Archive of Our Own

He didn’t understand it.

“Why would I need to go into witness protection,” he said. “If he’s dead?”

Of course, he was dead. There was no way he could have survived. No way. No way.

After he’d left him to rot in the sand, he’d been carted back to the police station. But it wasn’t them that he was dealing with now. The chief had gotten a call and muttered ominously to a deputy, “there here”. Then Jim had been left him to some bland faced man, who introduced himself with a name so ordinary he instantly forgot it. Said he worked for a higher branch of government, but didn’t specify what it was.

“Of course, he’s dead,” he told him in a mild voice. “Perhaps his friends or family would retaliate against you though, so it’s best you go into the program for your own safety. You understand.”

He didn’t. John Ryder was a lone wolf. The police couldn’t find a shred of information about him, definitely nothing about any friends or family.

Still, he felt so utterly numb from everything that had happened, he allowed himself to go through the motions of getting his name changed and shifted off to another town far away. He felt so drained, empty and lifeless like a mannequin being moved around a store.

He’d been put in a trailer park but it wasn’t too trashy. The area had a nice small-town charm. All lush and green with old folk drinking lemonade on porch swings, completely different to the stinking Texan desert and the grey slick city streets of Chicago. During the week he worked as a farmhand for an elderly couple who lived down the road. During the weekends he’d go around the town and mow lawns and trim hedges. He needed to work, work, work. He couldn’t stop, not for a moment. If he had any time to think then his mind would fall away from the flowery gardens and red brick houses go back to the black glistening highway.

What had he wanted to do with his life before? He could barely remember. He’d liked the idea of helping others, had thought about picking up a trade and becoming a handyman. His brother had helped him get the job delivering cars and he’d liked it enough before the Events had happened. At barely nineteen years old, he was not too concerned with figuring it all out just yet. He could travel around, try different things, find what he liked, what he was suited to. Everything seemed so breezy and relaxed before that fateful trip.

He was on his lunch break, sitting under an apple tree, his back to the trunk, his knees tucked up under his chin as he picked at his baloney sandwich. He wished he could look less of a nervous wreck, eyes twitching around every few seconds as though scared someone was going to jump out at him. A few weeks into living in the town, he’d overheard the couple who owned the farm, Helen and Bill discussing him as he went to take a drink from the garden hose.

“A sweetheart isn’t he that Bunn…Benny Gibbs,” she said with a mixture of fondness and concern in her voice. Jim peered around the side of the house at them on the porch seats, drinking sweet tea, their housecat wrapping around their legs. He’d been assigned the name Benny Gibbs and had gotten the nickname, Bunny already. He didn’t know how he felt about it.

“He’s a bit…special,” Helen whispered to her husband. “Very nice young boy, just…”

“A nutcase,” her husband said voice full of scorn. Helen tutted.

“Now that’s not very polite,” she admonished him.

“Well what else am I supposeds to call ‘im?” said Bill. “I hafta call his name six or seven times before he turns ‘round. I saw ‘im down the general store once, offered him a lift home, he looked like he’d seen a ghost. I’ve never seen a grown man afraid of a damn car before.”

Helen was a picture of concern. It was very typical. Most of the women in town had this air of sympathy whenever they interacted with him. Bunny, to them was an affectionate nickname for this poor damaged kid. Most of the men however, just looked at him with contempt and Bunny to them was an emasculating name full of mockery.

“I feel sorry for him, so easily startled,” she said. “Such a little bunny rabbit.”

“Won’t come and get a beer or watch the game with the fellas,” Bill muttered under his breath.

“Yes, he’s friendly but very unsociable. He’ll never come around for dinner or anything like that,” Helen agreed. “I thought of setting him up with Janey, that young schoolteacher she’s around his age, but he was completely uninterested. Old Alice from down the street thinks he might be one of those…”

She did a limp wrist gesture. Bill wrinkled his nose up with disgust.

“Larry from the butcher’s reckons he might have the shellshock but he looks too young to have been in any war,” the man said.

“Well, I heards you don’t needs to be a soldier to have shellshock, he mighta gotten it from somewhere else.”

Her husband shrugged. They got to talking about Old Alice and her sneaky city slicker relatives bickerin’ and squabblin’ over her will when she weren’t even buried in the ground yet.

Jim had turned off the garden tap and went back to work.

Now, throwing bits of bread to a hen pecking around by the apple tree, he felt his skin crawl. He wasn’t used to small town gossip. In Chicago he would’ve been anonymous no one would have cared about some nervy guy who kept to themselves. But he couldn’t go back to Chicago, not with all the endless cars everywhere. This town was small enough that people didn’t drive often. He heard maybe one car every few hours’ drive by and every time he did, his heart would feel sick and his skin would go clammy.

He didn’t have time to think about what he’d overheard for the rest of the day too busy focusing all his energy on farm work. That evening, he stood in the shower, leaving the bathroom door open so he could see into the rest of the trailer, his pocket knife in his fist as he washed himself with his other hand. He’d showered like that ever since the Events had happened. A small part of his brain that didn’t sound like his own voice, a deadly familiar rasp said; “you’d like it though wouldn’t you, if he appeared again right now, you all bare naked and vulnerable.”

Stamp out the voice, stamp it out, stamp it out.

There was no way he could make friendships in this town. The last time he’d made a bond with someone…he couldn’t think of it. If he got close to people then he’d put a target on their back. He had to keep his distance.

The image of Helen flapping her wrist limply flashed in his mind. People had been saying that about him for years. Been saying it before he was old enough to even know what it meant.

When he was younger, he’d insisted with indignation that he couldn’t be gay, he couldn’t be, didn’t you know Mary-Anne had kissed him in the car and palmed him through his dress pants on Prom night? He’d clumsily rubbed her through her underwear, until she took his wrist and guided it for him, helping him to get her off. He’d found it all sticky, smelly and unpleasant, but still, it was with a girl, not a guy so how could he be gay?

He didn’t like to think of how uncomfortable he’d felt with his hand up her dress and her tongue in his mouth. The boys in his year had once passed a dirty magazine around the locker-room, leering and snickering over the heaving breasts and glistening red flesh. Jim had been ‘the good boy scout,’ for not wanting to look at it. Glancing at it sideways he felt himself flush and his stomach tremble, not at the smooth curves of the women, but the hard muscular men with the obscene cocks hanging between their legs.

Neither he nor Mary-Anne had managed to finish their little encounter together. Mary-Anne had yelped at a sudden furious knocking on the car window. It was Jim’s mother, with curlers in her grey hair, a pack of cigarettes in her dressing gown pocket, cheeks red with outrage.

“Filthy, filthy, absolutely disgusting!” she’d yelled. “You get out of this car right this moment!”

All the boys in his year had found it hilarious, guffawing with approval and giving him claps on the back. Old Lady Halsey had marched across the road in her dressing gown and slippers to the school carpark and sprung Jim and Mary-Anne feeling each other up. What a riot.

His mother didn’t let him out of the house for a fortnight after that.

