u/Icy-Surround-5567

You ever feel that place in which you're so broke the amount in your bank account is as much a philosophical concept as it is a number? Where you have to choose whether you can afford a pack of ramen or bus fare that could potentially take you to a job interview? That is my reality. I'm Leo. I majored in philosophy. Now I'm the guy who gives you a lift home if you're too inebriated, too impaired, or too oversized-for-your-britches drunk to drive.

My cab is a mobile monument to regret. Its aroma is a whiff of a decade's worth of beer spilt, lemony-smelling disinfectant struggling in a losing battle, and a ghostly hint of desperation. My boss, Stan, is a piece of work. A capitalist ghoul who'd bill his own mum for her final trip into the cemetery. He pays me peanuts and a percentage of every fare, yet is watching my every move through a GPS tracker and a dashcam heclaims is "my protection." Right. The only thing it protects is his investment.

"Unit 74, you're moving into a dead zone. You sleeping out there, college boy?" The voice on the radio was as rough as sandpaper. "I've got a pickup on 5th and Maple. Don't make 'em wait. Time and money, and you'd know all about money if you ever owned any."

“Copy that, Stan,” I muttered, flipping the radio off. “Your empathy is truly overwhelming.”

The city was never like this. Or perhaps it was, and I was lucky enough not to notice. Now, through a windshield streaked with city grime, I see it in all its splendor. The gaps in the pavement, the neon signs struggling to stay alight, the vacant expression in people's eyes. It wears you down. The only way you can resist it is by laughing, no matter if it's into the abyss. Humor is my shield. Frail, yes. Holed, absolutely. But it's all I have.

The armor fell off in its entirety last year. The funds dried up. I did stuff I don't list on my resume. Let's say it taught me that "philosophy major" is a specialty business, but there'll never be a lack for a young man willing to put a smile on his face and play make believe for a hour. It kept a roof above my head. It also left a mark on my soul that does not feel transient. This cab was my attempt at cleaning it off. An honest job. A lousy job but a honest one at least.

These days, though, the city's decline has gained a sharper edge. A sharper focus You've all heard the news he goes by "The Tailor."

They can't stop discussing him in my fares.

7:02 PM: Two college kids, curled up together, reeking of cheap vodka and terror. "—and they say he doesn't just kill 'em, Becky, he like… wears 'em. He terrified the Carlson brothers half to death. And it's so damn wrong!" One of the girls glared at me through the rearview and shuddered, as if there was something communicable in death and I could pass it on to them.

9:45 PM: The host on a late night talk radio show, his voice a gravelly baritone, dripping through my radio: "…and citizens are being advised by the police to be on their guard. The man, who's been called The Tailor on account of the… meticulous nature of the crimes, has been linked by investigators in at least six metropolitan area murders. The violence is… without precedent. We'll be taking your calls after this." Silence. "You're on the air, Frank from the North End."

"Ay, hello," responded a rough voice. "I'll let you in on what's goin' on here. End times is what's goin' on here. That's a demon. Ain't no human could do that. You can't convince me otherwise."

10:10 PM: The Parcel

I found them in the rain-wetted warehouse district, a part of town where the streetlights quit and drown in puddles of oily water. Two men, hoods up, shoulders slouched against the rain. They slid into the back, bringing the scent of wet concrete and nervous perspiration.

"4th and Mercer and keep the meter quiet, yeah?" the window guy growled. He sported knuckles that appeared to have lost a debate with a brick wall.

"Got it," I told him, turning off the meter. A little on the side work. Stan didn't require orders I was the one who needed it.

They were silent for a block, only the swish-swash of the windshield wipers. Then the guy in the center, a nervous-looking type whose eyes never did quit darting, began hissing. "I'm telling you, man, it was a light batch the last time."

"Shut it" Knuckles pointed in my general direction, looking my way.

"Me, I'm just sayin' man, Frankie's skimming. He thinks we're stupid." "We're stupid if we're talking about it in front of…" one of the guys made a gesture in my general area, me the “hired” help.

I looked at his eyes in the rearview and blinked slow and easy. The "I see nothing, I hear nothing, I am no one" blink this is a critical skill in this business, they eased up a tiny bit.

The remainder of the trip was a strained, wordless negotiation in breathed whispers and wave gestures. I left them on a corner illuminated by a bobbing sign advertising a pawn shop. One of the guys produced a fifty. A fifty for a ten-dollar ride.

