The 1X

The 1X

The bus was thirty minutes late. 

You’re probably thinking “That’s nothing new, buses are late all of the time”. And you’re right. I didn’t think much of it myself. I’ve waited as long as fifteen minutes for a bus before. 

Still, anyone would agree that thirty minutes is excessive. 

It’s been weeks since that bus ride into town, and I’ve avoided using the route, the 1X, completely. Despite how inconvenient that has become. 

Explaining the reason for my boycott is another problem altogether, one I mostly evade when I can. People have simply resorted to rolling their eyes when I finally appear five, ten, fifteen minutes after the agreed time, sweaty and out of breath with a jumbled excuse of “wanting to get my steps in”. 

The events of that day are still vividly clear, each repetition etching the exhausting details deeper and deeper into my mind. Sometimes I wish there was a way to purge myself of the memories forever. Other times…

Questions demand answers, and that day left me with an awful lot of questions. Perhaps one day I will be able to make some sense of it all. A cheap sliver of hope if I’m to be saddled with the memories for the rest of my life. 

Anyway, as I was saying, the bus was thirty minutes late, though it didn’t start off that way. I had watched its progress on the app, saw it driving through Chartham when it was only a few minutes behind schedule without giving it much of a thought. I was in no particular rush that day, and a few minutes delay was easy enough to make up later in the day. 

As a rule I try not to arrive excessively early at the bus stop. You hear too many horror stories of young women being mugged in quiet backstreets. Mugged, or worse.

Still, it was the middle of the day, and considering the street was deserted anyway I reasoned I was safe enough. I consider myself a sensible woman, not one prone to flights of fancy, despite the horrifying lectures my aunt subjects me to on a regular basis. Did I ever think about the dangers of walking the city streets alone? Or what could happen if I stuck too obviously to a routine? And did I want to get myself a stalker? 

After years of the same rigmarole, how could I think about anything else? There’s a part of me, and not the generous part, that is convinced she loves the idea of having a stalker. Not so much to prove a point, but to show the world that someone out there finds her interesting.

I kept my eyes fixed on the screen of my phone in lieu of anything else to do, following the bus until it stopped just outside of Chartham. Three minutes behind schedule, which would no doubt turn into five by the time it reached me. Not bad. Not great either. 

Eventually I slipped my phone back into my pocket, telling myself it was out of boredom whilst attempting to block the ringing warning of “Making myself too much of a target”. I’ve never been very good at lying to myself.

I hear that warning perfectly every time I step out of the house. Word for word. I can even get the nasally voice right. 

Waiting for the bus is one of life’s mundane struggles. A task of pure ennui, with nothing to do except helplessly watch the minutes drag by, set adrift and reliant on a myriad of decisions out of your control. 

As the vapidity of the day consumed me, a bitter wind rushed down the street, forcing me to clutch my jacket closed, cursing the man-made wind tunnel as the air barreled past. City streets are lousy with wind tunnels, and on bad days the rushing almost sounds like screaming. 

And still the minutes ticked away with no sign of the 1X in sight. The urge to pull out my phone was checked by the dull edge of paranoia which ballooned into a howling warning. Each shadow and corner was suddenly teeming with masked men waiting for a single moment of weakness before they pounced.

Ten minutes was my best guess. And ten minutes isn’t so long a delay. Then ten minutes turned to fifteen minutes, though even that I could explain away. I just had to be patient and the bus would show up. It always showed up.  

But as time elapsed past the twentieth minute I couldn’t contain my curiosity any longer. 

I’m ashamed to say I glanced around before pulling my phone out, keeping an eye over my shoulder as I tapped in the passcode. It took three attempts to get it right, and I muttered several dark oaths, trying to blame my shaking on the cold. 

Once I was finally in the app, the problem was obvious. The bus was enroute, the previous fifteen stops listed above the next seven, with the 1X currently five stops away. Sitting at the stop just outside of Chartham, the same place it had been the last time I had checked the app. 

Still in Chartham? What is it doing?

A little dot on the blue line was all the information I had to work with, and an imagination never turns faster than when it has nothing to work with. For five minutes it remained motionless, the dot pulsing with a strangely hypnotic intensity which made me soon forget my surroundings. 

My aunt would chew me out for that if she ever found out. 

The app wasn’t faulty. I checked other routes just to be sure, each one showing blue dots racing between stops, regular updates about engine issues, and customer incidents studiously recorded. There were no updates on the 1X. Nothing reported at all. As far as the app was concerned, the bus was on its way, yet the blue dot remained completely still. 

