. He was someone who cared for nobody, but himself. When he got into his office, he slammed the door behind him.
Back in the garage, the investigators and the insurance agent were inside the bus looking around. They all covered their faces and gaged as they stepped onto the bus. The smell was brutal! The smell of stale blood and death was overpowering!
Out of nowhere, they all got the sensation that the bus was traveling at a high rate of speed! They were all perplexed by the experience because the bus was sitting completely still! They all quickly took a seat and held on tight! That sensation lasted ten minutes. During that time, they could hear a bunch of people screaming, but the only ones on the bus were them! They didn't see anyone else.
“Fuck this!” The insurance agent said as they rushed as quickly as they could off the bus and out of the building.
Dick noticed the insurance agent high tailing it to their car and speeding off, leaving a large cloud of dust. “What happened there?” he asked himself. He got up and began to head over to the garage. On his way over, he was nearly knocked to the ground by the investigators who were rushing as quickly as they could to their vehicles. “What's going on?!" Dick panicked!
“Just junk that possessed bus!” one of the investigators demanded.
They all got into their vehicles and sped off down the road.
Dick turned around and stared at the bus sitting in his garage. He slowly walked towards the bus and got a mischievous idea! “I bet I can fix you up," he said as he gently rubbed the side of the bus. “You're going to make me a good profit!” He walked out of the garage and let out an evil chuckle.
Over at the hotel, which was only a few miles away from Dick's garage, Robin and Burke was getting ready to make their trip back home when they received a knock on their door. Robin walked over to the door and peeked out the peephole, terrified it might be another ghost! To her relief, a housekeeper was standing outside of the door. “Oh, thank goodness," she sighed as she opened the door.
“You're Eva's daughter? Right?” the housekeeper asked.
Robin's jaw dropped! How did this lady know who she was?! She wondered. “Why do you ask?”
The housekeeper entered the room and looked around. You're going to come into a lot of money soon, the lady informed Burke.
Robin and Burke were appalled! How did this lady know so much? The night before, Robin and Burke had a deep conversation about Burke putting his bus company up for sale. He was getting old and managing the company was becoming too much for him to handle.
Robin glanced around the room. “This room isn't tapped is it?”
“Tapped?” the lady asked. “What do you mean by that?”
“Tapped,” Robin responded. “You know, hidden cameras, recorders.”
The lady smiled. “I know more about you and your future than you will ever know!”
That remark freaked Burke and Robin out! Who was this lady?! They both wondered! Then, right before their eyes, the lady transformed into the male front desk clerk who had vanished right in front of Robin at the Bed and Breakfast the night before!
“My six-time great-grandson is a piece of shit!” the man informed them. “Watch out for him!”
The mysterious man glanced over at Robin. “My sincere apologies little lady, I didn't mean to frighten you back at the … um,” he paused for a moment, snapping his ghostly fingers. It was evident to Robin he couldn't think of the words he was looking for!
“Bed and Breakfast?” Robin asked.
“No thank you,” the man replied. “I'm not tired or hungry.”
Robin and Burke looked at each other strangely as the man continued talking.
The man told them that the Bed and Breakfast used to be an old orphanage. He explained to them that he had children who were taken there as infants and he keeps hoping to run into them someday there! “But, as luck would have it, I was also waiting for you, Robin,” the man stated.
“Why me?” Robin asked.
The man smiled. “You'll soon find out," he warned. “Just remember, don't trust my six-time great-grandson!”
The man turned away from them and vanished.
Burke and Robin stood in shock! Trying to piece together in their minds what just happened! They couldn't take anymore! They picked up their bags and rushed out of that hotel! They tossed their bags into Robin's back seat and speed as quickly as possible out of that town. Vowing to each other to NEVER return to that town!
During their long drive home, they both couldn't help but wonder, who was that ghostly man talking about? They didn't know at the time that the crash that killed Casey and Eva was not an accident! “I wonder what that man was trying to tell us?” Robin asked.
Burke shrugged. “I don't know,” he responded as he stared blankly out the window at the scenery flying by.
“Grandpa,” Robin started to say when Burke began snoring. “Never mind,” she sighed. For the remaining two and a half hours of the drive, Robin couldn't help but wonder what it was those two spirits they encountered were trying to tell them. It had to be something important! Against her best judgment, she turned the car around and headed back.
Once she was back in that town, she pulled into a gas station to fuel up her car. Since she was there, she decided to go inside and grab a few snacks. She noticed a male worker stocking the shelves and a young lady was working at the counter. “Oh, wonderful!” Robin sighed in relief. “Hopefully she isn't a ghost too!" She got up to the counter and placed her purchases onto it.
“I take it you're not from around here, are you?” the clerk inquired.
“No, I'm not,” Robin responded. “Why do you ask?”
The clerk smiled. “This is the only gas station for miles and I've never seen you in here.”
“No offense,” Robin said, “but this is a very strange town!”
The young lady chuckled, then got serious and asked, “You can see me?”
Robin's jaw dropped, then she laughed believing it was a joke!
