Have you been waiting for the bus for a long time?

old bus. waiting for too long

After improving my other tale, I bring the new version of this one:

On this occasion I´ll try to delight you with a horror story of my own. Here we go:

Have you been waiting for the bus for a long time?

When I was a child, my father used to take me fishing.

At first, my mother opposed it. I guess it was because I was too young. But as I grew a little older, she agreed.

Grandma’s sister, on the other hand, was still concerned.

“¡Oh, sir!” she used to tell my father “You get distracted so easily… the boy could fall to the water and you could hardly notice…”

And to me, she used to say:

“Beware the water…”

But the rest of the family used to dismiss her words. Probably, they assumed she said that, because it was she who was afraid of water.

We left the house very early, before dawn and, normally, we had to take two buses to get to the river shore. Then a passenger boat took us across the river, to a small vacation home that belonged to a neighbor, and which, from time to time, he lended to us. This was one of those occasions.

We left the house, and went to the first bus stop.

“Wait for me here,” my father said. Then he gave me an explanation of where he was going, which I no longer remember.

I was waiting there, on the street, alone. I don’t know how much time I spent like this. At that moment, I didn’t think it was important. I didn’t realize, back then, what it meant that a small child was there, late at night.

Then something happened that changed everything: A man came to the bus stop. He looked in his 20s or 30s. His head almost reached the ceiling that covered the bus stop, which further accentuated his thinness. I only remember his face in a fuzzy way. I didn’t pay so much attention to him… until he spoke to me:

“Have you been waiting for the bus for a long time?”

At that moment, I felt like a million alarms started to sound at the same time throughout my body. Was it an innocent question, or did it have a darker purpose? And I didnt even know how irregular the situation was, that a stranger, an adult, talked to a child he did not know, on the street, at that time of night, without the parents present… I was more inclined towards the first option. My body couldn’t be lying to me. Now I know I didn’t. I was in danger. I started walking nervously from one side to the other. I couldn’t just leave, My father had told me to wait there.

“Hey!” He called me, when he noticed I did not answer him.

“What,” I answered.

“Have you been waiting for the bus for a long time?” he repeated.

I didn’t want to answer him. Partly because the answer wasn’t something I could have possibly known in the first place. But also because, somehow, I knew that he shouldn’t have asked that question to me, but to my father instead. Yes, the one that had left me all alone without thinking about the possible dangers that it implied. Maybe I should have explained to him that I was waiting for my father, that he would be coming soon. After all, it was the truth, and that would surely dissuade him from… whatever he was up to. But I could not. I only managed to mutter something unintelligible.

I don’t quite remember what happened next. I don’t think he spoke to me again. Eventually he left.

After a while, my father returned. I didn’t tell him what had happened. I thought he wouldn’t give it any importance. I thought that maybe, he would have even lectured me for not wanting to talk to that guy. Would it have been like that? I never knew. Over time, our relationship got worse and worse, to a point where I no longer cared about the possible explanations he could have for his behavior that night.

The rest of the trip went on without pain or glory. In fact, I don’t remember anything about it. Except for that moment worthy of a horror movie.


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