FIVE STARS A Short Story by C. Flemish
Rana cursed under her breath as she slid the last pin into her hair and grabbed her folder from the counter. The front page of her résumé was already bent at the corner. Her boots thudded against the tile as she crossed the small apartment, glancing once in the mirror.
Good. Presentable. Sharp.
This job interview mattered.
It was more than work. It was her way out. Out of sleeping on her cousin’s couch, out of endless VA paperwork, out of remembering every goddamn thing the uniform didn’t protect her from.
Her phone buzzed.
OneWayRide: Your driver, Jamal, has arrived.
She blinked. Shit. Already?
She slung her jacket over her shoulder and burst out the front door, jogged down the cracked steps two at a time. Sunlight punched through the morning haze. Across the street, a dull gray sedan idled by the curb, hazard lights blinking slow and steady like a heartbeat.
Jamal. 5 stars. 742 rides. “Polite. Clean car. Good music.”
She slid into the back seat, breath quick.
“Sorry, I’m running a little late,” she said, smoothing the creased corner of her résumé. “Appreciate the fast arrival.”
The driver didn’t say anything at first.
Just nodded.
She caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror. Young. Clean cut. Calm eyes. Something about his stillness felt… deliberate.
“You mind if we take I-45? I know it says surface streets, but I really can’t be late.”
He nodded again, eyes still locked forward.
The door locks clicked.
She barely noticed.
The car pulled away from the curb, smoothly, like it had been waiting not just outside, but for her.
Rana settled into the back seat, balancing the folder on her lap as she unlocked her phone.
The screen was already smudged with fingerprints. She wiped it absently on her sleeve.
Interview questions. Behavioral examples. Why do you want to work here?
Her thumb scrolled through her notes while the city passed outside the window. The buildings blurred together, graffiti-tagged brick, half-boarded windows, kids in uniforms waiting at the bus stop.
She cleared her throat, quietly rehearsing her answers.
“I’m looking for a challenge that lets me apply my discipline and leadership skills in a meaningful way…”
She winced. Too stiff. Try again.
“I’m ready to bring everything I’ve learned, structure, adaptability, control, into a team that values integrity.”
Better.
The car hit a small bump. Her résumé shifted in her lap.
She looked up, instinctively checking their route. The street signs passed too fast for her to make out, but the car was moving smoothly. No music. No conversation. Just the sound of tires rolling over wet pavement.
Her eyes flicked to the rearview.
The driver, Jamal, according to the app, was watching the road, both hands on the wheel. Nothing strange. But his posture was… off. Too straight. Rigid, like he was bracing for impact or posing for a picture.
She cleared her throat again. “Hey, sorry, what’s the ETA looking like?”
No answer. Just the faint tap of his index finger against the steering wheel. The same rhythm. Over and over.
She narrowed her eyes but didn’t push. Some people just weren’t talkers.
She shifted her weight and immediately noticed the seat felt a little damp. Not soaked, not gross, just… not dry.
She frowned and adjusted her jacket beneath her.
Back to the phone.
“Talk about a time you faced a difficult situation…”
Her breathing slowed as she focused. The words came easily, a product of old muscle memory from training.
“Kandahar. Convoy stalled. Heatstroke hitting three of our guys. One more hour out there and they’d have started dropping…”
The air inside the car felt heavy now.
She reached toward the center console.
“Hey, is the A/C on?”
Before she could finish, the vents gusted softly, blowing cool air directly at her.
Rana blinked. She hadn’t seen him touch the controls. Still…, maybe they were auto-adjusting.
Her phone buzzed with a calendar reminder.
15 minutes to interview.
She sat straighter, brushing off the gnawing feeling and forcing her focus back onto her folder. Her stomach grumbled, but she ignored it. Stay sharp. One more mile. Then shake hands. Eye contact. Win the room.
A drop of something hit her shoulder.
She looked up at the ceiling. Dry.
Maybe it came from her hair? She brushed at her temple—
Another drop. This time on her thigh.
She looked down.
A dark, viscous bead of moisture had formed on the inside of the door. It was thick. Almost sap-like. It slid slowly, unnaturally slow, toward the floor mat.
She leaned in slightly. What the hell?
Her eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror again. And froze.
The mirror… moved. Not physically, but what it reflected shifted ever so slightly. It no longer showed just her face. It was angled wrong—but somehow, she was still in the center of it. Perfectly centered. Perfectly framed.
She didn’t remember making eye contact with it before, but now, it felt like the mirror was watching her. Tracking her. Waiting.
Her mouth went dry. She blinked, and the image returned to normal. Just her own reflection. Except… her eyes in the mirror didn’t blink.
Then the driver spoke.
His voice was low. Flat. Almost monotone.
“Almost there.”
Rana blinked. It was the first thing he’d said.
She met his eyes in the mirror.
They weren’t looking at the road anymore. They were looking at her.
The heat was unbearable now.
Rana wiped her palm against her jacket, but her skin stuck to the fabric. Her breathing was shallow. Controlled. But her heart was racing. The smell had grown thicker. Wet metal, rot, and a chemical substance, such as melted plastic and burnt sugar.
