Taxi
By Annemaree Stachera ©1996
I cannot recall what possessed me. I had a variety of means at my disposal via which I might have moved about the city. By the yellow flicker of the antiquated bus service could I have prowled the streets. Or by hire of horse and carriage...so popular with visitors to the city of late. By my own quick feet. By a dozen other methods...none so as slow and mundane as a shared taxi. I cannot recall at this time why I entered that dark ill-kept cab. A sense of curiosity perhaps. I had never been in one since they had become automatics. I preferred the shudder and uncertainty of a manual car...the sweaty smell of exertion and concentration as the driver changed up or down the gears, as he or she made an error of judgment, as the car lurched in protest at too sudden a jump on the clutch. So much more physical than the new automatic machines where all the work was done with hardly a bead of tricky perspiration on the driver's brow. Computers calculated the distance traveled, radios seemed to tune themselves to perfection....it was more akin to driving a dodgem car. The driver merely accelerated or slowed.
The driver of the cab I presently entered was sweating profusely. The passengers in the back seat, young lovers. Giggling, laughing, whispering to each other. I watched the meter tick over, finding a small fascination and revulsion in this, and then tiring, shifted my feet a little on the sticky carpet floor, and gazed a little absently for a time out at the city passing by my window.
The city had changed so very much over the last fifty years or more. Gaining in height, width. Curved and elegant structures taken over by an obsession with symmetry, sharp angles, chrome, glass and metal. It wasn't long before the tall buildings were being left behind us. The roads were darker, blacker. It was harder to see through the cold, dirt-smeared window panes. Instead I found myself staring intensely at the driver of our cab, my lips pursed. I could see him glancing at me sideways, hands wringing the steering wheel, pushing at the black rubber. Dark brows meeting in the middle, small beads of sweat dripping from his receding hairline onto those brows. I could smell his sweat, clear and repugnant. Something was troubling him more than just the serpentine stare of my green eye; it emanated from his pores, vibrating around his aura. My mind pinpointing in on him, delving deeper, wanting to find out more. I shuddered with revulsion. Reading this man's mind was like dipping my hand into raw sewerage.
Finally he turned. "Do you have a problem lady?" A smile played on my lips and I shifted my head delicately so the streetlights would give him full view of my preternatural eyes. I heard him gasp slightly. And the evil doings and thoughts came to me at once, in a small but sudden rush. Ah, so you have not the pure and innocent life you so veil with this charade of a taxi.
His sweating grew worse. The lovers in the back seat gave no thought to what might be occurring up front and nor did they care. I chuckled softly. For a moment I gave him a puzzled glance, and drawing in a slow audible breath I decided to evince my knowledge of his dirty web of a mind. "That was not a nice thing to do to your wife." I shook my head and watched the impact of my statement blanche vividly across his face. "For better or for worse and all that comes with it, mmm?" I raised my eyebrows and he drew in a sharp breath, visibly recoiling. Panic drilled through his system, a mesh of vein, bone, blood and flesh, quivering flesh. White knuckled hands clenched and pulled the spongy rubber of the steering wheel tighter, massaging it with much desperate force.
"H-h-how did you...did you....? No, you couldn't possibly...." he whispered, his sentences trailing off into thoughts. Looking from myself to the road, his eyes wild, shaking his head. His manipulation of the steering wheel became extreme. Sweat dripped from his pores as if from a faucet.
Concentration was lost.
Noticing signs indicating a sharp bend ahead, I sensed his foot dip down, unnoticed by him, pressing the pedal of this dodgem-type car further against the gooey carpet of the floor. The lovers giggling loudly in the back still unaware. Holding tightly to the armrest and the side of my seat, I prepared for the loss of control that we would surely experience.
Rapidly approaching, the corner was lost in the blackness of the road. I could feel the driver's shock when the road disappeared, could see the steering wheel being almost torn from its sockets, could feel his fat and sweating foot find it's way from the accelerator to the brake pedal, jamming down hard and fast. I could hear the screech from the tires as they skidded, their sound piercing the thin protection of glass. Even my strong stomach churned when the car began to spin. All four hearts pounded louder and faster in the cage of chests that entrapped them.
