“Shit,” Panda muttered. “If we make a mistake, one of you will die.”
“I wonder if you’re counted as a passenger as well,” I said.
He froze. “Don’t say stuff like that!”
“Don’t worry, Panda, I won’t let you die,” Bee said. “I’m good at games like this.”
[ARE YOU READY!?] the Humanbus exclaimed.
[OFF WE GO! YUMMY-YUMMY!]
A desk had appeared in front of where we sat and on top of it were a photo of the front and back of a ticket, a list of prohibited items, and a binder of names and short descriptions but no pictures.
[Banned Items]
The following items are banned inside the Humanbus:
- Snacks and candy that leave a mess -
- Hotdogs -
- Asthma inhalers -
- Living animals -
- Feral babies -
- Beautiful Singing -
- Children of Absolutes -
I looked at the last item on the list. “Are you gonna be okay, Panda?”
“The bus can’t detect me, so don’t worry,” he replied.
“Why are living things on this list?” Bee wondered. “And what’s the issue with hotdogs?”
[NO HOTDOGS ALLOWED! THEY WILL STAIN MY UPHOLSTERY! NOT YUMMY!]
The ticket template was kind of like a stripped down status with the attributes swapped for weird personal details.
[Ticket Template]
Age — ‘Name’ — Occupation
Favorite Color — Favorite Food
Childhood Street — Childhood Pet’s Name
Credit Card Pin — Cannibal?
“What do you think that last thing means?” Bee asked.
“Seems like a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question,” Panda guessed.
I frowned as I looked through the Banned Items. “There’s nothing that says cannibals aren’t allowed here…”
The binder contained the names and descriptions of four people.
[Bad Passengers]
‘Feral Freya’
A former kindergarten arts teacher who was banned from the Humanbus for drawing graffiti on the seats.
‘One-Eyed Jack’
A pirate with a missing eye and a hook for a hand. Banned for his beautiful sea shanties.
‘Stabbie’
A stab-happy vagabond with knives for hands who was banned for stabbing and eating seven Good Passengers.
‘Gllarhtna the Soft-Skinned’
A Spawn of Nharlla notorious for his shapeshifting power. Banned for evading the rule barring Children of Absolutes by pretending to be a Good Passenger.
“What a great selection of individuals,” Panda mumbled sarcastically.
“Jack sounds nice,” Tina said. “I like sea shanties.”
“Me too,” Bee said.
[YUMMY-YUMMY! FIRST PASSENGER COMING UP!]
I looked out through the windows of the Humanbus and saw a bus stop coming into view. Piled-up and abandoned cars were shoved to the side by the bus’s ridiculous strength before it rolled to a stop and its door popped open.
A figure shambled up the steps and into the bus before stopping in front of our desk.
“Ticket, please,” Bee said.
She was predictably quite excited about the Game, which I hadn’t realized until now was something I had missed. I needed to sit down and have a proper talk to her though, since our reunion had been so brief. I also needed to figure out if the All-Mother’s fusion of her two dimensional selves had caused any issues.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Tina grabbed the Banned Items list and looked at the figure. I lifted the binder with Bad Passengers and scanned through it again.
The creature in front of us was humanoid, although half its face was missing, exposing the skull, and it was impossible to tell if they were a man or woman. Its left arm was shrunken and tiny, and its right was quite muscular. It wore a jacket made of turkey feathers and a cowboy hat.
“I don’t think this is a banned passenger,” I said.
“Spin around for me,” Tina told the figure.
They obliged, turning on the spot slowly. A severed hand poked out from a back-pocket of the creature’s cargo shorts.
I tried to use my Appraising Eye on them, but it didn’t work.
“Does a hand count as a snack?” Panda wondered. “And if so, is it messy?”
“It’s not,” Tina said confidently. “They’ve got no banned items.”
I leaned over to look at the ticket Bee was inspecting.
[Ticket]
21 — ‘Yellowtooth’ — Gourmet
Crimson — People
Eater’s Corner — Clive
0780 — Yes
“Their ticket is good too,” Bee concluded
“We’re really gonna let a cannibal in here?” Panda asked.
“I don’t make the rules,” she replied.
“Good Passenger,” I said.
The cannibal walked past us and sat down directly behind me, breathing heavily into my left ear.
Correct!
A Good Passenger has entered the bus.
4/5 remaining.
“Nice,” Panda said.
We continued for half a minute before reaching the next stop where two people got on.
The first was a woman with a bald head and a snake around her neck. She wore a black t-shirt that said ‘Ask me about my pet snake’ in green letters that, when I looked closer, were written with cartoon snakes. She also wore white jeans and scale boots that I was fairly sure were made from snakeskin.
“No animals allowed,” Panda said.
Tina shook her head. “It’s dead, so it’s okay.”
Once again, the passenger didn’t match any of the banned people on my list.
Bee compared her ticket to the template.
[Ticket]
33 — ‘Charlie Charlatan’ — Snake Collector
Green — Reptiles
Brown Street — Ssslayer
3333 — No
“Come on in,” she said, and the creepy snake-eating snake collector walked past our desk, sitting down next to the cannibal.
