CAB 17 (SHORT HORROR STORY)

James Tennant, a salesman of Emerson televisions, gets in cab 17 at the end of Broadway and is given a ride to hell.

“At the end of Broadway.”

The sound of the bottle meeting the glass. There was a high-pitched clink! following.

“You’ll find number 17 parked under the billboard of Conan O'Brien,” said Frank Duggar, his boss for the last ten years. He chucked the empty bottle of Taittinger into the trash bin beneath his desk.

James Tennant was a salesman of Emerson televisions, a poor salesman, but a salesman, nonetheless. He had been raking the bottom of his 401K this year so he would have the means necessary to provide the most wonderful meal he and his family had ever eaten. Quotas were over, and it was time to go home for Thanksgiving.

“What do you mean I’ll find number 17 there?” he answered, wondering why he would have to huff it eight blocks through a bulking crowd with a heavy trunk just to catch a cab to the airport.

“I mean you could try your luck all the way down, but have you looked outside lately?” Frank said. “They’re starting to swarm pretty heavily.” He lifted the blinds of the 63rd-floor window and pointed to the specks moving and interlapping on the sidewalk.

“Christ, what a mess,” James said disgustingly.

“Besides, number 17 is rarely taken. I sat and watched him one night. Must have been parked for uhhh… five hours or so.”

James stood next to him, laying eyes on the sleepless city before him, knowing it was time to wade through the jungle. He was tired; he was sad; he was missing his wife and daughter. They were patiently waiting on him, patiently waiting to secure their arms around him and feel that long lost pull of affection.

Somewhere, the months had slipped away, and if it hadn't been for his everlasting trust and Audrey’s devotion, he would have quit his job just as fast as one could sing “Jimmy Crack Corn”. She could have had anyone to take his place, and he knew it was the truth. But it was the love that helped them survive, and he thanked God for that.

New York sparkled with its fluorescent lights burning in sequence as if they were millions of lanterns the buildings somehow swallowed down like horse capsules.

It occurred to him that he was in a different time zone, and while it was a quarter of ten in New York, it was a quarter of nine back in Illinois. Earlier, but it would still put him behind schedule if he didn’t cross the Madison bridge by eleven. He was out of time to doddle, yet Frank insisted he have a glass of wine to lift him up�"to enlighten himself with the holiday spirit.

“Come on, just have one, Tennant. Has my number one salesman gone soft?” he said tauntingly, unscrewing the cork from a bottle of Charles Krug.

“No, no, no… You know me. If I have one, I’ll have ten. Unless you plan on carrying me to a cab, then no,” James said bluntly.

“Oh, come on!” Frank declared, pouring a glass and handing it to him.

“No, Frank. I can’t. I really must be going.”

“Okay, but you’ll never get a cab in all this mess.”

“I’ll have to take my chances. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, and I am not going to miss it.”

“Okay. Well, good luck, and hey, I’ll call you next Monday and let you know how we made out. I’m almost afraid to look at the numbers.”

“What can I say, Frank? Sanyo has better ratings than us, but there’s always the next quota.”

“You’re right, James. Cheers,” said Frank, holding up the glass and then downing it in one gulp. The white wine fizzed in the glass as he tipped it back.

***

The air was cold, frigid as it billowed through the mountains of steel and struck his face. November had been kissed by winter, and although his scarf fell plausibly around his neck, it wasn’t enough to fight off the numbing pain in his hands and feet.

The blocks were full of people passing by. Against the legs of a metal bench, two homeless men curled under thin layers of folded cardboard. Stray litter, shredded and balled-up newspapers, skidded down the street like tumbleweeds on a desert plain.

“Spare some change, sir? Spare some change?” the men asked, revealing their flat, finger-gloved hands as he strolled by.

“I wish I could help, but I’m not much better off, guys. Try to stay warm, huh?”

“Yes, sir. Happy Thanksgiving.”

He hated to say no, but there had been endless homeless men and women begging him for change this month. They all gathered around the same area, and he figured they knew each other. God forbid he toss a few coins to one and be swarmed by a whole herd of homeless a second later. Sometimes too much kindness is a bad thing---he learned that the hard way as a salesman. And anyone who’s a salesman knows it's the salesman’s job to con the customers, not the other way around. When customers start convincing the salesman to give them discounts and write the rest off as clearance, something has gone horribly wrong.

Standing at a streetlight, ten yards away from Conan’s well-lit face, he began waving and calling for cabs that passed by slowly but never stopped. “Taxi! Taxi!”

Only the purr of motors going past.

“For Pete’s sake, what does it take to get a damn cab around here?”

He looked up again, catching the illuminating and witty smile of Conan as the frosty wind shivered him. At the end of Broadway, you’ll find number 17 parked under the billboard of Conan O'Brien, Frank’s voice replayed over in his mind. He turned and saw it, a desolate cab shuddering under the darkness of two dead lamps. Its stature was that of a car from a salvage yard in desperate need of repairs. It was facing in the direction of Madison, the exact direction he needed to go, separated from the bridge by a dead end. Inside, a broad shadow swallowed the driver’s seat.

