Nolan was in the process of ignoring his fare’s boring diatribe on the state of the American economy when he was suddenly struck by the sensation that he was being watched. He glanced out the driver's and passenger's windows and found the road beyond them empty. Likewise, the lands beyond the road were equally devoid of life, only acres of flat scrubland occasionally interrupted by nondescript buildings with dark windows, none of which betrayed the slightest hint of surveillance. He checked the rear view mirror and found much the same to be true of the road behind him, save for a few faint, flickering headlights in the distance. Before him there were only the approaching lights of Inlet City. Even his fare, chattering away in the back seat, was staring out the window, as customers so often did.
The feeling of being watched was not new to Nolan. On several occasions over the past year and a half he'd been possessed of a similar impression. It was like seeing someone staring at you from across a room; it wasn’t there until you noticed it, but then you could feel it even if you looked away, that sensation of eyes upon you, cataloging your movements. Every time, just like now, he could see no one watching him.
"Did you hear me?” said the man in the back, suddenly deciding he wanted Nolan’s input on whatever he'd been on about.
"Sorry, what?” replied Nolan.
"I said ‘who did you vote for in the last election?’”
"Didn’t vote. I was in a coma.” Nolan answered, suppressing a smile.
Nolan had found no more surefire way of derailing a potential conversation than by mentioning his coma. With the exception of blank stares and the occasional quiet “oh”, no one ever seemed to know how to respond. He supposed it was the sort of thing one encountered so rarely in life that there was just no commonly accepted protocol. Nolan tried his best to resist the temptation to employ said knowledge in the avoidance of unwanted social interactions. Most of the time anyway. After a few minutes of awkward silence the man in the back, apparently having judged that the appropriate amount of time had passed, continued on with his one-sided castigation.
The city grew closer and, as Nolan was making a mental note to watch for his exit, the sensation of being watched disappeared as abruptly as it had come. Nolan had broached the subject of these odd sensations with his doctor and had not particularly cared for the response he had received. His doctor cautioned him about growing feelings of paranoia in the wake of his severe memory loss, for which said doctor still had no explanation. In his professional opinion these episodes were, as he also believed his patient's memory loss to be, purely psychological. The recommendation had been immediate psychiatric evaluation. Nolan's response had been not returning to his doctor since. In retrospect Nolan didn't really know what he had expected his doctor to say, or what he might have expected him to do, but implying that he was crazy wasn't it. While he didn't have a reasonable explanation for these feeling of perceived observance, he was certain that it was not “all in his head”. Of course, he further supposed, that was precisely what a crazy person would think.
"Hey, that’s my exit!” the man in the back yelled, dragging Nolan from his reverie with a jerk. Nolan yanked the wheel sharply, thankful that there were no other cars on the road, missing the guard rail by a hair as he swerved off the highway. His passenger pitched and cursed in the back as he struggled to keep from falling over.
There goes my tip, thought Nolan, knowing that most people happily accepted, and often remained ever vigilant for, any justification for not tipping. Nolan decelerated down the ramp and eased his cab into the light flow of the city's traffic.
The passenger handed Nolan a twenty dollar bill for a 19.50 fare and exited the vehicle without a word. Nolan slipped the bill into his little, zippered pouch and stashed it back in the glove compartment. In spite of this last misstep it had been a pretty good day, for a change, and he felt he might just have made enough to justify taking it easy for the remainder of his shift. It would be a welcome change from the usual dash and scramble just to make enough to get by. Nolan settled back in his seat and let his thoughts drift while he listened to the quiet chatter of the night city.
Nolan didn’t particularly like being a cabbie. He didn’t hate it either, and it was certainly better than a lot of other things he could have been doing, but there was no denying the feeling of distaste he felt every time he slid behind the wheel. He often felt a pang of longing for his previous occupation. He couldn’t remember what it was, like so many things about his life before the coma, but he felt certain he had enjoyed it. The cab driving was meant to be a temporary thing, just to keep him going, while he tried to put his life back together. For a year he had tried fruitlessly to restore his memory but had found that there was very little to go on. His landlord, who hardly seemed to remember him at all, claimed to have thrown out all his personal belongings when he hadn't returned for several months, after selling what he could to cover the back rent. There were surprisingly few records as well and what little he learned form them told him only facts, empty data, nothing meaningful. He had no living family, no friends, no one at all who had any idea who he had been. Some things gave him a flash of familiarity, a place or a name would trigger a brief moment of a déja vu, but they never unearthed any actual memory and only served to underscore the lack of anything tangible in his life. Finally he had tried to accept that his memories weren't coming back and he'd passed the time since then in a sort daze. He wanted to get over it, he wanted to move on and build some semblance of a life, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was... waiting for something.
It was with these thoughts jumbling about in his head that Nolan first noticed the sound. It was too late for the street to be full but too early for it to be deserted and there was still a fair amount of noise in the air. Conversations and car horns and shouts and sirens and somewhere, close, beneath it all, a sound that didn’t belong. A sound that sent an unwelcome chill down Nolan’s back.
Nolan switched off the engine and got out of his cab for, though he didn’t know it, the last time. Next to the building his recently departed fare had entered there was an alley and from somewhere in that alley that odd sound echoed to him like a whisper from the bottom of a well. Nolan approached the mouth of the alley, unconsciously creeping, and peered down its length. It was all dim, and wet, and full of shadows, the too weak street lights casting faint glints of light off puddles of still water and discarded hunks of polished metal. Deep in those shadows something moved and when Nolan caught sight of it his blood froze. The sound came again; a terrible wet ripping that could only be one thing. On the ground was a body or, at least, something that resembled a body. Whether it was a man or a woman he couldn’t say, there was too little left to be sure, only the suggestion of a vaguely humanoid lump lying there. The thing standing over it, tearing a fresh hunk free while clamping the body down with its foot, chomped and swallowed noisily. The sound was hideous and Nolan let out a low moan of disgust.
The thing in the alley jerked and turned slowly.
Maybe it spat out its final morsel and bounded across the pavement. Or it may have taken its time in finishing the last bite. Perhaps it even paused briefly to shake away a few annoying strings of saliva. Nolan never knew.
He was already running.
From behind him he heard the wet slap of heavy footpads and the scrape of thick claws scarring the pavement.
His leather jacket flapped like bat wings. His worn sneakers slipped with each step, refusing to find traction on the slick concrete. His legs moved faster then he ever knew they could. His breath hissed like steam through his clenched teeth.
Behind him the thing pursued, drawing closer with each stride.
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