The doors swiftly shutter behind me as I thank the driver and shuffle my way down the bustling bus to find an empty seat. 

The bus smells stale and wet as the rain pelts the roof; the metal clank dulling into a soft thud. The cacophony of sniffles is the soundtrack to my traipse down the aisle. The soles of my shoes cling on to any dry surface they can find on the slippery floor, and I catch my self-conscious praying that I don’t slip in front of everyone. 

I nab a spot facing the front of the bus, with a set of four seats facing each other in front of me. The seats are occupied by a family, assumingly a father and his two sons. 

“… we’re lucky we moved there; she was clawing at the window. I saw her looking at you,” I hear the older son telling a story to the younger one loudly as I pull my earphones into my ears. 

I view the street through streaking splashes of water droplets as we twist through the edges of the city. Making out the shapes of buildings that are otherwise familiar based on their colour and size. 

“Do you think that she is going to catch us?”

“Hard to say, sometimes she gets bored quickly and she’ll leave us alone, but on those other times the chase is more fun than the catch.”

“I hate when you’re making up things just to freak me out.”

“If you don’t believe me that’s fine but I can see her from the window right now, just waiting for her chance to snatch you.”

“But what happens when she catches up with the bus?” The younger sibling asks with a tone of concern in his voice. He turns and looks back at me. He turns back around quickly after a brief moment of eye contact. I hear the question through my quietly playing pop music and confusingly pull out one earphone in case they are talking about me and I have unknowingly done something to upset them. 

The bus jolts to a stop. The red traffic light colours disperse on the speckled windows, refracting off all the wet surfaces. On his left, the father turns to the youngest son, and asks what size runners he wears for the new term of football, but it seems like they are both as clueless as each other. The father bends down and twists the son’s shoe at an acute angle to find a clue for a size reference etched in the rubber sole.

“I can see her again… she’s caught up with us… she’s just about to grab on to the back of the bus… she’s reaching out her clawed fingers… in three, two…” the bus pulls itself quickly forward as the older son sighs relief. “We just got out of her grasp in time. Lucky the bus moved when it did.”

I smiled softly to myself. It seems that none of my childhood experiences were unique. I also used to imagine different creatures running alongside the transport I would take. Jumping over lampposts, darting through bushes, narrowly dodging other cars on the road just to keep up with me, and to keep me company. It is interesting how we all share the same imagination, yet we are never told to imagine certain things. We just do. I start to wonder at what point I forgot that I had this experience. Would I have remembered it again without witnessing this moment?

The evening sky darkens further as the storm brews a thicker evening shower. I am too distracted to listen to my music. I eavesdrop on the two siblings. The younger one joins in as they playfully give each other anxiety, while their father is blissfully enveloped in his phone. They add narratives to what the woman will do if she catches them, and change her appearance at every opportunity. The only constant in their storytelling is the plot point that this running woman will never catch them as they manage to narrowly avoid her each time the bus restarts its movement.

The bus starts to move slower as the rain becomes a force to move against. I creep myself to the edge of the seat, ready to alight next stop. 

“Wow, she’s really keeping up with us… too bad we’re too fast.” The older son moves in quick motions imitating a runner mixed with a ninja.

“That was another close one, I thought I saw her hit her cane on the window there,” the younger one laughs, still not sure if he is making a fool of himself by imagining too deeply, or whether his brother has told the truth about this woman the whole time.

I press the stop button and haul myself up to the front of the bus, the dread of the dark and wet walk home settling in. I walk these streets every day, but in stormy weather there is always something unsettling in the air. Using an umbrella shields me from the rain, but not from the things around me that are blocked in my vision. 

The bus doors open and I walk forward. 

“She just put her hand on the bus. Did you feel that?” I hear the kids’ tales from afar.

“If we don’t move in… three…”

“She might follow us home; dad won’t even see her.”

“…two…”

“He won’t even know he won’t see us again…”

“…one…”

I let the doors close behind me quickly so that the brothers can continue to think they are the hero in their story. I remember the feeling of giving in to my imagination, making me feel unstoppable. 

I watch the bus drive past and look out on to the street from underneath the drowning umbrella. 

A woman stands in the middle of the road. She points her cane at me as I twist away quickly. Pacing myself, I close my eyes and count down from three. 

Leigh Brady is a writer from Dublin, Ireland, currently living in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has completed an MA in English literature, and a BA in English and Sociology, both from Maynooth University. She is interested in short form fiction, especially gothic, sci-fi, magical realism and fantasy. When she is not writing she can be found immersed in musical theatre.

X (Twitter) – @LeighBrady_

Instagram – @leighbrady (Private), @uncovering books (active)