Curse of the Possessed Bus

by Shannon Cook

  Blake could tell his boss was not joking around. He glanced at the new addition to the fleet. There had to be some sort of wiring issue with it! “Did you happen to get the full-service report on this bus?” he asked.

  “Full-service report?” Luke chuckled. “This bus had only 250 miles on it when I bought it!”

  Blake got nervous. He was starting to recognize the bus. He noticed the faded-out areas of the side of the bus, where lettering had been peeled off. He got an ill feeling in his stomach. This can't be the same bus that Casey was driving on that fateful morning! He thought to himself. He shook off the feeling and reinsured himself that was impossible! He saw the photos of the bus after the crash! There was no way anyone could've repaired that thing!

  “Alright, sir,” Blake said. “I'll have this bus ready by this afternoon!”

  “Good,” Luke stated. “I need to use it this afternoon, Jayme's bus is being taken for its annual inspection.”

  For the next couple of hours, Blake installed all the lettering and numbering onto the bus. When he went to program the CB Radio and test it out, he was taken aback when he discovered that the radio was already programmed to the right channel for that particular bus company!

  “How is that even possible?” he asked himself. In the back of his mind, he kept telling himself that the bus he was working on was the exact bus Casey was driving when he crashed in the mountains! Again, he shook off the thought. “Luke must've programmed it already,” he told himself.

  That afternoon, when Jayme returned to do her afternoon run, Alma greeted Jayme with even more cheerfulness in her voice.

  Jayme smiled and laughed as she approached the window to get her keys. “Someone spike your coffee with gin again I see.” she laughed.

  “Oh no,” Alma replied.

  “Then, what's the bad news?” Jayme knew that Alma only got that cheerful when she was drunk, needed a favor, or had to deliver bad news.

  “We had to take your bus for its annual inspection,” Alma informed Jayme. “We're giving you our newest addition to the fleet for the next week. Just until your bus comes back.”

  “Ugh!” Jayme grunted. She hated driving the spare buses with a passion! “Alright, but only for a week!”

  Jayme grabbed the keys from Alma and walked out. “340, 340,” she said aloud to herself quietly as she searched the yard for that bus. “There you are!” she sighed as she finally found it! She got into the driver's seat and tried starting it. Nothing happened. She noticed a note sitting on the dash. It read: How to start the damn thing! Jayme raised an eyebrow as she read the absurd instructions. “This must be a joke!” she laughed. Blake was always a practical joker! She tried starting the bus the normal way repeatedly, still nothing. “Why won't you start?!” she scolded!

  “You're not doing it right,” Casey replied.

  Jayme looked around in a panic! She recognized that voice! That sounded like my father-in-law! She thought to herself as she began to feel the hairs on her arm stand up on end! She decided to follow the instructions on the note. To her amazement, the bus started right up! “That's odd,” she said to herself.

  She got out of the bus and began her pre-trip inspection. Everything checked out to be okay with that bus. Not perfect, but still safe to drive. She got back into the driver's seat and proceeded to drive the bus out of the bus yard. There was nobody on that bus, besides her, yet she kept hearing the sound of seatbelts buckling up and unbuckling. She pulled over on the side of the driveway, got up, and looked around. Nothing was out of the ordinary. She shrugged it off and got back into the driver's seat. Before she got get the bus back into drive, she felt a firm tap on her shoulder! Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a male figure standing alongside her! She slowly and fearfully turned her head to see who just tapped her.

  “You're in my seat,” Casey's spirit calmly stated.

  Jayme's jaw dropped to the floor! She was terrified! Yet, at the same time, amazed that she was interacting with the spirit of her father-in-law! “This has to be a dream!” she told herself, trying not to believe she was interacting with a spirit! “I'm just dreaming, this is not real!” she kept saying to herself.

  “This is no dream!” Irwin stated with a laugh.

  Jayme quickly turned around and faced Irwin who had manifested in the seat where he lost his life. “Who are you?!” she panicked.

  “Name's Irwin,” Irwin replied. “Who are you?”

  “Jayme, I'm Casey's daughter-in-law,” Jayme replied.