After finishing up with the shower, he got ready for bed. He always needed some Valium to help him sleep, having lost the ability to drift off normally.

His mind wandered over to his mother. Old Lady Halsey, dead now. He’d felt guilty, at eighteen over his mixed feelings about her passing. Her chain smoking had made her look seventy years old when she was only in her fifties. Had killed her early. He’d been struck by grief of course, but had also felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Now he was free.

It had just been him and his widowed mother growing up, his brother nearly twenty when he’d been born and not very interested in his kid brother, already off living his own life. When his mother was pregnant, his father had gotten into a bar fight and a glass smashed into the side of his neck had hit an artery, leaving him bleeding out on the floor. Most of his childhood was spent with her pouring over photo albums, smoking endless packets of cigarettes. The violent death of her husband had made her smothering and afraid for her baby boy, endless rules and regulations to keep him safe. Don’t leave the house, bad men were everywhere wanting to hurt you.

He hated that she’d been right all along. The second he’d had a taste of freedom a bad man had hurt him. Hurt him beyond repair.

Weren’t there bizarre moments of pleasure though, moments that made him feel a horrid arousal? He didn’t like to think of it. Didn’t like to think of how his heart had quivered when he first saw him, all tall and strong in the dark rainy night. The tiny trembling excitement when he’d grabbed his knee. After he’d revealed his true intentions, he should have just felt terror, right? That’s what any normal person would feel. Why did his skin tingle all over then, at him pushing down on his crotch? Or the diner, spit damp fingers caressing his face, in the interrogation room, when he took Jim’s hands in his own. Or now, how whenever his thoughts drifted to him there was a yearning in his chest almost as if he missed him, wanted to see him again.

He should have just been afraid. He shouldn’t have felt that awful horrible disgusting interest. It was sick. It was goddamned sick. What was wrong with him, to feel that for someone like him?

Don’t think about it. Push it away.

Endless work kept him from memories. Valium kept him from dreaming.

When he’d first looked him over, he was reminded with a detached coldness, of a younger version of himself from so long ago. A naïve little explorer completely unaware of how brutally he was about to be beaten down by the universe.

If he’d just left that thing by the side of the road. If he’d just left it alone.

Why had he been wandering from town to town? He thought maybe he’d wanted to take a year off between school and college to explore the world. Or maybe his parents had pressured him to get a job and he’d run off, scared of being a responsible adult. He couldn’t remember. It was something stupid. It wasn’t supposed to be a very long trip, he was just a reckless kid let loose on the world for the first time. He would’ve come back and resumed living his normal life. If he’d just kept on walking, instead of stopping and asking himself, what was that sound out in the desert?

He’d been wandering down the highway, hoping to hitch a ride with someone soon, when he heard faint pained cries somewhere out in the sand dunes. Curious, he followed the cry until he came across a shrub full of crackly dead twigs. There was a creature limping uselessly before falling to the side. He went over to it.

It was a coyote with an injured leg. Sometimes however the second before he blinked it seemed to take on another shape for a moment. He’d have to shake his head a little to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. It was just an animal, not a shaggy-maned figure with yellow eyes and a mouth full of needle teeth.

“Poor thing,” he’d said as he picked up the animal, cradling its bloody paw. “It’s alright, it’s alright.”

There had to be an animal hospital the next town over. He was just about to pull his water bottle out for it to drink from when he yelped, dropping it to the ground. The creature had sunk its teeth into his hand and then sprung away, no longer limping. He cursed, examining the wound it had left behind.

“Just trying to help!” he called after it good-naturedly. On the horizon it paused and turned, looking back at him. It moved in a strangely human way, its yellow eyes shining, its wide taunting smile stretched across its face.

No. It wasn’t a person looking back at him it was a coyote that’s all. Just an animal. That was all.

He washed the wound off with his water bottle and went back to walking along the highway. It didn’t hurt that bad. It wasn’t serious. He didn’t have to worry about it. He was a kid. Invincible. Didn’t have to worry about anything.

He didn’t remember much about the next week. He’d collapsed at the edge of town, spit rolling down his chin, feeling like his body was on fire. At the edge of his vision, he kept seeing yellow eyes and needle teeth glittering with malevolence. There were snippets of memory, of a candy-striped nurse and a doctor in a white coat tutting sympathetically to each other and saying; “poor guy, barely looks twenty years old.”

“Terrible way to go, rabies.”

“We should contact his family let them say their goodbyes.”

Then there was nothing. Like a deep sleep with no dreams. Shifting on the spot, he felt his muscles ache and his head throb as he opened his gummy eyes, his throat feeling like it was lined with sand. He didn’t feel like his skin was burning up anymore. Just felt a bit sore, like he’d run a few laps of a football field. There was a scream and the sound of someone dropping something before running off, shouting for the doctor. He slowly sat up, blinking with confusion. He was sitting on a gurney, completely naked in a cold grey room.

“I can’t…I can’t…” he heard a horrified whimpering from outside the door. “In the mortuary, in the mortuary….”

There was a face at the viewing window in the door peering inside. The doctor from before who’d been talking about some poor guy with rabies was staring at him all ashen faced and gawping.

“It’s impossible, it’s impossible,” the doctor was saying over and over again. “He was pronounced dead hours ago? How? How?”

They locked him inside the mortuary and he should have just broken the window in the door and escaped, instead of just sitting there like a stunned goldfish. But he hadn’t been broken yet. Still trusted people. No one was going to hurt him. Surely not.

A bland faced man had appeared at the window looking in. The door opened and he walked inside, calmly giving him a folded-up set of clothes.

“What’s happening?” he’d asked with confusion. He’d only gotten silence in response.

After dressing, he was hurried out of the hospital by the blank faced man. It was the middle of the night and he’d been snuck into a car with blacked out windows. He was taken to what looked like a normal building in a normal suburb. Inside, there were people at high tech computers, going through files, whispering to each other as they took notes and shuffled papers. They all had the same peculiar quality of looking completely unremarkable, nothing about them making them stand out in any way. Every room full of plain, average looking people you’d forget about the second they left your eyesight. He wondered if he was at some kind of secret government building, like a branch of the FBI or something.

He was sat in a room and a bland mousy haired woman sat down ahead of him with a tape recorder and a pen and paper. After being made to explain what had happened with the coyote, she looked over into the corner of the room and raised her eyebrows.

Then they led him out down a hallway and he caught excited whispers.

“We haven’t had one of these in a while.”

“The last one got away from us,” said another. “A shame. We were so close to finding the key to immortality.”

It was then, he’d felt, too late, the first slithers of unease in his chest. The whole time he’d been naïve. These were people from the government. Authority. They weren’t going to hurt him. He would be safe.

So very stupid.

It wasn’t just an ordinary building with ordinary people inside. He’d been trapped in hell with demons gleefully torturing him in the name of science and discovery.

