Short Horror Stories

There's Always a Stranger in my Car

There really is. I'm a full time Uber driver. So, I'm always toting strangers around in my car to and from their destinations. I work a little during the weekdays; especially early in the mornings when people are needing rides to work or the airport usually. Those people hardly ever tip me, which is fine, I guess. I enjoy working the weekends more anyway. The number of trips are usually way higher since a lot of people usually get paid and also, don't want to risk drinking and driving. It's a smart choice in my opinion. I'd like to imagine that rideshare apps have decreased the number of drunk drivers by a large percentage and that it may have quite possibly saved lives if you look at the bigger picture, without including isolated incidents of course.

In case, you don't know exactly how rideshare apps work or what they are, I'll describe it briefly. I'm basically a self-employed taxi driver who uses my own car as transit. I make sure that I keep it nice and clean for my passengers, sometimes I'll even offer them the auxiliary cord. I keep my phone up on one of those vent clamps that you can buy for about five bucks at Dollar General because I'm a cheap ass. But anyway, this also allows the passenger to have a full view of my phone from the back seat. It's so I don't have to hold my phone and so that they can see the route that I'm taking and ETA. I'm sorry, I know all this extra detail seems very unnecessary but please bear with me, because this is important regarding what happened to me about five months ago.

Before I continue on, it's also very worth mentioning that I'm not from Tampa originally. I'm from Seattle and moved here about six years ago after graduating college. I just wanted to start over to put it as simply as possible. I love my family, but I needed to go away and they understood my reasons and supported me through everything.

I mentioned that I work a lot on weekends. Well, I was a little further out east where a lot of college kids usually have these big wild parties when school is in. It was around two o'clock in the morning as I was just sitting in my car, parked on the side of the road, waiting for one last trip before calling it a night. In the middle of scrolling through my news feed, my phone chimed loudly in my hand, alerting me that a trip was nearby. I accepted the request and secured my phone to the vent clamp. The pickup location was about four and a half miles away; and usually, the further away and longer the trip is, the higher the payout. So, I perked up a bit knowing this would be a good final trip for the night. I figured it'd be even better if the person was so drunk that they gave me more than a decent enough tip.

As I turned on to the road that the GPS led me to, I couldn't tell at first which house it was, as there were other parties seeming to be happening on the same block. I crept cautiously down the street searching for the correct address and when I finally figured out which house it was, I pulled off to the side of the road and put my hazard lights on. At this point is was about 2:27 A.M. and I looked out of my passenger side window towards the massive shit show. Even at 2:30 in the morning, the party was still going strong, but you could tell that everyone that was still there had migrated inside. I sure as hell felt bad for whoever would be having to clean up all the hundreds of beer cans and solo cups in the morning. After about a minute or so, I decided to call the rider. No answer. I texted them letting them know that I was their driver and I was waiting for them by the curb with my hazards on. Seeing as I was the only car parked in such a way, I figured it'd be hard to miss me. Five more minutes passed, and I had unfastened my seatbelt and gotten comfortable at this point. I was agitated but I didn't want to just cancel the trip. I drove a good way to get here and didn't want it to be for nothing. Finally, a text notification came up on my phone,

"Sorry about that! I'm heading to you now"

I shifted in my seat and as I fastened my seatbelt, my back-right door opened. I heard what sounded like a bag being tossed onto the seat behind me before the person entered and shut the door. "That was fast," I thought as I secured my phone to the vent clamp. Once I got situated, I politely tossed the man a glance over my shoulder with a smile to acknowledge him.