  “Daughter-in-law?” Irwin asked. “Eva, you didn't tell me you had a son too!”

  Eva manifested herself behind Jayme. “I don't, she's my daughter's wife,” she informed Irwin.

  “Wait,” Irwin laughed. “Your daughter is a lesbian?!”

  “Do you have a problem with that?” Casey snarled.

  Jayme sat in the driver's seat, speechless. She couldn't believe her eyes! Then, all four of the patient's spirits manifested right in front of her eyes!

  “Fight! Fight!” Royce chanted.

  “I'm not going to sink to his level,” Casey stated.

  “Coward!” Irwin teased.

  Frank began rocking back and forth in his seat. Nibbling on his ghostly fingers.

  Jayme pointed at Frank and asked, “Is he alright?”

  “Him?” Veronica scoffed. “He'll be fine."

  “Would you all just shut up already!” Cissy snapped. “I'm trying to take a nap! Wake me up when we get to the new hospital!”

  Veronica got up and smacked Cissy across the head. “You idiot!” she snapped! “We're dead! We're never going to arrive at that new hospital!”

  “What do you mean we're dead?!” Cissy panicked!

  Jayme couldn't take it anymore! She quickly turned the bus around, parked it, and ran as quickly as she could back to the dispatch building!

  Casey glared at all his passengers. “Great!” he said with disappointment. “She was our only hope and you all had to scare her away!”

  Irwin rolled his eyes, “and you had nothing to do with it?”

  “She knows me!” Casey snapped! Casey was hoping none of the other victim's spirits would manifest at that moment so he could try to convince Jayme into helping them get off that bus! He knew that if she saw all of them at once, she'd probably get too frightened to ever step foot onto that bus again! “I hate to say this,” Casey stated, “but I think you all blew our chances of getting off this damn bus!”

  Meanwhile, Jayme slammed open the door to the dispatch office and stormed up to the dispatch window. “I'm not driving that bus!” she snapped at Alma. “It's a piece of shit!”

  “You have to," Alma replied in shock! This was the first time she ever had Jayme refuse to drive any of the buses on the lot! "That's the only bus we have for you!"

  Jayme knew there were plenty of other buses in the lot she could drive, besides bus 340. “I want a different bus!" She firmly demanded! "What about bus 329 or 303?”

  “Other drivers are taking them later this afternoon," Alma informed Jayme.

  “Well, I'm not driving 340!” Jayme snapped. “If you won't let me have another bus, then I'm going home!" she was furious! "Find someone to cover my run until my bus gets back!" She glanced around the room at the sixteen standby drivers. "You got plenty of standby drivers!” She said with anger as she marched out of the building, slamming the door behind her.

  When Jayme arrived back home, Robin had just returned from work herself. She was surprised to see her wife home so early! “Did you quit?” Robin asked.

  Jayme shook her head. “No, I'm just not feeling well,” she told her wife. She hugged Robin. “I need to lay down,” she softly said.

  Robin looked at Jayme. She was pale and didn't look good at all. “Do you want anything to eat?” she asked.

  “No, I just need rest,” she replied as she entered their bedroom.

  Later that night, Jayme woke up from her long nap and went out to sit next to Robin on the couch. “I sa
w your parents today,” Jayme informed Robin.

  “You are sick!” Robin stated. “Darling, are you alright?” She was concerned for her wife. “Maybe watching that horror movie last night was a bad idea.”

  Jayme looked into Robin's eyes. “I'm serious,” she said. “Here! I'll prove it!” She jumped up off the couch, pulled Robin up by her arm, and pulled her towards the door.

  “What has gotten into you!?” Robin frantically asked as Jayme quickly put on her shoes, grabbed her wallet and car keys.

  “Get your shoes on!” Jayme demanded. “We're going to the bus garage!”

  “It's eleven at night!” Robin snapped.

  “Come on!”

  “Fine,” Robin said as she reluctantly put on her shoes.

  They got into Jayme's car and drove to the bus garage. Jayme didn't want the security cameras at the bus garage to pick up her vehicle in the parking lot, so she parked her car in a dirt driveway a half-mile away and they got out and walked to the bus garage sneaking through the woods.