They were inventive, these people. They tried so many different ways to kill him, whispering to each other with fascination, scribbling notes as he kept coming back again and again. Cut off his head and he’d lie there lifeless for five minutes before his detached skull would slide back onto his spine, reattaching and he’d sit up, right as rain again. Burnt his body to ashes and bone and after ten minutes, he’d start to reform, pulling himself back together. Dropped from great heights, dismembered and skinned and boiled and burst. Between it all, endless painful injections with syringes, slicing up his body to poke at his insides, trying to figure out the secret to his survival. And he just kept on returning despite it all.

You’d think for a branch of government in charge of keeping secrets of the supernatural away from society, they wouldn’t be sloppy or careless. A knife had been left in his chest and he’d awoken to the handle sticking out of him. His body was on autopilot, barely thinking. Soon, the building was a sea of corpses all punctured eyes and slit throats.

But he found outside the cursed building and back in the real world, all traces of his identity gone. His house burnt down, his few friends and family dead in mysterious circumstances, all records of him having never existed. Of course. They wouldn’t have wanted anyone to go looking for him, ending their fun early and ruining their research.

Reinstating his identity would just set the next batch of them on his tail all over again. No, he had to keep to the shadows, he couldn’t stay in one place too long, had to use a new name. If they found him again… no he couldn’t bear to think of them finding him again.

He’d blocked out the memory of the hellish agony of all the experiments. To remember it would leave him a howling sobbing wreck curled up on the ground. He had to forget it to be able to exist as a person. But he coldly, calmly tucked away all the methods into his mind. Ideas to use on other people.

It had all taught him a lesson that in a way he appreciated. That no good deed goes unpunished. He liked passing that lesson on to the rest of the world. Seeing them all trusting and eager to help, like he’d been so long ago now. They had to be taught. Taught like he had been.

And he was also taught that this was a secret he had to keep to himself. He couldn’t trust anyone not to become curious and want to poke around at him. He didn’t have the strength to go through any more experiments.

There was nothing left for him in this world. No friends, no family, doomed to hide away in the shadows trying not to get caught again life a terrified mouse hiding from a hawk. It was a wretched way to live.

So, he started his own experiments. Maybe there was a limit and one day he’d run out of extra lives. For a while he threw himself off cliffs and slit his wrists in bathtubs but he kept on coming back. He was grasping at straws now, desperately trying to figure out the answer to the puzzle. He got attached to the Greek myth of Charon, who took the dead to the afterlife down the river Styx. How if you didn’t have pennies over your eyes or under your tongue when you were buried, you were doomed to walk the bank of the river for a hundred years.

It was worth giving it a go. He couldn’t exactly glue pennies to his eyes and go about his day, so he started going around with one underneath his tongue. He decided if he were to die, he’d like to take a few rednecks and yuppies with him. Maybe, maybe he’d get lucky this time. He just had to keep trying until it stuck.

You’d think threatening a man’s wife and kids would drive him to kill. No. No one could bear to do it. He thought maybe flirting with some of the men would make them want to beat him to death. But no amount of leering and thigh grabbing would push them to it. They were all just too scared, too goddamn afraid to fight back. Maybe he had an aura of the coyote about him. An unearthly aura something not quite of this world.

If he ever found that fucking thing, he’d wring its neck.

Then he found him. His boy. Jim Halsey.

Of course, he’d tried the old trick with him, leer and grab hoping maybe he’d lash out. But he was interesting. He saw the disgust and fear like most men but there was also a contradictory curiosity and attraction in his face too. At the diner when he’d leaned over to cup his face, he saw how his lips had parted and his eyes fluttered closed, pink dusting his cheeks. The boy was a closet case. The disgust and fear weren’t really aimed at the hitcher more it was aimed at himself for enjoying the attention of another man. If he’d really wanted to, he could have easily sweet-talked him into having a bit of fun in a cheap motel room. But he’d shoved the idea aside as unimportant. This boy was the first to fight back. The first one to hit instead of cower. The first one to not just submissively accept death. This boy could do it. He was the one who could kill him. All he needed was a push or two and he’d do it happily.

After that final gunshot, he’d hoped with everything he had that it would stick.

“It’s impossible, it’s impossible, no one could survive that, we pronounced him dead…!”

The familiar baffled squawking rang in his ears as sighing, he opened his eyes. He’d have to get out of here quick. Before they rang the wrong people, before he was taken away again.

After an easy massacre, he spat the useless penny into his palm chucking it over his shoulder. Complete waste of time. He’d really thought having a goddamn penny in his mouth would help him to fucking die? He must have been out of his mind. Holing himself up in a motel room, he sunk into a dark hole of despair. The thrill of the chase had been a nice distraction. Now he was brought back to the horrible reality of his cruel fate.

When he’d found the coyote, he knew he’d been younger, just a smooth faced young boy. In the chipped mirror he saw the face of a man in his forties. Despite the immortality he was still aging. What happened when he passed a hundred? He’d be a decrepit old sack of skin, just sitting helplessly in a pile of his own waste, unable to die. What would happen if he was still here when the world ended? When the earth burnt up would he remain, floating in the void of space, suffocating, coming back, suffocating and coming back over and over for all eternity? The idea filled him aching dread all the way down to his soul.

He’d really thought Jim Halsey would be the one. Lovely long-legged boy.

He found himself missing him. Missing his dark eyes all wide with terror and lust, the curly hair almost long enough to reach his chin, that lovely smell of sharp acid fear and fresh sweet excitement. He’d been fun to play with. The urge to kill had disappeared, he’d only ever done it for experimental sake, trying to find someone to fight back and end him. Now he knew it’d all been a waste of time he didn’t really have much of a desire for it anymore.

Between killing sprees there wasn’t really much to do. There was still a lingering fear that if he showed up in a big city, he’d be discovered and carted away to another nondescript government building. So, he remained drifting through empty highways and pokey little towns like tumbleweed. All there was to do that kept him from wallowing in dread was to kill, torture and fuck.

He didn’t have anything else to do, might as well go find the boy. Waste some time with him until he figured out his next idea of trying to make death stick.

It was all too easy. In the papers an article appeared about Jim, mentioning he was now under witness protection. It didn’t make sense. None of his murders had showed up in the papers before. He knew his government pals wanted to hush his kill spree up, didn’t want anyone looking into it too closely. And why mention that Jim’s name had changed?

Slipping into the police station had been too simple. Jim’s file was too out in the open, barely hidden away at all. Suspicion gnawed in his chest.

They were using the boy as bait. Making him easy to find. They were counting on him tracking Jim down and then they’d pounce.

Why bother change his name at all then? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to let Jim go so he could find him? No, putting him in witness protection was their way of keeping a better track on Jim. The kid was from Chicago, he was easier to lose in a big city. Jim could decide to pack his bags and leave the country if he wanted. No, witness protection meant Jim had to stay where he was, not leave the little town, and stay just where they wanted him.

For a branch of government, they weren’t very clever.

He could just avoid their trap completely, not go to the town, leave Jim alone. But he felt a certain glee in outsmarting them.

What would they expect him to do? They’d be watching the highways into the town for a string of abandoned cars and mutilated bodies, expecting him to kill his way to the kid. They expected him to just barge straight into Jim’s trailer unaware of the people they had watching the boy like a hawk.

