Spinetinglers Anthology 2008

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  “What fare is that?” Steve had asked in return.

  The tall man with the white shirt and odd tie cracked a slight smile. He spoke quite softly, almost whispering, and this annoyed Steve.

  “Your taxi fare... from the other night? Mister, I told you I was gonna’ come back for it.”

  Steve ran through his thoughts... and found nothing. Not a single recollection of a fare or a taxi ride home. So, where had he seen this guy before?

  “I did? Well then, if you say so, I guess I must have. Where did you pick me up from, anyway?”

  The stranger looked neither puzzled nor stirred. Steve was trying to catch him out, see if he really had been in the taxi, and this was not just some lunatic from off the street. But, he just stood as still and tall as he was, all six and a half feet of him.

  “You were at the Laker Bar, on Princes Street, and you were with two friends, lady friends, might I add. Beautiful ones, too! Only, you were the one who got the ride home. Mister, I don’t just pick up anyone you know. I do remember my fares when the day passes.”

  Steve smiled at the man and eyed him some more. Sure, this guy was tall, not skinny, but not too fat either. He was thick in the chest and arms, like a regular gym-goer; Steve didn’t have the mental energy to play Taxi-Driver Cluedo right now, though.

  “Oh, right. I’m sure you do. Listen, uh, how much was it then... the ride home?”

  “You mean you don’t remember that, either?” asked the man.

  Steve stood up straight and crossed his arms. His chest was warm underneath his T-shirt. “Well, I figured since you’re the driver, you ought to remind me. That is why you’re here, right?”

  The driver looked at Steve with lightning seriousness... then his face fell, and he burst into fits of laughter. He jumped around on the porch like a big kid, and Steve thought he felt his house shaking.

  “Hey,” he called, trying to calm the big man down. But, he feared getting too close, in case the driver decided to get a bit rough. It had been too early in the day for that.

  “I’m sorry, Mister. I just thought... I just thought that with it being such a big fare and stuff.. you might’ve remembered.” He continued to chuckle.

  “Well, how much?”

  “One thousand.”

  Now, it was Steve’s turn to dance around and laugh like a child, although he did it with a bit less parody. He waved his arms in front of the taxi guy, like a clown performing at the circus. After a few seconds, Steve didn’t think he found it at all amusing.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  The taxi driver, solemnly, said, “I am.”

  “Jeez! It wasn’t the Laker Bar in Canada, was it? I mean, one thousand pounds?”

  “I’d be shocked, too,” the taxi driver had said, though Steve was beginning to realise that he didn’t look quite like the typical one. “But, considering where we went before I dropped you home...”

  Steve folded his arms again. He was curious. “Where? Where else did we go before here?”

  The driver dropped his head, looked left and right cautiously, then ventured forward. Steve stepped back, afraid that the big man was going to grab him for his ignorance. The shape of the driver blocked out the sun from Steve’s porch. An awkward darkness befell Steve. He shivered. The driver whispered, “You can’t remember that?”

  “Look,” Steve cut in, “I’m beginning to think that this is all just a silly joke. Okay? I mean, you come here this morning – which, okay, you must’ve drove me home at some point, to know where I lived – and demand a fare that I can’t for the life of me remember running? Then, you make up some bullshit story about me being at some bar with two women.”

  During Steve’s rant, the driver had returned to his original spot on the step, allowing the sun to shine at the doorway. He stared at Steve, his eyes as wide and devouring as a lion’s before the kill. He nodded at Steve throughout, as if reminiscing about the events of the drive, as Steve rallied it back to him.

  “It’s odd that you don’t remember,” queried the driver. “I won’t forget. We went real far. But, I’m not here to talk about that. I just want the fare owed, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Steve threw his arms down at his sides, fuming. But he had to settle this before Katherine shouted for him again.

  “Wait here,” he instructed, and retreated into his house.

  Katherine was in the kitchen, stirring the contents of that day’s dinner in a pot. She turned to face him.

  “Still the postman? Tell him that Mrs. Zanaka’s post shouldn’t be –”

  “I’M SEEING TO IT!!!” he snapped.

  Katherine dropped the spoon into the pot angrily. “What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing,” he grunted, searching through the kitchen drawer. He found what he was looking for, his cheque book. “Just... just postmen, y’know? Always after money.”

  “They require the money at the door, do they?”

  Steve frowned at her smart comment before he left the kitchen. He began scribbling onto the slip the 1,000 pounds required, and when he got to the front door, asked for the company name to make it out to.

  “I’m not signing it to just anybody,” he told the driver.

  The driver told him the firm name, and Steve wrote it down. He tore the slip free from the book and handed it over. The taxi driver had accepted it without looking at it and placed it in his pocket.

  Where the hell did we go? Steve had thought. He didn’t care to ask anymore. He just wanted the man to leave.

  “That’s it, then?”

  “It is indeed. Goodbye, mister.”

  The driver smiled again before walking back to his taxi. Steve watched and listened to the black cab driving away and out of the street.