As I said, I had nowhere to be that couldn’t wait, but even my robust patience has a limit. I ran through the options in my head. If I switched to the stop further down the road I probably would have made it in time to catch the 1A and avoided the 1X altogether. It was a less than enticing prospect, considering the clientele of the 1A consisted of feral teenagers, all of them inexplicably drunk or high regardless of the time of day. If I made it into town there was no guarantee that it would be in one piece. 

I should have taken the risk. How many hours of sleep have I lost wishing I had simply taken the risk? 

Instead of making the obvious decision, I wrestled with the problem for another full five minutes until, with a sigh of relief, the blue dot finally moved. 

I settled back onto the titled bench, the cold creeping through my thin jeans within seconds, and thanked whatever god currently governed bus routes from saving me from an unpleasant journey. The day was back on track, and all without a drunk teenager in sight. 

What a joke that I actually thought “This is my lucky day”.

My hand hovered near my pocket. The bus was coming, I had seen that. Yet something inside of me longed to be glued to the screen, watching the progress of the dot as it drew ever nearer. Call it instinct, if you will. 

Unable to help myself, I unlocked the phone once more, fighting to keep my fingers steady amidst my rising agitation. 

The dot flew past the first stop, the one quite close to Chartham. Most likely the potential passengers there had grown tired of the waiting, and instead had ventured in search of the bus as it idled just outside of the village. 

Nor did it pause at the next stop, or the one directly after. Another stroke of luck which would help us make up the lost time, I thought, very much mistaken. 

By this time the bus was only three stops away. No more than a five minute wait on a good day. One where the old people with their handfuls of change and their asinine questions decided to stay home. 

The prospects looked good. There wasn’t a single stop the bus elected to even briefly pause at. It’s funny how these warnings go completely unnoticed when you’re simply happy to get out of the cold. The progress was fast, much faster than normal. And there was an inkling right at the back of my head that something was wrong. Did everyone at the five preceding stops give up on the 1X after half an hour and take a different route? Did none of them have the stamina for boredom I do? 

Or perhaps none of them had downloaded the app.

I jumped to my feet as the dot raced onwards, barrelling past each stop, picking up speed to the point that the dot ceased to be a steady flow, but jerked forward on the pixelated map as the lag caught up, only to fall behind once more. 

What was happening? I had no idea there was anything to be concerned about. Even as the shiver passed over my skin and the sweat trickled down my neck, there was nothing outwardly obvious about the situation. A learner driver anxious to be back on schedule could easily explain the delay. And the downright reckless driving which followed. 

What is it they say? Hope springs eternal. 

So focused was I on the warm glow of my phone screen that I heard the bus before I saw it. The screech of ageing metal accompanied by the throng of an engine unfit for the weight of the monster it was tasked with dragging through the winding streets. Both a welcome and unwelcome sound which could signify anything from another long cafe shift, to the comfort of a home cooked meal awaiting me. 

My head snapped up as I threw out my arm. I’ve always hated doing that. One day I’m convinced the bus won’t stop, and my mind fills with images of the metal giant slamming into me, my severed arm flying into the road with a burst of hot, red spray. 

I can’t even blame my aunt for that one. That’s a paranoia I came up with all by myself. 

The fantasy was quickly becoming reality as the bus bore down on me, showing no signs of slowing. I held my ground, chiding myself for my irrational fear. The driver had seen me, and he wasn’t speeding up. No, he wouldn’t do that. It was a trick of the light that made the vehicle look out of control. He was keeping it straight, not fighting to stop it careening across the road. And above all, it sounded the same as always. The screeching, the thronging, the agonising scream of metal bent out of shape. 

Was it instinct that kept me rooted to the spot? Possibly, though most likely it was foolishness. Or shock. A shock I felt before I knew why it was creeping into the corners of my mind. 

By this time I could see the whites of the driver’s eyes. Far too white, and almost a perfect match for his skin. 

Maybe he was ill and that’s what held them up. 

But a sick man doesn’t drive like that. He takes it slow. He tries to stay calm. It’s safer that way. 

If I had given it even a second of thought, I could have easily figured out what kind of man drives the way he was driving. 

How close did I come to living out my worst nightmare? Impossible to say. This is all I can tell you. The story did not end here. Because the driver slammed on the breaks and brought the lumbering creature to a standstill mere inches from my hand. 

