Let’s Skip ahead to Coffee with Killers

“Hello, my name's Flo, I’ma be your server this morning. The blue plate specials are fried fish with mac and cheese, or a Hot meatloaf sandwich, both with the option of coleslaw, salad or this morning's soup.” The waitress said with barely a breath, Rayner had been coming here for years and to spite a revolving door of owners it’s kept the same staff and almost the same menu.

That was in part why the food remained so consistent, and why he came here with such regularity. 

Why he’d decided on the location for coffee this time around was less explainable.

“So I notice the fish is specifically fried, how’d that become necessary?” went the kid, with a flip of his half mop. He didn’t particularly like the look, not since he walked in with it.

“Well, we actually have a non-fried option now, so it's better to say so for our heart-smart customers,” Flo said with the appropriate gestures, “it’s the same on the salt.”

“Makes you wonder what's in the mac.” 

“You and me both, I’d say the coffee’s the only thing you can trust here,” she joked, the food wasn’t bad but she knew how to sell it, “brewed it myself after all.”

“That’s fair going by smell,” he said, a mite more reasonable than Rayner trusted, “I think I’ll go with the special anyway, though.”

“Alright, I’ll take that down.” she did so quickly, “this mornings- yep -and the usual for you.” she smiled at Rayner.

“Sure.” And she went off with their orders. Rayner looked at Calum for a minute, trying to gauge his intentions; he couldn’t be playing like that.

“What? We can't all be remotely attractive Mexicans, I need to keep my teeth.” the boy said, defending his order, which wasn’t the issue at all.

“Goodness kid, could you play in your own field?” Rayner chastised, it was just bizarre to watch the kid flirt. He read his work, so he didn’t seem the type to make any kind of invitation.

Rayner didn’t like the expressions he made, with a clearer look at the kids eyes he knew where he was looking, he felt like he could see the gears turning, “Oh come on, you’ve got to have more than a decade on me. Besides, she’s much cuter than you.”

“You are not going after-” 

“I might be drop dead gorgeous, but I don’t kill everyone I meet.”

“I Wouldn’t know that.” he said, thinking back to that night, what more he’d seen since then. Kid was still a sick puppy.

“I wouldn’t know that either Woody,” he said, taking out his journal, “Just drink your coffee, old man.” 

“You're really writing now?”

“It’s just the usual. I can’t just write about ‘that’, you know.” 

“So, were any of them fictional?” Rayner asked, in reference to the poetry book. He didn’t know why it bothered him, but it did.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The kid said with a smirk. As Flo came over with their food. The kid had made a point to torture him in public, and Rayner was confused by his reasoning. 

“Yeah right, you don’t have it in you to write that kinda fiction.” he said before realizing his mistake.

“You think so? It’s really not that hard.” the kid said, catching it.

“Hard or not, I’d know it if it were.”

“Oh come on, when's the last time you read anything before my journal?”

“I read the paper everyday.”

“That's not exactly fictional, Kelly.”

“It is sometimes.”

“I’m not touching that,” the kid said, flicking his wrist, “but it’s close enough, there’s a difference between a story you’d rather not believe and one that's actually in whole or in part fictitious.” 

“I still don’t think you got the creativity for fiction.”

“Why don’t we test it? You’ve almost memorized my work, maybe you could spot me some phrases and I’ll tell you how true they were.” 

Somehow, the kid had thrown the bait and pulled him in again. And he wanted to know more, maybe the kid was pulling the wool on at least a few passages.

“Alright, let's see if your head ain’t empty.” he said, taking the challenge. 

There’s a dark character to his smile before he responds, “Food first, or I might stab you again.”

They’d set up a new game for themselves, before digging into their meal. They were done and back on the road within the hour, in due part to Flo’s tried patience.

A long enough patronage at any place would give that kinda rapport, and they weren’t about to bother her for longer than that.

It would be a while on the road before Rayner thought of his delayed game of wits.

“So how about, My tendons were cut, my fat is gone?”

“That ones all true, though the snippet at the end is unproven.” 

“See that’s easy fictionalization, how you think it works. Heaven with virgins and angels, and that.”

“Yeah mostly. It’s the likely thing, but that body wasn’t easy to get.”

“I thought not, you went so far. Cutting tendons like that.” he could only smile at the thought, as off kilter as the kid made him, thinking over what the kid did was always fun. “Makes one wonder what you're into.”

“Hey, you don’t need to be all that untoward to take your time, Kelly.”

“You’d have to be ‘toward’ first kid.”

“You’re serious? Look, we can play like that, but what’s the difference taking the time when it ain’t that? Pleasures, pleasure.”

“Sick is sick, it's still untoward.”