  Fool, he thought. The cheque book was still in Steve’s hand, but was of no use, because that account had been closed long ago. Whatever name and amount Steve jotted down on any slip would be as useful as a chocolate saucepan.

  If the driver ever returned, which Steve had no doubt he would, then he’d just ignore the door. 1,000 pounds? Who was he trying to fool? Nobody pays that much for one single trip.

  Except for those that travelled where he would. And often enough, not many had the luxury of returning.

  2

  As well as not being able to get the face of the taxi driver out of his mind the rest of the day, Steve was also trying to figure out just where – how and why – this taxi had taken him. He knew he hadn’t been out any night that week – he was too skint for any kind of trip to bars, locally or in the city. And what would Katherine say about the women that he was supposed to have been in the company of? Surely, she wouldn’t be happy at that.

  He tried shaking the thought from his mind in the late afternoon, when he saw the kids in the street returning from school and the sun sitting ripe in the sky.

  Katherine called for dinner to begin around five. Steve watched her set the table, the whiff of the stew heavy in the room.

  “Smells nice,” he told her, though she never hinted she’d heard him. He figured she was still annoyed at his blast at her that morning.

  They sat together and finished their meal without a conversation between them. The typical table etiquette of “pass the salt” and “Would you like some more?” escaped them, but that was all. Steve didn’t want to push it any further.

  He tried to undo his error by helping her clear up. She did smile at him that time, and he felt better. He didn’t want to anger her.

  “Susan in tonight?’ he started, desperate to be cool with her again.

  She started running the water into the sink from the tap. “Yeah, she’s in, but I don’t know if I’ll go over tonight.”

  “Yeah, darling, just go,” he encouraged.

  “You want me out of your hair or something?”

  “No,” said Steve. He was slowly dropping the dishes into the bubbly water. “Just that it’d be nice for you to get out, instead of sitting in here again.”

  �
��I know, but there’s so much to do still. I’ve got to tidy the living room, throw out all the empty toiletries, clean Shaun’s -”

  Katherine stopped and lowered her head. She gazed down at the water, and Steve knew he saw tears beginning to drop into it. He put his arm around her waist and felt her loosen, felt her sway into him and rest her head on his shoulders.

  “Ssshh, it’s okay,” he comforted her. She was shaking a little bit, but nothing he had helped control before. He remembered.

  Shaun had been their little boy. He had died a year ago, and only a week after starting primary school. The resident lollipop man had been drunk that morning (evidently because he’d dropped his stick several times; once onto a car waiting at the lights) and not being able to properly see the lights, advised the youngster to cross. Of course, he himself didn’t – he needed to hold onto the railing at the pavement, for fear of falling over on the road. But, the teenage driver that nobody saw, the one that was cruising probably just a little faster than his L-plates allowed, hadn’t seen the little boy walking. And, the lights were green.

  Steve left his work, after receiving a call from his neighbour, who happened to work in the chemist’s, beside where the fatal accident had occurred. He never knew it until then, until that very moment, he held his dead son in his arms. And, just like he was feeling his wife in his arms now, cradling the child had been an unbearable agony, an everlasting torture that would never end. It was a pain that he could never heal or take away, no matter what he did.

  And that was where he had seen the taxi, and the large, grinning smile of its driver, as it sailed past the horrific scene.

  That was where and when he first saw him.

  That was how he knew his face from before.

  3

  Katherine had opted for a lie-down after the cleaning. She didn’t go near Shaun’s room that time, though several million times throughout that grieving year she had. Most parents didn’t. They’d leave things the way they were, content (if that was the word to use) that nothing was touched or tampered with or interfered with in any way. It was unbelievably harrowing, but there was nothing that could be done.

  Steve sat in front of the TV, contemplating the initial spotting of the taxi driver. A rerun of some old comedy programme graced the screen, the now-dead actor accusing his shop assistant of some calamity or other. It didn’t suit his mood.

  He thought hard now about his son’s death, an event in his life now shelved away in his shattered memory. How had he forgotten so easily? Not forgotten, just simply ignored.

  There was still a picture of the three of them on the unit, little Shaun ironically in his clean, new, school uniform that was to be ripped and bloodied only a few days after the shoot. He turned away from it, but it remained with him.

  A little after 9 PM., the doorbell sounded. Steve knew who it would’ve been. He wanted answers.

  He was right. As he had done that morning, the tall, oddly smiling taxi driver, with the cab outside on the road, was standing at the door, hands clasped over his gut, awaiting someone answering.

  “What do you want?” Steve asked.

  “That cheque earlier, mister,” the driver began. “It bounced.”

  “You tried to cash it that quick? You guys don’t like to wait, do you?”

  “Nope, we don’t. I am a taxi driver mister, and when I drive a customer to his destination, I want my fare as quick as possible and without fuss. And, you still owe me.”

  Steve looked back into the house. It was surrealistically quiet. Haunting.

  “I couldn’t have been in your cab – I don’t remember it.” The driver frowned and emitted a sarcastic tut-tut sound. “You will, Steve.”

  Steve was about ready to close the door on the guy, the lunatic, but before he did so, the driver stepped forward and pressed his hand firmly against it.

