Late Night Bus Stop

I grew up in a decent sized suburban town forty minutes outside Boston. The police logs are filled with stolen street signs and other high school pranks for the bored and restless. Tucked away in an oversized, maze-like neighborhood, on a half-acre plot stands a stone split-level with a one-lane driveway in need of repaving. Inside stands a 36" TV. On the screen there are mostly like images flashing of Law & Order SVU, CSI, or my personal favorite, Criminal Minds. Who knew my desire to be excited and my need for the thrill of the frightening would one day lead me to the point where I’m crying at a bus stop in Newington, NH, convinced I would die.

I watch as the 4B Wildcat Transit that has been improperly labeled Portsmouth rather than Durham turns left onto Rt. 4 West. With my head cocked to one side, I consider my situation. I know a few things for certain. One, it is definitely past 9:30 p.m. because I had left work then. Two, the mall doors are now locked. Three, the bus I had opted not to take because I was sure it was heading the wrong way was definitely the one I want. And three, I am a naïve, twenty-year old girl sitting alone at a bus stop outside the Fox Run Mall with no means of transportation and no means of contact. I had forgotten my phone in my dorm prior to leaving for work.

So I’m sitting there, contemplating two things. One, will another bus come; I’ve only ever worked until 9:30 and therefore have no knowledge of any later bus times. Two, if another bus does not come at what point will my friends begin to worry where I am, and will I have been brutally raped and murdered by this point? On that note, will they ever be able to find my body? I really wish I had my phone. Perhaps, I think, with a last bit of fleeting optimism, one of those useless Mall Security Ford Escapes will drive by again, and I can wave it down and ask to use the security officer’s phone. However, since I have only three numbers memorized and since two of those are my parents, who I am well aware would be distraught with disappointment at my careless behavior, I would be left having to call my sister. Now she lives well over an hour from me even if she does answer her phone, but moreover, on the chance she is awake, I highly doubt she will be willing to answer with a number she doesn’t know. As I struggle with the options I am not even faced with, the sketchiest, and I mean sketchiest, rapist van pulls into the empty parking lot. I have now experienced pure terror. Not only does this company style van with minimal windows and no visible company logo pull up to the curb fifty yards from me, it even has the classy touch of multicolored duct tape on the back window. Two scruffy, loud mouth, the Jersey Shore meets the 8-Mile bros step out of a vehicle that is made for transporting bodies. As they begin to unload nighttime cleaning supplies, I hold my breath and pray they don’t see me. I wait until they have successfully entered the mall until I lose all control.

Desperate for an escape, I begin to think again of my options if I only had a phone. I could have my sister either call my old roommate, however she’d probably be drunk at this point and of no use at all. Or I could have her call my best friends from home so she could call another friend from home, so he in turn could call my current roommate. Then maybe she could find a car… The ifs begin to overwhelm me and I recall the first major dilemma, I have no phone. At this point I am hyperventilating and tears are pouring from my eyes. Makeup stains the fingers that I have used to desperately try to salvage my face from portraying my blatant hysteria. My shoulders shrug with each hiccupped cry. I sit there as the minutes tick away and I am just waiting for my late night buddies to come out and find me, still alone and very vulnerable.

Then from a distance I hear a familiar rumbling. I never knew the bright lights of a Wildcat Transit could look so divine. I hastily try to salvage my face and impatiently dart towards the doors as they creak open. Salvation.