THE LAST BUS TO NOWHERE

CHAPTER 1 At 11:55 p.m., my sister called me from a grave. I know how that sounds. If someone had told me the same thing a few weeks ago, I would have laughed in their face. But I heard her voice. I heard the rain falling against her phone. And I heard her whisper the one thing that made my blood turn cold. “Malik, whatever you do, don't let them bury me twice.” Then she screamed. The call ended. I stared at my phone, unable to breathe. Zainab had been missing for three days. Three days of searching the streets, questioning strangers, and begging the police to take her disappearance seriously. Three days of my mother insisting that I had never had a sister named Zainab. Three days of finding photographs in which I stood alone, even though I remembered exactly where Zainab had been standing beside me. I thought I was losing my mind. Until that phone call. I immediately dialled her number. A mechanical voice answered. The person you are trying to reach is no longer among the living. I dropped the phone. Outside my bedroom window, a horn sounded. One long note. Two short ones. I moved toward the curtain and looked down at the street. A black bus stood outside our house. Its windows were dark, its body covered in mud, and its headlights shone through the rain like two enormous, unblinking eyes. There was no driver behind the windscreen. Yet the engine was running. My phone vibrated on the floor. Another message from Zainab. Don't look at the passengers. I should have obeyed. I should have switched off my phone, locked the door, and hidden beneath my bed until morning. Instead, I looked through the bus window. Fourteen passengers sat perfectly still inside. An old woman held a bunch of dead flowers. A little boy stared at his knees. A man in a black suit had his hands folded across his chest. And in the last row sat a girl wearing my sister's yellow dress. Her head was bowed. Her hair covered her face. I pressed my palm against the glass of my bedroom window. “Zainab?” I whispered. The girl slowly raised her head. Even from that distance, I knew it was her. But something was terribly wrong. Her eyes were sewn shut beneath her hair. Her lips moved. I couldn't hear her, but I read the words clearly. RUN, MALIK. I'M NOT THE ONE THEY CAME FOR. A hand appeared on the girl's shoulder. Long fingers. Black fingernails. The girl began shaking her head violently. Then another figure leaned into view beside her. It wore my face. Not a face that looked like mine. My exact face. The same small scar above my eyebrow. The same tired eyes. The same mouth I saw every morning in the mirror. It smiled at me. Then it lifted one finger to its lips. Shhh. The front door of our house creaked open downstairs. I spun around. “Mum?” No answer. I rushed into the hallway. My mother stood at the bottom of the staircase, dressed in the white funeral clothes she had worn three days earlier. She was holding a shovel. Her bare feet were covered in mud. “Malik,” she said softly, “come and help me bury your sister.” I stumbled backward. “Mum, what are you talking about?” She raised her face. Her eyes were completely black. “Because,” she whispered, “the first burial didn't work.” Behind her, the front door opened wider. A man in a black uniform stepped inside. Water dripped from his clothes, but the floor remained perfectly dry beneath him. He removed his cap. I nearly screamed. He had my father's face. My father, who had been dead for eleven years. He looked up the staircase and smiled at me with the same gentle expression I remembered from childhood. “Good evening, son.” Then he held out a black ticket. “Your sister has requested your company.” I shook my head. “I don't understand.” My father glanced at his watch. 11:55 p.m. “The bus leaves in five minutes,” he said. “And this time, you are not coming back.” From the bus outside came fourteen simultaneous knocks against the windows. Knock. Knock. Knock. My phone vibrated one final time. A photograph appeared on the screen. It showed me standing beside the black bus. My eyes were closed. My hands were folded across my chest. And beneath the photograph were the words: MALIK ADENIYI — MISSING FOR TWENTY YEARS. I looked up at my father. He was no longer smiling. “Get your shoes,” he ordered. “The dead are waiting.” And somewhere beneath the floorboards, a voice began counting down. “Five…” “Four…” “Three…” “Two…” CHAPTER 2: THE PASSENGER IN MY WINDOW Continuation from the exact point where Chapter One ended. The voice outside was speaking with the voice of the