Greyhound Angels

A short story

Photo by Kyle Howeth on Unsplash

I used to ride the bus from Kansas City to Denver. Night rides were how I traveled, mostly to get the full day of work at the bagel shop in before leaving to see my family. I needed all the hours I could get. The buses weren’t as bad as you’d think. The upholstery was nice. The drivers were fine. The people kept to themselves.

It was the stations you had to watch out for.

Might not be so bad in the small towns through Kansas or Nebraska that we stopped in. There you just waited at a gas station on the side of the road. Only one or two people came on in those places, and almost no one got off. They’re the kinds of towns that people leave if they can.

In the big cities though, there was electricity in the air. A lot of families, protected by their own orb of sleepless travel and tired kids. And older men, leather skinned and frowning in blue pleather chairs, ripped up and grease stained from too many traveling hands. And faces that were nothing but black orbed eyes where the pupils were wrong sized, pin points or black saucers, too aware and animal-like. Taking everything in.

He looked like the latter when I saw him. Hair that was sand colored and wavy, cut blunt by his own hand, the layers sharp and inexact, forming an almost mullet. He caught me with those eyes, big and black and swallowing the world’s light.

I was the unlucky girl.

The one that he walked up to and stood by. I must have looked vulnerable all alone and nineteen. Skinny and full-faced. Tired from a day of baking.

“When we get on,” his finger pointed long at the bus. It sat just outside a glass pane unloading passengers into the station. “You sit next to me.”

His top lip was tucked, sucked in behind his bottom teeth. He nodded, skin ruddy brown and the smell of him must. Sweat. He was a vampire. I knew it. Could see in his eyes that he had eaten up women in a thousand unholy ways. Taken their souls. Left them zombies wandering in the dark. I shook my head and gave him my place in line. Looked around for someone else to sit next to. To make sure he couldn’t arrange it just so.

They have a way of doing that. Cornering you in the dark. Somewhere no one else can see or hear before they make their move. I wonder if they know that you’re scared. I wonder if they care.

When I turned to my right I saw a guy my age. Young and football sized, at least six and a half feet tall and as wide as a car. His skin was sun tanned. His teeth were white and smiling. He was chit chatting with someone else, and I could see that despite his size, he was alright.

I walked up to him and looked back in line. The vampire was flicking his tongue over his teeth as he watched me go, hunger exploding when he knew it wouldn’t be me.

“Can I sit next to you?”

He says yes. I point at the guy with the teeth, tell him I can’t be left alone with him. And he sees his eyes and the teeth he’s not hiding, and nods and agrees that no, I can’t.

We spent most of that night ride talking, the vampire riding a few rows back. He wasn’t sitting with a girl. I made sure of that. But I didn’t go to the bathroom to avoid walking past his row. That’s how big his eyes were when he looked at me. I got to Denver okay and the vampire got off there too. I waited with the big guy who’s name left me in the blue morning light of the greyhound station.

“Call me.”

We exchanged numbers but only talked once or twice. He was an alcoholic and called when he was drinking. I can’t recall specifics from those conversations, but the last time, reality was hazy for him.

“Are you an angel?” he asked.

It wasn’t a pickup line. He had been mulling it over, calling me to see if I would pick up. Convinced I wasn’t real all this time.

I told him no. But that night he was mine.