[#048] Last Requests

Imagine my shock when the old man pulled his reeking, dirty cap down low over his face, plopped down next to me, and whispered "Got any last requests?"

I glanced around at the other folk on the bus. Our closest neighbor sat a few seats back, staring out the window with the blank expression of a man used up. Behind him sat a pair of children fighting over a tablet, and their mother sat chatting with a group of people in the back.

I turned back to the gross stranger and studied the way his ratty windbreaker closed across his chest. A decade working private security made it hard to take a personal threat seriously, at least when made by a man half my size and twice my age with no hint of a weapon. Still, his sheer gall took me by surprise, and I had to ask:

"What's your deal? You just hop on the bus and drop your crazy cards on someone for fare?"

He angled his head down, and all I could see beneath the brim of his hat were thin lips pulling back to reveal a row of yellowed, nasty teeth spotted black near the gum line. I drew back involuntarily when he opened up to speak again and I realized the stench of decay rose not from his sooted clothes but from his breath.

"Everybody gets one last wish before they die," he said. "Go ahead."

He didn't look like he could really hurt anybody. I should have called the cops right there, but the thought of him pulling this crap on some naive kid or something on another day and another bus pissed me off so much I had to speak.

"What are you going to do? You got something folded up under those pencil arms you're going to stick me with?"

The old man's smile faltered. He glanced at the cracked face of his old watch and sighed. "You know, I try so hard to help you little shits and I never get any respect for it. I'm running out of time now, and you just blew your shot."

He began to rise, and I instinctively grabbed his wrist. Every hair on his arm seemed to bristle at once, and I found myself letting go and leaping back in my seat when something rough and ropey rippled visibly beneath the flesh of his arm.

The stranger sneered and stood, pacing back to the depressed man and slumping into the seat next to him. For once I had no idea what to do or say, and I could only watch him whisper in the poor guy's ear. I craned my neck to listen as the new victim's head swung slowly in the old man's direction, and I heard him say: *"Just make it quick."*

"Finally," said the old man. "One I can do." He waved a hand in the air and pointed towards the front of the bus.

I glanced over just in time to see the truck speeding head-on toward us.