"It was nothing," he said, without glancing in my way. He was already scanning down the street.

"Oh shit man thanks bye, have a good night," I said.

He didn't respond. They disappeared into the shadows between two skyscrapers. When I drove away from the curb, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. Out of the alley they'd walked through. A darker shape, a big, strange shape, breaking off from the shadows. Just a flash. I blinked, shaking my head. A trick of light, the rain on my windshield. Clearly my tired eyes.

I pushed the thought to the background. I was clutching a fifty-dollar bill.

11:02 AM: The Punchline

The next pickup was in front of a neon-lit club that was too hip for a sign. She was jumping up and down on her feet, not from the cold, but from mere, anticipatory energy. A notebook was pressed to her bosom as if it were a shield.

She leaped into the back, a blur in fishnet tights and a leather jacket a size too large. "The Laughingstock Club, on 4th. And floor it! I've got five minutes to make a difference, or at least receive a free cocktail."

I chuckled. An honest chuckle. "Tough crowd?"

"The toughest. That is a room made up of other comedians. Piranhas. You bleed, and they'll know it. She inched in close, her voice hushed and confidential. "I'm going to bomb. I can feel it. I've got my lead bit and it's my crappy cars existential breakdown and I am positive I left the oven on."

"Seems like a good angle to me," I commented. "My entire night is a comedy routine involuntary material. Earlier, I got a guy who was certain his dog was an emotional support alpaca."

Her eyes lit up. “No.”

"Swear to God. Then I got a business type dismiss a woman on the speakerphone since her child was down with the flu. He told her 'family is a weakness.'"

She let out a gasp that turned into a laugh. “That’s… horrifyingly hilarious. What did you do?”

"what was I going to do? I white-knuckled the steering wheel and made a pretty morbid joke out of it to myself after he left. That's how I handle it."

"Pretty good at that, aren't you?" she scribbled feverishly in her notebook. "You ought to give it a go. Get up on stage."

"Ah nah I'm good'," I said to her, my smile breaking. The burden of the city shifting back onto my shoulders. "I just set 'em up. I don't give 'em the punchline."

We pulled up at the club. It was a basement entrance under a strip club, a line of downtrodden-looking people waiting there before being let in.

"Well," she said, thrusting a ten into my palm. "Goodbye. Time to go feed myself to the piranhas."

“Break a leg,” I said it I really meant it.

she smiled at me a brilliant, terrified smile and shut the door. I stood there and watched her disappear down the stairs into the throat of the club. I shifted the car into gear and looked in my side mirror. For a moment, I could have sworn that there was a tall individual in a long, dark coat standing in front of the street, motionless, looking at the identical doorway she vanished into. The street was busy, it was likely nothing. Another weirdo on a strange night. I shrugged it off, attributed it to the long shift, and drove off.

I wished she killed it I really did.

12:30 PM: My fare, Mr. Harrington, the businessman scumbag, was on the phone. "—no, I don't care about the barricades the cops put up, just go around it. Probably another of those Tailor things. Ghoulish. Bad property values. Just get the contracts in my hand by tomorrow morning, or you'll be job hunting." He terminated the conversation and sighed, as if speaking directly to me, a chair that could speak. "This city is going to the dogs. Terrible business climate."

I gripped the wheel in a white-knuckled grasp. "Yeah. A tremendous tragedy. All those…

1:15 AM: An older woman, her eyes bulging with a type of morbid excitement. "My friend Mabel, she lives nearby where they found the last one! She said the police were greener than her grass. Said the poor thing was… posed. Like a doll. Can you imagine it? That's just what goes on in that show I'm hooked on! Of course, it's a heck of a lot more exciting if it ain't straight in my own yard."

I dropped her off, feeling sick. Exciting.

Through it all, my shitbox taxi developed a new quirk. A heavy thump from the trunk. Not the usual suspension rattle. This was a dense, shifting weight. I’d be driving, lost in thought, and… thump. Like something was rolling back there.

"A74, what was that?" Stan bellowed on the handheld one night after a particularly loud one. "Prob'ly the spare tire coming loose," I lied, my heart in my throat. "Well, tighten it! That tire's worth more than your share tonight."

The final straw was a mom and a child. The child was screaming, stomping my seat with little, angry feet. Thump. Thump. Thump. The mom scowled at me. "Can't you do something about that ride? That's a rollercoaster. You're disturbing him!"

