She was late getting to the bus station, after gossiping with friends over coffee. Now she was on the last bus, a small, battered single decker, trundling out of Ipswich, heading for home. It was winter and already dark. She sat on the back seat, muffled in her coat and scarf, looking sleepily out of the window at the streets of the town. As the bus moved out into the countryside the streetlights disappeared, a mist fell, and the only illumination came from the distant lights of the scattered cottages.
She lived in the depths of the country, at the end of the bus route. The bus had been quite full when she got on, but in ones and twos the other passengers got off as they reached their stops, until she was the only one left. The bus trundled on through the mist, which seemed to be getting thicker, making the road unrecognisable in the dark: she wasn't quite sure where they were. She peered through the window, looking out for the lights of the pub at the end of her road, but could see nothing. She glanced at her watch: the mist had probably delayed them, but even so, she should have been home by now.
Anxiously, she made her way down the bus, to speak to the driver, hidden in his little cabin at the the front.
'Are we running late?', she asked. No reply. She peered into the cabin.
There was no-one there. The bus trundled on.
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