God, how it screamed. 

The door didn’t open immediately, and my own deeply ingrained need for people pleasing prevented me from knocking on the thick glass. The driver had seen me, that I knew. Otherwise why did he stop?

Thirty seconds passed. Easily the longest thirty seconds of my life as I stood outside of the 1X, keeping a steady gaze on the driver hunched over the steering wheel, clutching it so tightly it might have been the only thing keeping him upright. 

He didn’t look my way. He didn’t even blink. He just kept staring out in front of him, the bus and his responsibilities completely forgotten. 

Then, suddenly, the doors shuddered, groaned, then folded open with excruciating slowness as a wall of hot air slapped me in the face. 

I didn’t want to get on. The only thing that could incense me to drag myself inside was the heavy sense of obligation, knowing the 1X had stopped specifically for me to take my seat. It was the smell which held me back. It had already settled in my churning stomach. A lingering odour of burnt… something. It didn’t leave my hair for days. 

The driver wouldn’t have cared either way. I’m pretty sure he didn’t register my arrival any more than he registered me slipping off in town. 

There was nothing for it. Somehow I managed to stomach the smell and pulled myself onto the bus. 

“One return into town, please”

Have you ever set foot on a completely silent bus? Before that day I would have sworn such a thing didn’t exist. Yet here I was, standing amongst a stillness which frankly unnerved me. It made my voice booming by comparison, something I have never been accused of in my entire life. 

I kept my eyes on the driver, though I knew everyone else was watching me. I could feel each pair of eyes tracking my every move. 

“Sorry, I said…”

The machine blinked to life, £3.40 flashing on the display screen. He had heard me, he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Fumbling with my card which had decided to snuggle down in my phone case, probably as desperate to get out the cold as I was, the audience was frankly irritating. I tried to make my haste as obvious as possible, a signal that I wasn’t trying to waste anyone’s time. I like to think of myself as a performative introvert, if such a thing exists. 

Finally the card was free, and I triumphantly held it above the machine, waiting for the beep which would free me to take my seat, and would provide a blessed break in the silence. 

Nothing happened. I waved it, tapped it, did all the limited movements which usually elicited the desired response. 

And still nothing. The eyes of every passenger bored into my skull until I could take it no longer, and jerked my head around to face the jury who had already made their judgement. 

Every eye was open with more whites showing than was normal. They were all looking forward, but not a single person had registered my existence at all. They were simply looking. Eyes open, facing forward, but not seeing a thing. 

A bus full of people lost within their own minds. 

Not for the first time I despaired at the modern sensibility for establishments to go cashless. Otherwise I could have dropped a handful of coins into the tray and immediately taken my seat. One return into town, £3.40, thank you very much, have a nice day.  

Instead I was forced to remain by the still open doors, shivering as the wind stirred the rancid hot air through the cramped space. It did nothing to clear it. In fact I quickly realised, as I breathed as shallowly as my lungs allowed, the breeze was making it worse. A thick, swirling mass of putrid fumes. A soup of foulness I would have to all but wade through. If the driver ever took my payment. 

I couldn’t ask for my ticket again, and for a second I wondered if maybe I had missed the affirmative beep of my payment being taken. That would have been difficult in this oppressive stillness, but I wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind. The bus was sending my thoughts into a spin, and I was grappling with the task of modulating my tone so it was on just the right side of insistent, when the machine finally beeped. The driver said nothing, not even deigning to look at me as the ticket was spit out just below my hand. 

Tearing it from the slot, leaving a tiny perforated edge behind, I stumbled to the nearest seat. Pressing myself up against the window, I huddled down and wished a bottomless pit would open beneath me, swallowing me whole. 

We were ready to depart. The bus did not move. Neither did the driver. I couldn’t bring myself to glance at my fellow passengers, but the unbroken silence told me that they remained as immovable as the rest. 

My breath came in short, shallow bursts, my blood pumping fiercely in my temples. Nervous, that was the only explanation for it. I was nervous. Of what? Of riding the 1X? Of going into town? Both things I had done a hundred times. Yet as I watched the back of the driver, his shoulders hunched, the muscles along his neck now ropes pulled taut and on the verge of snapping, the churning in my stomach only grew worse. 

As did my curiosity. 

It’s a strange emotion. You’d understand if you’ve ever felt true curiosity. A burning at the back of your head which becomes impossible to ignore. Overriding everything, even the nerves eating a hole in your stomach, until I was unable to stop myself from spinning in my seat. If there were anyone to appeal to, I was going to find them.