He’d have to pretend to be an ordinary guy to get into town. Hitch rides without killing the drivers be as inconspicuous as he could, not leave a trace of suspicious activity that could set them on his trail.

It was dark when he reached the pleasant little place all lush and green, full of small-town charm. As he slunk carefully to the gravel road that led to the trailer park, he kept to the shadows, watching for parked cars and vans. Nothing. But he didn’t let his guard down. That’s what they were good at, not being noticed.

In the trailer park, he peered through the window of the reception area. There she was, mousy haired bland faced, sitting at the front desk and looking as unremarkable as possible. The same one who’d interviewed him all those years ago. In between filing her nails, she’d flick through her security television, showing grainy images of the gravel road to the park, the park grounds, the front of Jim’s trailer, the inside of it. The boy was curled up in bed with his back to the wall, a knife clenched in his fist. The sight of him made his blood feel hot, his breath tightening. Under her desk he could see a red duress button. No doubt at the first sight of the man she’d press it and set the rest of her government chums on him like slathering dogs.

Climbing through the window and sliding up behind her was easy as pie. It would have been nice to really drag it out, make it as torturous as possible but ah well. He shot an arm around her neck and heard her choke out. She grasped for the duress button and he swung down with his knife. In a flash, her severed fingers dropped to the floor like little pink sausages. She was determined though, kicking out with her feet desperately towards the button. So, he knocked her off the chair and onto the floor, sitting down on her chest and keeping her pinned as she flailed. With one hand he stroked her cheek as he twisted her nail file deep into her ear and into her brain, staring into her eyes as she bled out of every orifice in her face.

After her last death rattle, he got up, playing absent minded with the blood on his fingers. Tapping at the security screen, he set it so it played tapes from the night before. Then he slipped back out the window, making his way towards Jim’s trailer. The window was shut so he wiggled the lock open with his knife, crawling inside. He leaned over his bed, seeing Jim Halsey again for the first time in months.

The boy was curled up in the foetal position, eyelids fluttering with sleep, mouth pursed, eyebrows knitted in a frown. Bad dreams no doubt. Bending over him he gently ghosted his fingertips across his cheek, down his neck and over his side. The boy squirmed in his sleep. Ticklish.  His pouty lips murmured silently and he bent down to hear him better.

“Just a dream,” he whispered. The man chuckled. At the sound, Jim’s dark brown eyes flew open.

There was a strange mixture of fright and relief in his face. He slowly dragged his eyes down his body. Only in an old t-shirt and briefs, his shaking legs all dusted with dark hair. Taking his hands in his, he pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his jacket. Jim didn’t resist as he snapped the cuffs on.

He thought he might have had to drag him out kicking and screaming but he was wrong. Only a hand on the small of the kid’s back and he obediently walked with him out into the trailer park. There was a motorbike leaning against one of the trailers and he paused, undoing one of the cuffs and clicking it around a pole so he wouldn’t run off. Putting a finger to his soft pouty lips he made a hushing sound, grinning at the way it made the boy’s eyes go all liquid dark.

There was nothing to stop him screaming for help, but he kept quiet. Easily he broke into the trailer, stole the motorbike keys and the owner’s wallet off a sideboard. Returning to the boy, he undid the cuffs and walked him over to the motorbike.

Pulling him onto the back of the bike, he redid the cuffs so Jim’s arms were wrapped around him, unable to move unless he pulled his hands over the man’s head.  Jim could easily slide the cuffs up and use them to choke the man to death but he had a feeling he wouldn’t. He felt his knees pressed into his sides and his shivering body against his back as he started up the engine. They drove off into the night together. On a bicycle built for two.

His mind was torn up.

He was the only person he had left, the yearning animal side of him whispered. The logical side yelled whose damn fault is it, that you don’t have anyone? 

There was only one person who had ever stayed. 

But he was a psycho, a madman, who’d put you through hell on earth.

But he didn’t want to be alone.

Alone was better than being with him.

But his hands were so big and strong and his eyes so piercing sharp…

You idiot, idiot, you’re goddamn risking your life for the first man to touch you in your special spot?

You need to wrench yourself sideways, throw them both off the bike and then run.

They’d pulled up next to a dilapidated abandoned church house, surrounded by bramble and weeds. All his energy was put into trying not to cry, the tears quivering at his lashes a second away from spilling down his cheeks. The door was boarded up and John swung his leg back and kicked it down. Then he rode the motorbike inside the building

Inside the church the pews and floor were coated with dust, cobwebs, broken glass and debris, the walls and arched ceiling covered with graffiti. On the back of the bike Jim stared at everything over the floor that could slice his bare feet to ribbons. John came to a stop by the altar. He undid the cuffs, climbed off of the bike, turning around to pull Jim off it as well. He felt numb with cold, shivering all over. He sat him down on a pew and Jim pulled his legs up to avoid the floor, hugging them to his chest.

John was crouched in front of him, staring into his face. Jim didn’t want to look at him. It was like staring at a bright light that would burn him into nothing. His hand caught Jim’s chin, tipping it up and forcing him to meet his electric blue gaze. Jim felt his heart in his throat, his breath tight, the heat in his chest a sharp contrast to the coldness of his skin.

He sent him that smile that was somehow both fond and mocking. Cupping his face, he thumbed away his tears.

Then he began to slowly pull off his jacket, not breaking eye contact. Jim felt like he couldn’t breathe, every point of his skin prickling with that bizarre mix of fear and desire he always felt when he was around him. But John just draped the jacket over him like a blanket and then went over to sit on the altar.

It was like air had been let out of a balloon. God he was stupid expecting John to ravish him. He scoffed to himself. Not expecting, hoping. He brought the jacket in closer to himself, revelling in its comforting warmth.

“Are you gonna kill me?” he whispered. John smile grew wider as he took out a cigarette and lit it.

“No point to that anymore,” he said. Jim watched, the cigarette between his lips, the way he blew the smoke out in lazy languid breaths.

“You were dead,” Jim murmured.

“I was,” John replied. Something happened in his face. A sudden steeliness. Closing up like a safe.

“Why’d you come and find me for?”

He just got a shrug in response.

“You’re good company,” he said.

Jim drifted between sleep and wakefulness, as the man sat at the altar, smoking, eyes moving across the endless graffiti, the smoke trailing up the ceiling. It was pleasantly toasty inside the coat, with a comforting smell of leather and cigarettes and a faint, underlying whiff of petrol and sweat.

Morning birds squawked and grey dawn light poured through the cracks in the ceiling and smashed windows. Still dozing, he felt strong arms sliding under his body, lifting him easily. He was being carried down the aisle and out of the broken door. He felt a bit like John’s favourite toy being lugged around from place to place.

The air hit his face as they went outside and he snuggled more firmly into the jacket to avoid the cold. He was placed on a patch of grass under a tree, soft as a mattress. He fell back into his sleep.

When he woke up, it was late morning. He slowly sat up, looking around and blinking with confusion. Sitting on the church steps was John, staring at him without blinking. Jim shivered at the thought of him watching him sleep. Had John slept at all during the night? He’d never seen him sleep, eat or drink before. Maybe he didn’t need to.

