Chapter 3

Uncle Tim tore down the road in the bus.

Luckily, there was almost no traffic at that hour. The terminal was normally a twenty-minute drive away, but somehow, he made it there in seven.

I was already getting ready to jump off when I realized he wasn’t slowing down.

He shot straight past the entrance.

“Uncle Tim! What are you doing? Where are we going?”

“Stop talking and look behind us! Tell me if there’s anything back there!”

I quickly turned around.

Someone was sitting in the very back row of the bus.

A pale yellow dress.

Long black hair.

It was her.

The same woman from before.

I froze.

I was so terrified that I forgot to even tell Uncle Tim what I had seen.

When he didn’t hear me answer, he seemed to understand anyway.

Instead of continuing straight, he suddenly jerked the wheel.

The several-ton bus swung around so violently that the back end skidded across the pavement. The next second, we shot forward again.

My stomach lurched.

I felt like everything I had eaten that night was about to come right back up.

By the time I finally managed to hold it down and lift my head, we were passing the terminal again.

And this time, I saw her clearly.

The woman was standing right outside the entrance.

She stared straight at me without the slightest expression on her face.

My jaw dropped.

Cold sweat broke out all over my body, and I gripped the seat so tightly that my fingers hurt.

From the front, Uncle Tim shouted, “Don’t look at her! Don’t look! Just pretend you didn’t see anything!”

Then he pressed the gas even harder.

By the time I came back to my senses, we were already outside the city.

Everything around us looked more and more deserted, and I was about ready to cry.

“Uncle Tim, what are we supposed to do?”

He ignored me.

Instead, he lit another cigarette and took such a deep drag that nearly a third of it burned away at once.

The bus finally slowed down a little.

My stomach settled with it, but I didn’t dare look out the windows anymore.

I was terrified of what I might see.

We continued down a rough concrete road full of cracks and potholes until a warning beep suddenly sounded.

I knew that noise.

It was the low-battery warning on the electric bus.

I checked the time.

It was already two thirty in the morning.

My stomach dropped again.

It felt like I had only been out of it for a moment, yet almost three hours had passed.

“Uncle Tim...”

“We keep going as long as we can,” he said. “We just have to make it until sunrise.”

The thought made me want to give up.

It was still at least two hours before the roosters would start crowing at dawn.

How were we supposed to make it until then?

I stopped talking.

It wasn’t because I didn’t want to say anything.

I just had no idea what to say.

Of all the things that could happen on my first night on the job, I had to get stuck in this nightmare.

I was actually wondering whether I should try something I had seen in an old horror movie when the bus suddenly stopped.

I looked ahead.

The road split into three directions, and an old man was struggling up the hill with a beat-up wooden handcart.

“Uncle Tim, there’s someone up ahead...”

Before I could finish, Uncle Tim was already out of the bus.

He walked over and helped the old man push the cart uphill.

Once they reached the top, the man thanked him over and over.

“Thank you. It’s good to know there are still decent people in this world.”

Uncle Tim nodded.

“Sir, do you happen to have a pair of scissors with you?”

Scissors?

Why would Uncle Tim need those?

There were already scissors in the emergency tool kit on the bus.

But the moment the old man heard the question, his expression changed.

His face went cold.

Then he turned and looked directly toward the bus.

It was almost as if he knew I was sitting inside.

“You’re heading to Easton Village?” he asked.

“Yes.”

The old man sighed.

“Then you’d better be careful.”

That was all he said.

He turned to leave, but before he did, he actually pulled out a pair of scissors and handed them to Uncle Tim.

They were just ordinary scissors.

At least, that was what they looked like to me.

But Uncle Tim accepted them like the old man had just saved his life. He thanked him again and again, so grateful that he looked ready to drop to his knees.

I couldn’t understand any of it.

When Uncle Tim climbed back onto the bus, his whole body was trembling.

It wasn’t from the cold.

He was scared.

That only made me more confused.

What could possibly frighten a man who had spent ten years in the military this badly?

Even when the candles turned green and the incense burned wrong, he hadn’t looked like this.

Uncle Tim didn’t explain.

He simply handed me the scissors.

“Hold on to these. Don’t let go. When you get home, leave them by the front door.”

I did exactly what he said.

And strangely enough, the moment I took the scissors, that icy feeling that had been hanging over me all night disappeared.

Warmth slowly spread through my body.

Within minutes, I was so warm that I took off my jacket and still felt hot.

Uncle Tim eased off the gas and drove slowly down the road.

Then, at last, I heard it.

A rooster crowed somewhere in the distance.

The tight knot in my chest finally loosened.