The Night Bus

WITCHES

"Do you want to hear another one?"

"Yes, please," Alec liked hearing her talk and he loved hearing her tell a story.

"At around 2 a.m., I set out for home from my sister's in laws' house in Thames. I wasn't alone this time, I was with my sister, Amelia. She was half asleep and I was the one driving." The drumming on the water bottle had began, it was slow and spaced.

"The highway was empty; completely, utterly empty, like something out of a crappy horror film. The headlights didn't help me see very far due to the dense fog. I wasn't tired, it would be inconvenient and dangerous for me to have the slightest bit of fatigue.

Midway to Oxford, I saw some blurry figures on the road. I looked over to Amelia and her eyes were wide open. I was utterly terrified and I could tell Amelia was too.

It was a little too late to make a U turn so I drove forward. We tried to stay as stiff as possible, but it was obvious that we failed. I was shaking uncontrollably and I couldn't breath silently.

They, the figures, seemed clear now. There were five of them and they wore witch-like cloaks with hoods and had their heads down while crossing the road." The drumming was forte.

"Did you see their faces?"

"No, heads down, hoods up. I couldn't see their faces. I wouldn't have wanted to either." And she stopped drumming.

"How did you leave?"

"We waited for them to cross the road, of course. If they were humans, we'd be charged for murder. If they were ghosts, they would murder us. My motto is 'don't look back.'"

"Effective motto," Alec grinned, revealing his cheeky dimples.

"Did anything like that ever happened to you? Something possibly supernatural?"

"No, not really," he answered doubtfully.

"You don't sound like you believe yourself. Something did happen to you, you just don't want to admit there's something supernatural out there because you think you're going to be afraid of what's in the dark, because you'll never feel secure once you start to believe."

"You sound a lot like a mentalist."

"I understand people."

"I was 16, we had just moved into our house in California. It was fairly large; duplex with 7 bedrooms, even though it was just my parents, my 7 year old sister, Avery and I. Typical horror movie material.

On the first night at like 4 a.m., I was awake and watching Friends. I had my earphones on and I couldn't hear much. Once the episode was over and my earphones were silent again, I could hear it. I could hear him.

I heard this man's voice coming from my sister's room. It wasn't my dad and I couldn't make out what he was saying. We didn't have anyone else in the house so I thought it was an intruder."

"Who was it?" Manila whispered, barely audible.

"..I didn't have a baseball bat but I had one of those fancy swords on the wall. I took it off the wall and tip-toed to my sister's room. I wanted to be brave so bad, but I was a stupid 16 year old who was just as terrified of the intruder as my sister was of the dark.

I did it though, I opened the door."

"Who was it?" She repeated.

"No one was there except my sister who was sound asleep in her bed."

"Did you tell your parents?"

"Yeah, they thought I was too sleepy and probably hallucinated the entire situation."

"Do you believe yourself or them?"

"I don't know."