Meanwhile, the male worker got done stocking the shelves and noticed Robin standing at the counter talking to herself. “Uh, ma'am?” he asked. “Is everything alright over here?”
Robin turned, looked at the man, and nodded. “This lady is hysterical!” she replied as she pointed behind the counter.
The man had a very confused look on his face. “What lady?”
When Robin turned back, the lady was gone! “What?!” she panicked! “The lady that was just standing there!” She began pleading with the man. “Please tell me this is all just a joke!” Then she began describing in great detail what the lady looked like to the man.
The man's face got really pale. Five months ago to that day, that man's wife was murdered by an armed robber! Right in that spot! Robin just described his wife to a ‘T.’ “That was my wife,” he replied. “She lost her life here five months ago,”
“Oh no, I'm so sorry,” she sincerely said. “I'm in town because my parents were involved in a horrible accident just outside of town here.”
The man looked at Robin and asked “Was it that bus accident that occurred in the mountains?”
“Yes, it was,”
“I probably shouldn't say this, it's probably confidential, but a few investigators came in here earlier and rushed to the restroom.” He told her.
Robin looked confused. Why would that information be confidential? So what if a few detectives came in to use a gas station restroom? “That's import, why?”
“They were talking to each other on the way out, and I overheard them.”
“What were they talking about?”
“They were talking about the bus that was involved in that crash that killed your parents.”
Now, this man had Robin's full attention! “What did they say?”
“They are claiming that bus to be possessed,” he replied. “They believe the victim's spirits are still on board that thing!”
It was
all making sense now! That's what the two other spirits were trying to tell her! That her parents have not moved on yet! “Where is that bus now?”
The man shrugged. “How should I know,” he responded.
“Thank you for that information!” Robin said as she rushed out of the gas station, leaving her unpaid for purchases on the counter, and rushed back to her car. She got inside and Burke was wide awake.
“Are we almost home?” he asked.
“We haven't got out of this town yet,”
“Well, wake me up when I'm back home,” Burke instructed his granddaughter as he fell right back asleep.
Robin felt at a loss. She didn't know what to do now. She wanted to leave that town as quickly as she could, but on the other hand, she wanted to try to locate that bus! Then again, if she found the bus, what was she going to do? She knew nothing about helping spirits to the other side! “Ugh,” she sighed as she started up her car and pulled out of the gas station, and headed back home.
Back over at Dick's garage, Dick began the task of fixing up the severely damaged bus. He called his brother, Marcel to come over and help him out. When Marcel arrived he took one look at the bus and said, “you have to be out of your mind! We can't repair this thing!”
Marcel's repair shop is more than twenty miles away. He was much older than his younger brother, Dick, and had eight more years of experience doing bodywork on vehicles. He crawled underneath the bus and checked out the frame. He noticed the frame was bent and snapped almost in half! “We can't fix this thing!” He shouted from under the bus.
“Yes, we can!” Dick replied with confidence! He was bound and determined he was going to make a profit on that bus! Come hell or high water!
Marcel crawled out from under the bus. “Have you looked at the undercarriage?” he asked.
“No,”
“Take a look for yourself!”
Dick let out a disgusted huff and crawled under the bus. For the first time, he took a good look at the frame. “Oh, this is nothing!” he laughed. “We can fix this!” He got out from under the bus and stood up. “Nothing to it!”
Marcel raised an eyebrow at his brother. Has he lost his mind?! He wondered. “How on earth are we going to fix that!?” He snapped. “It's a mess!”
“I have a junked dump truck in the junkyard,” he smiled. “It's the same length of this thing. All we need to do is remove the two bodies from the frames and switch them!” He explained to his older brother who was staring at him as if he had two heads.
“And how do you suppose we're going to do that?” he asked.
Dick patted his brother on the back of the shoulder. “You'll figure it out,” he smiled as he walked out of the garage and into his office.
Marcel followed Dick into his office. “What do you mean by I'll figure it out?” he asked very displeased. “You're not going to make me do this on my own? Are you?”
“Don't worry,” Dick replied. “I'll help, just you figure out how we're going to accomplish such a task. I have other work I need to do.”
“Fine!” Marcel snapped as he stormed out of his brother's office. He walked outside and made his way behind the building to the junkyard. When he got to the dump truck his brother was talking about, he looked it over. The entire thing was gutted out. He crawled underneath and the frame was still in great shape! Now he just had to figure out how to get that truck up to the garage!
He walked back to his brother's office and went inside. Dick was on the phone with a customer. “I understand you need your truck back, sir,” he said. “But I need another week or two to finish it,” he explained.
“I dropped my truck off two months ago!” the customer snapped. as Dick held the phone away from his ear. “It was only a headlamp that needed to be changed!”
It was only a headlamp that needed changing, but Dick was a shady businessman. “We detected a wiring malfunction in that light's connections," he lied. "We are getting that fixed because it is a fire hazard,” he explained calmly.
“Why wasn't I informed of this?” the man snapped.
“I thought one of my other workers called you about that?” Dick lied again. Dick didn't have any other workers there. He didn't like sharing his profits.