Correct!
A Good Passenger has entered the bus.
3/5 remaining.
The next passenger was a literal wolfman wearing clothes made from fluffy white sheep’s wool.
“I feel like this is a clue,” Panda muttered.
Tina had him spin around, but aside from a bushy tail he wasn’t hiding anything behind his back.
“Bad Passenger,” Bee said, “his ticket is wrong.”
[Ticket]
12 — ‘Sheep McSheepson’ — Sheep
White — Sheep Food
Johnathan — The Farm
1234 — Yes
Before Tina and I could argue, tendrils shot up out of the floor and pulled the wolfman down into the bus. Sheep McSheepson growled and screamed as his body was consumed.
“Holy shit!” Panda exclaimed.
“That was pretty brutal,” I agreed.
The door closed and the Humanbus continued its journey like nothing had happened.
“It doesn’t seem like we get to know if someone was a Bad Passenger or not,” Bee said.
“The rules didn’t state that we’d be punished for getting that part wrong,” Tina replied.
“Maybe it’s because the Humanbus gets stronger with every person it eats,” I guessed.
“So it’s incentivizing us to feed it,” Panda said. “That’s kind of smart.”
“Do you think it matters what level it is when we turn it into a Safe Zone?” Bee asked.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter I think, but let’s just focus on beating this game. Don’t forget your lives are on the line here,” I said.
“Your life too,” she replied.
“Nuh-uh, I’ve got a respawn to save me,” I said with a smug grin.
“Ehh, Gambit, your passives don’t work in here,” Panda reminded me.
“Oh fuck… Let’s do our best then, okay?”
“You weren’t doing your best?” Tina asked me, a dangerous look in her eyes.
“I was! I promise!” I immediately replied.
Her gaze didn’t leave me for a few seconds, but then we heard beautiful singing coming from outside.
“Heave ho! Thieves and beggars! Never shall we die!”
“Oh no, it’s Jack!” Tina exclaimed, suddenly distressed.
“Quick! Scare him off!” Bee said. “Don’t let him get eaten!”
The bus stopped and One-Eyed Jack got on, his beautiful sea shanty resonating deep in my chest.
“We can’t let him on,” I told them. “He’s a Bad Passenger.”
Tina and Bee had no time to respond because a long tube-like mouth shot out from the Humanbus’ brain in the driver seat, clasping onto the one-eyed pirate’s face before coiling around his body and pulling him into the brain, his shanty morphing into cries of agony until suddenly replaced with silence.
“What the fuck, Gambit!” Bee exclaimed.
“It’s not my fault!” I shot back. “If we’d let him on, one of us would’ve died!”
“I would have sacrificed myself for him,” Tina said, tears in her eyes.
“Me too!” Bee exclaimed.
“You two are out of your minds,” Panda remarked.
“His sea shanties must’ve been like a siren’s call to women,” I said.
There were another two people waiting for our verdicts, but both Tina and Bee seemed to have given up. Since they weren’t participating, I took it upon myself.
I looked over the first one. He was a completely normal man in a suit and with combed-back hair, holding a briefcase.
“Show me what’s in your briefcase.”
The guy opened it and inside was a brown banana and a packet of bubblegum.
“Are you planning on chewing that bubblegum and sticking it onto the seats?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
“What about the banana? Will you drop the peel on the floor after you’ve eaten it?”
He shook his head again.
“Alright, show me your ticket.”
[Ticket]
25 — ‘Human McHumanson’ — Human Man
Beige — Human Food
Human Avenue — Human John
0000 — Yes
I pinched the bridge of my nose. This guy was clearly a Skinstealer, but there were no rules against that as far as I could tell.
“Panda, are Skinstealers considered children of Absolutes?” I asked.
“It could be argued that they are, but since they’re not direct offspring, I don’t think it counts here.”
I sighed. “Alright, come on in…”
Human McHumanson grinned, the corners of his mouth reaching his ears.
I shuddered in disgust as he walked by and sat down next to the other two passengers in the row behind us.
Correct!
A Good Passenger has entered the bus.
2/5 remaining.
The last person waiting was like a surfer dude with tan skin, dirty-blonde hair, and a loose flower shirt and yellow swim trunks.
“Hotdog!” Panda exclaimed.
Sure enough, the guy had a hotdog in his left hand.
“Hotdog!” I repeated.
[OH NOES! NOT YUMMY!]
The floor under the surfer dude opened and he fell down onto the street below with a thud. Then the door closed and the Humanbus moved forward, trampling him underneath and making the bus bounce slightly.
Bee and Tina both seemed to snap out of it as they looked around wide-eyed and confused.
“What happened?” they both asked.
“One-Eyed Jack nearly got you killed, that’s what!” Panda scolded them.
Tina’s voiced dropped several octaves as Nina took over, “Beware the scallywag and his luring song!”
“Bit late for that,” I muttered.
The Humanbus continued towards the next bus stop.
