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The sidewalk Jamie was walking on was decrepit. The grass on the road verge was overgrown and yellowing with the season being late fall. The grayish pavement had large cracks spidering, along with large weeds growing out of the divots despite the lacking conditions. Leaves crunched beneath his feet in a mixture of dry and damp.
Jamie had just finished his shift at the coffee shop and was heading home. The colder months were always the times when his manager asked him to stay late-night after to compensate for the busier days. He sighed as he spotted the shelter for the bus stop, finally a place to sit, he thought.
His feet ached from rushing around all day. Maybe he should buy a new pair of shoes. Anything was better than the grungy old sneakers he had kept for years.
The sound of rumbling filled the air and a bus screeched to a stop in front of him. With a puff of smoke, the doors flung open. It looked like any other public transportation in the city with its’ peeling ad on the side.
“Weird…” Jamie muttered lowly to himself.
The bus was 10 minutes earlier than it usually was for this stop. He shrugged it off and approached the bus. Jamie didn’t want to go home any later than he had to, strange things were happening in the city lately.
The minute he stepped on the bus, the hair on his arms raised and he gulped. Something didn’t feel right… but he needed to get home and this was the last bus, there was only one line of buses in Amity Park anyways.
The moment both of his feet were on the platform, the bus doors slammed shut, and it was off with a jolt. Jamie almost stumbled, but quickly caught himself with a railing nearby. Taking out his bus card, Jamie looked for the scanner, but the driver just gestured for him to sit down.
The driver looked under the weather with his pale and sunken complexion, but that could be contributed due to how cold it was.
The bus was freezing, even for being in late fall. Looking back, he noticed only a few other people and became even more unnerved, something was definitely not right, but he could not quite put his finger on it.
He began slowly shuffling towards an empty seat in the middle. As he passed an older lady down the seats, he looked down to put his card away. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something, more thereof, the lack of something.
She had no feet, instead, there were whisps, hints of something that were once present.
Jamie rushed towards his seat, hoping the things hadn't noticed anything. There was something definitely wrong, his heart began beating faster and faster. He checked his phone, no signal. His breaths became heavier and he started panting. Subtly glancing at the few people in front of him, he noticed that all of them had identifying features that, distinctly, no alive human would have.
A cold, cold, hand grasped his shoulder and Jamie’s heart jumped out of his chest.
There was something behind him. He was scared.
“I think you’re on the wrong bus.” A young voice whispered quietly in his ear.
Jamie slowly turned his head around and familiar icy blue eyes met his own.
He relaxed.
It was Daniel Fenton, the youngest child of the infamous ghost-hunting scientists. It’d be impossible not to know such crazy people in his hometown. But what was he doing on such a ride like this? Rumors ran rampant in Amity Park, and one of them was that Daniel Fenton was terrified of ghosts, despite having ghost hunters as parents. Was he also a victim of accidentally getting on this bus?
Daniel got up from behind him and grabbed his arm urging him to stand. He waved widely towards the bus driver, getting his attention. Looking through the reflection of the mirror in the front, he could finally see what the bus driver really was.
His grey, pallid skin was still present, but at the top of his forehead, near the right temple, his hair was matted and bloody, eyes were sunken in and glassy. Jamie shook and quickly looked down on the floor. The bus rolled to a stop and with a release of air the doors opened again.
Jamie stumbled down the stairs and landed on the ground below. He looked back, Daniel was still on the bus waving back at him as it took off.
But something about him was different. Daniels’ eyes were bright, almost glowing through the lightly shaded window and his smile was just a tad too wide, too sharp.
It was Just. Not. Natural. Not. Human.
He quickly stood back up to his feet wincing and shaking. Sticking a hand into his pocket for his phone he, again, checked the signal. Full bars now, he opened up his GPS app and found the route home. No way was he taking the bus again.
He sighed and began his walk home. It’d be better to take that forty-minute walk than deal with that bullshit again. A dead child of the Fentons? The crazy ghost-hunting Fentons? Jamie did not like the implications of that. He would also not like to think about what just happened on the bus. Nope, no way.
“I hate public transportation.”