He was never a man to take things not commonly used, but seeing cab-after-cab pass by and ignore his frantic gestures, he couldn’t help but feel that it was his last hand at this game of gambling. Thanksgiving was coming nearer and nearer by the second. The trims were steaming, joining with the smell of a freshly carved turkey. He could taste the sweetness of the candied yams as they melted in his mouth. And secretly, not much of a surprise to Audrey, he could see himself peeking down the crevasse of her shirt and craving her body for dessert.

He could see the look on Hannah’s face, his sixteen-year-old daughter, smiling as he walked through the front door. Her dark brown hair falling messily upon her subtle shoulders. Home, he could visualize his home. Get moving, James, he thought as he briskly approached the cab window where cigarette smoke flowed out in small gray scraggles.

The man sitting behind the wheel was large. His left forearm rested on the door, revealing a tattoo of a topless blonde with the words A MAN’S RUIN etched just below her waist. His face remained hidden in the shadows of the old automobile. He tapped the ashes from his cigarette onto the pavement.

“Excuse me, I need to get to the JFK airport, please,” James said, taking a seat in the back.

The man never answered, but he responded with a heavy grunt. A massive hand came through the barrier of darkness and typed in the location on the GPS. Victor Stark was the name highlighted in green next to the driver’s identification.

James watched as his hand droned back into the blackness. “And if you could get me there as fast as you can, I’ll make it worth your while.”

No reply from the man as the cab pulled away from the curb and became a set of fading taillights in the night.

The interior of the cab, guessed as a model from the late 80s, was all catskin leather---black with red vertical lines streaking from the top of the bench where the headrests met the back glass. It was well-kept for a man who had already smoked three cigarettes since pulling away from the curb. Extra well-kept, for he had never been in a cab as old as this one or one that looked this good.

But it wasn’t the interior that had his attention. The smell---it smelled like nothing he had ever smelled before. There was a rotting stench lingering from the seams of the seat he was sitting on. Did this guy slaughter roadkill in here? What the f**k is that? His nose turned up, and he felt his stomach churn. He situated his necktie nervously and reached for the window crank. He found that it wouldn’t work to his advantage; there was no fresh air coming in.

Victor, now working on his fourth cigarette, tapped his ashes in the tray, not one window cracked. “Not roadkill, only the slums of the city,” he hissed lowly.

Falling on deaf ears. I didn’t just hear what I thought I heard. Falling on deaf ears. It’s just fatigue settling in. You’ll soon be home to those trims, that turkey, those candied yams, that crevasse between your wife’s bare breasts… Falling on deaf ears... Maybe I should say something. He may just want a little conversation…

“I beg your pardon.”

The roar of traffic dwindled as the cab wound down a blacktop road with only evergreens on each side and enclosed further into an invisible landscape. James had no idea where he was, but he had a strong feeling that he was nowhere near the Madison bridge. He swallowed hard and straightened his necktie again. “I beg your pardon,” he said once more.

“She’s got great tits. I love the way her n*****s get hard after a hot shower. Remember the little mole on her left? When was the last time you saw it?”

James felt a solid lump lodge in the center of his throat. He looked around, disbelieving that he was saying this---this sickening outrage to him. “Excuse me? Are you talking to me?”

“For a man with such a small offering, you sure know how to make her howl.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” James said, turning his head away from the man whom he was yet to see in any form of lighting.

But he did know what he was talking about. He knew exactly what he was talking about, but fear forced him into a phase of pure denial. So far everything the man had said was true. Who was he? Did he know him from somewhere? Was Audrey having an affair with him... this man, this stranger?

“Her name’s Audrey, isn’t it?” Victor gurgled.

James found his left-hand coiling around the door handle. He peered through the window and down at the blur of the white lines on the highway. Highway---they were on a highway now, but there were still no buildings---only trees. The tires of the cab squalled as it rounded a sharp curve and veered down a narrow path surrounded by brush and struck alight with the refraction of cold stars.

“Do I know you?”

“No, but I know you!” Victor shrilled, spinning his head around recklessly and revealing a melting face of bones and black teeth. His flesh peeled from his head like parchment and oozed onto the floorboard.

“Wahhhhh!” screamed James, jerking the handle and tearing it free from the door.

Victor’s skeleton-like arms, caked in blue mold, lunged for him, clinching his throat repeatedly. Its tongue rolled around in its mouth wildly, springing larvae beetles and squirming maggots down the collar of his jacket.

The cab, steering wheel spinning like a wooden wheel on a ship, barreled through a cluster of brush and grazed between two towering evergreens. One of the rear views snapped and bounced along the floor of pine needles.

Hannah, she’s not even out of the house. There’s so much I haven’t experienced yet. Her high school graduation... Walking her down the aisle, giving her away, the birth of my first grandchild... No, I’m not going to die here. Not by who�"whatever this is...