“No,” the man replied.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, Sir,” Dick said, “I'll make sure your truck gets to the top of our priority list. I'll personally drop it off at your house when it is completed.”
“How much is that going to cost me?” the customer asked.
“No more than $750. I'll drop it off free of charge.”
“Fine!” the man snapped. “I better have it in my driveway no later than next week or my lawyer will be getting involved!” The man hung up the phone on Dick.
“Guess I need to put in a light bulb,” Dick sighed.
“What about the wiring?” Marcel asked.
Dick laughed. “There's nothing wrong with the wiring in that man's truck!” he stated. “I just forgot to do it."
Marcel glared at his brother. “You're one piece of shit!” he scolded. “Giving our family a bad name!”
“What do you want?”
“I need the keys to your tow truck.”
Dick pointed over to a bunch of keys hanging by his office door on a pegboard. “It's the top left corner.”
“Thanks,” Marcel took the tow truck keys and went out to his brother's tow truck. When he got the tow truck behind the building, he had to back it to the old dump truck. There was just no space to turn it around in the junkyard.
When he got to the dump truck, he carefully attached the chains to the dump truck's frame and eased it out, and backed it up to the garage. Once he unhooked the dump truck from the tow truck, he found a steel cutter and began cutting the body away from the frame. “I have no clue what I'm doing here,” he said to himself.
A few hours had passed, and Robin was finally dropping her grandfather off at his house. “Thanks for the ride!” Burke said as he exited his granddaughter's car.
“See you later grandpa,” Robin replied. A few minutes later, Robin arrived back home. Jayme already had dinner on the table. Robin took a seat and didn't say a word.
“Hello to you too,” Jayme said sarcastically.
“Oh,” said Robin. “Hello,” Robin just stared down at her plate of food, picking away at it.
Jayme could see her wife was very upset. “Do you want to talk?”
“Not right now,” Robin softly replied. She sat back in her chair and let out a deep sigh. She looked up and stared at Jayme, quietly thinking. Jayme was a bus driver also, one of her grandfather's employees. She hated to imagine what if she was the one driving that bus? She couldn't withstand the thought of losing her wife the same way she just lost her parents! “I think you should give up being a bus driver,” she said with a tear running down her cheek.
“Alright,” Jayme replied. She could see in her wife's eyes she didn't feel comfortable anymore with her being a bus driver. Not after what just happened to her parents! “Just let me find another job first, one that will pay me at the same rate or more."
Robin smiled, got up, gave her wife a tight hug and a kiss on the lips. “I appreciate that,” she said.
The next morning, Burke came over to Robin and Jayme's house and asked Jayme if she'd be interested in taking over the business, she wasn't. So Burke put out an ad putting his company up for sale!
For the next month, Burke received a lot of bids for his company. He decided to sell it to a man who owned a few travel agencies across the area. The man, Luke, seemed to be well informed about the transportation industry and would be a great fit!
Luke offered Burke a whopping six million dollars for his company! Burke took that money and paid off all his business and personal debts and was able to finally retire comfortably.
Jayme, on the other hand, was not impressed with her new boss and kept trying desperately to find another job that met up to her standards.
V
&n
bsp; During that last month, Marcel and Dick worked tirelessly on the bus that had been involved in the accident that killed Robin's parents, along with five others. They were putting on the final touches one morning when Marcel asked, “What do you plan on doing with this thing?”
“I'm going to sell it!” Dick smiled. “This thing is going to make us a pretty dollar!”
“How?” Marcel asked. “Nobody in their right of mind will buy any vehicle that they knew was in a fatal accident!”
Dick laughed. “Oh, my dear brother,” he chuckled. “I'm not going to tell anyone it was involved in a horrible crash!”
“Are you going to warn them about the spooks?” Marcel asked.
Over the past month, both Marcel and Dick had experienced multiple paranormal experiences while working on that bus. There were many times Marcel wanted to through in the towel and quit fixing it, but his younger brother, Dick, kept promising him lots of money if he continued to help him. They experienced lots of voices, apparitions, and their tools vanishing! They just wanted to get that bus done as quickly as possible so they didn't have to step inside of it ever again!
“I'm not telling anyone that it is haunted!" Dick snapped. “I'd like you to take one of those price tags and put this bus up for fifty thousand dollars,” he instructed.
“Fifty thousand?” Marcel asked. “This thing isn't worth even a thousand!”
“Just do it!”
It was early Saturday morning, and Saturday was Dick's busy day for car sales. He was hoping if he got that bus out on the lot that morning, he'd be able to sell it quickly and get it off his hands!
Marcel wrote out the price sticker and stuck it to the windshield. He got inside and tried starting the engine. The engine just cranked but wouldn't start. “You have got to be kidding me!” Marcel snapped. He kept trying to start the bus but it just wouldn't crank over. “What is wrong with you?!” he asked. “I just put a new starter, battery, and engine in you yesterday!” Aggravated, he stomped off the bus and into his brother's office. “That damn thing won't start!” he stated in anger as he slammed open Dick's office door.