Bus

Back when I was attending a university, I used to work on campus at one of the dining halls during the dinner/night shift. I lived in the next town over, since it was cheaper to live in a crappy little apartment out of town than to live on campus in the dorms. But I didn't own a car, so I had to take the bus.

One night, I had just gotten off a shift at work. My feet were killing me and I was completely exhausted, as I slowly made my way to the bus stop. I noticed a man much older than me sitting on one of the two benches at the otherwise empty bus stop, but I didn't pay too much attention to him. I simply sat down on the second bench, and listened to some music while waiting for the bus to arrive.

The first sign that things were starting to get weird was when I kept noticing out of the corner of my eye that he was staring at me. At first, I thought I might be imagining it. So I looked over and caught him quickly turning his head to look away. Okay, so he WAS staring at me. This wasn't completely out of the ordinary, since being a young college girl seemed to gain me a bit of attention from older men. So like usual, I just ignored him. That was a mistake.

Again, out of the corner of my eye I saw him look at me. But instead of just staring this time, he got up and walked over to sit next to me instead. I continued listening to my music, hoping that he'd see the earbuds and take the hint that I wasn't interested in having a conversation. Instead, this man literally took the earbud out of my ear.

"Hey there, sweetheart." He said as my head snapped to look at him in shock. I should've told him off for touching my things and demanded he leave me alone, but I was sort of frozen, and didn't want to make him mad.

"Uh...hi." I replied quietly. He started introducing himself as Mike, and telling me that he lived in the area and it was always nice to see pretty girls like me at the university bus stop. He explained that he was a real man, unlike the boys I went to school with, and that I should go home with him that night. I was a shy, scared, virgin who had never had a man be as bold as this to my face. I say "to my face", because I had certainly gotten my fair share of unsolicited private pictures online by that point, but I digress.

I didn't know how to respond, so I didn't. But that didn't stop Mike from continuing to explain to me all of the "fun things" he wanted to do with me at his place that night. He got into graphic detail. The things he described started out with basic things you'd expect, and escalated to him asking if I liked being choked until I turned purple and passed out in bed. I wished there were ANYONE else at that bus stop. But it was just the two of us, in the dark alone, as I counted the seconds until the bus would arrive.

Then Mike took things to a different level of shocking by telling me, "Listen, the demons want me to ask for your phone number, and they say you should give it to me or you won't like what happens." He actually had the audacity to start stroking my hair. His hand was gentle, but I didn't want him touching me at all.

This was shocking for a number of reasons. The demons? I wouldn't like what would happen? Why was he touching me? What the hell was this guy talking about? As though he could read my mind, Mike went on to explain, "My therapist knows the demons are real. I told her about them and she says I'm not crazy and the demons are real." He laughed, then abruptly stopped. "Now give me your phone number like they said." He demanded, and as his hand stroked my hair for the last time he stopped and gripped the back of my neck, still gentle, but even more terrifying.

I was scared, and obviously didn't want him to have my phone number. But he was taking out his phone, and I knew that he was going to call the number I gave him to make sure I wasn't lying to him, and he still had his hand on the back of my neck, so I reluctantly gave him my real phone number. Stupid, I know. But I was right, and he immediately called to check. All I could think about was just not making this guy angry long enough to get away from him, then I'd block his number.

Thankfully, the bus came moments later. I sat down as close to the front of the bus near the bus driver as I possibly could, since the bus was basically empty. Mike decided to sit directly across from me. At this point, I had tried listening to music again, hoping that being on the bus and him having my phone number would signal to him the end of our conversation. However, he decided to reach over and unzip my sweatshirt, revealing my work shirt and the name tag which I had unfortunately forgotten to remove in my haste to leave work that night. I hadn't told him my name yet. "Abigail, what a beautiful name. Our daughter will be named Celeste." I shouldn't have been shocked at this point, but I was. I had stopped listening to music again and zipped my sweatshirt back up, which made him laugh. "You won't need that soon, anyway." He said, and winked at me, implying how he'd planned to undress me even further that night.

At one stop, Mike tried to convince me to get off the bus with him. I told him no, that I was tired and just wanted to go home. So he said okay, and stayed on the bus. I knew that had been his stop, so the fact that he was staying on the bus worried me. I was sure this meant that he was planning on coming home with me instead.

"Baby," Mike whispered to me. I tried to ignore him, but he repeated himself louder, "Baby!" He had the most unsettling smile on his face as I asked, "What?" He laughed and told me, "The demons say you smell nice."

I was terrified, and felt like I was going to throw up by the time my bus stop arrived. I lived in an apartment alone, and didn't want him to know where I lived. Despite my body being exhausted and sore from work, adrenaline kicked in and I bolted off the bus and ran straight home. I made it inside and locked the door. I looked through the peephole and didn't see him, so I went to carefully peek out of my window, and saw him standing near the bus stop, looking around. He took out his phone, and sure enough I started getting a call from an unknown number since I hadn't saved his number. I ignored it. When he hung up, I started getting several texts, asking where I'd gone, how he didn't like hide and seek, and how the demons just wanted to have fun but I was being a little bitch about it.

I was so scared, because he knew which apartment building I lived in, where I worked, where I went to school, my phone number, and my name. The only good thing which made me feel slightly relieved was that he didn't know which specific apartment number I lived in.

That's when he started yelling outside. There were no specific words said, just wordless yells of what I can only assume were frustration and anger.

I blocked his number, and kept all the lights in my apartment off as I cried with my back to the front door. Maybe I should have called the police, but my brain was so frazzled that I didn't even think of that until the next day, and by then all I knew about him was that he was a mentally unstable man, probably named Mike, who hadn't actually done any physical harm to me, so I didn't think it was worth it. In hindsight, I know that I made a lot of stupid mistakes during this experience. I ended up moving away entirely at the end of that term of school for unrelated reasons, but until then I switched to day shifts at work and was paranoid every night. Thankfully, I never saw the man again, though.

So Mike, the scary guy from the bus stop who tried to follow me home, I never want to meet you or your demons ever again.