The anger, the constant humiliation, the fear that had been simmering for months, finally boiled over. “The road’s a mess, ma’am! I don’t control the potholes! I just drive the damn car!” She spent the rest of the ride in a huff,complaining about “service people” these days.

I drove till I reached a vacant industrial area, my hands trembled. I got down, shut the door, and howled till my voice was hoarse. I kicked the tire so violently a shock of pain traveled up my leg.

"I'M NOT YOUR FUCKING THERAPIST”

THUMP.

This wasn’t a shift. This was an answer. A heavy, wet, meaty THUMP from the trunk.

Ice water ran through my veins. The sounds. The car riding lower. The fares… the people discussing The Tailor on my radio… the ones I've dropped off and I haven't seen since.

My hands were trembling violins as I fumbled for the keys. The key scratched against the lock before finally sliding in. The click of the trunk release was a gunshot in the silent night.

The lid swung open.

The dim yellow light flickered on, illuminating the nightmare.

He was huddled up there. Lost in the rubbish. He was dressed in a cheap, grey suit that was a size too big No. He was a size too small for it.

He started to move.

The sounds… Good God, the sounds. A soft, wet, squelching sound. A sound of things sliding against each other that shouldn't be sliding. He sat up, and the slack material of the suit coat shifted with a low, sticky shluck, as if pulling tape off a damp wound.

He swung his legs over the bumper. His shoes were too big. He stood up, and his body settled with a soft, moist plap. The sound of loose, dead skin adhering and pulling away from the muscle underneath with every tiny movement.

The suit was all wrong. The suit wrinkled and bulged in places it shouldn't. The cuffs on the shirt covered his hands, but I could make out the skin at his wrists was loose, baggy, overlapping a rubber glove filled with water.

He stepped closer to me. Squish. Shluck.

Then the godforsaken scent struck me then. Above the stench of my cab was something different. A sweet, metallic odor, like spoiled meat and pennies, masked by a bitter, chemical scent of ammonia and cheap dollar store soap.

His face… was almost calm. But it was wrong. The skin around his jaw was slightly loose, creating a jowl that didn’t move in sync with the bone beneath. His eyes were the worst part. They were alive. Horribly, intelligently alive, staring out from within a mask that didn’t quite fit.

"Late on shift change," he told her. His voice was a parched rustle, as if book pages in a tomb were turning. "I was getting worried Stan would phone again. He's rude. In-elegant."

I was silent. I could not breathe.

He gestured with a hand back toward the city lights. The skin on his wrist folded and wrinkled like an accordion. “That girl. The comedian, from earlier. She had good timing. You gave her quite the setup.”

He’d heard me. He’d heard every stupid joke, every muttered complaint.

He stepped again. Squish. He was within inches of me, and I could see the pores in the purloined skin.

You do see it, don't you? He breathed, his voice low and husky. His head inclined, and the flesh on his neck writhed, showing a tiny, puckered line of stitches close to his hairline. "The rot. The noise. The disrespect. You make jokes about it lest you'll be screaming. I… I simply scream differently."

My head, in a helpless bid to save itself, did as it could. "You're an artist,"I choked, my voice restrained. "Like a… a morbid interior decorator."

The loose flesh around his mouth folded into something like a smile. It didn’t crease. It collapsed. “And you… you are the best audience I’ve ever had.”

He reached out his hand. It was no threat. It was a proposition. The hand was a latticework of fine, white lines.

"We can graze the garden together, y-yeah? You and me, Leo. Start with Stan. I've heard what you think of him. I've been listening all along."

I gazed at his hand. I could make out the impression of someone's fingerprints on it. I gazed through him, into the seemingly endless darkness, into empty road, and on into a future of being walked all over by everyone. The fury was intact, a hot, burning coal in my heart this was it. The final punchline in the joke that was my life.

The suit with a breathing skin that squelched with every breath now waited for my response. I am typing this in the cab. He is in the trunk again I did not hold his hand not yet. But I'm driving. And Stan is waiting on me. Tells me I'm running late on my shift change. Telling me it comes out my cut. He is right. I am late. I think I've created a fare that'll pay off my debt. Once and for all.

Lowkey I think she might be a robot she literally knows nothing and if she was a ai or robot learn the world and collecting info that would make sense. Idk if anyone else had thought of this idea but I think it may be plausible.