A Glance in the Rearview
A short horror story
The Uber driver pulled to the curb beside his next passenger. The man climbed into the back seat with a grunted greeting. The driver, Jack, nodded and gave a quick hello. He had learned to read people and chatted with them or left them alone based on his experience.
This one he left alone.
The requested ride was one of the longer drives of the dreary day. The man took some papers from his backpack and, after shuffling through them, started reading one.
The quiet suited Jack just fine. He flipped the radio on for some soft jazz at a low volume and settled in for the drive.
He snuck a look at the rearview mirror. Nothing exciting.
The sun burst through a break in the clouds. Jack pulled out his polarized sunglasses from the overhead compartment and slid them on his face.
The jazz hypnotized Jack, so he pulled his focus back on the road as it climbed into the mountains.
Out of habit, he glanced at the rearview.
In the mirror, silent, beefy hands gripped a terrified woman’s throat, violently squeezing and shaking her as she desperately tried to rip his hands away.
Jack, shocked with surprise, inadvertently veered the car across the yellow lines of the winding road, close to oncoming traffic. A truck blared his horn at him. Jack swerved the car back in his lane. He pulled off the glasses and looked in the rearview again. The passenger had a stunned look on his face and gripped the front seat with his left hand, though he didn’t utter a word.
“Sorry, squirrel in the road,” Jack stammered, attempting to calm himself.
With his peripheral vision, Jack noticed a red scratch across the top of the passenger’s left hand before he pulled it back. In the mirror, the passenger just shook his head and quickly lost interest, turning his attention back to his papers.
Jack waited for his breathing to return to normal and then slipped the glasses back on. After a moment, he peeked at the rearview mirror again.
The woman being choked was now dead, splayed awkwardly on the floor.
The murderer seemed to be straightening up the room from the scuffle. And the point of view of the scene seemed to be from the killer. Almost like it came from a GoPro mounted on his head. But Jack sensed something different. This was from the killer’s eyes themselves.
As Jack glanced back at the scene playing out in the mirror, the man was looking at his phone. It was hard to make out what was on the phone, but when he turned over his hand…
The man had a scratch across the back of his left hand.
Jack wrenched his eyes away from the mirror.
Lots of people have scratches on their hands.
The road still climbed. The spectacular view of the Appalachian Mountains took his mind off the disturbing scene if only for a minute. Being careless on this road could mean accidentally driving right through the guardrails and down the mountainside.
And then he and the passenger would be as dead as that woman.
It took all his effort to avoid glancing at the mirror. The passenger seemed oblivious to anything happening in the front seat, still focused on his papers.
Finally, the curves in the road gave way to a short straightaway. Jack tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. He kept his head mostly straight and shot his eyes to the right, still looking through the sunglasses.
The silent scene continued. The man was now outside of a building, standing still, apparently waiting for something. His eyes focused on the street. Several cars drove by. Then the man took a step forward and a car pulled up in front of him.
Jack jerked his eyes back to the road as his pulse jumped.
He recognized the car. It was his.
Oh, fucking shit.
With as little motion as possible, Jack pulled off the glasses so that he could better see his phone. He shoved them in his shirt pocket.
It’s past time to call the law.
As he reached for the phone, a little noise from the back seat made Jack instinctively look back in the rearview.
The killer passenger stared directly back in the mirror at Jack.
And he finally spoke.
“Don’t touch the goddamn phone.”
Panic closed Jack’s throat.
What else does he have in that backpack? A knife? A gun?
He stomped on the gas pedal, picturing himself being strangled like that poor woman.
As a sharp curve approached, in a fit of courage, Jack unlatched his seatbelt and unlocked his door.
“What the hell are you doing??” yelled the passenger.
“FUCK YOU!” Jack shouted as he leaped from the moving car, smacking his head on the car door, and rolling over the gravel along the roadside, shredding his clothes and skin.
The car with the killer inside smashed into and over the guardrail and out of sight down the steep mountainside. Jack could hear it crashing through trees until finally, silence fell.
Jack staggered up and limped to the edge trying to spot the car down the mountain. He spotted it far down the canyon, crashed against a large tree, barely recognizable as a car.
He’s dead. Just like the woman he killed. Justice.
Jack backpedaled a few steps away from the ledge. He noticed his sunglasses laying bent and twisted on the ground.
As he bent over and picked them up, the memories came rushing back in a torrent. Losing all of his temper during the argument with his girlfriend. Strangling her. Waiting for his friend afterward to return his borrowed car so he could nonchalantly go to work.
He’d been watching his own flashback.
A long wail of anguished sorrow escaped his throat and echoed through the canyon.
He stumbled back to the edge and leaned over the damaged guardrail.
“I’m sorry”, he moaned toward the wrecked car with its dead passenger.
“I’M SO SORRY.”
Tears filled his eyes and poured down his cheeks. He shifted his weight to get a better view through his tears and the mangled guardrail finally gave way.
Jack lost his balance and tumbled headlong down the mountain.
Three days later the state police located the body of the mentally ill murder suspect along with the wrecked car at the bottom of the canyon.
Upon close inspection of the smashed stolen Uber vehicle, no signs of any passengers were found.