That was crazy. It wasn’t like John was some kind of supernatural creature…right?

He’d been dead? How had he managed to survive the gunshots?

 “Nice sleep?” John asked breaking him out of his thoughts. A pleasant enough question but coming from him it sounded sarcastic. He stood up from the church step and started making his way towards him.

“Yeah,” Jim said, watching him like a snake about to strike. “I’m kinda hungry though.”

“Poor baby,” he replied with a crooked grin. Jim scowled at him but the pet name had made an embarrassing heat flush to his cheeks. John reached down and gave him an affectionate scratch under the chin.

Maybe he wasn’t John’s toy. Maybe he was like a pet dog. Whatever he was, he knew he wasn’t a human. John’s brain didn’t seem to work like that. People were just things to play with and he was unlucky enough to be his favourite.

Jim got to his feet as John started heading off through the trees, the grassy ground sloping upwards into a hill.

“What about the bike?” he said as he did up John’s coat to hide his partial nakedness.

“Nah,” John said casually. “Nice day to walk.”

As he hurried after him, He realized the bike probably would be reported as stolen soon and John didn’t want to be tracked. It was interesting, to see the method to the madness. He’d seemed like such a phantom during the Events, appearing and reappearing out of nowhere. This was how he kept himself hidden.

The twigs, prickly grass and pebbles stuck painfully into his feet as they walked. Over the hill, the ground dipped down into a small valley with a shallow creek at the bottom, mossy wet rocks by the riverbed. Jim stumbled slightly on the incline, gasping a little with pain as a he stepped on a particularly pointy stick. Why couldn’t have John had let him get his shoes the night before?

The older man watched as he did an awkward hopping walk into the creek. The water went up to his calves and felt cool and soothing on his bruised and cut up feet. He sighed with relief. He didn’t want to go back on the grass again. He’d walk here.

John strolled beside him on the riverbed, humming to himself as they travelled down the twisting, turning creek. Dragonflies and mosquitos moved lazily around his wet ankles and the sun was growing stronger above them as morning changed into midday. Jim could feel sweat prickling at his forehead and under his armpits. He wanted to take the coat off for some relief but walking around in his underwear wasn’t the most pleasant of thoughts.

He didn’t have handcuffs on him anymore. He could just run off. What was making him stay? It was pathetic, he told himself fiercely, to follow him around like a love-struck puppy. Where the hell was his sense of self preservation, his survival instinct?  It was so incredibly stupid, to let his guard drop like this. At the moment, John seemed to have lost interest in murder. But at any second he could get that itch again.

In the distance they could see a bunch of kids playing in the creek and some teenagers hanging from trees and from a tyre on a rope attached to a branch. They garnered a few glances but most of them were uninterested. There was a bunch of bikes and backpacks dumped by a walking trail and John headed for it. Climbing out of the creek, Jim hissed a little at the unpleasant feeling of wet dirt between his toes. As casually as anything, John bent down and started going through the bags.

“Really?” Jim said, glancing over his shoulder at the kids in the creek. “Stealing from children?”

John threw him a few sticky melted candy bars.

“You said you were hungry,” he replied.

It was an uncharacteristically nice thing for John to do. They went down the trail and Jim tried to ignore the feeling in his chest, warm and gooey as the chocolate he was wolfing down. Following the trail, they ended up in a quiet neighbourhood street. Jim spotted a clothes donation bin on the sidewalk and hurried towards it.

Opening up the chute he wiggled in head first, finding himself in a dark world of smelly clothes and shoes. He’d never have thought he’d ever have to resort to stealing pants and shoes from charity. Never thought he’d be having a nice stroll through country towns with a murderous serial killer. A serial killer he had a sick infatuation with.

John watched him with an amused smile as he put on a mouldy pair of trainers that were too big and holey pants that were too tight. The shoes squelched unpleasantly at his feet but it was better than walking around in his underwear.

Down a few blocks, they reached the main street of the little town. John stopped, looking over at a general store.

“You reckon they sell cigarettes?” he said as he pulled out a wallet. Jim stared at him with outrage and John raised an eyebrow at him.

“You had money the whole time?” he snapped. “I coulda bought shoes and pants!”

“Yeah, but it was funny seeing you stuck in the bin, wasn’t it?” he replied with a smirk.

They moved towards a men’s clothing store down the street. They found nearly all the stores closed barely any cars or people around at all.

“It must be a Sunday,” Jim said with frustration, peering into the dark window of the clothing store. “These country towns…. everything shuts on Sunday. You’d never see anything like that in Chicago.”

John said nothing. He slunk around to the side of the building where the trash cans and old cigarette butts were. Easily he jumped the fence and Jim followed him, nervously looking over his shoulder, hoping no-one was watching. Walking through knee high weeds and gravel, they went around the building until they found a back door that was bolted shut.

Jim tried to see what John was doing but he was blocking the way.  The motel room during the Events had been locked as well and it had tortured him trying to figure out how the hell John had gotten in. He played around with the door a few moments and then like magic, it swung open. They went into the dark, shadowy building together.

It was full of racks of dress shirts and blazers, boots and hats. John shot straight for the manager’s office in search of cigarettes. Jim went through the jeans section, guilt gnawing at his chest. If he wanted to stay with John, it would mean he’d have to get used to this. Have to turn a blind eye to the break ins and robberies and other petty crime.

After picking out a shirt, fresh underwear, pants and shoes, he wandered over to the change rooms, locking the door behind him. It was kind of stupid, not like there was anyone there but John to see him get naked. He guessed it was just habit.

He was pulling off his pyjama shirt when he paused, thinking he’d heard something. His heart jumped to his throat. There was breathing outside the door.

“John?” he called out with alarm. There was a pause, as though the other man was taking a moment to recognise the name. Then he said;

“Whatya doing in the changing room?”

 It struck him then with a horrible lurch that of course, John Ryder wasn’t even his real name. He really knew absolutely nothing about the man he was travelling with at all.

“Getting changed obviously!” he said, hating how his voice had gone all high pitched.

“Aw,” John said. “Shy are you?”

“No!’ he protested sounding like a petulant teenager.

“C’mon princess, come out and show off your new dress for me,” he leered. Jim felt a shudder wrack through him. Men had been calling him degrading names all his life, princess, sweetheart, angel. All because they felt contempt for his looks. Normally it pissed him off, but from John it felt different. Made all his skin prickle with heat.

He jumped when he heard the door unlocking. His heart was in his throat. John was like a ghost sliding silently into places where he didn’t belong. Jim didn’t know how he did it. Didn’t know how he’d snuck around Nash’s diner without being seen, stealing Jim’s wallet and replacing it with his bloodied knife, sneaking a severed finger in his fries. Didn’t know how he’d gotten into the motel to steal Nash away without anyone noticing like a shadow in the night.