The 1X was devoid of a single pair of sympathetic eyes. Some were either actively avoiding me, or couldn’t bring themselves to meet my gaze. The rest…

It’s difficult to explain the look in those eyes. I wouldn’t be able to make someone understand if they had never seen it. The closest I can get to it is this. 

Their eyes were glazed over. Sort of. Settling on nothing, taking nothing in. So few of them were blinking, that was something which stuck with me for weeks afterwards. I watched a twitchy woman with mousy hair for a full minute, and she didn’t blink once. 

Any questions I had instantly died in my throat. There was no one here who could help me. I couldn’t even turn to the nearest passenger and whisper a hurried question. Everyone was sitting as far back on the bus as they could possibly get. In spite of the abundance of free seats surrounding me at the front, everyone had elected to sit together, pressed as close as they could manage. Though the distinctions between the groups remained obvious. 

Students hugging their rucksacks, half a dozen individuals clutching their temporarily empty shopping bags, two or three distinct uniforms from various shops and hotels were visible amongst the crush.

In the furthest corner huddled a young mother with her two children wriggling on her lap. The boy, probably no more than four, was conspicuously fidgeting, eliciting many dirty glances from his slightly older sister. She wore a look which matched the rest of the passengers, and eventually she pinched the boy until he whimpered and fell still. 

“Alright, everyone…”

The voice was such a surprise that I snapped back in my seat, pushing up against the bumpy upholstery in an effort to refocus myself.

The driver had left his compartment, much smaller in stature than I previously assumed. His stomach protruded over his belt, his jacket stripped away and thrown aside. Large, pale yellow stains were spreading from his armpits, and he held his right arm at a strange angle. He had purposely turned his body slightly away from the passengers, the stance of a man desperate to hide something from view. 

“Alright, before we go on…”

Another pause as his chest rose and fell, his lungs unable to draw in sufficient breath, a feeling I knew only too well from my short lived determination to join a gym. Your body screaming for oxygen as the adrenaline courses through your veins. How does a man whose job requires him to sit down all day become as breathless as that?

“Everyone… Everyone alright?”

He didn’t look at the passengers when he addressed them. His eyes darted upwards, but fell back to the floor before they met the collection of tired faces. I wanted to turn again as the silence built. A solid wall which would not be penetrated. Pushing back at the intrusion and hardened by the successive silences of the previous stops. Although I had nothing to support my theory, the thought came so suddenly that I knew I must be correct. 

No one had spoken in quite some time. 

“Everyone alright? No one… No one hurt, or anything?”

This was all too much. If someone would say something, anything, it would have been bearable. Within those silences horrors grew, and my imagination raced with possibilities of what could have happened to terrify an entire bus full of people into silence. Something which forced a taciturn and irritable driver to leave the sanctity of his seat with the lockable door, and address a group of strangers as to their wellbeing. It didn’t happen, it shouldn’t happen, and the longer he waited for a reply, the stronger the silence became. What single person had the strength to stand against it now?

Still he waited, and I knew I had to take my chance. I couldn’t bear the pressure, and if I didn’t leave now I’d be consumed by it. I would die glued to my seat. 

Perhaps it was my subtle shifting as I grabbed my bag which did it. Created a chink in the armour which allowed one brave soul to call out with a voice barely above a whisper. 

“I think… I think we’re okay”

No chorus of agreement met his words. Or her words. Truthfully the voice was so raspy it was impossible to identify it. The driver sagged against the door, his left hand gripping the cheap plastic, bending it almost to breaking. He was a large man, sure, but the force of the action was still a shock. 

“Yeah?”

Now he looked up, pleading with the passengers for a sign, or perhaps permission, that he could continue his route. A few murmurs bubbled up, whether in agreement or disagreement, well, there’s probably not a person alive who could answer that question. It was enough, though, to keep me in my seat, for the driver to return to his own, and for the silence to be banished for good. 

I couldn’t leave. My opportunity had truly passed. And in truth, the 1X did take on a less hostile air. I became just another passenger rather than a stranger daring to intrude on this… 

This what? That was still too early to tell. 

Throughout the journey, the clues started to piece themselves together, even if the picture never revealed itself. Like why the driver was forced to lean against the door, and why his right arm was clamped so tightly to his side. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself again.

