Jason’s Legacy

I’ve held onto this for over 40 years. Never told a word of it to anyone. Not my wife, my kids, my closest friends. Not once. I’m writing it down here, exactly as I remember it. Maybe it’ll clear my conscience, let a decent kid be remembered by someone. Maybe it won’t. In fact, I’m almost sure it won’t. 

And the writing of it might be the end of me. 

***

Our bus driver, Martin, was a weird dude. He smelled funny. Big, hulking guy with chunky jowls. He had this stench to him that never changed. Like a moldy skin kind of funk. He always wore a ratty t-shirt under this patched up black denim vest. Wore these big shades, too, reflective, so we couldn’t see exactly what he was looking at. Not a charmer, but he didn’t give a f*** what we did on that bus. He never looked up at us. 

Well. Not usually. Just when kids got nuts, like fireworks going off nuts, or fists-flying boxing match nuts. He’d get up, lumber back, sit ‘em down on the bench seat, kneel beside them. We’d all kind of hush when this happened. He had that presence. He’d lift his glasses up, look the offending parties dead in the eyes, and just talk to them. Real, real quiet, so no one else could hear… Whatever he said, it always shut them up. And none of them would talk about it, ever. Like… he cursed them to silence or something. Made them mute. We didn’t know. They just wouldn’t talk about it. Ever. 

So. I dropped into the seat behind Martin, leaned my head on the window, put my pack on the seat next to me, and passed out. Woke up to my pack getting shoved into my ribs. It hurt. I remember the little spark of outrage from the surprise of pain. So I glare up at the guy, thin and wiry, stark white, little dude. Slipknot shirt. He glares back. He’s got short cropped ultra-black hair. I glare down at my pack, at his hands on it. He’s got a spiderweb on his hand, with a big black widow, off center. Not a real tat’, he drew it on. That snapped it into place. Jason. An artist. A loner. I’ve been riding the same bus as him for years, we live pretty close. He had a little crew of come-and-go misfits he ran with sometimes. I’d overheard him joking around with them, plenty. Hit me in a flash. He’d been bragging. Bragging about how independent he was. How he fended for himself. No parents breathing down his neck. Nobody up his ass about college. Kind of thing can make you jealous, at that age. 

So, I glared at him, he glared back at me. Challenging me to say something, you know? We hung in that moment for a second, suspended in mutual distaste. 

“Sit down,” Martin barked, and the doors slammed shut. I looked back down the bus. It had packed out. Every seat had two bodies in it, minimum. Jason shoved my pack further into my ribs when I looked away and sat down in the seat. 

I pulled my bag onto my lap and put my head on the window again. Fuming a little, that he’d jabbed in my ribs twice and I couldn’t do much about it. He sat down, didn’t look at me. Good. Great. We didn’t have to be friends, we just needed to get home. Whatever.

Between the new bruises, the smells, and the weirdo next to me, I wasn’t falling asleep again. This was before cell phones, you know? Couldn’t just get lost in the screen for a while. I had a really good view of Martin from where I sat. Especially the back of his neck. Broad. Pale. Greasy locks of hair came halfway down it, brushing against the top of this tattoo that ran across his spine.

The tattoo… my gut clenches when I think of it.

It was this shadowy gray hand, but like f**ked up looking. Gray, light gray, like dead flesh or thin smoke. And it had these long wavy fingers and little red claws. The whole thing kind of streamed across the back of his neck. The fingers stretched out toward his left shoulder. It had these white veins creeping up the hand, tapering off just like real veins might. Really gross to look at. I couldn't imagine why you’d want it on the back of your neck.

So I noticed the tat, then I remembered Jason’s hand. Pretty sick art, for a younger artist, good detail and shading. At a glance, you’d have thought the spider could crawl right off his hand. I glanced up at Jason, he had his eyes set on Martin’s neck. He caught me looking, turned his head real slow to glare at me. I froze, chest tight. I’d cooled off a bit during the ride, but Jason was always angry. Always ready for a fight. I was just looking at the guy, but it got tense quick. My heart pounded. I hadn’t gotten used to conflict yet. I was scared, man. I panicked and I shmoozed him. Instinctually, I guess. 

“Sick art,” I said, nodding down to his hand. He glanced down at his hand then up to me, a challenge and question. His hand twitched toward a fist, making the spider dance. He thought I was mocking him. “The uhm… spider. It looks real, bro. Like it could crawl away.”

He glared at me for another long second. Then held the hand up, limp, so I could get a better look. 

“Not your bro,” he said, “And it’s a black widow.” He had this musty, unwashed smell to him. Not terrible, more like he’d dabble in personal hygiene, but didn’t have a routine about it. “They operate alone. Even eat each other when they’re young.” The glare had softened a little bit, less of a challenge. A bit less, anyway. 

“You want one?” he asked, curt and direct. “I could do something less creepy for you. Maybe a pack animal? Like a wolf or a deer or something? Capybara?”

