Vegatarian Cab Driver

Whispering sounds from on-coming and passing traffic droned out the late nights thoughts. Eddie Withers drove a smooth taxi, in and around all five boroughs of New York City. While he attempted to be honest, he was a conversationalist. In helping his fares he took a turn down the wrong path. One he had wanted to escape from for the last few months.

It all started as Eddie was grew up. A gross fascination in his young mind, as he spent summers in the country-side of Brazil with an uncle. A family tradition of cattle herding, yet for his pride was not entirely a lost legacy. More than learning the trade of peaceful pasture maintained. This boy looked on to the ending cycle of all bovines: slaughter day.

Gleaming a courteous smile when stopping to pick up passengers soon stopped. In the first five years, Eddie took his pay on the daily, was on time, and went home after a twelve hour shift. Now gritting his teeth, tossing a cigarette butt out the window, and even forgetting to change clothes for the next day was routine. He had not mixed with unsurely crowds, started to party-out on weird stimulating illegal drugs, or at the least picked up the bottle. He outright gave back to taxi consumers what he had been taught. To treat them as meat, and send them on for butchering.

Some days he kept a machete snuggled and wrapped in a jacket. When walking into the cab office to take his assigned car, he would not be noticed. A soft-sided briefcase he always held, the strap strung at his shoulder dangled to his waist. In this he had tools and clean-up gear. Eddie scratched notes at times. He knew who he had killed, who he would kill, and how no-one else would ever find them.

Often his prayed upon victims were the socialite class of upper Manhattan .Elite, wealthy, unsuspecting wives of the rich. He had never fought with any man, and vowed he never would. He tricked and conned them into trusting his false actions. Once, he jumped onto the Jersey turnpike, with such a lady. Claiming to her, " Oh, I'll turn around at the next exit, we'll be back in the city soon!" Which wasn't until halfway to Canada! She was asked to get out of the car, on the side of the highway, while he checked on a flat tire. A noise gave cause to suspicion by his throwing a plastic cup out and running over it. Knowing she was not alert, a few short blows from the blade he had tucked away, and that was it. In thirty minuets, a twenty cab ride finds a bludgeoned body being wrapped into a black plastic bag and tossed over a guard rail floating off in the ocean.

Eddie got a bit egotistical at his work. He dressed down in jeans, a t-shirt, and a ten year old pair of sneakers. Some days he did actually work, and paid bills. He kept a digital library of victims including photos of 'victories', as he called it. His most favorite in doing this was in knowing gained the trust of beautiful women and it killed them. As everyone has their own secret, Eddie's was so dark he never let on he was different or crazed to murder.

An immigrant to the Unites States with boiling passion lead Eddie to desire travel and change. Knowing there is no perfect crime he fled to Sin City ( Las Vegas), to live out some dying urges. This was the place he figured he could be a real man; a gambler and a risk taker. Vegas never sleeps, but the dead do. In weeks after moving he had gotten back on the road as a cab driver. Not even the FBI had a trace on his brutal acts, he passed a background check was a normal guy in appearance.

Business in the Entertainment Capitol of the World was aimed on gentlemen's culture. Which Eddie had never been, gentle that is. The neon lights reflected off of full billboard and LCD screens of half-naked women welcoming all types of guilty pleasures. On the Strip, with world famous casinos in the backdrop, meager peddlers handed out cards of girlie pictures who worked for tips wanting to come in to your hotel room for a service call. A few hints from other local cab drivers lead him onto the top prize of victims. The escorting industry here brought in big customers, with girls needing rides at all times of the night. Getting to know these exotic out call workers, or making an extras few hundred a call wasn't his goal.

The first month of working found him trying crack a little fact of mob intelligence used for decades: buying bodies in the desert far out of town. This became his big thrill. If there wasn't time, he'd cruise out to the lake by the damn. It was usually empty after midnight, the perfect place to throw out his fare. Spraying aerosol fresh scents, and wiping his hands with sanitizing gel was as good as clean to him. Especially after a bloody bought with his new entanglement.
As dozens and dozens of victories piled up for Eddie, one would soon be the end of it all. Some young college girl on vacation, casually worked as an escort, and then went missing. It had been all over the press in papers and on television. The family of the girl had been interviewed as saying their twenty year old daughter would never turn to being a prostitute. The police chief on head of investigating the case stated this was the most likely course of events to occur. One cab driver knew both were true and remained silent.

Before I tell you what you think happened did, that the last person here is Eddie, who can't stay quiet for long, and the family of the girl was wrong but willing to listen to reason.....
Just remember, you take a risk when you get into any other person's car, beyond your own. This should scare you on it's own merit. Not to mention all of the statistics of car accidents which are and aren't cause to intoxicated driving. People go missing everyday. Some are never found. Cabbies are dangerous enough, and the road is not always safe. So if you know any different, which you may -then never mind what this cab driver knows!

As for Eddie:
He was pulled over one night for running a red light. His car was searched, and the police found his digital camera with the victims on it, and all of his tools including his blades. He later confessed to all of the killings, once in prison. He gave up eating meat entirely to a live sentence as a vegetarian.