“I’ll be her daddy for you, James. And after I’m done tasting,” it said, larruping its tongue, “your precious wife, I’ll eat your sweet baby girl’s eyes. And you know why I’ll do it, James? So, she won’t have to see as they lower you into the darkness forever. I’ll spare her the pain of it!” it barked.

There was so much he wanted to say to this person---this thing that picked him up from the end of Broadway. But the cab was speeding through the trees at a high rate of speed, coming upon a lake. He had to find a way out of its grip and out of the car.

“I’ll be her daddy, James! Hell, I’ll even be you. HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA! Won’t that be something for the police to see, huh? When they walk in and see me posed alongside them in the family photos… Won’t they s**t when they see ME, of all things, in the family photos! Won’t they just s**t…”

Sliding with cold bones burrowing into his airways, James fell against the passenger’s door and yanked at the handle. This time, it sprung the door open. His head bounced in the passing wind of the forest, barely missing the trees. Victor’s deadly grip remained as the massive shadow James saw in the front seat became thin and weightless. The corpse was all over him, choking the life out of him, screeching and wailing and laughing hysterically as the wide trees came whizzing by only inches away.

“Audrey likes it like this, doesn’t she, James! The b***h loves to be choked! HA, HA!”

The lair of black forest before them morphed into a mound of dirt, higher than the hood, and stood out within the headlights. There was the shine of the moon on the surface of the lake ahead; there was the slight groan of frogs splashing along the bank; there was the sound of the cab nose diving into the mound, and the rolling of bones as Victor’s body catapulted from the car and into the forest. The radiator expelled a large cloud of smoke and within the silence of the wailing, the horn sounded steadily.

The half-body of bones�"green flaking sockets where legs had once been attached, was nowhere to be seen. It was somewhere inside the lair of blackness, dead or hiding. Both, James thought as he got to his feet. But he didn’t care. He started away from the cab in the direction of the mascara moon; it railed downward beams the color of a bruise through the trees.

He had been walking along, and the distance between him and the totaled cab had grown plentiful. He came upon the weedy shoulder of the desolate highway, breath fuming forth blue clouds. “Audrey,” he whispered.

At once a hand of bones, algae weaved through like the braids of Hannah’s pigtails, locked onto his ankle and a mouth of an empty hollow and grave-devoured teeth croaked loudly; and although the mandible never moved�"its words were pronounced with keen precision. “Take me to her! Take me to her! She needs a good f**k!”

James never took the time to think. He instantly turned towards the thing pulling itself through the tall timothy blades on bare ribs and lifted the ridges of his black Mivano shoe. From all directions, a cold, lifeless wind belted against him in a low bravado before climbing to a steady shrill. “F**k you,” he spat and drove his heel into its skull.

The cranium clicked and screeched against the blacktop in a sound like a snow shovel on a sidewalk.

The thing screamed, but not for long.

James let loose a frightening, hectoring scream and brought his heel down again.

And again.

A peaceful silence…

Scattered bones trailed into the night-wired highway where James was picked up by an elderly gentleman passing by just moments later.

***

He had finally reached JFK and arrived home early Thanksgiving morning.

In the wee hours of the coming dawn, Audrey and James had just finished an overdue session of intimacy; their sweaty bodies lathering one another until they both came. Audrey then took to her normal bathroom visit afterwards; she started the shower and pulled the sliding door closed, leaving him to conjugate the pleasurable begging she had moaned out just minutes before: Take me, James! Take me! His thoughts eradicated profoundly in his mind and for once in forever, he smiled.

At some point afterwards, James Tennant slept.

He slept until he awoke to the sound of the running water�"the sound of his rustling heart, the sound of Audrey screaming… Screaming for what seemed would be forever.

He had awakened on more terms than just the sound of running water, most certainly cold by now. A man who spends years in the same bedroom, with the same dainty lighting, knows the presence of a shadow, the impression of someone standing over him.

Audrey’s screaming, that vulnerable last cry for help, was preceded by a human figure with its back turned. And this figure, James had seen in a dream, as his eyes wandered to where it had stood, now gone, had been Hannah’s. He could never mistake the solid poise of her stance, or the way her hair fell over her subtle shoulders.

His eyes shot open when she turned, vaping jaw falling away from withering bone, hoarding a strangling hector like in some hypnotic and freak nightmare. Her eyes had been ripped from their sockets, nothing but pitted black hallows homing into nowhere. And he heard the sound of chomping… and gulping. It was a wet sound…

The sound of ingestion.

Silence.

The bathroom door swung open, letting through only the iridescent yellow glow of the light...

The thing had reassembled itself. And here it was now, springing over the end of the bed and slithering up his groin with that empty hollow of dead teeth staring back at him like some deep abyss of corpses, wailing, “Take me, James! Take me! Take me, James! Take me! Take me! Take me!”