Super – Van (IP)

Sandra hated getting the late bus home from the college. It was always full of scary looking weirdoes and junkies and she’d come close to being mugged a few times but she needed to take night classes if she was ever going to get her diploma in IT and, because she couldn’t drive and didn’t have a friend with a car, the bus was the only option besides making the long journey home on foot, through the dark, which didn’t much appeal to her, not now that the rain had started bucketing down.

What Sandra didn’t expect however; what she never could have anticipated even in her strangest dreams, was that a small white Ford Transit would pull up in the bus bay; a small white Ford Transit with a rotating crucifix mounted upon its roof and that the door of the Ford Transit would suddenly spring open and a strangely European sounding voice would shout from inside, “Get in! Quickly!
The Bus is coming!”.

“What?”, asked Sandra, peering in through the open door and seeing no one inside, not even a driver but clearly hearing that voice.

“Get in!”, urged the voice again, “The Bus is coming, the Succubus!”.

“The Suck-you-what?”, asked Sandra, backing away from the strange transit van in fear.

But then, suddenly, Sandra saw something even more terrifying, a jet black articulated bus curling around the end of the road with its concertina like middle as if it were some enormous slithering creature and it had strange glaring red head light eyes and a grinning, blood stained bumper that looked like a mouth full of sharp metal teeth and, looking at the bus’s route sign, she saw that it was the no. 666 to Hell .

“Fuck me!”, she said, gasping.

“Don’t just stand there”, said the voice from the strange Transit van again, “Get in, quickly!”.

Terror had taken hold of her then and, acting upon instinct, Sandra just got into the passenger seat of the white van, the van door suddenly closing behind her and a seatbelt automatically strapping itself across her chest. She noted again that there was no one in the driver’s seat and yet the accelerator pedal was lowering itself and the steering wheel was turning, the car quickly swerving out of the bus bay and into the road.

And then she heard a roar, not so much like the roar of an engine, more like the roar of a wild beast and, looking in the rear view mirror, she saw the face of the demonic bendy bus but, even more terrifyingly, she saw the face of its driver, a skull with two glowing red eyes and two horns protruding from either side of its head.

And, laughing, the horrible vampire bus opened its bumper mouth and started to sing happily but dementedly, “The mouth on the bus goes munch,munch,much”, it sang, “Munch,munch,munch; munch,munch,munch. The mouth on the bus goes munch,munch,munch all night long”

“Hit the green button!”, shouted the driverless van, “Hurry!”.

Looking at the dash board infront of her she saw a series of coloured buttons, a purple one marked
“Garlic”, a red one marked “Silver Tacks” and a green one marked, “Holy Water”, without thinking
she reached out and pressed upon the green button with her thumb and then, suddenly, from behind her came a crash as the demon bus skidded, its front end colliding with a lamp post.

“Phew!”, said the strange, talking motor vehicle, “That was a close shave”.

Then suddenly the van pulled over to the side of the road and stopped, its door flipping open
once more and, getting out, Sandra realized that it was parked infront of her house. Somehow it had taken her home.

“I thought I’d drop you off . This is where you live isn’t it?”, asked the Ford Transit.

“Yes”, said Sandra, bewildered, “Thankyou”.

“Don’t mention it”, said the van.

But she couldn’t just let it go at that. She had to ask, “What are you?”.

“Van”, said the Van, “Van Helsing, Vampire Hunter”.