“What’re you doing!’ he half whispered half cried out with shock, covering up his naked crotch with his bunched-up pyjama shirt. John sent him a look that made all the hairs on Jim’s naked body stand on end. Hungry and lascivious, like he wanted to pick every last morsel of meat from his bones. The stall was too small for two six-foot men. John crowded up against him and Jim felt his bare ass touch the mirror. This close he could smell him, old cigarette smoke and sweat. He took Jim’s face in his hands and he was reminded of that moment in the diner, his face so close to his, his fingers trailing over his lips and his eyelids.

“C’mon, like you haven’t wanted this the second I got in your car,” he said with a smile that made his teeth look all jagged and shiny.

All Jim could do was stare up at him helplessly, feeling like he was a rabbit in the path of a hungry coyote.

“Leave if you want,” John said, as though he was daring him. “No-one’s stopping you.”

He wasn’t going to leave. They both knew it. He looked down, swallowing, feeling his Adam’s apple bob. Then he dropped his pyjama shirt to the floor, completely naked to him. John ran his hands down his bare shoulders, stepping in impossibly close. Jim put his hands on his chest, feeling the muscle there.

“Look at you,” John murmured into his ear.

His chest was firm as a brick wall beneath his hand. It was embarrassing, how these interactions with him were the most erotic he’d ever experienced.

“I’m…I’m a virgin…” he said and John sent him that look both gentle and malicious.

“No-one’s ever touched you?” he said voice as soft as butter.

“Just a prom date gave me a hand job….”

“She make you come?” John interrupted. There was a sudden coldness in his voice, in his eyes. He remembered what he’d said when Jim had climbed into the truck with him, Nash’s screams ringing in his head. He’d wondered why on earth John had made his presence known to the cops, given up the game of blaming everything on Jim just to target Nash.

“She’s sweet,” he’d said bitterly. Then when he’d refused to shoot him, the disbelief and then icy fury that took over his face.

“You useless waste.”

Back in the changing room, Jim shook his head wordlessly.

“What a shame.”

He was turned around roughly, almost as if he was punishing him. How dare you ever be with anyone but me? He could see them in the mirror, his own face alternating between wanton and afraid, his lips wet, his cock swollen between his legs. John’s hands on his hipbones, his eyes shining bright and predatory. Jim eyes dropped to the ground, unable to look at himself.

“No,” John spat and grabbed his chin, forcing his head back up. “Watch.”

The sound of him undoing his belt and unzipping was deafeningly loud. Jim was shaking uncontrollably and John laughed into his neck, a tickling vibration against his skin.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not gonna fuck you. Not yet.”

He heard him spit into his hand, coating himself in the saliva.

“Squeeze your legs together,” he said and Jim wordlessly obeyed. He jumped when he felt him, blunt and heavy, pressed at the back of his thighs. John gripped his hips tighter.

“Stay still,” he hissed in his ear. Jim panted open-mouthed as he pushed, pushed and then slipped his cock between his clenched thighs. He could see the glistening head in the mirror, poking out underneath Jim’s straining cock. He started to rock his hips and Jim whimpered helplessly. He didn’t know you could do something like this. It seemed absolutely crazy. His eyes fell closed, the strange tickling feeling in his perineum and underneath his shaft making an aching pleasure surge through his body.

John’s hands swept up his chest, pinching his nipples and Jim gasped.

“Don’t close your fucking eyes,” he said viciously. Jim stared into the mirror, watching his flushed face, pupils blown and spit slick lips, his cock bouncing with John’s thrusts. His hands tugged and pinched and pulled at his nipples until they were angry red and pointed.  He could hear himself, his snuffling little excited breaths, the wet slap of John’s cock between his thighs.

His teeth grazed his neck and Jim couldn’t stop the small shocked sound that left him. Jim was just a sheltered kid, who’d only been taught the bare basics of sex at school, who didn’t even know he could do anything outside the missionary position. This was all so absolutely crazy.

John’s mouth was hot, his teeth sharp, his fingers rough at Jim’s nipples, his cock heated between his legs. It was too much, too much, his entire body tingling with lovely terrible ecstasy. He thrashed, letting out desperate little sounds, grasped wildly for John’s hands.

“John, help me, oh god, I can’t, I can’t….” he babbled feeling like his insides had been liquefied. His thighs clamped like an iron vice down on John’s cock. The man’s teeth sunk in deeper as he sighed into his neck, rocking him back and forth.

The white fluid splattered over the glass and he felt his legs go weak, going limp in the older man’s arms. He heaved for breath open mouthed, mind a deafening static.

“Ssh, ssh,” he said softly, half carrying him to stop him collapsing to the floor. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

If you’d just heard him, maybe he would have sounded gentle but his expression told a different story. Most of the time, John looked like a human. A regular, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed man. But sometimes, something happened to his face where his eyes got too shiny and his smile too wide all full of glistening teeth like some kind of horrible feral animal.

He hated himself for finding it so alluring.

John turned him around to face him. Taking his hand, he stroked his wrist and brought it down to the front of his open jeans. Jim bit back a shuddering sigh, feeling him, hot and slick and pulsing.

“Do it like you do to yourself,” he said. “Go on.”

He hadn’t had a bedroom door growing up his mother having taken it off him. She also timed his showers, screaming about wasted money if he went a second over the limit. He always had to be quick if he wanted to get off.

John watched as Jim took his hand back, wetting his fingers with his tongue all slick with saliva. Then he took his cock, using his fingertips to delicately pull the foreskin back and forth over the dark, shiny head. John’s breathing grew ragged.

“That’s it,” he said, voice a rasp. “Good boy.”

Jim lathed his other palm with spit, reached down and cradled the man’s balls in his hand, feeling their heavy weight. Then he started stroking his shaft, feeling the vein throbbing against his hand, the soft moist sounds filling up the cramped room. He could smell him, smell his arousal mixing with the heady aroma of Jim’s own release. John gripped Jim’s wrist tight, so hard he thought he might break the bones. His head rocked back and without thinking Jim buried his nose into the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent, dark masculine sweat. John’s hand sunk into his hair, fingers digging into his scalp, keeping him in that spot. Jim thought he might suffocate, breathing heavily as he lost all finesse, grasping at the other man’s cock all hard and clumsy.

With a groan, he felt the muscles in John’s stomach go loose as he shot over Jim’s palm and stomach. He trailed his fingers in the mess, mixing it up into Jim’s dark pubic hair. He collected the white viscous liquid and raised it to Jim’s lips. He flinched a little, staring at John with shock as he slipped the dripping fingers into his mouth. John shot him a lazy smile.

Then taking his chin he leant down to kiss him, tasting himself on Jim’s mouth. It was unbelievably, mind-blowingly filthy. He tasted of cigarette smoke and the faint metallic blood from where he'd bitten Jim’s neck. When he pulled away a string of glistening spit broke between them.

“C’mon,” he said, his face all warm with affection. “Let’s get outta here.”

After getting dressed, they left the changing room with the stained mirror and carpet behind.