  “This is trespassing!” Robin nervously said. “What if we get caught?”

  “If we get caught, I'll just tell them that it is my bus, and I left my cell phone on it,” Jayme reassured her wife.

  They made the long walk through the bus yard. Trying to locate the bus. “Where is it?” Robin asked.

  “How should I know where the other driver parked it?”

  After ten minutes of searching, they were about to give up when they noticed lights coming from behind the garage that was not there before! “Hold on,” Jayme said. “Follow me.” The lights were going from low beam to high beam. When they turned the corner, they found bus 340 parked behind the repair garage. “There it is!” Jayme stated.

  “What's with the possessed headlamps?” Robin asked.

  “I don't know,” Jayme replied as she opened up the bus and they stepped on board.

  Robin didn't like the feeling that the bus gave her. She looked around and choked back tears. She knew right away, that was the bus her parents lost their lives on. “How is this even possible,” she asked herself as she sat down in the aisle seat behind the driver's seat. She put her head down and began to sob. “I saw the photos of the bus after the crash!” she stated. “This can't be the same one!" She tried telling herself, even though, deep down in her gut, she knew it was!

  “My darling,” Eva softly said as she manifested and placed her ghostly arm around her daughter Robin's shoulder. "This is the same bus.”

  Robin jumped to her feet in disbelief! “Mom!” she yelled. “Is that really you?”

  Eva smiled at her daughter. “Yes, my dear, it is me,” she said.

  “I'm here too,” Casey stated as his spirit manifested right in front of them.

  Robin was confused, why were her parents still on the bus they lost their lives in? Yes, she was thrilled to see them again! However, she was upset that they hadn't moved on. “Why are you still here?” she asked.

  “We can't get off of this thing,” Casey replied looking around the bus. “Trust us, we've all tried!”

  “Can you just go through walls now?” Jayme asked. “Or use any of the doors?”

  Just then, Irwin manifested with a chuckle. “Do you really believe we'd all still be on this bus together if we could leave that easily?”

  Robin jumped back in fear! “Who are you?!"

  “That's the other doctor,” Eva told her daughter. “There are seven of us trapped on this bus,” she informed her daughter.

  Robin and Jayme looked at each other. They both knew by looking in each other's eyes that they needed to try to do something to help. But how do you help spirits move on? Neither one of them knew how to do that! Robin looked at her father and asked, “Is there any way we can help?”

  Casey smiled. “I thought you'd never ask!” He tried hugging his daughter, but his arms went right through her! He pulled back in disappointment. “We all have unfinished business, and we can't move on or get off of this damn bus until we complete our unfinished business,” he informed Robin and Jayme. “Unfortunately it has been impossible for us to complete our tasks on our own because we can't get off this bus!”

  “Would you want us to help you all complete your unfinished business?” Jayme asked.

  Robin looked at her wife in shock! She wouldn't mind helping her parents with their unfinished business, but she had no clue what they were getting themselves into with the other doctor and the four mental patients! “Jayme,” she quietly whispered in her wife's ear, “are you sure about this?”

  “Positive!”

  Irwin grinned a sinister grin. “Just know, once you start helping us, you can't escape us until the entire task is completed!”

  Robin sighed. “Alright, when do we start?”

  Casey got into the driver's seat and placed his hand on the ignition switch. A bright glow came from his ghostly hand, almost blinding Robin and Jayme! The bus started right up, without a key! “Right now!” Casey stated as his ghostly foot floored the accelerator and they went speeding out of the bus lot.

  “Whoa!” Robin and Jayme yelled as they fell to the floor! They got to their feet and looked around.

  “Where can we sit?” Jayme asked. “I would prefer not to sit on a ghost's lap!”

  Irwin laughed. “Then you better sit on the floor!”

  “Irwin!” Eva scolded. “You two can sit right behind me, nobody was sitting there when we crashed.”

  Robin and Jayme took a seat behind Eva and buckled up tightly.

