There is a man with seven heads, and I think he is watching me over the glass bus
shelter. I am afraid to look at him, but he does not seem to be moving from what I can
tell from the corner of my eyes. At first, I did not know that there was a man standing out
on the side of the shelter until I noticed the shadow cast from the street light. From the
shadow, I can tell that each head is stacked on top of each other, and it is so long that
the heads extend past the top of the shelter, with several of the heads resting on top. I
sit there in suffocating silence, trying not to acknowledge him in this cold, dismal night.
I can hear the stuttering engine of the last night bus approaching in the distance as I sit,
only getting up when it opens its doors in front of me. Walking in with the same routine, I
flash my bus pass then proceed to sit at an empty seat in the middle of the bus, noticing
the few late-night stragglers. The bus is stalling, and I pray to God for it to close its
doors. But then it comes. His head, slithering in with its conjoined heads peeking
through the door. My God, I can see it. Each head has a different face but shares the
same sunken cheeks and short, coarse hair. His subtle empty smiles, his sickly
yellowish pale skin and his sets of eyes deep like endless black abysses, gazing at me,
freezing the core of my body. There is almost a sense of familiarity among these faces
despite being so inhuman. I crank my head towards the window, trying to avoid its soul-
stealing gaze, its eyes reading me. No one. Not a single person on this bus even
notices this man, no, this monster. I watch it shuffle down the aisle through the blurred
reflection of the window. He sits behind me in some seat I am too afraid to look at. As
the bus starts roaring back to life, bringing back the familiar sense of normalcy, I am
startled by the sudden whisper in my ear, “I’m coming home.” Its lips briskly touch my
ear.
Arriving at my stop, I start walking towards my apartment complex, occasionally
flickering my eyes down, watching the shadow of the man following several paces
behind me. Seeing the doors of my apartment complex, I head straight in and climb the
stairs, not wanting to risk waiting in an elevator. I find my apartment door and frisk it
open with my key, swiftly locking it back up once I am in. Tired and exhausted, I head
straight to my bedroom and plop onto the bed next to my husband after kicking my
heels off. I secretly hope that the man with the seven heads was a mental illusion
created due to the accumulated stress of my waking day. My listless eyelids come to a
close and I fall into a deep slumber. A knock, shuffling, and the squeak of a door wakes
me up. My eyes still closed and my mind still tired, I drift back to sleep not wanting to
confront what is supposedly happening.
Feeling restless, I begin to stir awake in the middle of the night again. I wrap my arm
over my husband for some comfort, but I am met with a warm, sticky wetness touching
my arm and hand. I lean up looking at my hand trying to decipher what this strange
substance is. It is blood. I look at my husband only to see a bleeding neck without a
head. Then I notice a figure sitting in the armrest near the window with the blinds rolled
up shining in the faint light of the moon. It is the man with the seven heads, and he is
holding my husband’s bloodied head in his hands. I watch him slowly put my lover’s
head on the very top of his coiled heads, forming an instant attachment to each other.
He sits there smiling. Warm tears loosen from my eyes as I lay back down unable to do
anything. All I can hope for is that this was all just a terrible nightmare. “You shouldn’t
have cheated on me Carolyn,” he whispers.
Clamor 