  “We can settle this one of two ways: you can either come with me and see something that may clear your outstanding fare, or...”

  He let go of the door and dropped down a step. Steve took this as a hint that a fight was to be suggested. But, with him only a measly five-foot-six and the driver a towering six-and-a-half, Steve opted for the former. Though, he got the impression he didn’t have a choice.

  “Get in the taxi,” the driver ordered.

  Steve stepped out and closed the door quietly. He knew Katherine would be sound asleep upstairs, lost in a labyrinth of haunted dreams and loose memories.

  “Where are we going?”

  The two of them walked to the taxi. The tall driver with the white shirt and off-tie politely opened the door for Steve and ushered him in. Upon slamming the door shut, he replied:

  “To somewhere you’ve forgotten.”

  What the hell does that mean? thought Steve. The leather seats underneath him were soothing and cold, and the red light on the door indicated that they were now locked. Locked.

  The driver got in and started the engine. Steve had a nauseating feeling that it was going to be a long night.

  “Have I been there before?”

  “Yes, you have. Just the other night. Mind you, I told you earlier? Now, we’re going back, unless you want to step out now?”

  “No, it’s fine. Please, just drive.”

  He did.

  4

  They drove around what seemed to Steve, in an aimless direction. The driver wavered on the road, too, a sign that perhaps he didn’t know where he was going. Steve felt like asking him what he was up to, but kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to anger the big fella.

  “Nearly there, in case you’re wondering,” the driver shouted through the glass that separated them.

  “Good, I was beginning to wonder,” whispered Steve.

  “What? You say something?”

  Steve shook his head and looked out the window. It was dark outside, too dark to see anything for sure, anyway. It gripped him strangely, like a hold when you see someone you really like but are afraid to approach them. He feared for himself now.

  Then, suddenly, like a cartoon change from night to day, the darkness no longer became shadowed. It had turned to sunlight.

  “What the –?”

  “Don’t panic,” said the driver. “We’re here.”

  The red lights on the doors switched off. Steve noticed the meter up front for the first time. It read, “£-0.” What did that mean?

  The driver got out and moved around the side of the vehicle, to open the door for Steve. Steve stumbled out; the sudden brightness of the bizarre change from night to day dazzled him, and he gave it a few moments before properly opening his eyes. They adjusted accordingly.

  “Recognise this place?”

  Steve looked around. He did. There was a chemist on the corner where his neighbour worked. It was, however, closed. There wasn’t a single soul in sight.

  “I know this,” muttered Steve. “I know here.”

  The driver calmly relaxed against the railings at the crossing. “Figured you might, Steve.”

  Steve walked around the area, muttering to himself. He appeared nervous, shaking, and the driver knew why. It was the place where his son was killed.

  “You lied that first time, didn’t you?” Steve questioned him. “There was no bar I was out to, no women or 1,000 pounds either, huh?”

  The driver smirked. He straightened his tie and pulled his shirt down. “You’re right, Steve. It was all made up.”

  “Then, why?”

  “This is a haunted place, Steve. Haunted by a lot of terrified souls.”

  “Kids?”

  “Yep. Just kids.”

  Steve continued to walk around the pavement and the road, and to the exact mark where Shaun had lain dead.

  “How? Why are we here?”

  The driver walked toward him, almost menacingly, “I was there that day too, Steve. I know you know that. And I was grinning, wasn’t I? Yes-sir, I was grinning like a cat just caught a mouse in the barn.”

  “What’s that got to do w
ith anything?”

  “When he died, Steve, and I drove by, his soul came into my taxi. You see, that ain’t no ordinary cab –”

  “And, you ain’t no ordinary guy?”

  “Right.”

  “Where is my son now? Why can’t I see him?”

  “He’s here, Steve. And I can let you see him. You wanna see him, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” Steve felt a dreaded excitement building in him now.

  The driver turned and faced his taxi. He whistled, and the door slowly opened. Steve recognised the shoes that dropped down. His dead son was now coming to him.

  “You sure you wanna see him again?”

  “I do!” Steve cried, running over.

  But, the sight of it made him stop. The spindly legs that carried the battered torso over to its father wobbled furiously. The torn uniform hung on barely, the wounds and the blood far too visible.

  “Shaun?” called Steve, watching as the boy-thing hobbled over. “Shaun?”

  The boy could not speak. His jaw was shattered from the impact of hitting the car that had killed him. His mouth was a toothless, black hole.

  “This isn’t real!” Steve shouted to the driver. “Where’s my son? This isn’t my son!”

  “It is, Steve. You see, you forgot about him, didn’t you? Ignored the thoughts that entered your mind because of the pain? It’s a sad affair, Steve, and I feel for you. But he wanted you to see him this way, so you’ll always remember.”

  The boy still walked toward his dad, who was now walking away. Steve could still see the coldness in its eyes, could feel the terror of an unjustified afterlife. It was undeniably unsettling.

  “No,” he whispered to himself. He was breaking down again, and remembering everything that he’d forgotten. He remembered the love for the boy and his wife, and how each affected him. And, how they’d eventually destroy him in the end.