I never got a clear view of the injury. Just a hint of red dribbling down his fingers, and a smear of blood on plastic as he slipped into his seat. He slammed the door with more force than I thought necessary. It didn’t close. 

It took three more attempts before the warped lock clicked into place, each bang sending a shockwave through the bus. No one complained. They shifted in their seats, and I could feel their furrowed brows and dirty looks without needing to turn my head, but not a single complaint was uttered. 

The gentle humming of the bus transformed into a violent spurt, the doors fluttering shut, sealing me into this metal tomb. There was no possible escape now. Mine was the final stop before town. Fifteen minutes before I would taste fresh air again. 

The silence had returned, this time with a purpose. An unspoken agreement passed between us. Each person set watching their neighbour, waiting for the first to break that agreement and be quieted with a hasty hush. 

It quickly became intolerable, especially as the noises of the 1X bored into my head with each painful jolt. I don’t consider myself an expert on buses, but I’ve ridden enough of them to know what they should sound like. You’re wasting your time trying to conduct a whispered conversation whilst travelling into town with the racket just above tolerable; a constant thrumming, interspersed with metal jolts which you have to tell yourself must be normal. 

This was… not normal. 

This was downright frightening. 

The engine was struggling. Moaning and protesting each pothole and turn, screeching as we picked up speed. Too fast, I thought, for the backstreets. Granted, he was trying to make up time, but there must be safer ways to do it. The driver certainly wasn’t helping the situation. Pushing down the accelerator full throttle, then slamming on the breaks every five minutes when he came up to a junction or traffic light. 

“Mummy, where are we going?”

“Shh!”

The engine screamed in protest at yet another sharp turn, making the floor shake and the windows rattle. 

“But mummy, we missed our - ”

“Shh!”

The bus turned again, the window next to me shivering with a sickening crack as I slammed against it. A spiderweb raced across the glass from the point just above my shoulder. My eyes followed the crack making its way across the weakened glass with each jolt, which sent me hastily sprawling into the seat next to me. 

Had I done this? Surely not. I scavenged my memories, those moments from only minutes past which might as well have been weeks, trying to recall if I had noticed the damage when I first boarded. It was possible the jolting of the bus as the driver lurched from side to side on the road could be the cause. Yes, it was possible. 

What made me press my hand against the shattered glass? Some instinct? The same instinct which had begged me to take a different bus? I should start listening to it. 

The glass gave slightly under my hand, held together by nothing but a thin sheet of protective coating. And it wasn't as flat as it looked. Instead it sagged inwards, the fragments crunching against each other as I applied the lightest pressure. There was blood here, too. So fresh I checked my palm instinctively. There wasn’t a cut to be found, and besides, the blood was on the outside. 

It was a small cough which drew my attention away from the window, and to the elderly man seated a few rows back. That the cough was directed at me was obvious, as was the meaning of the frown and slight shake of his head. No need to pry. This was none of my business. 

My hand was back in my lap before I had fully turned to face the front. 

“But mummy, we missed our stop!”

“I said shh!”

There was a tantrum brewing. The confused and slightly curious voice had transformed into a high pitched whine. I guessed it must be the little boy clutched on his mother’s lap, I hadn’t seen evidence of any other children capable of making such a noise. 

“But our stop, mummy!”

A dog with a bone, unwilling or unable to let go. The indignant tone was understandable. He simply couldn’t comprehend why he wasn’t being listened to, or why his concerns went unnoticed. They had missed their stop. Something kept them on a bus travelling far away from where they needed to be. 

“Our stop!”

Several people sucked in their breath sharply, but no one tried to intervene on behalf of the boy when his mother delivered the sharp slap. It did little to stop the tantrum. Almost immediately the wronged party fell to shrieking, the small thuds of his feet battering the floor cutting easily through the thrumming engine. 

A smattering of mutters lurched through the passengers. Mostly the under-the-breath kind of muttering. There were no efforts made to engage their neighbour in conversation. The unpleasant atmosphere now inescapable. 

When a sudden memory hits you, it can send you reeling as easily as an actual punch in the face. This one felt like several successive punches as the murmurs nudged something best left alone from the dark recesses of my repressed brain. 

It had started out as any other school day, with nothing to suggest that the unexpected assembly after lunch was anything to send us into a panic. 

Our headteacher stood centre stage, her ashen face forced into something nearing placid calm, commanding every muscle to remain rigid as she told us of the bombing, the first terrorist attack in our own country that any of us were alive to witness. 

