The 3:40 to Nowhere
Tomás had driven the 3:40 for eleven years, and for eleven years the woman in the grey coat had never once pulled the bell.
She boarded at the depot, before the route officially began, and she sat in the third row on the left with her hands folded over a canvas bag. At the terminus she stayed. On the return leg she stayed. When Tomás parked at dawn and switched off the engine, the seat was empty and the bus was cold, and he never saw her leave.
He told nobody. A driver who says he has a ghost gets a medical review and a desk.
On the night of the storm, the river road flooded and Tomás took the long way round, past the quarry. In the mirror the woman stood up.
“Not this way,” she said. It was the first time he had heard her voice. It was ordinary — tired, a little hoarse, the voice of someone who worked nights too.
“Road’s under water,” he said.
“I know.” She held the rail. “I came off that bend in ’ninety-four. There were nine of us on board. I keep riding because I can’t remember whether I told the driver to slow down, or whether I only thought it.”
Tomás slowed down. He took the bend at a crawl, headlights raking the wet stone, and when he looked up the third row on the left was empty.
The next night the depot gave him a new route. He asked for the 3:40 back. They told him nobody had asked for that in years.
