The Last Row of Route 9

Three years ago, my family uprooted from the humid pine forests of Alabama to the dry, sun-bleached suburbs of Nevada. I was sixteen and angry about the move, about leaving my friends, about everything. To give me some semblance of control, my mom spread the county school listings across the kitchen table like a deck of tarot cards. She read each name aloud, her finger tracing the paper. I was about to pick the one closest to our new house when she paused and said, ‘There’s one with a strange reputation. They say the bus is haunted. It’s all just local folklore, of course.’ A thrill, cold and electric, ran down my spine. I pointed at it. ‘That one.’

My first morning, I stood at the corner with the other kids, the desert sun already baking the asphalt. The bus arrived, a lumbering yellow beast with a faded number 9 painted on its side. The driver, a cheerless woman named Mrs. Higgins, nodded at me as I climbed aboard. ‘New kid, right? Take the last seat on the boys’ side, all the way in the back.’ I obliged, walking past the empty seats, the other students’ eyes on me. I slid into the worn vinyl seat, the springs creaking beneath me. A boy two rows ahead turned around. It took me a second to recognize him—Marcus, a kid I’d known in third grade back in Alabama before his family moved west. ‘You should ask to move,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Why?’ I asked. He glanced around, then leaned in. ‘Back in 1896, a man in a white hood killed a girl right on that seat. They say her ghost still sits there.’ I laughed. ‘That didn’t happen.’ Marcus shrugged, his face unreadable. ‘Oh yes it did. Okay, don’t believe me.’

The day crawled by, a blur of new faces and teachers who couldn’t remember my name. But the story stayed with me, an itch in the back of my mind. When the final bell rang, I hurried to the bus, determined to laugh at my own unease. I climbed aboard and headed for the last row. As I approached, for just a split second, I saw her—a small girl in an old-fashioned dress, lying across the seat, her hair a tangle of darkness. Her lips moved, and I could have sworn she was mumbling my name. Then she was gone. I blinked, and the seat was empty. My heart hammered. I sat down, my skin crawling, and kept my eyes forward for the whole ride home.

That evening, I told my mom. She frowned, her brow furrowed with concern. ‘It was probably just your imagination, honey. New school, new stress.’ But her reassurances did nothing to quell the cold dread pooling in my stomach. The next morning, she insisted on talking to Mrs. Higgins. I stood by the front door as my mother stepped onto the bus, her voice low and serious. Mrs. Higgins listened, her expression hardening. When my mom finished, Mrs. Higgins took off her sunglasses, revealing tired, haunted eyes. ‘Ma’am,’ she said, ‘that seat has been empty for thirty years. Since I started driving this route, no one sits there. The other kids, they’ve told me the stories. I never believed them. But then one day, I saw a little girl in the rearview, waving at me. When I looked back, there was no one there. I nearly drove off the road.’ My mom paled. She didn’t say anything else, just walked back to the house, her lips pressed into a thin line.

That afternoon, I forced myself to the last row again, my heart thumping. I sat down, determined to prove to myself that it was all in my head. As the bus rumbled into motion, I felt a cold hand brush the back of my neck. I spun around, but there was nothing. Then I heard it—a soft, childlike whisper, so faint I almost missed it: ‘You came back.’ I froze. The whisper came again, closer, as if the girl were right behind me. ‘They never believe me,’ she said. ‘They never see me. But you do.’ I turned, and there she was, sitting beside me. She was pale, almost translucent, the fabric of her dress stained dark at the neck. Her eyes were empty and black. ‘They put a curse on this seat,’ she said, her voice now a low, bitter hiss. ‘Everyone who sits here sees me. And once they see me, they can’t leave. They become like me.’ I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Her cold hand clamped onto my wrist, and I felt the warmth drain from my body. The bus lurched, and the world went white.

I don’t know how long I was gone. When I came to, I was standing at the side of the road, the bus gone, the sun low. I walked home, my legs shaking. My mom saw my pale face and screamed. She called the police, but they found nothing. The next day, I refused to go to school. But the whisper followed me home, a constant, hungry murmur in my ear. That night, I looked in the mirror and saw a faint, bruise-like mark on my wrist where she had touched me. And behind me, in the reflection, a small, dark-haired girl was smiling.

I never rode that bus again. My parents moved us away, hoping to escape it. But the whispering never stopped. It grew louder, more insistent, until it became the only thing I could hear. And one night, I woke up to find myself standing at the edge of a vast, empty field, the girl beside me, her hand in mine. ‘Now you’re one of us,’ she whispered. ‘Now you’ll never be alone.’ And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that the curse had found a new victim. The bus would come for me again, and this time, I would never get off.