Amazing we didn't crash

Chapter Eleven

THE driver's face did not appear suddenly, as it would have done had he sharply turned. Instead it gently floated into view as if it were slowly emerging from water.

My first thought was that I had imagined the effect. The bus would have had to be stationary for the driver to approach the glass at the angle he did. He would have had to take his foot off the throttle and turn his whole body, but he could not have; the bus was still rushing along.

I moved forward a little just to make sure that I was not seeing things. No. There was the face - in all its malignancy! I went ridged.

I felt as if my body was packed with barbed wire and that if I moved the barbs would pop through my skin. The face looked at me with an expression of complete enmity, and I felt that only if I remained perfectly still would I be safe.

I was amazed at how he could look at me for so long with his eyes off the road and not crash. I just wished he would turn away his awful gaze. But an impact did not come and I somehow knew that it would not.

I at last knew that there was something unnatural about this bus. Tension grew in me to the point that I wanted to rush up to that horrid face and scream at it. I had had enough!

I wanted to take my so-called fate by the scruff of the neck and shake it silly. I moved forward unsteadily.

I felt determined. I told myself that he was only a bus driver, only a man. An ugly, horrid man.

Despite my trembling I forced myself to draw near the glass until his face was only a few inches from mine. Regardless of my determination, what happened next made me feel nauseous.

I knew that it was impossible, because our faces were separated by glass, but I could smell his rancid breath. The filthy odour spilled into my nostrils. The glass did not mist as he breathed.

He pulled back his thin lips over his teeth in a terrible snarl. Every discoloured tooth had in it a small hole.

Not a natural hole made by decay, but perfectly round as if deliberately drilled. Something moved at the edge of one of the holes. I drew back as a maggots head slithered out twisting frantically as if to escape something worse below. It found no escape.

The hideous driver slid out his tongue and licked the maggot away. I covered my mouth as bile jumped from my throat.

The face drew away. It did not turn, but drew away as if submerging in black water. Before the face had gone completely the glass turned black, losing it's transparency, until all that I could see was the dark refection of my own haggard face where his had been.

I could not even see the concertina blind behind the glass. Panic squirmed inside me like a snake inside a sack.

I scrambled to the other front window and cupped my trembling hands on the vibrating glass. I gasped with relief!

Moonlight shone brightly off the frost that covered the passing fields and the naked trees swayed in the cold wind. The mist had cleared!

I almost burst into laughter so powerful was my relief. I felt as if I had suddenly awakened from a nightmare into the comforting arms of normality.

The bus's headlights shone into the distance. I could not take my eyes off the road. Perhaps for fear that if I turned and looked at the deck the nightmare would begin again.

But in the reflection on the glass I saw that all the light bulbs were on again as if they had never burst. I turned from the reflection.

"I must have been dreaming." I said, with half disbelief and half conviction.

The deck looked almost serene with all the bulbs intact and shining brightly. Nervously I looked at the driver's window. I could see the blind. It flapped normally to the regular rumble of the bus.

I relaxed thinking that it must have been something I ate to give me so vivid dreams. I tried to think back to the dinner that I had had with my boss and his wife.

It was just a normal meal with nothing fancy that I could remember, except for the mushrooms.

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