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Jim’s gun shook beneath the table for a moment before he slowly retracted it. He didn’t put it away, just held it tightly on his thigh. He could feel several sensations. The cold gun, now warmed by the hot moistness of his palm. The blue denim of his jean-clad thighs. His heart pounding in his chest, rapid and violent.The glare of light from the sun shining through the window of this diner, in the dead of West Texan desert. Jim Halsey sat face to face with Death in the form of a man; a rugged, older man, whose cold blue eyes drilled into Jim so vividly they’d burnt themselves into his retinas ever since he let John Ryder into his car.
John’s clothes sat heavily on him, and Jim could only imagine that he must be sweating bullets underneath the sun-stained, dark trenchcoat. If he functioned like that. Jim had begun to second guess it, something in his thumping brain telling him that John is no man, but some beast, some desert apparition feeding off of the blood of murdered drivers along highways. Maybe he’s the ghost of a hitchhiker who was picked up by the wrong guy. Maybe he’s the Devil himself.
“What do you want?” Jim asked, trembling slightly, his voice strangled.
“Guess.” John lifted a cigarette to his mouth and lit it. He looked up at the younger man. “Want one?” Jim shook his head, his lips tight and bitter, chapped from the heat. “Come on. Guess.”
“I don’t want to play.”
“Why not?”
“Just tell me,” he pleaded, “please.”
“No. Guess.”
Jim’s jaw clenched as his eyes scanned his face. He already felt empty, tired, wanting nothing more than to sleep or die or disappear.
“How do you always know?”
“Know what?”
“Where I am.”
John shrugged, grinning widely. “You’re smart, guess!”
Jim slammed his fists on the table, startling the two people in the diner besides them, not that he cared at that point. “Just tell me!” John grabbed his shirt and pulled him over, his hips slammed to the edge of the table as he leaned over. “Tell me,” he hissed through his teeth. He could smell John by now, the metallic scent staining his clothes, the smell of gasoline and rain and dirt. His eyes trailed the length of the older man’s arm to his calloused, large hand.
John sat forward, tip of his nose almost tapping Jim’s. “You’re a smart kid, but God, you’re a fucking moron, aren’t you? Some more backbone now. No more crying. I like that.” His eyes flickered to Jim’s lips, then back to stare into his soul. He stood tall and awful over the young man, smiling ear to ear as he heard a small hiss. “What was that, kid?”
“Sit.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“I don’t care. Sit.”
John abided. “Like I said, more backbone. Not some jelly amoeba ready to piss himself.”
“What is your problem?”
“Am I not allowed to have fun?”
“Why is this fun for you? Do you get off on it?” Jim mocked.
“Maybe.”
Jim sighed, murmuring, “Creep.” He looked back up at Death’s head, still smiling. He had begun to feel nauseous, almost dizzy. As if on cue, John let go of his shirt, letting him slide back down on the hot, stiff seat. His fists shook viciously, and he cocked the gun again.
“Relax. I won’t do anything here. Give me the gun.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Neither am I. It’s not loaded.” John placed the bullets on the table. “By the time I reload that, you’d have the time to run.” Jim, slowly, warily, shakily set the gun on the table. More on his side than John’s. “No, no. Come on, Jim, give me the gun.”
“Why?”
“I just want to talk.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I know, you don’t need to say it. Give me the gun,” he repeated, drilling his gaze into Jim’s head like a bullet. “Would you kill me here?”
“Maybe.”
“The cops already think you’re me.”
“Shut up.”
“You’d just look worse. Jim, give me the fucking gun. You can’t do anything with it. You gonna shoot me with no bullets?” He reached over and took the gun. “Thank you.” He set it on his side and pushed himself away from the table with his hands on the edge. Jim spied the chapped pink and white scars of his hands, dusty with sand and dirt, tanned from the sun. He wondered just how long John had been out there for. John, seeing where his companion was staring, flexed his hands. “You like ‘em.”
“What?”
