The Night Bus (Patreon)

The night bus wound its way through the dark streets on a quiet Wednesday night. There were only a few passengers remaining and as the clocked ticked over 02.00am Bruce allowed his mind to wander. The night shift could be quite soothing as a driver once the drunks and the chaotic night crawlers disembarked as the city centre was left behind. Glancing in his mirror he took a look at who was left: a couple of tipsy and giggling girls on a midweek night out at one of the city student nights, and a tubby older guy in a tracksuit, keeping himself to himself. There wouldn’t be any trouble from these three and he wasn’t expecting to pick anyone else up. They were now passing through one of the new industrial areas before they hit the ring road and out into the quiet suburbs.

Suddenly Bruce snapped back to attention and jammed on the brakes. Illuminated in the headlights in front of him was a huge white object in the road. It kind of looked like an enormous tree, anchored in the ground with a great trunk rising upwards, but it was pale. It looked like it was flesh and bone, and those roots looked an awful lot like toes. Just as the realisation of what it was hit his brain he felt a jolt as the whole bus rocked and creaked. And he felt a sickening feeling in his stomach just as it dropped to the floor, the whole bus rising up into the air. There was screaming: the girls were standing up and falling about. It felt like riding in a rollercoaster or a pirate ship at the fairground. Although it was a rough ride the bus stayed roughly level during its ascent. Gripping the steering wheel tightly he tried to steady himself , holding on like he was trying to wrestle with reason and insanity at the same time. In front of him there was a wall, no a cliff, or fabric, and flesh, and as they rose higher the threads of what he had seen began to come together as he was confronted by a gigantic eye.

The eye was illuminated by the headlights, and was looking intently into the illuminated interior of the bus. He could see every detail of the iris as these muscles within it contracted and relaxed, dilating and constricting as the light shone into it, almost like a POV of an eye test with a torch. There was suddenly as stillness as the all felt so observed. The girls held their mouths as they tried to stifle their screams, letting out the occasional gasp or sob. The older guy was burbling or muttering, and Bruce just held on and sat there rigid and silent, hardly daring to breath. After what seemed like an eternity, a deep bass flooded through them as the giant woman began to speak.

“HELLO.”