The pen appeared in his hand out of nowhere. It was a nice one, a sketch artist’s pen, with a fine tip. He spun it around his finger with a little snap. The kid must have lived with that pen in his hand. 

“Capy- what?”

“Cute little mammal, they live in herds,” he said. “Mostly in South America. More you than the spider, I think. You want one? Could do a herd.” He fidgeted with the pen cap and we both looked down at my hand. The blank canvas. Well-scrubbed and ready for art. 

I thought about it for a minute. Thought of how my parents would react. And/or overreact… “You let a stranger draw a tattoo on you? What’s next? A real tattoo? Motorcycles? Marijuana? Cocaine? Meth?” Cut to me trying to explain that capybaras are herd animals and that I meant well… Then cut to a lecture on the many dangers of the suburbs. Drugs, alcohol, poor hygiene, motorcycles, domestic terrorist cells, etc. No Nintendo after dinner. Straight to bed. And scene. 

“Uhm… Nah… nah… I’m good, man,” I said. “Looks good on you, though.”

“Why the f*** did you say something if you don’t want one?” he blurted. The pen flipped around and he brandished it like a tiny knife.

“Just thought it looked cool,” I said, holding my own hands up a little. “Just liked the art. No offense.” He glared at me for a few moments. I watched his knuckles slowly relax around the pen and let my hands lower.

“What do you think of that?” I asked, nodding at Martin’s neck. Jason glanced at it.

“Pretty good,” he said. “The way those white veins pop-out, that’s cool, but they kind of f**k with the waviness of it."

“Yeah, sure, the veins could be better,” I said. We both looked back at the tat. 

It had switched sides. Those long, wavy fingers stretched out to the right now. I… know it sounds nuts. I know. And don’t worry. It gets worse. So much worse.

***

Jason looked at me, wide-eyed. 

“You see that shit?” he asked.

I asked him, “See what?” Like, trying to play it off. I saw it. I just didn’t want to. I really didn’t. Let it be. I was tired. Maybe I was seeing things.

“Nahhh, man,” he said. “Nahhh. Don’t f*** with me, man… you can’t f*** with me, man… that shit moved.” The knuckles went white around the pen again and started my heart pounding. I just wanted to be home.

Jason glared at me, just daring me to disagree. I looked from him to the tattoo and back, stalling, trying to figure out how to shmooze out of it. But. The tattoo had moved. Really moved.

“Yeah,” I said, “maybe, ok? Maybe it moved.”

He glared at me. “Maybe” wasn’t enough.

“Yeah…” he said. “Yeahhh… You’re gonna ask him about it.” Not a question. 

I gave him my incredulous brows, and let my face twist up with a little, “The f**k I am,” language on it. Before I could open my mouth he had the sharp tip of the pen against my neck. I glanced up to the mirror, Martin stared straight out the windshield, ignoring us, as usual. The pen pressure disappeared from my neck and reappeared between my ribs.

“Ask where he got that tat,” Jason growled. “Or I put holes in your lungs. Don’t think I won’t.”

I glanced down at the hand. The spider. The pen. I got mad. Like. Real mad. 

All my stress, you know, tests, classes, messed up sleep, and now this asshole and his weird powertrip. I just saw red. Next thing I knew, I’ve got his pen hand by the wrist and I’m standing over him, just whaling on him with my other fist. I’m no fighter, so I’m barely catching blows. He’s jabbing back, trying to free up the pen, scrappy but scrawny. I heard my shirt tear. We’re both getting bruises all over, grunting and falling out into the aisle. The bus slams to a stop and we topple into the aisle, still going after each other. 

Then this meaty hand grabbed the back of my neck and wrenched me into the seat. As it let go, I took a last swing at Jason. Then, wham, I’ve got that meaty paw wrapped around my throat and I’m looking up into the sunglasses. My stomach dropped out, you know. Freefall. It was happening. It was happening to me. I swallowed, the pressure of his hand made it painful. After a moment, Martin let go, and knelt down. The bus had gone completely and totally silent.

Martin pushed his shades up, trapping his greasy hair back. This is… this is gonna sound crazy again. He had pitch black irises. Not, like a dark brown. They were jet, jet black. I trembled in my seat, I remember worrying that Jason would think I was weak for that, before I realized he was shaking, too. Martin stared me down first. 

His lips moved, but instead of words I heard a shapeless whisper. I stared into those black pits and felt the space around me disappear. Maybe I disappeared. It was so real… It felt so real. 

I was standing outside of my own house, where I lived with my family. Streetlights were on, moonlight on the fresh cut grass. Night time. Martin stood in front of me. He took one step and we stood in the living room. My mom’s cherished antique furniture all around. My parents stood in front of us by the couch. They were furious, screaming at Martin. Pointing at me. Then at him. I couldn’t hear anything, just watched them screeching, gesticulating, all in dead silence. My dad went for the living room phone, jammed three buttons. Then… the hand on the back of Martin’s neck… flexed. It clenched down on his spine and this… shadow thing… crawled up out of Martin’s neck. It was like the creature used that hand tattoo to drag itself up out of his body. It swirled up in a cloud of shadow, looming over him, semi-transparent, white veins pulsing with grayish light. The thing had sharp edges, but wavy. And it had a face. It turned toward me. Two glowing red eyes and a wide mouth with hundreds of little teeth. They all looked just a little see-through, but the teeth were there enough to glint in the light. It grinned. My parents had quailed.