She stressed that we were safe, despite the city being a commuter’s distance away from the attack. We all knew people with big city jobs, once the mark of success, transformed instantly into a target. 

Then, like now, the shocked silence quickly gave way to frantic muttering. We didn’t speak to each other, there was no comfort to be found in our neighbours. We simply had to say something. The nervous energy bubbled inside each of us, only through random exhalations could we find any release. 

Here, on the 1X, the muttering did not die down quickly enough for anyone’s liking, yet no one seemed capable of stopping. Some comments made themselves heard above the hubbub as people placed too much trust in the droning of the bus to lend them anonymity. 

“She needs to shut that boy up”

“It’s not right, he’s just a baby”  

“Need to teach that child some manners”

“Only a kid, what do you expect?”

The mother took the comments with what little grace she had, shushing the boy as his wailing continued. She wasn’t angry, or at least she didn’t sound angry. The only thing I could really pick out in her voice was…

Exhaustion. 

“Our stop! Our stop!”

Whatever agreement had been reached, it was well and truly over. People shifted in their seats, grumbled, reached around for their bags, settling into the roles of ordinary passengers on an ordinary bus journey. 

It’s amazing how quickly people can adapt. 

Sensing the opportunity had come, I took the plunge and turned fully in my seat. My relative silence had lent me an air of invisibility. That or people were purposefully ignoring me. 

I wasn’t bothered. It gave me time to assess the various states of my fellow passengers. 

My first thought sprang back to the bomb which I had only heard about, yet dominated my imagination all those years ago. 

The people had the same drawn aspects, the same forced placidity stamped on the headteacher’s face. And mine was not the only window which was broken. It was the worst, but every other window on my side bore the same spiderweb pattern, and one right at the back even had blood on the inside. The woman propped up against it was conscious, despite the whiteness of her face. My stomach clenched as I watched her unmoving body, her glassy eyes staring at nothing as blood dripped down her forehead, and unclenched only slightly when she eventually blinked. 

There were other various injuries. Bruised faces, one man gripping his arm tightly as the sticky blood dried under his hand, another woman propping up her shoulder, flinching with every turn and jolt. I’ve never seen a shoulder at such an odd angle before. 

I guessed a bomb could do this much damage. The pictures of the burnt out bus, one of the three sites of the terrorist’s targeted attack, flooded back. If that was the damage one bomb could do…

This didn’t feel the same. Even if the bomb had been outside the bus, surely the windows would have burst inwards. And why did these cracks run in one long line, buckling inwards, as if something had hit it at force?

Traffic accident then. That made sense, especially with how this driver was handling the bus. 

His irritated grunts were growing both in volume and quantity, the 1X swerving from side to side whilst he made no attempt to slow us down. We were quickly careening out of control, and it took a few minutes of watching him battling with the steering wheel to realise my initial judgement had been unfair. The bus, with a single minded desire, was trying to swerve across the road. The driver was fighting to keep it straight. 

Whatever the bus had run up against, it had done a lot more than mere cosmetic damage. 

A particularly vicious pothole sent us all bouncing in our seats, and once again the muttering started, discontent brewing from every corner. The same old man who shot me the warning look eventually shuffled up to the driver, swaying to and fro, unsteady on his feet at the best of times. 

We couldn’t hear the whispered conversation. Even the driver didn’t seem to hear what the old man was saying. He didn’t react to it, at any rate. Drivers, I suppose, are trained to deal with the multitudes of irate customers that cross their path everyday. 

The old man, he didn’t seem all that irate. His manner was calm, reassuring. Like he wanted to help in any way he could. Whether this pep talk made any difference was difficult to tell. All I know is the bus slowed down. We were travelling faster than was ideal, but significantly slower. 

He patted the driver on the arm, receiving no response other than a curt nod. But I saw the driver’s eyes follow the old man as he shuffled back to his seat. The whites were now tinged with pink veins creeping in at the edges, spreading faster than the cracks in the windows. 

The day had been all too much for him. 

“What did you say?”

Now we were getting somewhere. A young girl leaned over her seat, her whispers carrying down the full length of the 1X. There was a cut along her cheek, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. The old man didn’t quite ignore her, flashing an apologetic smile as he remained silent. 

Unperturbed, the woman slipped into the aisle and dropped down next to him. Clearly it was going to take more than that to shake her off. 

“Seriously, what did you say?”

The old man had to think for a moment, mulling his response over to find the appropriate words. 

“Come on, don’t we deserve to know?”

