Purgatory

A Tall Tales Story

by Tim McLaughlin
 It was a warm summer day, and Martin had enjoyed the
sunshine as he walked to the store. He hadn’t needed much,
but ever since his retirement he reveled in any chance to get
out of the house without a pressing need; but now he was
done and his feet were tired. Having spotted an open park
bench next to an old rusty bus stop sign, he decided to take a
rest. He knew, of course, that there were occasionally buses
spotted around town, though he never really had need before
to figure out which ones followed what routes. Still, he was
feeling his age catch up to him, so he waited until a bus pulled
up and opened its door. After all, it wouldn’t take much to find
out if this bus would be helpful to him.
“Do you stop near Ormond?” he asked. He could see the
driver’s name tag read ‘Dennis’ when the driver turned and
slowly looked him over.
“I can,” Dennis answered.
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
 “No worries. This is the last route on my shift anyway.”
Martin decided that would do, grabbed his plastic bag,
and stepped aboard. The bus was empty of passengers, and he
picked a seat along the back wall as the door closed and the
bus lurched forward. It was force of habit, really; back to the
wall, sightlines to both doors, and away from the windows.
The latter wasn’t part of his training, he just knew how he
handled being away from the driver seat and watching the
landscape fly past. It was for this reason that he wasn’t actively
watching where the bus was going, instead focusing on how to
work the new-fangled Nokia mobile phone his son had
convinced him to pick up. He did, however, snap his attention
to the window when he noticed an unexpected neighborhood
out of the corner of his eye. He recognized it as part of his
patrol back when he worked in the city. But that was over an
hour away!
“Excuse me, sir!” He called out. Dennis only grunted.
“What, exactly, is your route?”
“This isn’t your stop,” Dennis replied as the bus stopped.
“Well I can see that! But where—” Martin was cut off by
the sound of a gunshot. He stood and turned to the window,
now looking down an alley, where a cruiser was sitting with its
lights on.
The door was open, and there was Martin, twenty years
younger, standing behind it with his gun in hand propped
against the top of the door. He fired off two more shots, and
the young man on the other side of the alley collapsed as the
shots tore through him. The bus began to move again, nearly
knocking Martin off his feet and sending his phone skittering
across the floor. He caught himself with one of the railings,
took slow breaths to offset the sudden feeling of movement,
and turned back toward the front of the bus.
“What the hell is this?”
“Do you not remember?” Dennis asked. “It is, after all,
your past.”
“Is this some kind of prank?! One of those stupid
comedy shows?”
“Does something about it seem funny to you?” a voice
asked.
Martin spun around to find the young man sitting in the
seat next to where Martin had been. He was wearing the same
clothes as that night, the shirt slowly soaking with blood from
the small wound in his shoulder and larger wound in his chest.
Another hole in his face had destroyed his left eye and exposed
bits of bone and brain. Martin fell into a seat and stared at
him.
“You seem surprised,” the young man said.
“What is this? Who are you?”
“I would like to be surprised you don’t remember, but I
guess you never did ask my name.” He stood and took a step
toward Martin. “But you must remember something. My death
was the reason you were put on administrative leave, with
pay, if I recall correctly?”
“They cleared me of any wrongdoing!”
“And the PR nightmare after that is why you moved and
took up work at another department.”
“The people didn’t understand!”
 The young man jumped onto Martin and grabbed him by
the throat. “Didn’t understand what? That you shot me in the
back? That I’m dead because you were accidentally startled?”
“It doesn’t matter! You’re not real!” Martin coughed
out, his hands clawing at the figure that had him pinned down.
“Oh, I’m very real. We’ve all been waiting for you; some
longer than others.”
“Who?”
The young man lifted Martin and slammed his face
against the window as the bus came to another stop, this time
on Liberty Bridge. A woman was there, with her back turned to
the bus, looking out over the edge. Martin barely had time to
process what was happening, was just opening his mouth to
cry out to her, when she climbed onto the rail and leapt. He
screamed as the bus started moving again, fighting against
both the hold of the man and the nausea starting to churn as
he was forced to watch the buildings pass. He finally managed
to break the man’s hold and spin around, sitting still as he tried
to keep his lunch down, his hands up and ready to defend
himself. A woman was sitting backward in the row ahead of
them, watching him. Her features from life were hard to
identify through the bloated lips and eyelids, her largely pale
skin buried under mud and covered in small abrasions.
“Oh, now he’s concerned,” she muttered.
“Who are you? Why are you showing me this?” Martin
demanded.