There was this… flash of shadow. A sudden gush of noise and wind. 

The monster exploded out plunging the room in a cloud of dark smoke. Screams. Sound rushed in. I heard my parents’ shrieking. I screamed and took a step forward. By the time my foot fell, the smoke had whipped around the room and swirled back into the monster hovering over Martin. The walls were covered in sprays of blood. Four bloody lumps lay on the carpet. My dad’s trainers. My mom’s slippers. I saw the bones and flesh of their ankles, in the shoes. The shadow monster turned back to smile at me again, red eyes flashing, white veins pulsing in the whorls of smoke.

“I will know if you speak of me,” it said. All raspy, like it had a cigarette in its throat. 

I snapped back to the bus, gasping, convulsing. I had my arms wrapped around my chest, stomach churning, heart pounding. Martin had already moved over to Jason. I curled up, holding back my vomit. Jason started shaking in the seat next to me. Violent shivers, making our seat rattle. Then he gasped. Martin pulled his shades back down over his black eyes. Kept looking at Jason. Pity. It was almost pity.

He reached out and patted the spider on Jason’s hand before he stood up.

“You two are my last stops today,” he said. Then he went back to the steering wheel and started driving. 

He changed the route. Dropped off every other kid. We sat in that seat just shivering, wide eyed. We couldn’t even look at each other. I think Jason prayed. I hope he prayed. I just tried not to cry.

We pulled up at this shopping mall that had gone under, halfway between my neighborhood and Jason’s. God, we were shaking. All quiet on the empty bus. Darkness falling outside. The bus teetered into the parking lot, squeaking and squealing. Jason and I both jumped in our seats at that.

Martin stood up, rocking the bus as he turned around to glare at us. We panted under his stare, he had his shades down still. His head turned from Jason, to me, and back. Jason looked at me. Looked down at his hand. I saw a tear form in the corner of his eye.

I hate myself for what I said next. It made me sick the moment I said it. Makes me sick now. I’ve never repeated it, but I remember it word for word. My voice cracked when I started, but it smoothed out as I went.

“I…” I coughed, my throat still felt bruised from earlier, “I… uh…I got people man. Family. Friends. People know me. You can’t kill half the town, right? They’ll come for you. For real.” I paused, standing on the brink of the unthinkable. Then Jason shot a look at me, empty and hollow, defeated already. He nodded. He gave me permission. He knew it. He already knew it. I kept talking. “He’s got no one.”

Jason started crying. Martin swung his gaze to Jason and left it there.

“Up,” he rasped. “And out.” He left. The bus rocked as his weight left it. Still crying softly, Jason stood up, took his pen, and traipsed off the bus. I just sat there, shivering so hard I almost shit my pants. At first I had my eyes squeezed shut. But. That was too far. I owed it to him. Owed it to Jason to witness. I stared out in the dusk. The world got murky. Jason stopped in front of Martin. A tiny, pale ghost at the foot of a mountain. I stopped breathing. Martin raised his shades again. Then Jason lunged at him with the pen, snarling, screaming.

The gray cloud swept up out of Martin’s neck in a flash. Eyes glowed red in the evening gloom, veins flashed white, teeth glistened. Then the cloud whorled around them and Jason’s scream cut short. The smoke froze, nothing moved, for a moment. 

The smoke wafted up, then drained back into Martin’s neck, slowly. Shoes. Jason’s shoes lay there on the ground. Martin picked them up, tied the laces together, and slung them over a shoulder. 

He climbed back on the bus, rocking it again.  His smell had changed, all the fat stench from before, but now laced with the sharp scent of blood. His face and sunglasses had dark specks on them. I saw a glint of ankle bone in one of the shoes. Martin paused, looked at me.

“If you talk,” he rasped, “they won’t believe you. And then…” He tapped the shoe. It waggled on the end of the lace. I started crying.

Martin sat down and drove me home. 

…

…

That’s it. That’s how it happened. No one ever went looking for Jason. Maybe no one noticed he’d gone. Except me. Maybe that’s why Martin kept me on the bus, to watch. I don’t know. I just don’t know. 

I’ll tell you this for free, too: I lied my way through life because I could never regret anything more than the truth I told Martin.

There. I held it down long enough. And I’m still alive now that I’ve written it. Maybe he isn’t coming for me after all. Maybe I’m not worth his time anymore… who’d believe a senile old insurance salesman, anyway?

Nonetheless. Let this be Jason’s legacy: Watch for the hand tattoo. And run. 

~ END ~