Her voice dropped into a command.
“Let me out.”
Nothing.
“Pull over. Now.”
The driver kept his hands on the wheel, eyes on the road that no longer looked like any road she’d ever seen, just a gray stretch of asphalt stretching into a horizon that refused to move.
She clenched her jaw.
“Last time. Let. Me. Out.”
Still nothing.
She reached down, pulled the blade from beneath her jacket.
A seven-inch combat knife, black grip, still sharp from the last time she’d honed it.
She leaned forward and pressed it against Jamal’s neck, just under the jawline. Close enough to feel the texture of his skin.
Not stubble. Not warmth.
Smooth. Cold. Waxy. Almost… rubbery.
“Stop the car. Or I open your fucking throat.”
Her hand didn’t shake.
She was breathing hard now. Sweat was dripping down her back. Her thighs were sinking into the seat as if it were absorbing her weight. The sound of her heartbeat was too loud in her ears.
Then Jamal began to tremble.
Not flinch, tremble, like a puppet with loose strings.
His spine slackened. His arms bent in the wrong direction. His neck collapsed downward in a slow, silent spasm.
Rana recoiled just as his entire frame began to deflate, collapsing inward like a deflated balloon.
The knife clattered to the floor.
His clothes remained. Skin folded in on itself. Beneath the surface, beneath what used to be a face, there was nothing. No skull. No bones. No blood. Just empty space.
Then…
From deep inside the dashboard, a sound emerged.
Low at first. A hiss. Then a slow, wet rumble.
Like something enormous chuckling just under the skin of the world.
It vibrated through the steering wheel. Through the vents. Through the seats.
“You’ve arrived.”
Rana wanted to scream, but she didn’t.
She launched forward, grabbed her knife from the floor, and kicked the back of the driver’s seat with both boots, hard enough to bend it forward. The crumpled skin-suit slumped deeper, folding in on itself, already dissolving into a dark sludge that hissed where it touched the fabric.
The car groaned.
Not the engine, the body.
The doors didn’t just stay locked. They twitched. Seams wriggled closed like freshly sutured wounds. The window next to her pulsed, as if covered in a thin film of skin.
“No,” she muttered, voice low. “No, no …”
She slashed at the seatbelt, tearing through it in two quick strokes, then threw herself at the door. The handle was soft. It bent in her grip. Not plastic. Tissue.
She screamed in fury, raised her blade, and drove it into the panel next to her.
The door bled.
Not red but black, syrup-thick, steaming. It sprayed across her face and arm, sizzling against her skin like acid. She bit down on the pain, shoved her shoulder into the door with everything she had, but it didn’t move.
The floor flexed beneath her boots. She dropped to a crouch, knife raised, and for a moment the silence returned, dead, suffocating. Then the seat buckled beneath her.
The cushion peeled open like a rotten fruit, revealing layers of pulsing, fibrous muscle beneath. A dozen tendril-like cords lashed upward from the tear, wrapping around her legs, her waist, slowly trying to pull her in.
Rana screamed, more rage than fear, and hacked downward. The knife cut deep. Black fluid sprayed.
She was halfway out of the seat when the ceiling cracked open above her.
From within, a gaping circular maw split into view, lined with rows of wet, translucent teeth like leeches, each one twitching hungrily. It wasn’t part of the car. It was the car. The vehicle was its shell. It’s lure. It’s a trap.
And she was inside it.
The cords pulled tighter. Her boot slipped into the floor, which gave way like a mouth, wrapping around her ankle.
She screamed and stabbed upward, driving the blade into the roof, into the thing’s open flesh. A burst of heat exploded across her arm, the roof shrieked, high and vibrating, like metal tearing inside her skull.
Rana used the moment and tore her leg free, braced herself against the center console, and began kicking at the windshield.
Cracks spiderwebbed. The glass warped, resisted, not like glass, more like bone.
Her blade was slick in her hand, her skin smoking where the acid had touched it. She kept going. Fighting. Breathing through the pain.
The center console pulsed, ripped open, and a coil of muscle wrapped around her torso, jerking her sideways into the seat again.
This time, she didn’t scream.
She roared, planting her feet and driving the knife into the console, over and over until it twitched and writhed like an exposed nerve.
But it was too late.
Slime rained from above. The acidic mucus she’d felt earlier now cascaded down her back, burning through her clothes, eating into her spine. Her arms trembled. The strength drained from her hands. The knife fell.
She was sinking into the seat, into the creature. The leather peeled back into raw flesh, forming a cradle of muscle and sinew that accepted her body, inch by inch.
She thrashed. Bit her tongue. Screamed through blood.
“I’m not yours,” she growled.
A final tendril wrapped around her throat, soft, slow, like a silk ribbon, pulling her head back against the seat.
As the slime enveloped her face, the last thing she saw was the rearview mirror.
It showed her face. Still. Staring forward. Blinking.
Not her.
The next lure.
Across town, a young man received a text.
OneWayRide: Your driver, Rana, has arrived.
Rana. 5 stars. 743 rides. “Polite. Clean car. Good music.”
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