 In an increasingly gig based economy, you take on jobs you can, even the ones that send alarm bells ringing in your head, because you can tell that something just isn't quite right. I was having that very same thought as I looked up at my Uber passenger who was waiting on a street corner. It was about 11pm and I could only just make out his profile in a dying light of a blinking street light. He was standing next to a bus stop, flanked by a field of corn stalks. That wasn't an unusual sight in the Midwest where the back roads seemed to be covered by pockets of farmland, but it just so happened to be the length of the corn stalks that helped me figure out that this dude was tall. I'm talking six and a half feet, at least. He was wearing dark clothing, almost like a dress suit, but he seemed gaunt and drawn in on himself. A wide brimmed hat helped to obscure his face so I couldn't be certain about how old he was. In his left hand, he was clutching a black bag. I was tilting my head, wondering if I still wanted to take him on as my passenger when he looked up at me. I crept up to the curb and stopped there, the engine running idly. According to my phone, he was a first time user without any reviews. Oh well, money's money, right? I'd already accepted the ride anyway, and it was only about a 15 to 20 minute ride. I parked my car and unlocked the doors. He seemed to take stock of my car, then seemingly satisfied, nodded and walked to the passenger's side door. He was extraordinarily tall, so he had to carefully duck down to fit inside of the car. When he climbed into my backseat, the strong smell of menthol flooded the cabin. I wonder if he'd been smoking while he waited, but I just smelled the strong odor of antiseptic, and not the bitter sting of smoke and tobacco. One of the big drawbacks to being an Uber driver was that your occupants tended to bring interesting odors with them into the vehicle. I'd often spray the backseat down with febries at the end of my shift, and even then there would sometimes still be smells lingering in the cabin for a few days. So in the scheme of things, I guess I didn't mind the hospital smell. I'd take an overly clean smell over something like swamp ass, marijuana, or piss. Alone, he said, with a voice coated in gravel. He moved his bag, and I heard the sound of metal on metal, like there must have been tools inside. Evening, I offered, then shifted the car into drive. I tended to follow my passengers by example, if they were interested in chatting that I'd make small talk, but otherwise I'd mostly just listen to the radio and mind my business. Tonight's entertainment was provided by one of the local jazz stations. I was looking along with a rhythm line when the passenger suddenly spoke up. Do you normally drive late at night? He asked. His voice was peculiar. It was deep. But he also spoke very deliberately, like he had found the exact words he was about to use before he said them. The word to describe it would come to me later. Calculated. Yeah, I'm somewhat of a night owl, I said. This wasn't entirely true. I was behind on bills and my day job as an office clerk just wasn't enough anymore. So, I was whoring my car out to strangers a few nights a week, and I felt guilty about it every time. At least I kept up on vacuuming the floor mats. I, uh, I saw your bag. You a doctor or something like that? I asked. I felt like I'd reached a bit too far with a prying question, but I was really curious about what the hell the guy was doing out in the middle of nowhere with that bag. He tipped his head down and said, Yeah, you could say that. Well, thanks for being candid. I thought, as there ever been something you wanted to do, but haven't. He asked me all of a sudden. Hell if that wasn't a question. There were hundreds of things I wanted to do, hundreds of places I wanted to go. I was 35 and driving a damn Uber in the middle of the night. Sure. I said, who doesn't? Not something small. He said, but something that haunts your dreams makes you feel alive. The way he drew out his words as he said, alive, sent a chill through me. Well, there's been a movie I've wanted to see for a while now, but I just haven't had the time. He laughed, but it almost sounded more like a shuttering cough. It is good to not have regrets. He said, You must like games. If you don't mind amusing me, what if we play a game of heads or tails? That was a new one? Sure. I called back, not really thinking about it. What are we playing for? I heard a rattled cough and assumed it was him trying to laugh again, like his lungs wouldn't work quite right. Heads or tails? He croaked. I caught his eyes in my rearview mirror and something about his gaze terrified me. He wasn't looking at me, but almost straight through me. His pupils were wide and deep, like black pits. He was smiling so hard I could see his teeth gleaming against his gums. Wasn't that a thing your eyes did when the light was low? I thought I'd read it in a magazine once. And the pupils are black because light almost never escapes. Call it! He shouted so suddenly that I jerked the steering wheel. I could feel his breath on my neck. God, that menthol smell was so strong. He was leaning all the way up against my seat, the coin clutched between his fingers. Uh, tails! I stammered without thinking. I glanced down at the route on my phone, scanning for how much time was left on the ETA. A few minutes. The coin flipped through the air with a metallic ding sound. The stranger caught it out of the air and leaned in close as he slowly opened his hand. But then his face filled with disappointment. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. Which was it? I asked, still feeling a bit shocked by his sudden outburst. I guess I'd won. But what did I win? He remained silent and the sudden silence creeped me out. I started to think again about what he was doing at the bus stop so late. I reasoned that he must have taken a bus from wherever he had been working and the bus didn't run by his place. But why would a doctor not have a car? Maybe it was in the shop, I thought. Maybe it broke down somewhere. The things we tell ourselves to calm our anxieties, write stories of their own. A few minutes later, I reached the end of the route which stopped at a two-story house in a neighborhood I sometimes traveled through, about a city over from where we'd started. I'll never forget what he said or how he said it. It is good to be home. He climbed out of the car and slowly walked up the front steps toward the dark house. I waited a moment with the engine idle and pretended I was checking my phone. He seemed to fumble at the front door for a moment, but then the door opened and he closed it shut behind him, almost imperceptibly so. I expected the lights to slowly turn on around the house, but that didn't happen. It just stayed dark. My phone beeped with the promise of another rider, so I turned up the jazz on the radio again and left. I did a few more fares that night and forgot all about Mr. Tall Man who reeked of menthol. In fact, he didn't cross my mind again until the next day when I was driving through the same neighborhood and spotted the house again. But this time, there was yellow police tape draped around the lawn. My heart sank. I slowed to a crawl in front of the house and leaning back said, Hey, sorry. I just want to take a quick look here. To my passenger, Oh my God, replied my passenger. I think I heard about this on the news this morning. Morning news. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and felt myself breaking into a cold sweat. Would you hear? I asked. Well, a neighbor saw the front door hanging open this morning and peeked inside. The whole family was butchered like there was blood everywhere. You serious? I asked. I just dropped the dad off here last night. That's Jesus. Oh my God, really? You should probably tell the police. They probably have a lot of questions. She reached over the seat with her phone and showed me an article she pulled up from the local news. Family of five slain in grisly murder. I looked at the headline and then the accompanying image of the family, all of them smiling with no way of knowing their lives would soon be ending. The thought made me sick. Wait. I looked at the father. I mean, really looked at him. That was not the same man I dropped off last night. I was almost sure of it. For one thing, he was entowering over his family like my passenger would have been. Even though I hadn't gotten a great look at his face, the face of the father in the picture looked far less harsh and defined. The tall man, my passenger, even though his face had been mostly hidden by his hat, what I did see almost resembled a crude wood carving, a wave of nausea washed over me as my mind tried to balance an equation that seemed impossible to rectify. I kept coming to the same conclusion over and over again. The father was not the same person who had been riding in my backseat last night. I knew that for certain. I handed the phone back to her and said nothing. I sank into my seat, screwed my face up to not give anything away, gripped the wheel until my knuckles burned white and drove. I played back the memory in my head of the stranger entering through the front door. The slow, careful action I'd assumed had been him fumbling with the key must have actually been him breaking or picking the lock. Nothing I wouldn't have noticed as I flicked through my phone and casually glanced up at him. My pulse throttled against my shirt collar and my stomach began to cramp. How could I have known that he didn't actually live at that address? I just did what I was told. I just did what the route said to do. This was not my fault. But maybe if I hadn't picked that guy up, no one else would have given him a ride. Maybe something else would have stood in his way and prevented him from ever reaching his destination. Maybe that family would still be. After I dropped off my passenger, I pulled off the road and went through my phone. I had to report him to the police, even if he might have falsified all his information, even if he might be halfway across the state by now. It was then that I noticed I had a review I hadn't looked at yet. It was from the man and he'd left me a message. Thanks for the ride. You're lucky it wasn't heads.