Afraid of the Dark

Prologue

"Enjoy the rest of your day," the taxi driver told his passengers in an uncaring voice as they departed from his car, pulling their suitcases out of the boot and placing them on the pavement outside of a Premier Inn hotel in the heart of Brighton. He had said that phrase so many times that it seemed to have lost meaning to him. At one point in time, perhaps earlier in his career, that phrase was more than just a few words. It was the signification of a successful job that had helped the journey reach its end, allowing his passengers to safely disembark and start a new journey on their own. It had felt somewhat special to be the person to take those to the new parts of their lives. He had seen a lot in his career. A lot of different scenarios, and a lot of different people. Panicked, soon-to-be parents had sat tensely, holding onto each other's hands tightly as he raced them towards the hospital. Heartbroken, sobbing, young men and women had sat defeated and crushed by hard learnt lessons which life had given them about love, as he drove them home from nights which they would not forget. Old couples with wisdom in their eyes and age in their faces had sat and delivered tales of great adventures which they had been across through all of their years, as he took them to or from airports to see their loved ones. At the beginning of his career, it felt that each person who entered would give him a snapshot of life from a new perspective which he had not yet seen, or they would expand upon one which he had already met. But not now. After the countless hours spent cleaning out half eaten fast food from in between the seats of his car, hours of scrubbing the fabric floors clean of vomit spewed out by drunken idiots, and hours of being forced to listen to the screeching of children whose parents were too tired or too uncaring to stop them, the appeal had worn off. He didn't look forward to getting new passengers. He did look forward to them getting out though. And the money of course. After a few years of commuting around London, he had soon become impatient and irritable around the thought of having to enter rush hour traffic each day, and those mild feelings soon evolved into a hatred. He had moved to Brighton after a friend had mentioned how the work and the roads were calmer there, but it was very clear that this statement did not hold up to be true. It was the same work, but with different personalities.

He looked up into his rear-view mirror at the single passenger that remained in his car. He was much quieter now that his four friends had departed at the hotel. He waved out of the window enthusiastically with a big grin on his face as the four friends began to make their way towards the reception of the hotel. The man was American, with lightly tanned skin. He had stubble across his chin and upper lip, along with a small patch of stubble beneath his lower lip too. His dark brown, medium length hair was styled in a quiff which was brushed over the right of his head. His eyes matched the colour of his hair and were bright and filled with cheer – and major tiredness from what the driver presumed was jetlag - as he watched his friends' figures disappear into the building. He wore standard looking navy jeans that were long enough to cover his ankles, with white socks barely visible beneath his black trainers which had white soles. He had a light grey shirt but that was obscured by a thick white hoodie which had the word 'CLOAK' across its chest in black letters. He sighed happily and looked towards the taxi driver.

"Where're we headin', boss?" the driver asked bluntly in a thick cockney accent, not bothering to turn around in his seat and instead roughly adjusting his rear-view mirror to get a better view of his passenger.

"I wrote it down before I came here, let me find it real quick," the American man said in a surprisingly deep voice. He rummaged around in the pocket of his white hoodie, and then pulled out a phone. He fiddled around with it for a while before showing the screen to the driver, who nodded with a hint of irritation at how short the journey was – meaning that the cost would be lower - before turning back towards the front of the car.

"Just to the top of the street or the centre of it?" he asked gruffly, resetting the controls on his taxi fare display so that it would begin to count the cost of the new journey.