The main road led out onto a highway and after fifteen minutes of wandering, they found a motel by the roadside. The boy was exhausted from the long day of walking. He went into the shower to rid himself of all the grime. The man opened the door and watched him without the boy noticing. He was scrubbing at the bottoms of his feet, trying to get rid of the caked in dirt. He quietly closed the door again. Jim wandered out and then fell into bed, asleep the second his pretty head hit the pillow. He slid into the bed beside him, resting a hand on his hip, stroking the skin there.

He couldn’t help but like the kid. So many men he’d met on the highways over the years pretended to be tough but crumpled like tissue paper as soon as he got the knife out. Jim was the opposite. He looked soft but he had this inner core as strong as rock. He was a rubber ball. Always bouncing back no matter how hard you threw him down.

Lovely boy even when he was asleep. Slightly pursed lips, brow furrowed like he was working out equations in his dreams. It was fascinating the contrast between his soft and rough traits, a sweet pretty face and tough calloused hands, puppy fat in his belly and thighs against lean firm muscle in his chest and limbs. He wondered if a subconscious part of him targeted Jim cause he wanted to corrupt his innocence, make him dark and twisted. Like what he’d gone through himself. But he just wouldn’t break. Despite everything, he was still a precious thing looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

In his sleep, the boy squirmed closer and closer until his head was tucked into the man’s chest, clutching at his shirt, legs thrown around his waist. He brushed the long hair curling at the nape of his neck and watched him breathe until the sun came up.

He’d have liked to have gone at the crack of dawn but it was almost hypnotising watching him sleep. When his thickly lashed eyes finally fluttered open, it was almost midday. That intoxicating mix of fear and attraction shifted across his face. When he affectionately touched his cheek, he flushed, all shy, not able to meet the man’s burning gaze.

They went outside and the man paused by the door to the motel room, getting out a cigarette.

“Can I have one?” Jim asked by his side as he lit up. He breathed the smoke in deep into his lungs. Then he reached over, taking him by the collar of his shirt and tugging him forward. He pressed their lips together and slowly started to exhale, filling up the boy’s mouth with smoke. Jim was shivering against him, sucking fumes down greedily.

“John…” he breathed huskily against his mouth.

John? John. He must’ve plucked the name out of thin air when they’d first met. Now the boy had gotten himself attached to it

What was his real name before it’d been wiped from existence? He could barely remember. He’d been anonymous for so long, only really thinking of himself as a hitcher, a man, a whatever. Should he be sad that his true name had faded from his memory? Probably.

Jim was starving, had gone to bed the day before with only some melted candy bars in his stomach. The man had given him the stolen wallet watching the boy duck into a gas station as he waited outside. Jim could easily tell someone that he’d been kidnapped by a murderous hitcher, but he didn’t think he would. He watched the boy exit the little gas station, go over to him and hand him back the wallet, pressing a packet of beef jerky into his hands. The man stared down at it.

“You must be hungry too?” Jim said, eyes wide with concern.

Wordlessly he ripped the packet open and tore a chunk of meat off with his teeth.

They began wandering down the roadside together. John seemed to have no end goal in mind. Just wanted to see where his feet took him, have a bit of fun with his new plaything until he got bored.

Jim wasn’t used to walking as much as he was.

“Can’t keep up with an old man?” he grinned over his shoulder at Jim who was lagging behind. He glared back at him.

Moving away from the highway, they found themselves trekking through a forested area. It was another lovely day to walk, shining sun, smell of wildflowers and tree sap on the air, the sound of chipmunks and sparrows chirping and rustling about and a river roaring in the far distance, their feet crunching over pinecones and fallen leaves.

Jim wanted to enjoy it but every step he took a sharp pain shot up from the ball of his foot through his leg. At first, he thought he just a city kid not used to walking through the country as much. His muscles were just a bit worn out that was all. But then he remembered. The night before as he’d scrubbed his feet in the shower, he’d seen a scar on the sole, that he hadn’t paid too much attention to.

John suddenly came to a stop. He’d seemed to have spotted something in the distance. Putting a hand over his eyes against the glare of the sun, he stared off into the forest all narrow faced and cunning.

The pain was getting worse a white-hot heat at his ankle that radiated all the way to his knee. Jim let out a pained groan coming to a stop. He sat down on a nearby rock and pulled off his shoe, grasping at his foot. John turned to look down at him.

“I think I stepped on something yesterday,” he said. “I’ve got this gash on my foot.”

John walked over and went down on his haunches by his feet. Jim looked at him uncertainly as he took his ankle in his hands, pulling off his sock. The scar looked nastier now, leaking red at the ball of his foot, the skin around it puffy pink and inflamed. An unpleasant thought niggled in his mind. If it got worse, he’d have to go to the emergency room where people would start asking questions. Sooner or later the gig would be up and he’d be found out. Then back to witness protection. Away from John.

“We might have to cut it off,” the man said, stroking his fingers up and over his fuzzy ankle. It was ticklish and Jim tried to wriggle away from his probing digits. It just made him hold on tighter and he brought his foot up, pressing a hot wet kiss to the heel. Jim flinched.

“Gross,” he said under his breath, jerking his foot away out of his hand. John’s eyes crinkled with amusement as he rose to his feet. Rolling his shoulders, he started heading through the underbrush away from Jim.

 “Where’re you going?” he said, still sitting on the rock. He could feel his shoulders bunching up, his body tense with barely subdued anxiety.

“Gotta take a piss,” he said nonchalantly. His footsteps faded away through the forest. Jim remembered the man coming to a stop and peering up at something, just before. What had he been looking at?

Staring through the trees, it took him awhile to spot it. The afternoon sun was glinting off a roof top a few yards away. Nestled on top of a hill, he could see the outline of a house barely hidden from view.

Jim sat on the uncomfortable rock, nearly choking on the lump in his throat. He felt like his mouth was full of sand and his blood had been replaced with ants. John was heading for that house. He knew it.

Had he gotten that itch back? He’d lasted a day without hurting anyone, just picking locks and stealing candy bars. Maybe a day was his limit before he just had to rip and tear like an addict getting their fix.

Jim got to his shaky feet. He had to stop him. Just because they had this weird thing between them didn’t mean he should just flush his morals down the drain.

Stuffing his foot back into its shoe without even bothering to tie it, he broke into a limping run through the bushes. Thin branches whipped at his face and each step made a fresh thrum of agony shoot up his leg. In the distance, he could see the shine of a back fence.

Then with a gasp, he tripped over his unlaced shoe and crashed into a patch of prickly grass. He sat up, gritting his teeth and looking at his jeans torn and his grazed knee, his bloody hands that had broken the fall. He was such a city slicker. Just a few days exploring the countryside had left him bruised, battered and bleeding.

There was a badly muffled laugh from somewhere nearby. Jim looked around, barely even shocked anymore to find him leaning against a tree, the corners of his mouth tipped up. Of course, he just appeared and disappeared out of nowhere. He should be used to it by now.

Jim stood up, brushing the grit off his knees and palms. For a moment he doubted himself, wondered if he’d jumped to conclusions thinking that John had gone off to kill everyone in the house. Jim had run after him so fast John would’ve had to have acted at supernatural speeds to break into the house, murder the owners, leave and then find a tree to lean on in all the time it took Jim to chase him.

