Rise of the Monster Rookies

Stormy Weather - Billie Holiday

"What are you supposed to be?" the driver asked his passenger. He tried to make eye contact with the boy, but the boy had his gray hoodie pulled up over his head and was looking out the car window.

"Nothing," the boy said, and then, "I'm a musician." He gestured vaguely at the guitar gig bag propped up in the seat next to him.

Paul the driver pursed his lips and tried harder. "You playing at a Halloween party?" He supposed that some passengers would have preferred him to stay silent as he ferried them to their destination, but he liked talking to people. He liked learning about their lives, the places they came from and the places where they were going. He liked imagining what would happen when they arrived at their destination. It made him feel a small sense of connection to the great faceless mass of humanity out there, even if he soon forgot the details of his passengers' responses shortly after they left his car. This was why he had chosen to be a Coachee driver for his second job rather than something more anonymous that wouldn't require any face-to-face contact with a second person.

"Something like that," the boy replied. There was a loud bang in the distance, followed by a sudden flash of light that momentarily lit up the car interior. It made Paul think of lightning, a thought that was compounded by an accompanying mysterious drizzle of minuscule water droplets that blanketed his windshield. He flicked on his wipers to swipe the droplets off. More droplets appeared. Where this drizzle was coming from, Paul could not begin to guess. He supposed that he was better off not knowing. Given that this was Los Angeles, there could be any number of unsavory answers. The bang and light was likely an idiot setting off a firework, which was illegal in the city, but that never stopped anyone. The perpetrators were getting bolder with each passing year.

It was a dark and stormy night, Paul thought to himself with a small twist of his lips. Ah, but even an unseasonable rainfall would be a nice boon to perpetually parched Southern California. He'd take a couple more days of rain in the winter and spring if it meant the state could avoid a drought warning in the summer.

There was something about the boy that bothered Paul. He supposed that the boy, whose name was Mark Young (according to the Coachee app), could be a young man instead of a boy. The app wasn't supposed to accept single riders under 18 years old, but Paul knew that teenagers could and would easily find a way to circumvent such rules. Mark was quite tall, but the manner of his bearing and the softness of his voice made him seem so very young. Paul felt himself grow increasingly unable to tell the age of teenagers and young adults as he grew older. They all looked so young to him, like wide-eyed earnest children.

Paul wished he could see Mark's face more clearly. The boy was not only wearing a hoodie pulled all the way up, but sported oversized sunglasses across the top of his face and a black surgical face mask across the bottom. Paul supposed he appreciated the mask. It had been over a year since pandemic restrictions had been lifted in California, but Paul still preferred a masked customer sitting in his car over a bare-faced passenger coughing and sneezing all over the upholstery. He couldn't understand the sunglasses at night though. Was that the current fashion? What nonsense. When it came to his sartorial choices, he'd take substance over style any day.

The car pulled up to what looked like a dark alleyway between two tall buildings. Paul double-checked the number of the address he had been given. 1013. He could see 1011 and he guessed the next set of numbers he could see was 1015, although the metal five had fallen off and there was only the barest impression of the former number left. It looked as though 1013 might be in the alleyway, through a small back door. Whatever this venue was didn't have a main entrance visible from the street.

"Hey, Mark," he said as he drew the car to a stop and put the vehicle in park. "We're here. Looks a little sketchy, to be honest. I'll wait until I see you make it inside."

"You don't have to," Mark said softly, gathering up his backpack and his guitar. He turned his head as he did so and Paul, who was looking at Mark via his rearview mirror, briefly saw his face head-on. Or rather, his lack of face. The lighting in the car was so dim, and Mark's hood seemed to swallow up everything that wasn't the sunglasses or mask and leave only an empty blackness. For the briefest of moments, Mark looked like a complete absence, a black hole of nothing clothed in a worn gray hoodie. Then Mark moved again and a shaft of yellowed light hit his sunglasses and Paul blinked to clear his vision. The door opened and Mark stepped out, looking down at his phone as he tapped out payment and a tip for Paul.

Paul leaned back to look out the open door and called, "Know what? Next Halloween, you should get a black full-face mask and a long gray cape! I think you'd make a good Grim Reaper!"

Mark ducked his head back into the car and now Paul could see the pale skin that wasn't covered by the sunglasses or the mask. "That's an idea to consider," he called back. "Thanks for the ride, man."

Despite Mark's words, Paul knew it wouldn't sit right with his conscience until he saw that the boy had made it safely inside the building. He watched as the door opened and he heard the faint sound of music wafting over. He couldn't make out any lyrics, could barely make out the thrum of the beat, but a thought rose to the forefront of his mind as if conjured there by the melody. Faint as the tune was, it seemed to wind around him, to trail creeping fingers over the contours of his mind before gripping it into a hard grasp.

Paul sat in his car listening to the music. There was something about it... there was something about it...

The minutes passed and passed. Paul sat in his car.

Wait. What was he doing, dawdling here while there were more passengers wanting to hail a ride on the Coachee app? It was not even midnight; he could knock off a handful more drives before he had to head home and get some sleep. Four hours of sleep at home, then it would be early morning and time for him to rise and head into his main job as a shelf stocker at Target. It would be the day after Halloween, so there would be plenty to do - displays to take down and other upcoming holiday displays to put up. Clearance stickers to put on now-outdated Halloween merchandise and candy. It promised to be a long day.

"Giddy up now, trusty steed," Paul gave the dashboard of his Ford Mustang EcoBoost Coupe a small pat. Putting the gear into drive, he pulled away from the building. He wanted to remember the passengers he came into contact with in his job as a Coachee driver. He did sometimes remember small insignificant details and snippets of conversation, which he would recall at the oddest of times. But in spite of his best efforts, his customers from both jobs often blurred into an indistinguishable human mass that he would feel an unspecified and undirected wave of affection for. He forgot a lot of people over the course of his career, but the boy he had driven tonight was a special case. By the same time tomorrow night, Paul will have forgotten everything he ever knew about Mark Young.

The next time Paul sees Mark Young, it will be years later, on a billboard in downtown Los Angeles. Paul will be walking back to work on his lunch break and a crack in the uneven pavement will trip him up. As he steadies himself, his gaze will momentarily alight on a nearby billboard and he'll catch a glimpse of the name Mark Young next to a handsome man's face. Then Paul will look down at his t-shirt and curse under his breath when he notices that he's spilled some coffee on himself. He'll hurry back to work.

Work will be busy, but it'll otherwise be a good day.

* * *
Author's Note:
This story was originally published in November 2022. It was momentarily taken down when I considered taking the story in a different direction, but I've decided that Wattpad is the best home for it. I hope to update regularly on Saturdays.

Chapter picture was drawn for me by my friend Gladys.

For more detailed notes, check out my WordPress site at modinda.wordpress.com

Playlist:
"Stormy Weather" - Billie Holiday
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" - Ben Webster & Oscar Peterson
"Afterlife" - Wendy Carlos