The Night Bus

BLACK CAR

"I was in Thailand last year with Ella, my girlfriend at that time. I suppose you know that it's a beautiful country but insanely unsafe for girls traveling on their own," Alec mentioned.

Manila nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"I wanted to go to the Grand Palace and she wanted to go to a temple. But I had to agree with her since I'm the guy."

"Oh, the struggle!" She mocked.

"Yeah, yeah. So we waited outside our hotel for a little- wait, who's that over there?" He looked out the window intently.

The thunder and lightning made her tremble, yet the cloudburst itself calmed her. The silhouettes of trees danced in the wind and she longed to dance with them.

Manila followed Alec's eyes to a man standing outside the bus door with two of the staff. The view was dark and vague.

"Is this why we've been waiting here for over an hour? What do you think he's talking to them about?" She asked Alec.

"Not sure. But they sure don't sound very happy."

"We can't do much about it, you know."

"Okay..do you want me to continue?"

"Yes," Manila smiled. She put her head in her hands and looked up at Alec curiously.

"We stood outside the hotel looking for a rickshaw or taxi. We noticed this guy staring at us, at Ella. It wasn't the creepy, flirty stare. He was looking at her like she was a prey.

I didn't do anything about it though, because I thought we wouldn't see him again."

"But you did?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'll get to that.. Later we found a rickshaw and went to a temple. It was beautiful and that creepy guy was nowhere near us.

At around 5 p.m., we went back to the hotel to dress a bit fancier for dinner. We got out of the hotel at sunset, again, waiting for a taxi. We saw that guy again, he was staring at her, right, this time I wanted to punch him in the face. But Ella wouldn't let me do that.

We got into a taxi and since I was anxious and overprotective at this point, I noticed that a black car was following us. I told Ella and she just said I was freaking out and I should calm down.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the black car had stopped and been parked around the corner. But we went in the restaurant and tried to have a good time. We stayed there for 3 hours, hoping that the man in the black car would get tired and leave.

As we were about to leave, an old friend of mine walked in and we started to converse and talk about old times. Ella was exhausted and she said she wanted to go back to the hotel alone, letting me have a chat with my friend. I didn't want to let her go alone but she insisted. So I checked if there was a black car around and there wasn't, so I let her go. Biggest mistake I ever made."

Manila looked at him sympathetically, "but she's okay now, right?"

"Yeah.." He sighed, "She's okay."

She wondered if it was insincere to ask him to carry on with the story but decided to keep quiet.

A few seconds later, Alec continued, "they changed the cars, so it was a different car following her.."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No, no. I can go on," he stuttered.

"Is she really okay?" Manila asked but immediately regretted it.

"No.."