Fiction: T.A.X.I

                                                                                      Lucivar Malus - T.A.X.I.

Streets of Rome. Winter morning. 5:03AM, and only lost souls in sight.
Its freezing, so I snuggle tighter into my trench coat. Warm. Its David’s, my husband. My suitcase and the teddy bears are already getting stiff with the cold.

5:10AM. No buses in sight. My fingers are numb from the icy winds, and nobody has decided to heed my waves and catcalls. What do they think of a woman with silvery hair wrapped in a black coat and luggage covered with snow? Definitely not nice things…

5:15AM. All my calls to David goes straight to voicemail. Network is shitty. He’s either asleep right now or chain-smoking cigarettes again, worried sick about me. That’s how he copes with-
There. A taxi. The sight of the faint yellow body in contrasting in the harsh whiteness fills me with so much joy I could weep. It slows down to where I stand, and the glasses wind down slightly. With the sickly glow pulsing within, I can barely see the driver. Only his cap and the matted hair that falls beneath is visible. He growls quietly, his voice thick and Italian,
“Going somewhere, senōra?”
I gasp and yell over the swirling wind that seems to have gathered force in denial of my long-awaited help,
“Yes, sire. Thank you. There is a subway along the road to Brescia, I forget what it is called. Will you be so kind as to-“
The passenger door popped open. No questions asked. I muttered a prayer of thanks and began loading my luggage in. he didn’t even come down to help. It was fine, though. He didn’t look like he was in a hurry.

I settled in the back seat of the cab, my eyes quickly adjusting to the weak light. The chairs seemed neat, but aged. Everything here felt vintage-like, and smelled of… Sulphur? Not to be paranoid, but I know my elements and what they smell like. I’ve definitely smelt enough gunpowder in my parents’ home not to know that sharp tang. The radio was on, playing some old classical music that sounded like Beethoven. "Für Elisé", if I was right. It was broken though, I believe. This was because after a while the station would crackle and fade, and something that sounded like wind whispering and screaming would begin to echo through the speakers, and he would turn the knob anticlockwise, then back again until it stopped and the music continued.

I checked my wristwatch. Shit. It was broken. 5:16AM. Probably when I was loading my stuff in. I tried calling again, and this time it went through. Wow. David picked up.

“ Mi amõré! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours! How was the flight? Are you on your way back? The kids-“
“Woah, slow down, sport! I’m on my way back. Damn! I can smell the cigarettes on your breath over the phone-“
“ un Imbecilé! Shut up, you hear me? Basta! You keep me waiting…”
The friendly banter went on. David was like that most times, but he didn't mean it. I noticed the driver kept giving me looks from the rearview mirror. Why was his face wrapped in a scarf? Only his eyes were visible, and they sent chills to my bones just watching.
The call was interrupted by something. What, I can’t say. But I suddenly began to hear whispers, moans… like our line got mixed up with someone else’s, most likely a perv. I still kept up, until I suddenly heard someone scream into the phone, so loud I dropped it,
 

*“FA MALE!”

Shit.
I felt a dull ache in my left ear where the phone had been, and I rubbed it. My hand came away sticky. Blood. What the-
“you spent too long on that call, senõra. Seems they got mad at you, no?”
The fuck was he talking about? “Who the fuck is they? Is the network here messed up or what?”
He kept on watching me through the rearview. “They. The ones who won’t sleep. They are always awake, senora. Reaching out, trying to help or find help, but no one sees them. No one cares, rather. So they suffer, and listen in on conversations, putting a word or two in when necessary. When you ignore them, they get so mad, senõra. Then they scream. For a moment, you can feel such pain in their broken cries-“
“Who the hell are you?”

He kept quiet, mocking my question with those empty eyes. I noticed the cab grew a bit more colder, and I pulled the coat tighter. I looked outside through the window. Almost there. I couldn’t help it. I needed to-
“Oh. My. God.”
I had done it. In a flash, I had yanked the scarf off his face, and he hadn’t even flinched. But his features… _Oh God…_

He had a hole the size of a tumbler where his mouth and nose should have been. His skin was papery white and falling in flakes where I mistakenly brushed my hand on. Now I knew why his eyes were dead. He had no eyes in the first place. Pulling away the scarf had ripped away whatever veil that was placed on this cursed cab. The seats were moldy and damp, and I felt something crawl across my lap. Shit. I tried to turn, but the seatbelt which I had strapped on earlier was nothing more than twin- Wait. 

As I watched in horror, I felt it tense, and relax as if breathing, then slowly slide across my chest, leaving slime behind. An octopus’s arm...

I tried to breathe, to beg whatever this thing was to let me go, but I was blacking out. Over and over, he kept saying as he steered the wheels like nothing was happening, empty eye sockets facing the dark, snowy roads of Rome,
“Their screams, senõra. They seek peace. They weep so loud, and it hurts…”
Darkness.

* * * * * * *

I awoke on a subway bench, my luggage and teddy bears carefully stacked beside me. 5AM. Still dark. Barely any people about… what the hell? I tried to remember how I came here, but something blocked it off. I couldn’t shake the weird feeling that my trip from the airport had been unfortunate. Everything was fine as it is, so I got up and got into the train leaving for the upper parts of Brescia, tugging my luggage along.
I was the only one aboard. The moment I got on, the lights flickered off for a few seconds, then came back on. Only this time they weren’t white. They were a sickly yellow.

Strange…

“ Senora. Your ticket, if you will.”

_The voice!_

I whirled around to face whoever it was that spoke. It was only the ticket attendant on the train. But…but…
The face. He had a scarf wrapped around his face, and his clothes smelled of gunpowder. Dead eyes.

Oh God…

He stretched a hand forward. I heard the faint creaking of bones beneath the coat, but said nothing. I shook the outstretched hand, feeling the metacarpals beneath. I whispered shakily,
“What are you?”
He turned around and began walking to the end of the corridor, where he would get into another coach,
“Luigi. I was called Luigi Von. Taxi cab driver. I’ve been dead 23 years now, shot in the face by gangsters during a riot one early morning. No one found my body because I was pushed, taxi and all into the river. I now serve as cabbie to dead and lost souls till the day the sweet Lord comes for them. Get a seat. My shift ends at 6AM. Don’t move till the clock says its 6, and don’t make any calls, senõra. There are lots of passengers on this train, and they like to talk to people. Living people.”

With that, he was gone, the darkness swallowing his shape. I sat down, and didn’t move a muscle. Not in the slightest.
David called. 14 times. The phone rang, its tone echoing eerily in the empty coach. I didn’t dare pick up once.
I didn’t want to listen to those moans.

Ever again.

#Inque, 2020.