Hey all. I’m not really comfortable sharing my personal life; I’m a shy introvert, honestly, and often keep to myself. On Reddit, I’m usually what you would call a lurker, I guess…. I dunno. It makes me seem like some sort of pervert. Lurking in the shadows. Wtf :/. I just don’t feel the need to comment or post. I’m happy enjoying what people chose to share. I dunno. Either way. I felt I needed to share this, because it shook me.
I’m not usually the most outspoken, true, and I avoid conflict, yes. I DO however have a keen eye, an artistic heart, and just-a-minor obsession for small details. Through some form of grace, I found my way into the detailing industry. Restoring leather and shining tires; I loved it.
I couldn’t tell you how many cylinders an engine has, or what the crap a carburetor does, but I could tell you that your two-stage paint has 0.08 millimetres of clearcoat left and those scratches stand an 85% chance of buffing out completely. I loved transforming a neglected From-A-to-B into something the owner looks forward to driving. “Like-new” has nothing on what I do.
*ahem*…so…yea. Um, anyways….
I enjoyed what I did. I also enjoyed the secondary novelty perk of this job: the stories. Comb-ing through a person’s vehicle tends to yield a lot of information about them. I’m expected to get into every crack; every vent flap and carpet cranny.
The stain patterns and different species of crumbs in the carpet crannies tell me how often the guy who owns the Beemer ate on-the-road, and what he ate; I can tell the lady with the Kia used her car as a sanctuary to groom herself, from the lost nail files, collections of female-hair balled-up in the mechanisms, and myriad of lip-gloss and make-up brushes scattered under the mats. I can see their life-story; like that Channing-Tatum-wannabe with the cologne samples, condom wrapper tops, and spilled Viagra tablets caught in the AC vents under his driver seat.
There’s the Secret Smoker (air filter discoloured, vapour build-up on the windows, one, maybe two, cigarette butts caught beside the seat). The Workaholic (business cards everywhere, golf balls/tees, parking receipts, caffeine pills, the craziest phone docks on the dash, and glitter. Lots of glitter). The Experienced Hobbyist. The Diabetic. The Single Dad. The Soccer Mum. The Sloven. The Neat Freak. The College Student. The Stoner. Sometimes, The Disgusting. A few times, The Truly Unsettling.
Now, hear me out. I’m not the type to jump to conclusions. I just…I know how to do my job. I know how to read the signs of human influence on a vehicle. I know how to remove the signs of a human’s influence on a vehicle.
I once spent 8 hours on just the interior of a dealership vehicle. We discovered that it previously housed four crackheads for 3 months: 10 inches of food-garbage, soiled clothing, lots of paraphernalia, carpets ringed with mould, everything layered in ash. I found five crack pipes; 12 dimebags; 7 belts (like, what?); empty cat food cans (also, what?!); a variety of pill bottles; the largest bra I’ve ever seen; probably found emphysema and a rare variety of herpes, too. Thank god for respirators and rubber gloves.
People often use their vehicle as a means of unleashing themselves. Letting themselves go. If a person’s home doesn’t reflect their secret self, their vehicle will. Our modern society revolves around the significance and status-symbol of the automobile. My point is that I feel I’ve seen the worst of what we had to offer.
That’s why I’m convinced the last car I detailed belonged to a serial killer
***
On a Tuesday, with a sense of pride and ignorance, I accepted the 12:30PM appointment. I greeted the customer, introduced myself as the tech who’d be looking after his vehicle. He was unassuming: large rim glasses, pallid skin, grey windbreaker and slacks; it all screamed “desk jockey” a mile away. He seemed a little nervous; his eyes never rested on one place for long, and he’d twitch every so often, as if he expected to be goosed at any given moment. His name was Jim. He wanted the complete overhaul on his light grey older-model Corolla. Very basic car, completely unremarkable. Full upholstery work, salt stain removal, engine degrease, the works.
Jim said with a meek half-grin “I’ve had her for a long time. Things with history tend to pick up some ghosts along the way, you know? I’d just like her to have a fresh start, is all,”
He plopped the keys in my hand, but didn’t immediately let go. For the first time he looked me in the eye and his whole demeanour changed. Like a switch flipped, he went from Twitchy Desk-Jockey to Graveyard Warden. He held my gaze with the weight of his gravity.
“I do not need your assistance with the trunk, my friend. It’s my personal space. I’d really appreciate it if you kept away from it.” He didn’t blink.
I got halfway through a smile before I realized that he wasn’t making a bad joke. I swallowed instead.
“Y-yea, man…um, no problem…um, it should take no more than three hours? We’ll give you a ring when we’re done?” I lost all self-assurance under his stare.
He nodded curtly and finally broke eye contact, looking down, around, out the window…Shifty Jim had returned. Switch, flipped. Without further preamble, he left.
***
I approached the vehicle with more than a touch of unease. I figured it for an easy job when I pegged him as Desk-Jockey, but that weird exchange made me worry. The weird ones always give you difficulties, I thought glumly, recalling the guy that housed an iguana in his hatchback.
Bracing myself I opened the driver door, peered inside and…was surprised.