“Marla? From Pitt?” She watched him as he stared
blankly at her for a moment. “Nothing? Just how many rape
cases did you ignore because they were going to ‘ruin that
young man’s future?’” She leaned forward, her hair dripping
river water onto his leg as she pulled her face close to his. “You
didn’t think about mine, though! Did you know how the school
would treat me after I went to you? How the rest of the
student body would shun me? Did you hear about how much I
lost in the months afterward? Did you even remember me by
the time you voted for him?”
Martin, having regained his composure, shoved past the
young man into the aisle and pushed past her hands as they
shot out to grab him, his eyes fixed on the unmoving back of
the driver seat as he ran toward the front of the bus. He heard
the footsteps behind him, one set wet and heavy and the other
light and nimble. As the bus stopped again, this time much
more abruptly, he flew forward and slammed his face into the
back of a seat.
When he opened his eyes, his vision was blurry and he
was laying on his back. He touched a spot that felt wet on his
face and, pulling his hand away, could just make out what
looked like blood on it. He tried to roll over and bumped into
something; it took him a moment to realize it was a leg. A hand
grabbed him by the collar and lifted him to his feet. It was hard
to tell exactly, but he could swear at least eight more people
were on the bus, all of them staring at him with rage burning in
their eyes. As his vision began to focus he started to identify
some of them. Mary, her throat slit by a husband he’d sent her
back to after assurances that Carl wasn’t like that. Peter, killed
after Martin let the mayor’s son drive off with a verbal warning
and no sobriety test. Others he didn’t recognize at all, an array
of wounds and deformations wracking their bodies. They were
rising now, moving toward him. He fought off the hands of the
young man, who had been holding him up, and ran to the front
of the bus.
“Let me out!” He cried. “Get me off this bus!”
“Not yet,” Dennis answered. He turned to Martin, who
could now see Dennis’ body for what it was. Half his face was
shredded off down to the bone, his chest ripped open, the
bone of his upper arm broken and stabbing outward, cuts and
scabs covering every remaining inch of exposed skin. “Not until
every one of them has been appeased.”
Martin felt hands on him and screamed, flailing and
swinging at the figures that were trying to surround him. He
pushed, and backed up, and felt a handle behind him. The
door! He spun around and grabbed the handle, throwing the
door open and stepping down to the edge. The landscape was
dark and twisted, misshapen hills and gnarled black trees
rushing past him. The bus turned suddenly, and Martin caught
the door frame as he stared out. His vision began to blur again,
and as the bus jerked in another direction he barely kept
himself from throwing up. He closed his eyes in an attempt to
ignore the motion sickness trying to overtake him and the
thought of what he was about to do, and pushed forward.
A hand grabbed his shoulder as it cleared the doorway,
then another had his wrist. He screamed as more hands
wrapped around him, pulling him back. He fought, kicked, tried
everything he could, but he wasn’t strong enough. Not against
the lot of them. As his outstretched hand was drawn back into
the bus, the door slammed shut.
 It was a cold winter day, and Eloise was not dressed to
be standing around in the snow. Her car had broken down just
around the corner, and her calls weren’t getting through. Now,
she was swearing at another voicemail beside a park bench
and an old rusty bus stop sign. As she considered how little the
upgrade to 5G seemed to be helping her, she found her luck
turned around in the form of a bus pulling up and opening its
door.
“Do you go uptown?” she asked. She could see the
driver’s name tag read ‘Martin’ when he turned and slowly
looked her over.
“I can,” Martin answered.
“Oh thank God!” Eloise announced. “You would not
believe the day I’ve had!” She stepped aboard and Martin
closed the door.
 What is Tall Tales?
Tall Tales is a paranormal and urban fantasy series told
through short stories across five blogs at talltalesuf.com.
Updates occur on weekdays, with each blog updating once a
week.
Tall Tales Narrator updates on Mondays and hosts
various stories from across the world of Tall Tales, sometimes
including characters usually seen on the other blogs.
Benediction is a collection of records associated with
the trial of Father Benedict de Monte, an inhuman priest
tasked with hunting a dangerous cult. It publishes on Tuesdays.
Matteson: P.I. updates on Wednesdays and serves as
the personal blog of John Matteson, an amateur paranormal
investigator with an immunity to magic and a habit of drawing
attention from spirits—for good or ill.
Over the Hedge updates on Thursdays. It is the collected
notes and notable events of Jackie Veracruz, a witch with a
keen interest in understanding the metaphysical realm and
how its nature shapes magic.
Wonderland follows Alice Templeton, a biology student
that has stumbled upon the supernatural and found herself
more connected to it than she could have ever expected. It
updates on Fridays.
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