There was once upon a time when I had to take the bus back to my house alone after dark when I was a little girl. It was a small neighbourhood, where everybody knew everybody and their friends, family, spouses. Crime was far and few in between, and a lot of people used to joke about the police station being basically redundant. Because of this, it was perfectly safe for me to be out alone all by myself without a chaperone.
I was taking a late tuition class, and the bus stop was only a few minutes’ walk away. As usual, the bus stop was empty, and I sat by myself, reading a comic book I’d borrowed from the school’s library. When I looked up from it to see if the bus had arrived, it hadn’t. Instead, I saw a tall, pale woman with long dark hair sitting next to me. She wore only a long black dress and no shoes. She was dressed quite inappropriately for the weather that night. It had been raining earlier, and the air was quite chilly. Why wasn’t she wearing shoes at all? Where was her raincoat? Wasn’t she cold?
Even if I bent all the way backwards, I wouldn’t have been able to properly see her face. That was how tall she was. I was ridiculously puny back then, but thinking back on it now, it might just have worked in my favour. She was still as a statue, not moving a single muscle. Even her hair and dress were still. As I buried my head deep inside my comic, I snuck looks at her through my peripheral vision. I had never seen this woman in any part of the neighbourhood, and something in my gut twisted every time I glanced at her. Then it hit me. My mother had told me stories about a woman like this before. Her warnings were echoing in my head.
Whatever you do, do not look into her eyes.
At that moment, I knew if I were to make it back home safely, I had to heed that warning. When the bus arrived, I got up and walked briskly over to it, finding a seat right behind the driver. I could hear the woman’s soft footsteps behind me, caught a glimpse of her dark hair and black dress as she passed my seat and sat down on the one right behind mine. There was nothing else but the sound of the bus’ engines purring as it went down the road, and I could’ve sworn I heard the woman breathing behind me. Even in my down jacket and the bus’ heating system, I felt chills down my spine.
I told the driver to stop a few blocks away from my house. I didn’t feel like arriving at my doorstep with that woman breathing down my neck behind me. Without even sparing a glance backwards, I got off and ran as fast as I could. When I got to the front gate of my house, I couldn’t hear her footsteps behind me, nor could I see her at all. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I went inside and slammed and locked the door shut.
All through the night, I waited up for my mother to come back home. To pass the time, I tried to do some of my homework, but I still felt uneasy. As much as I tried not to, I would keep thinking about the woman in black at the bus stop. Was she still out there? Was she still watching me? I didn’t dare look out any of the windows, in case I saw her there, looking in. When I finished my homework, I curled up on the couch with all the lights and television on, not daring to go upstairs to my bedroom like I usually did. Soon, I fell into an uneasy sleep.
My mother came back home at five in the morning and found me asleep on the couch, tears dried on my face. I had been crying all night, scared that the woman could somehow come in and hurt me. My mother was understandably worried for me and asked me to explain everything. And so I did. I told her about the woman in the black dress that night, and what happened on the bus ride from the bus stop to our house. She held me tight in her arms and soothed me as I burst into tears again.
Seven years later, when I was in my senior year of high school, my mother finally told me the whole truth about what happened that night as we sat on a park bench during a warm, sunny morning.
“She was following you, hoping you would lead her to her next victim. She wasn’t after you, Cecelia. She was after me.”
Despite the warm sun shining down on us, I felt a chill down my spine. It was by a stroke of luck that she couldn’t manage to come back until five, or what could’ve happened then would’ve been unimaginable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something disturbingly familiar. Same black dress, same dark hair. It was her again. She’d come back. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t so tiny anymore, and I immediately saw her face.
Namely, her eyes. Her soulless, milky white eyes. Not only that, she was wearing the most chilling, terrifying smile I had ever seen. I had led her to her prey, just like she wanted.