boy I had been twenty years ago. I stood frozen in the sitting room, staring at the front door. “Malik,” my mother's voice whispered from behind me. “Whatever happens, do not open that door.” The knocking stopped. For a few seconds, the house was silent. Then something scratched against the other side of the door. Slowly. Deliberately. Like someone dragging a fingernail across the wood. “Mother?” I whispered. “Who is outside?” She didn't answer. Instead, she reached into the pocket of her nightdress and pulled out a small silver key. Her hands trembled as she placed it in my palm. “If you hear your father's voice again, hide in the room upstairs. Lock the door and don't come out until morning.” “But Dad is dead.” “I know.” “Then how can he be outside?” My mother looked at me, and the expression in her eyes frightened me more than anything I had seen that night. “Because the dead are not the only things that can imitate the living.” Before I could ask another question, three knocks sounded against the door. This time, they came from inside the house. I spun around. The sound had come from the hallway leading to the staircase. Knock. Knock. Knock. My mother grabbed my arm. “Don't answer.” A voice came from the darkness. “Malik, please. It's cold out here.” It was Zainab. I rushed toward the hallway, but my mother held me back. That's not your sister.” “You don't know that!” “I know exactly what it is.” The voice laughed softly. Then it spoke again. “Malik, do you remember the promise you made me?” My heart began to pound. Zainab and I had shared countless memories. We had grown up together, argued over silly things, and stayed awake telling stories when the electricity went out. But suddenly, one memory came into my mind that I couldn't explain. A little girl in a yellow dress. A dark road. A bus waiting beneath a dead streetlight. And my hand slipping away from hers. I staggered backward. “What is happening to me?” My mother pulled me toward the stairs. “Go upstairs. Now!” I ran. Behind me, the voice in the hallway changed. It was no longer Zainab's voice. It was mine. “Mother,” it called, “why are you keeping my brother from me?” I stopped on the stairs. My brother? I had no brother. At least, I didn't think I did. My mother began to sob downstairs. “Please,” she whispered. “We made a bargain. You promised you would leave him alone.” The voice answered with a chilling calmness. “Bargains expire, madam.” Then every light in the house went out. I hurried into my bedroom and locked the door. I switched on my phone flashlight and pointed it toward the mirror above my dressing table. My reflection stared back at me. I was sweating. My breathing was uneven. My hands shook so badly that the light danced across the walls. Then my reflection lifted its right hand. I hadn't moved mine. I stepped backward. The reflection smiled. I did not. Slowly, it raised one finger and pointed toward the window behind me. I turned. Outside, the black bus stood in our compound. Its headlights illuminated my bedroom, and behind the driver's window sat a man wearing my face. He held up an old photograph. It showed me as a little boy, standing beside my mother. But the date printed on it was twenty years before I was born. The man pressed the photograph against the glass and mouthed four words. YOU TOOK MY PLACE. My phone vibrated. An unknown number had sent me a message. Ask your mother who she buried. Suddenly, my mother screamed downstairs. I rushed to the door, but it wouldn't open. Footsteps climbed the stairs and stopped outside my bedroom. “Malik?” my mother's voice whispered. “Open the door.” I reached for the handle. Then I remembered her warning. Whatever happens, do not open that door. The voice outside changed. It became my father's voice. “You were never supposed to come back, son.” The door slowly swung open. Nobody stood outside. At the end of the hallway, Zainab appeared in her yellow dress. “Malik,” she whispered, “you have until midnight to find the grave.” “What grave?” “The one your mother dug for you.” Then she vanished. I looked at my phone. 11:59 p.m. From beneath the house came the sound of a shovel striking the ground. Once. Twice. Three times. On the sitting-room table lay a white ticket bearing my name. Beneath it were five terrifying words: COME ALONE, OR SHE DIES. Outside, the black bus opened its doors. My father's voice called from within. “Last chance, son.” I stepped into the darkness, knowing that whatever waited for me at the graveyard would change everything I thought I knew about my life.