Another source of tension brewing on the horizon. I prayed for the young boy, now fallen to quiet whimpering, to resume his tantrum. The young woman shifted impatiently in her seat whilst the old man regarded her with nothing short of condescending amusement. That annoyed even me. I saw nothing amusing about this situation. 

“My dear, surely today has taught you one thing”

Everyone stopped breathing, anxious to catch the stoic wisdom only an old man riding the bus could possess. That he was the centre of everyone’s attention was not lost on him. He even raised his voice slightly for the benefit of those at the back. A voice which didn’t crack once. 

“What we deserve and what we get are two completely different things”

For a moment nothing happened. Everyone was struck motionless by the anticipation. Then someone laughed, a short and involuntary burst which subsided into desperate sobbing. 

Until it was quickly cut off. 

The woman met the old man’s steely gaze, unwilling to yield an inch, digging deep to summon a courage she did not possess. Her hands had already started to shake. 

“It’s alright for you. All you did was hide behind your seat!”

The locked gaze did not falter for an instant, but the tremor in her voice was enough to signal whose resolve would triumph. All of us were unable to break away from the pale blue eyes with the milky sheen. Such intensity from the withered old man, such unabated fury that she was unable to match. Right on cue she cringed away as if this attention were burning her. 

“And all you did was scream. Though I hardly blame you for that, my dear”

He did not turn away. He held his ground, staring her down until she had the decency to slink back into her seat, leaving a small patch of blood behind her. 

No, it wasn’t her blood. Though I can’t blame you for coming to that conclusion. It took a second look from myself to realise who the blood really belonged to. 

The old man appeared uninjured until he shifted sideways in his seat, carefully lifting his leg in some vain attempt at elevation, the back of his trouser leg soaked in blood.  

The sight was sickening. A red puddle beneath him, growing and growing as the blood oozed forth. 

Slowly, so slowly, he pulled back the sopping corduroy, wiping at the open wound with a less than clean handkerchief. Infection was clearly the least of his concerns. It put me in mind of Sisyphus, relentlessly pushing his boulder uphill as the blood instantly renewed again and again. 

No one said a word, only my audible gasp broke the silence, a gasp I would have clawed back if it were possible.  

Puncture marks. Deep puncture marks, two rows set in semi circles on the shin and calf, quickly bound up in the off white handkerchief. More blood than cotton now. 

Everyone saw it. I know they all saw it. They saw it without a single hint of surprise. Without the tiniest sliver of shock. And in that moment I hated the 1X. Hated the driver. Hated every single passenger who could be confronted with such sights and feel nothing. Not because they were incapable of feeling. No, they could feel. They had felt too much. 

And there was nothing left. 

The sobbing resumed. The sobbing grew. And with it a new sense of indignation. How I wished for the brief moments of stoicism. The impenetrable wall of silence which threatened to crush me, which I realised had been my only refuge from sharing in the horror this band of brothers had faced, and survived, together. 

And were these the only passengers who were on board? Or had they lost people along the way?

I’m not proud of it. It was an awful thought.

But fifteen minutes stationary just outside of Chartham. Anything could have happened. Anything did happen. 

“I… I don’t know. Soon, I’ll be there soon”

A phone call. The reason why the sobbing had subsided. I hadn’t heard it ring, but then I wasn’t listening for it. World War Three could have commenced right outside the cracked window without my noticing it. Too absorbed was I in the blood soaked leg. 

“I know, but… I got held up”

The driver tensed in his seat, the old man looked up from tending his wound, and everyone else turned to glare at this poor girl shivering in a cheap hotel uniform. A public phone call, a faux pas at the best of times, a double sin now. This was a secret they had to take to their graves. 

I can’t be sure what happened. That old instinct told me to face forward, that my attempts to pry would be met with something far more hostile. 

I was not like these people. I alone was a stranger.

So I’ll never know what made her hurriedly whisper into the phone.  

“I’ll, I’ll explain when I get there. No, it won’t be long now, I promise”

The phone thudded into her bag before she resumed her sobbing. A pathetic lament capable of cutting through the whine of both bus and child. 

“You’ll never be able to explain it, you know”

It was too noisy for me to hear. I keep telling myself that. There was no way I could have caught that whispered warning. 

I like to think I imagined it. That’s the mantra I whisper at night when the wind picks up and screams past my window. Or when the trees claw at the latch, desperate to desecrate my dark sanctuary. 

