Stories by D: The Ride-Share

There I was, sitting in my car as usual on a Thursday night awaiting a ride-share job. I was parked in the lot of a quaint little coffee bar where I usually stopped to buy chai latte. I was passing time by gawking through social media patiently awaiting a ping for a pax (pax a.k.a. a ride-share passenger). I was ignoring the need to chase the surge as the light on the ride-share app turned red several times. I was not only trying to make the best of dead time, but I was being mindful about my dead miles. Not long after taking the first sip of the chai latte, I came across an old post about my ex. Unbeknownst to me, she had passed away early last year. I started reading the many comments garnered toward her husband and children; people were extending their condolences. Suddenly, my app pinged; a legitimate pax. I accepted the job. It wasn’t long before I started driving to the destination, still thinking of my dead ex, when my cell rang. It scared me. My nerves had been rattled for such a long time, so it didn’t take much to startle me. It sounded like a young man on the phone, and he sounded nervous. Although I had just accepted his ride-share assignment, the young man was already calling me to provide extra instructions pertaining to the female who would be my passenger. He requested that I help walk the female to her apartment, unlock the door, and make sure she got inside. I didn’t get a chance to say no before he added that he would pay an extra $150 tip if I agreed to make sure his friend made it safely inside her home. Reluctantly and stupidly, I agreed despite having always been advised never to conduct such tasks. I needed the money. My student loans for grad school were due. As I arrived in front of the luxurious hotel, I saw a well-dressed young man hugging a woman. The closer I got; I could tell that he was hugging her to hold her up. The young man knew I was their ride-share because of the orange ride-share light on the front dash. I pulled over as he waved, and I unlocked the back passenger door for them. He was having a difficult time with her. I wasn’t sure if she was inebriated or something else. Something just didn’t feel right. I wanted to take off, but something beckoned me to stay. The young man had a tough time getting the female passenger into the backseat of my vehicle. She had long, red hair that was strewn across her face making it hard for me to see her mug at first. She then flung her arms and hands about and kicked the back of my seat. I turned my head around again and caught a glimpse of her for the first time as she pushed the hair away from her face. She was young just like the guy who was aimlessly trying to get her to stay seated. He finally got the seatbelt to click, and he backed away from the car and shut the door. He walked around to my side of the car and motioned for me to roll down the window. I cautiously obliged, but I only let the window down about an inch. He was handsome in spite of the sweat streaming down his forehead and the deep red hue all over his face, which was most likely from struggling with the young woman to get her into my car – or so I told myself. I wouldn’t allow myself to think that something else more tawdry or perilous had taken part that night to make the young man appear so disheveled and nervous. I kept reminding myself that I needed the money. Not just to pay off my student loans quicker, but so I could afford a trip to Europe. As much as I loved my beautiful home, I felt the need to get away; somewhere across the pond, per se. 

For the past several months, I had been dealing with some entity, HER, in my house. I was in one of my sardonic moods when I first named the entity HER. I just kept the moniker because, one, it helped me make light of the haunting situation, and two, what else could I call this thing from a preternatural realm. All I knew was that HER was causing all kinds of disturbances and havoc. Since HER made itself known to me, I haven’t been able to sleep properly. I’ve been living, if you want to call it living, for the last several months with little sleep and feeling languid. I have turned into a homebody, per se, except that I don’t feel safe at home because of HER. I guess my introverted ways and preference of spending more time in my car, as opposed to my house, would deem me an autobody. LOL. Yeah, I can still joke. I have to find ways to laugh or this entity and the twisted, frightening emotions it has caused will be the death of me. Maybe not literally death, but I fear to even give any validation to that idea. In previous posts, I alluded to the entity’s "first appearance" as the day it made itself physically known to me; however, deep down – within the quivering guts inside of me, I have a feeling that HER has been watching me for months, perhaps longer, before that fateful night so long ago when HER revealed itself in a manner too nefarious to explain. Not yet anyway.