{"id":1897,"date":"2025-10-03T20:39:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T20:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/?p=1897"},"modified":"2025-11-06T22:12:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T22:12:26","slug":"number-15-by-zusana-storrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/?p=1897","title":{"rendered":"NUMBER 15 by Zusana Storrier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If Lewis Baker had known, he wouldn\u2019t have taken the job. Which is nonsense. You take a job when you can get it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not that Lewis doesn\u2019t enjoy driving. But the number 15 is a nightmare. He first thought it was a particularly scruffy guy who\u2019s often on the 15, but he changed his mind about this. The smell is like… it\u2019s like all the mouldy tickets that have ever been dropped under bus seats, blended with shoe sweat, damp jeans and diesel fumes. If the odour were decocted, Lewis thinks, it would form a thick, grey liquid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis speaks to Portia in the depot, as everyone else seems to avoid him. \u2018Must be a factory or one of the farms – maybe they\u2019ve got chickens or something,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The depot assistant smiles and carries on working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it\u2019s the bus itself. On the first warmish day of the year, Lewis opens the driver\u2019s window, but the ming neither waxes not wanes. He apologises to some of the passengers as he issues their tickets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis begins to note bus registration numbers. Sometimes he\u2019s asked to cover other, stench-less routes with random vehicles from the fleet. He\u2019ll identify the stinker buses and put in a request for them to be shared among the routes. He\u2019s new, but why should he get lumbered with the honkers? As if in response to these thoughts, the mirrors on the route-15 buses appear murkier, more mud-spattered than usual, the glass dimmer. He stops the bus to rub at the mirrors with a paper hanky. Then he buys a roll of extra-strong kitchen paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He asks Portia for a refund, for the cleaning goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Naw,\u2019 she says and shakes her head, \u2018that won\u2019t do it, though you\u2019re getting closer.\u2019 She looks up at him. \u2018You need to be more on the ball, son.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sleep starts to escape Lewis. Shift work always takes its toll, but now every pan which is rattled in the flats upstairs runs through his bones, each footstep is a bruise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Portia,\u2019 he says early one morning, \u2018this is ridiculous. The smell\u2019s giving me a sore head, and I can\u2019t eat or sleep properly thinking about it. Will you tell me what\u2019s going on?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Perhaps there are more things under the sun than we care to consider, Lewis.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Portia just tap her nose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now he\u2019s in his cab, jotting down the registration number with a tightness across his chest. XZ HEP1673 is rancid, but only on the 15 route. Elsewhere it smells – comparatively speaking – of roses. The same bus<\/em>. It\u2019s an identical story with the other vehicles. He tosses his mobile into his holdall and rests his forehead on the steering wheel. He has a nine-hour shift ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Lewis straightens up, the windscreen is blanketed with dust, as if the industrial estate next door noiselessly exploded while he his eyes were closed. There are islands in the filth where flies have been squashed and tiny red drops have run and tapered their way through the grime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gets out of the cab, his heart echoing at the top of his nostrils, kitchen roll in one hand, spray gun in the other. In the low light of the rising sun, he swivels his head to make out faint lines in the muck. They look like they\u2019ve been scored by a finger, before yet more grunge has been deposited. It takes him a minute to work out what the lines form. It\u2019s a \u2018B\u2019 and an \u2018M\u2019. Back-to-front of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018This is dangerous,\u2019 he yells at Portia the next day. \u2018It\u2019s not just me, it\u2019s the lives of the passengers. If I can\u2019t see where I\u2019m going…\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s haunted.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The route.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Wha..?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You should have worked that out by now.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis parks the bus outside a corner shop in a small town so that he can buy large-pack cleaning supplies. All day his mind flips through possibilities and impossibilities alike. Is this the effort of a rancorous hit-and-run victim, or a vengeful customer (maybe the bus had failed to stop, they hadn\u2019t got to the hospital in time to say goodbye, and had then thrownthemselves under the wheels of the next service)? Or is it a driver, some valient person killed ferrying the often very ungrateful passengers of the 15 route?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That night, instead of trying and failing to sleep, Lewis perches on the sofa with a two-litre bottle of ginger beer and Google. There are no records of deaths anywhere on the route that he can find, which doesn\u2019t mean there haven\u2019t been some. Lewis knows search engines are asbiased as they come, and the Joe ordinaries like him, if they behave themselves and can\u2019t be used to teach a lesson, or give a laugh, are as good as invisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards four am, however, he stumbles across it. Drives into it almost. To his credit, among the blend of emotions there\u2019s a yelp of shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day is a rest day yet Lewis Baker is early in the depot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Bernadette Murray.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portia sits back in her chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018She lost her job, cleaning the route 15 buses. They were cutting back, weren\u2019t they?\u2019 He leans over Portia\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019ve been up all night, Lewis.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018She topped herself.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portia sighs then takes a swig of tea. She rolls her lips around the liquid, swallows. \u2018None of the unions did anything, you know. Too old to get another job, too young for her pension. And no-one ever<\/em> thinks of cleaners.\u2019 The depot assistant puts the mug down and clasps her hands. \u2018But you got there eventually, Lewis. First driver to make the effort. That\u2019s what gives us hope.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Zusana Storrier<\/a><\/blockquote>