“My hands.” Jim looked away, but John reached over and clutched his face tightly. “It’s okay. Look at them if you want, kid.” The sun became clouded over as they spoke, and the rain lashed violently against the windowpane beside them. “Reminds me of the night we met,” John reminisced, like it was some romantic occasion, some dreamy night a long time ago, rather than the worst night of Jim’s life. He could still remember the pen knife inching towards his eye, or tucked between his legs. The latter especially, he recalled being unable to move, stiff with fear, stiff with arousal. He told himself again and again that it was just some strange psychological reaction to the menace of the situation.
He looked more closely at John’s trenchcoat, seeing the small, dried brown flakes of old blood. “How many?”
“How many… what? How many have I killed? Gutted, stabbed, shot, strangled?” John teased. “Too many.”
“Why?”
“This again? Guess.”
“Stop it, stop. Stop fucking with me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I like the pretty ones.”
Jim paused. “Huh?”
“Nothing better than a pretty young man with that fear in his eyes.”
“You’re sick.”
“I am. I know I am.” John set the bullets on the table. He gently shoves the clatter of metal towards Jim.
“What are you doing?”
“You say I’m sick. Put me out of my misery.”
Jim froze, staring down at the gun and the batch of bullets. He could almost see his reflection in the metal. Once a bright and happy young man, Jim Halsey was now white as a ghost, dirtied up, reeking of sweat and blood, trembling like an old dog, strained brown eyes saucer-wide, bloodshot and fluttering. He half considered using two of the bullets. One for John, to save others from his thirst for blood, and the other for himself, to take himself out of the game too. He never felt as connected to John Ryder as he did in that moment. Both sick, both playing that cat-and-mouse game until both gave up the ghost. He realised that it had to be both. Both or neither. His eyes drifted slowly back up to the older man.
“Go on,” John said, and there was some underlying pleading, some deep-seated desperation underneath that psychopathic, cold gaze.
Jim answered firmly, “No.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer, simply studying John. The older man’s tongue flitted out, licking his dried, pink lips, and Jim, for a moment, imagined their bitter taste. Finally, he was in a higher position. Finally, he had some control over Death.
“I thought you wanted me dead. Felt that way when you threw me out of the car,” John contemplated out loud.
“I thought you wanted me dead,” Jim replied.
“Maybe I do. Would you mind?”
“Not really, anymore.”
“Why don’t you use that gun on yourself? You thought about it.” In times like these, it felt like the two men could see into each other’s minds. Jim just wished the other wasn’t so open about it. “Or do you not want to do it yourself?”
“I can do it myself just fine.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“I’d have to kill you first.”
“So, you don’t want me dead anymore?”
“I do.”
“What’s stopping you?” Jim paused. A beat between the two. Then, he just shrugged. “Have I broken you?”
“No.”
“Not yet, you mean. Do you want me to break you?”
Jim tensed. “No,” he blurted out.
“I’m just putting it out there. I can.” John paused. “What are we going to do?” John seemed almost disappointed, in a way, some part of him having wanted Jim to put a bullet in his head, in his chest, anywhere. To rip him to pieces, to revel in the death and slick, hot blood the way he does. But he still had time.
“I don’t know.” Jim rubs his grimy fingers against his face, rubbing his stinging, sleepless eyes. His life had already slipped away from him, but the longer he spoke to John, the more it felt like he was taking more from him than just his life. He looks across the table. A part of him never wanted to see this creep again; never wanted to look at that wide, Cheshire grin again, never wanted to look into those empty, icy eyes again, never wanted to see those rough, scarred hands that have forced the life out of people again. The other part of him wanted nothing more than those exact things and the desolate American desert around them. Overwhelmed, he simply repeated, “I don’t know.”
John stood up, calmly stepping out of the booth and pocketing the bullets. “Come on.” Jim, with nothing else on his mind besides a slow, dawning realisation that he may not be able to fully return to his old life, and a slow, dawning comfort in such, followed him out of the diner, pocketing the gun.