It wasn’t my imagination. I heard every word. Words which still haunt my darkest hours. 

“If you even try, they’ll think you’re insane. They will. Or worse”

Something worse than insanity? Quite the threat indeed.

At least it stopped her sobbing. Eventually. First stifled, most likely with her hand, before she slowly gave way to intermittent hiccups. We didn’t resume the silence, not like before. Life returned to this small collection of humanity. They became strangers to each other once more. Strangers bonded forever by whatever nightmare occurred just outside of Chartham, but strangers nonetheless. 

And just in time, too. With one more screeching jerk of the wheel, the 1X emerged into the slightly more maintained city streets. The driver, at last, was forced to slow his pace, his desire to flee straining against the speed cameras every half mile, and the slow moving traffic of a populous too old to have anywhere to hurry. 

It was a relief, even if I doubted my own strength to pull myself out of my seat. My need to journey into town was  completely forgotten. Time did not exist. There was no world to return to. I was born and would die within the stagnant confines of the 1X.

I had already died. 

The journey had taken less than ten minutes, a good portion of time cut off through mere reckless speeding. It will remain the longest ten minutes of my entire life. 

The bus pulled up at its final stop without fanfare. The doors simply fluttered open, putting up a half hearted fight against the small resistance it met. 

No one moved. No one breathed. They waited. And soon I realised they were waiting for the first person to move. For me, the stranger, to make my exit. I was intruding on their final moment together, before their bonds of forced kinship were severed forever. 

 There was no way I could have done it, not without the encouraging nod from the old man still clutching the dark red handkerchief to his leg. Was it normal for wounds to bleed that much? I don’t think so, but I’m no doctor. 

Encouraging is perhaps the wrong word for the nod. More… insistent. A nod propelling me to my feet, my hand clutching my bag, bumping against my leg as I hurried past the driver, stuttering out an unacknowledged thanks as I all but jumped through the doors. 

No one followed me. Not at first. I wanted to put my head down and disappear into the winding streets. If I had, there’s a chance I could have put the entire ordeal behind me. I shouldn’t have turned back, there’s plenty of fables preaching the dangers of such an act. 

Instead, I waited. For several interminable minutes I waited in the shadows of a nearby alley. It was difficult to see through the cracked windows, but I’m certain the passengers didn’t speak to each other. They just sat perfectly still, staring forward, not willing to leave the safety they found in that run down vehicle. 

The world continued to turn whilst the passengers remained in stasis. Then slowly, one by one, they disembarked. I watched as they each mumbled something to the driver, some form of gratitude no doubt. He didn’t acknowledge any of them. In his state, they could have told him to fuck his own mother without his batting an eye. 

Stumbling into the grey afternoon, some limping, some staggering, all clutching the doors of the 1X for support, they rejoined the real world, drinking in the fresh air with urgent relief. Like a dying man at an oasis who never thought he would see water again, they were grateful for another chance at life. 

That’s when I saw it. As they stretched their necks to the sky, I saw the laceration marks. Not everyone had them, but enough did. A full circle around their necks, akin to thick rope. Or something rope like. 

Whatever made them, it wasn’t human hands.   

The old man was one of the last to leave, his face drained of colour as he was helped down the small step. He waved his helpers away, and I kept him in sight as he hobbled down the street, a trail of blood marking his path. 

The driver remained in his seat for a few more minutes. I couldn’t leave until he pushed himself from the bus, leaving the cabin door swinging open, not even stopping to grab his coat. He had laceration marks, too. Around his arms, winding up and up and up, disappearing under his torn shirt.

His hand ran along the side of the bus as he stumbled away. I didn’t notice the trail of blood the driver left behind, nor the slowly gathering group of onlookers chattering to each other in hushed, curious tones. 

No, none of that mattered. Because this was the first time I had properly looked at the state of the 1X. The first time I realised exactly how stupid I was for getting onto that deathtrap. 

Is this story unbelievable? Yes, of course it is. And what comes next won’t ground this narrative in any sense of reality. But this is what happened. What I saw. I have no words to explain it, and I will never try to find those words. Because truthfully, I don’t want to know what happened. There isn’t a soul alive who would.    

The 1X was barely held together by the stubborn scraps of metal hanging on the frame. The wheels all pointed at alarming different angles, the windows were sagging so much that one touch would send them tumbling into the filthy road. 

And along the side of that unfortunate vehicle, the jagged metal formed what can only be described as three giant claw marks.