“Come on Kelly, you know what I meant.”

“Same difference if you're killing em’ anyway.” Calum didn’t argue, but with his posture he hardly agreed.

They were mostly quiet after that, the kid didn’t take well to the game even though he’d started it, and Rayner wasn’t sure how to proceed.

The kid opened his book, he apparently wanted to write after that. 

Rayner wasn’t sure what that meant.

It was a wonder how he got any writing done with so many false starts, though it was still fascinating to watch him scribble away.

“Keep your eyes on the road old man,” the kid says, stopping his tell-tale scratch dead between phrases. 

“I try to, but fidgety little kids in the seat next to you can be distracting.” 

“I ain’t that young, Kelly.”

“Yeah you say that, but really, you’re like a little dog aren’t you? Yapping off, about cheesy-” he’s cut off for want of breath, but far be it from him to face silence from the little creep.

“Look, some of us can get it without-”

“What’re you gonna say?”, there’s a threat in his voice, of what he hadn’t decided.

But Calum still heard it, “I see you, Rayner. I fucking see you. You give this tall tale ‘right and good’ the service no one knew they needed but you’re still just some brat aren’t you? You’re still a warped little boy no one wanted to touch.” 

“And you’re any better? You walk like an open invitation, and you still wanna kill over it.”

“That’s it!” he makes for the door, unlocking it. It made no noises beyond the squeak of its hinges and the heavy thump of it’s closure. Calum was lucky he hit the breaks, but it was all still fast enough to make his blood boil. 

“Don’t you dare-” He speaks without thinking, “I’ll run you over.” He says, still just angry about it, what the kid would look like after that. 

What a waste.

“Good to know you need a car between you and me not to be fucking scared Rayner.” he said it, that was the end of it, at least the Kid seemed to mean it that way as he walked off.

He’d have probably thought better of it, if he’d let the moment rest, trouble was, as he watched the kid move calm and careful rather than quick and away. He couldn’t help thinking. It’s a long way to anywhere from here, ain't it? 

They were on a lucky stretch of road anyway, so he stopped his Car, and got out to follow after. It wasn’t his longest strides, but the kid is short so it evens out.

The Kid keeps going to spite this, leading him along like some lovesick child. He wants to be angry about it, but there’s so much he’s missing. He’s more than a liability still, and even if Rayner could solve it right now he just doesn’t want to. 

“Can you stop?” he asks, trying to sound less desporate than he was.

“I went all the way out here to see you. What makes you think I’m scared?”

Rayner had stopped to say it, and while Calum kept his distance he looked back. He thinks for a moment that the kid’ll respond, that is until the kid keeps going like he hadn’t just opened his heart to him.

The Kid looks back and his hair frames his face in a way he likes for once, “I wanted to kill you the minute you let me in your car, and I thought I had it when you couldn’t see past your Maypole.”

"It was a dumb move. You should've gone for the neck if you'd wanted to take me out."

“Shoulda went for the neck. You’re right about that.” he looks down for a minute, then back up at Rayner, “You didn’t kill me, and you didn’t call me in. You’ve all but admitted that you don’t take ‘people’ home.”

Calum looks away from him, but it’s all less urgent, they are speaking again. The fields around them are nice enough but Rayner doesn’t have anything to say about it.

It’s a guilty pleasure that he imagines Calum does. He takes a hold of the younger man’s shoulder, and he sees him shiver beneath his hand.

Calum takes a laughing breath, “Look Rayner, I know you ain’t a good man. You’re nice, but even folks who know you don’t see much.” It doesn’t bother Rayner, how he might know that. But he continues, “It’s fine though, I ain’t good either. But it’ll always feel wrong to me to say that what we do is good. Or that it has to be good for us to do it.” 

“It just seems like a feedback loop, if society barely disagrees with you, where do we come from?”, Calum finishes rhetorically, he doesn’t need anyone else’s answer. It feels like he’s describing the field, just something he sees right in front of him.

“I don’t think it’s right. What I do,” He feels like a liar, but it’s as true as anything.

“That’s nice Rayner,” was the kids first response, before continuing, “You like watching people suffer, I like watching them Rot. I think that should be good enough.”

“Yeah. Why not?”

The Kid just laughed at him, “I know I’m a bit off my Rocker, for all that. It was nice to share though. I don’t think I’ll be catching that ride with you.” 

“That’s probably for the best.”

“Was still a nice date though, I’ll see you again?”

“Alright. Bye.” They parted ways, Rayner to his Car, Calum disappearing from the road a little farther down. Whatever they came to do, they both survived it, and while it felt like a mistake of some calibur, he still wanted to see Calum again.

Despite his own reservations of course.