It was…clean. Aside from a light layer of road dust and salt stains from the recently-ended winter there were no indicators that a human occupied this vehicle. No coffee spills; no food wrappers; no coins in the centre console; not a phone dock, pair of sunglasses, or shopping list to be seen. At first glance it was devoid of any personality. Eerie, but better than lizard scat and mealworms, I figured.
Getting to work I removed the mats and found my first evidence of occupation: zip ties. Well, pieces of zip ties; they had already been used.
Hm…
Using compressed air the next step is blowing out the corners and crannies. It helps speed along the vacuum and wipedown process. I was blowing under the passenger seat when a larger item popped out, which didn’t surprise me much; glasses, boxes of cigarettes, cell phones, and vape pens are all examples of things that fly from the limbo of the UnderSeat Realm. This was a small glass vial. I picked it up.
I had to get allergy shots as a child, and I still recall the bottles the serums were stored in. They had steel lids with rubber centres that a syringe needle would pierce through to draw out the contents; just as the one I held in my hand did. It bore a medical-looking label that named the contents midazolam. It was empty.
I put the vial in one of the bags we kept for storing personal items. It might be important, empty or not.
The glove box held the usual: owner’s manual, insurance, registration, repair receipts…
A couple sets of black latex gloves.
Odd choice…
And two unopened syringes.
For the medicine, I guess.
By this point I was just eager to get the detail over with. Nail clippings and dog hair I can manage, but other people’s medical stuff kind of gave me the heebie jeebies. I don’t know why. It’s just a thing I have.
I was rushing through the upholstery shampoo when I noticed a piece of rope sticking out from the crack of the back seats. It was quite dirty, and I couldn’t pull it through; it must have a knot that kept it stuck inside the trunk.
I wanted to leave it alone but the OCD Demon wouldn’t allow it. It would spoil an otherwise-perfect interior restoration. I decided that, although he said no trunk, I’d just pop it open, drop the backseat, pull the rope back through, and Bob’s your uncle. Simple enough.
Opening the trunk made me think to myself, huh, maybe he has a dog?
(Some of you might ask: Who the hell puts a dog in the trunk of a sedan? and my answer is that you’d be surprised.)
The back of the seats were shredded; the fabric was ripped up and the stuffing gouged out. The only thing I could think of was when dogs do that constant scratchy-scratchy-thing on a closed door when they really wanted to get at what’s behind it. Odd, there’s no dog hair, though. No traces of stuffing either. He’d obviously vacuumed it. There was a dark stain permeating the middle of the trunk liner. It was stiff, and sort of muddy-coloured. Hard to tell what it was with the black liner fabric. Kept the dog in the trunk and it went a little crazy when it had to do its business, I figured.
Looking around I saw that the cables used for releasing the back seats had been cut out. What’s more, the safety release for the trunk also had its cable cleanly snipped away. Very weird.
I slipped my fingers under the lip and scooped up the trunk-liner. I wanted to get the rope removed and get this car out of the damn shop. It was starting to make my skin crawl. I leaned against the bumper, switching my headlamp on as my looming blocked any outside light. I reached in, dug around, felt something small and hard, pulled it out, held it in the light.
It was a fingernail. A whole fingernail, not a clipping, with bits of dried blood and skin still attached at the edges. It looked to have been ripped off of someone quite forcefully.
With a squeal of disgust I dropped the nail and backed out fast. I slammed the trunk closed.
That was a fucking fingernail. One that had been ripped off…
Or…thinking of the shredded seatbacks….scratched off. The cut cables and inoperable safety release….
Now, as I said, I’m not really one to jump to conclusions. I tried to put a positive spin on everything I saw, that is, until I whipped out my phone to search up what midazolam was. I assumed it was some sort of medication.
What it’s actually used for is to sedate someone, or put someone under before surgery. It’s an anaesthetic.
And probably hella useful for getting someone into the trunk of your car without much fuss.
****
I managed to finish the detail, though it felt as if I were cleaning a sarcophagus. Thankfully it was just the wash left. I asked one of the other techs for the favour of pulling out the mausoleum-on-wheels because I had to “hit up the washroom real bad!”
All I did was sit in the stall and hyperventilate a little. I kept running what Jim said through my head: “things with history tend to pick up some ghosts.” The line was much more ghoulish, now.
I noticed Jim walk into the main office as I kept busy in the shop. The manager cashed him out, gave him the key.
He poked through the vehicle a little, as some customers are wont to do. He opened the trunk, poked his head in. Sweat was beading on my forehead; my breathing became choppy. He stood, closing the trunk, and ever so slowly turned back to look at the shop. Straight at me. I don’t even know if he could see me through the tinted windows and the glare, but he stared at me. He very deliberately shook his head. He knew.
***
I’m writing this to you all now as a means of confession, and also, as a means of providing evidence for what I’m suspecting is to come.
I’ve been noticing a vehicle. Sometimes it’s just driving by, though the tint makes the driver near-unrecognizable. I’d noticed it driving by me as I left the shop, or as I left the laundromat, or the grocery store. Even now, I can see it. My bedroom window faces the front of the house. Even now, I can see a nondescript, light-grey Corolla parked just a block away. I didn’t need to guess.
I knew who Jim had marked as his next victim.