And then the crunch of impact when the metal contraption found it's stopper, a tall wooden pole they call a telegraph pole. Sounds of the engine died falling into the heavy veil, abyss which was silence. Nauseating sharp smells made their way through my nose and sinus passages.
I let out a small growl of annoyance. The taxi driver lay slumped over the wheel. The hot succulent smell of blood hit my sharpened senses and made my whole body quiver in delight. My hunger felt like it might have burst within me. But I couldn't do it, not at present. Not with the innocents in the back. My feet pressed into the stickily carpeted floor, my hands clutched the hand brake and armrest. I could feel my heart pumping in my chest with want, my mouth wet, my whole body on fire. I glanced over at the bleeding man and it only increased my desire tenfold. He was still living, heart beating weakly within him, the sound just reaching my sensitive ears.
I turned sharply on the whimpering couple, my blonde hair flying around my face. "Get out," I snarled at them. Looking at me dumbfounded, they appeared to freeze. "Get out!" I yelled and using the powers in my mind I opened both back doors. Looking quickly at each other they did not hesitate to scramble across the seat and stumble from the taxi.
I waited, my head cocked slightly to one side. Hearing them scamper through scrub to the roadside I turned back to the still unconscious form before me. Grabbing the driver's black hair I could feel the combination of hair grease and the sticky sweetness of blood on the thin strands. The wound in his forehead was deep and large but his heartbeat was still clear. It spoke to me. All those living, throbbing organs that I had wrenched the life from did. Speaking to me with the blood that still raced through it, the blood that cried out to me, calling me again and again. Screaming for me, Xia. Drink us. Bring your lips this way, close your mouth down around us and suckle us up. You know where we belong, there, in that mouth of yours, trickling down your chin, your neck, on the back of your hand as you wipe your mouth clean...I could never resist.
I could almost imagine I was his lover. Standing on my knees I cradled his head against my breast. I gently placed my mouth over the wound and began to suck, life force flowing from him through my needy, empty veins. Ah, my body was released of its torment but you see...it was not quite enough.
He started to come around, stirring softly, moaning, eyelids fluttering to look up at me; to look up at me and gasp. The horrific stare, the trembling lip; I looked into his eyes and could see that his own refused to move themselves from his blood on my lips, from the white fangs which hung like two small daggers resting gently there.
I reached over with my white clawed hand and pierced his protruding blue jugular vein. The sweet pump of blood ran down his throat and I bent my mouth over it and lapped it up, like a kitten with cream. My mouth latched over the small hole I had made and I felt the thick substance roll down the back of my throat. Faintly, I was aware of the man struggling beneath me, his fingers pressing into my skin, trying to push me off. And then I could feel him becoming weaker, life being drained into oblivion, blood my feast.
Over and over, I rocked back and forth with his cradled head, feeling that velvety taste make it's way to the deep recesses of my body, filling it out like a dried sponge. Beginning to shudder, I knew the delightful feeling well. When I was mortal this feeling was akin to orgasm but those desires and urges were long gone and only my lust of blood remained.
Feeling his death approaching beneath me I quickly withdrew before it was completed. Wailing sounds could be heard in the distance, coming closer and closer. Time to leave the soon to be corpse, time to leave the taxi and perhaps even this small part of the mortal world I had come to enjoy.
Sirens hurt my ears and flashing lights filled the car. I struggled for the door latch and pushed the door open with a little too much force. I cursed under my breath as the rusty metal came away from its hinges. Tossing the door to one side I leapt into the cold, black sky, wind piercing my eyes as I flew from the scene, my hair whipping my face like sand. Vaguely I could make out the city before me with its new lights and symmetrical shapes and the cold glint of chrome. Pausing for a moment I shook my head and sighed before turning sharply and pushing fast against the wind, making a course for another life in another place.