  Casey took the bus and pulled onto the interstate. When he got to the tollbooth, he rolled down his window and grabbed the ticket with his ghostly hand. The tollbooth operator stood frozen in fear and disbelief as she watched the bus pull away!

  She took a step back and said to herself, “I need a vacation!"

  The bus traveled down the highway at a high rate of speed as Robin and Jayme held on for dear life! “FATHER!” Robin shouted! “Slow down! You're going to get us all killed!”

  Irwin laughed. “Why should we care?” he said. “We're already dead!”

  “We're not!” Jayme snapped back.

  “Trust me,” Casey chuckled. “I'm a professional!”

  Irwin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, you couldn't even control this thing in the mountains!”

  “Irwin!” Eva snapped. “Shut up!”

  VII

  The next morning, Luke and Blake were making their rounds of the bus lot checking for any damages that might have been caused by vandals overnight. While Blake walked behind the repair shop, he noticed that bus 340 was missing! “BOSS!" he shouted!

  Luke walked behind the garage and found his mechanic, Blake having a panic attack! “Blake!” Luke snapped. “Pull yourself together,” his voice became calm. “What is it?”

  Blake pointed to the rear garage door. “I parked bus 340 here last night! After I had to rescue it from the side of the road after it stalled!”

  Luke was beginning to panic now! He ran as quickly as he could to the dispatch office and discovered the keys were still there. “It has to be here,” he said to himself. “A bus just doesn't drive off on its own!” He walked back over to the repair shop and went inside. Blake was sitting at his desk having his coffee. “Keys are still here,” Luke informed Blake. “That bus has to be here!"

  Blake shrugged as he sipped his coffee. “I don't know what to tell you,” he said. He had mixed emotions about bus 340 going missing. For one, he was relieved. He didn't like the strange feeling that the bus gave him. Common sense was telling him that wasn't the same bus Casey was killed on, but his gut was telling him that it was! Yet, on the other hand, this made Blake nervous that bus 340 went missing! Was there someone out there stealing buses?

  “I'm calling the police,” Luke informed Blake as he picked up the phone, his wife Georgina barged into the repair shop.

  “There you are!” she proclaimed as she rushed over to her husband, wearing high-heals and a short dress.

&
nbsp; Blake's eyes grew wide! Why was his boss's wife dressed so fancy at five-thirty in the morning?! He wondered.

  “I need to borrow your credit card,” Georgina told Luke.

  “Why can't you used your credit card?” Luke scoffed.

  Georgina put her hands on her hips and snapped back at her husband, “because I've reached the limit on mine!”

  Luke couldn't believe it! His wife just got that credit card a month ago and she already reached the fifty thousand dollar limit?! “What the hell did you buy this month?!” he snapped! “You know what, we'll have this conversation later, I need to call the police!”

  “Are you calling the police on me?!” Georgina was appalled!

  “No,” Luke sighed. “One of my buses was stolen overnight,” he informed her.

  “Oh, my,” Georgina said with concern. “Which one?”

  “340.”

  “Huh?” Georgina responded. The bus numbers didn't mean anything to her, all the buses looked the same to her. “Which one is that?”

  “The newest edition to the fleet,” Blake told Georgina.

  Georgina shook her head. “The one you bought when you were supposed to buy our son a vehicle?” she snapped at Luke.

  Blake could feel the tension rising between Luke and Georgina. He looked around nervously. “I'll leave you two be,” he said as he walked out of the garage.

  “I can't deal with you right now!” Luke snapped as he picked up the phone. “I need to call the police now!”

  “Give me your credit card and I'll forget all about you buying a bus instead of a vehicle for our son!” Georgina snapped back as she held out her hand.

  “Why do you need my credit card?” he asked. “Also, how the hell did you go through fifty-thousand in one month!?”

  Georgina smiled. Luke's birthday was in a few weeks and she bought him a new cabin-sleeper boat. She needed his credit card so she could pay for the registration of the new boat. She wasn't going to tell him about it though, it was supposed to be a surprise. “I assure you,” she calmly said, “I believe you're going to love what I got you."

  Luke's ears perked up! “What did you get me?”