The Lyft Driver

I had just gotten off the plane, but it was late (like twelve at night), so my friend couldn't come pick me up. I didn't have much money, but the first ride is free on Lyft, so I decided to go ahead and use it. My phone was dying; I put the request up quickly, not even bothering to check who the driver would be.
I waited until I saw an old, red van with a pink mustache drive up and park near me. The van looked a little weird. There was dirt and some mud on the side of it, and the mustache was tilted to one side. I wondered if this was some kind of joke. I'd heard Lyft drivers could be eccentric types, so I figured this guy must've gotten off on being totally creepy. 
I opened the passenger side door and motioned for him to unlock the back of his van so I could put my luggage in. "Oh, I g-g-got those f-for ya!" he said, stuttering enthusiastically. I tried to check my phone to make sure this was my driver, but it had died. 
He grabbed my bags and loaded them into the back, and I sat down for the long ride. My friend lived a good sixty or eighty miles away from the airport, so I knew this would take a little while. 
The guy got in the driver's seat and started the car. When I tell you his ride was a little off, I'm not kidding. There was this really weird smell in there, like something sweet, but also kind of musty? I don't know, it was strange. And then there was the radio station he was listening to. It was playing standards from, I think, the 1930s and 40s. Just a fuzzed out, crackling radio station full of lo-fi songs. 
The guy himself was hulking, massive. He must've been six feet, seven inches tall, and he wore this old army jacket and some gray cargos. He had long, stringy hair on the side of his head, but the top was balding. His nails looked dirty. I could see them as he clenched the wheel tightly. Every time we'd go under a street lamp, they shined in the orange glow. He was pretty scraggly; I had always been under the assumption that Lyft drivers were harmless, artsy, urban types. This guy didn't strike me as "artsy".
We drove for a few minutes before he took an unexpected turn onto an empty road that led into the woods. I knew this wasn't the best way to my friend's house, so it perplexed me that he'd gone down this route.
"Hey, this isn't-" I started.
"No, it's a-alright, I kn-know a better way." He said, cutting me off prematurely.
I raised an eyebrow at him, but he just looked ahead. I turned and settled into my chair. This was a little weird, but he was the driver; he had to know where he was going, right?
We drove down an empty road. I could see the dead trees stretching out into the night sky like a spider's legs. It was one of those nights where the moon was heavily obscured by gloomy clouds. The lane lines were old and faded, and the road itself was cracked from years of neglect. I couldn't see much beyond the headlights that illuminated our way. 
The man was quiet, awkwardly so. I figured I should speak to him, since we were going to be traveling together for a while.
"How long you been doing this?" I said, my eyes still ahead of me.
"N-n-not long," he responded, turning to me to flash a crooked yellow smile. I smiled back uncomfortably. 
I didn't have much else to say, so I started to fidget with my hands. We drove for a little while longer, and then I noticed him taking a turn onto a dirt road. I was starting to get nervous, and a little angry.
"Hey, this isn't-" I began angrily.
"D-don't w-w-worry about it, I k-know what I'm d-d-d-doing!" he interrupted firmly.
My stomach was starting to turn. What the fuck was this guy doing? Where the fuck was he taking me? We turned off onto a stretch of bumpy, dirt road.
"You l-like s-s-scary m-movies?" He said to me as we popped up and down the rutty path.
"I guess," I responded, made a little uncomfortable by the weird question.
"I l-like the r-r-really v-violent ones!" he said keenly.
"Yeah," I said, my voice cracking with the slightest hint of fear, "Me too."
"You a-a-afraid of d-dying?"
I looked at him, my face now pale, my hands sweating, my stomach curling into itself. "I don't... know... I never thought about it."
He laughed at this. He laughed and just kept looking ahead. I felt this dense mass in my throat, and swallowed tensely.
"I b-b-bet you and I w-would be g-g-good friends i-i-if we k-k-knew each other." he said again. He never once glanced over at me. He had this twisted smile on his face, just looking ahead at the road the whole time. "D-don't y-y-you t-think so?"
"Yeah, I bet we would," I squirmed awkwardly in my chair. "Where are we going?"
"I-it's m-m-my s-secret," he said, his face still dressed with a distorted smile. 
I started to sweat. I was scared. I was genuinely terrified. I would've started yelling at him, fighting him, but something inside me said to stay calm. That, or I was in such a state of disbelief, I didn't know how to react. 
I heard something move violently behind me. I watched him, studied him with one eye carefully before I slowly turned my head to look into the back of the van. That was when I saw it. 
There was a large, stained, burlap sack sitting on the floor not far behind me. In the darkness, I noticed there was a pool of some kind of black fluid underneath the sack. I looked at it in disbelief. This wasn't happening! Was that a body back there? Was that... blood? 
The bag then lurched forward, rolling across the shaky floor like someone was moving inside of it, making this guttural growling sound. I turned back toward the front of the vehicle, gasping for air, and noticed the driver was looking at me. He had turned his head and was smiling.
He then drove off of the rough stretch of road, and I noticed we were on my friend's block. He pulled up to my friend's house, went and fetched my bags, and handed them to me. He waved goodbye as he got back into the driver's seat and drove off. 
I stood at the curb, staring at the van as it faded into the distance. I was in shock. I walked to my friend's door and he greeted me. I was pale and out of breath, so he asked me what had happened, but I wasn't quite sure myself.
I went inside and sat down and told him about the ordeal. When I plugged in my phone, I checked my messages. I had a few missed calls from the Lyft driver I had originally scheduled. Apparently, he'd waited for me at the airport for about fifteen minutes before leaving. When I saw his picture, I realized it wasn't the same man that drove me. I tried looking into the strange driver, but I couldn't find anything about him.
I had a lot of questions after that night, but one thing I knew for sure is that I would never use Lyft again.
Category:Beings
Category:Vehicles