John looked over his shoulder at the gate that led to the house. A hedge hid most of the building from view.

“Though we might break in,” he said casually. “They might have a couple of band aids for your boo-boos, honey. Unless you want me to kiss it better.”

“Very funny,” Jim snapped back.

They went over, Jim limping worse than before and John reached over the gate to unlatch it. Behind the high hedge was a stretch of beautiful garden, with palm trees, an outdoor sitting area, a large swimming pool and a mosaic path that led to a big glass sliding door.

Jim felt slightly lulled but didn’t know whether to trust this feeling yet. It seemed like John had left the owners here untouched, but he just couldn’t be certain.

He was again struck by John’s method of sneaking around. He did it so easily like it was second nature for him. They stuck to the perimeter of the yard, avoiding going down the main path. He took up a feather light tread so his shoes didn’t make a sound and he made his breathing go soft so you’d have to prick your ears up to hear him. He moved with the shadows, not letting the light of the sun shine down on him. It was almost like watching an artist dance across a stage, careful and deliberate, so well-practiced he made it look almost easy.

Again, his body shielded the way so he couldn’t see how he undid the locked back door. When he slid it open, he beckoned the boy inside. The house was dark and quiet. They’d found themselves in an open-plan room, the kitchen, dining area and living room all combined. It looked modern, white walls and floor, abstract art and sculptures and expensive furniture. The unease slowly trickled back into Jim’s heart. There didn’t seem to be a sign of life around.

“I reckon it’s a holiday home,” John said, peering around the place. “Some rich fucks leave it empty all year ‘cept for summer.”

He was lying, he had to be, he’d done something to the owners, he knew it. It sounded impossible though. John had only left him at the rock for a minute or so. There was no way he’d have the time to do any damage. Right?

The man slipped a hand onto the small of Jim’s back. He led him to the sofa and laid him down on it, propping the boy’s legs up so they hung over the armrest.

“Stay right there,” he said, before slipping away again. When he returned, he had a first aid kit. Soon he was bent down, attending to his injured foot and scraped knee. Again, it was uncharacteristically nice of him. Jim felt that warmth in his chest that overtook the sting of the antiseptic.

“Gimme your hands,” John said and Jim obeyed, letting the man take his wrists. It reminded him of back in the interrogation room. John taking his hands and then leaning up as Jim leaned down, the police staring in shock around them. For a second before he spat in his face Jim thought; “God, does he think I’m gonna kiss him?”

He watched John’s broad strong hands working on cleaning his grazes and bandaging them up. He reached over, tucked a curl of dark hair behind Jim’s ear.

Then he gave him a pat on the cheek, before standing. He disappeared into the house, leaving Jim on the sofa. The warm feeling was shot through with something bitter, like fruit going mouldy. What was he doing? Cleaning up a bloody mess he’d left behind? Chopping bodies into tiny pieces to bundle up in a trash bag?

He was just considering getting up and investigating when he appeared at the doorway again. Jim gawked. The man was only in boxers, a towel over his shoulder.

“I’m going for a swim,” he said with that half smile.

Jesus, God. He was struck dumb by his body, all tanned skin, blond hair dusting over thick broad muscle. John always looked strong but he was normally hidden away in his bulky coat.  Jim ducked his head down, feeling a wave of shyness go through him. He was reminded of when they’d first met, captivated by the stranger’s mouth for a moment before bursting into nervous laughter.

“I never learnt,” Jim admitted, swallowing down the saliva that had flooded into his mouth. His mother was convinced he’d drown so he just stayed with the toddlers in the shallow end of swimming pools. John shrugged and went out the sliding door.

Jim got to his shaky feet. His scrapes and cuts still ached, but he had to look. He started creeping around the house. It didn’t look particularly lived in, the beds fastidiously made, not a handtowel out of place or toothpaste spit in the basin. What you’d expect from a holiday house. But the wardrobe was full of clothes, tidily folded underwear, hangers of shirts and blouses. The kitchen fridge and pantry were stocked with food. Why the hell would a holiday home that was empty all year have milk in the fridge?

He imagined what John would say if he confronted him.

“Maybe it’s a weekender and they’ll be here on Friday?” he’d answer with a shrug. “I didn’t say it was definitely a holiday house, did I?”

Jim stared out the window where John was swimming laps in the pool. The man didn’t seem keen to leave. Why didn’t he seem to care at all about the owners showing up?

His mind was all torn again. It’s obvious he’s lying, he probably has the house owners stuffed under the floorboards, beginning to rot. But how could he do it? It was impossible for him to be that fast? But hadn’t he done impossible things before? Shooting the helicopter down? And Nash, remember Nash? He’d barely been in the shower long enough, how had he busted in, tied her up and alerted the cops in that tiny time frame? But admitting he’d killed the homeowners was too frightening a thought. It was like admitting he was sharing a house and a bed with something inhuman, not of this world.

Afternoon turned to evening. John left the pool, showered with the bathroom door wide open, almost like he was inviting him to join. Jim didn’t know if he had the courage to do that yet.

For dinner Jim poured himself a big bowl of Frosted Flakes and John drank an expensive wine straight out of the bottle. He watched him eat, eyes not moving away for a moment. Always, always watching, watching him sleep, watching him eat watching him do everything. It made his skin crawl and his heart flutter. Would he ever get used to the mixed feelings of revulsion and lust over John?

He didn’t think he would.

This was probably the best idea he’d had in a long time. A luxurious house to stay in and a pretty young boy to play with. Finally, a bit of good fortune. He’d savour every last minute of it until Lady Luck turned on him again.

He tried to remember what he’d been going to college for all those years ago. He knew he was taking a gap year before going back to school but he didn’t know what for. He wondered if he’d wanted to be a teacher. It gave him a kind of thrill, teaching the boy, seeing him learn from him. It didn’t matter if it was teaching him how to shoot a gun or how to kiss properly. Jim was a cautious student, needed encouragement and gentle careful coaching.

In the bed together, the sheets soft and silky, higher quality then any crappy motel room, he lay by the boy’s side. Letting him curiously touch the man’s chest, feeling his muscles, the knife scars and bullet wounds. He had no idea that every last one of those long-healed injuries had been lethal. He petted the blond hair at his stomach, looking with wide eyes and a wet red mouth. A mouth begging to be kissed.

Leaning over, he did just that, pressing their lips together. When Jim felt his teeth catch at his bottom lip, he jolted with surprise in his arms. He laughed all low into his mouth and then slid over to lick down his cheek and over the line of his jaw. Jim made a quiet, uncertain sound, as though trying to decide if he liked it or not.

 “You can kiss me back, y’know,” he said. Jim tended to just lay there when he was kissed, not doing a thing back. He probably didn’t know how. He seemed to have been heavily sheltered.

“I thought I was?” Jim murmured, twisting against him with embarrassment. Gently, he took his face in his hands.

“Press your mouth back against mine,” he said, pulling him in. Jim obeyed, awkwardly pushing his lips forward.

“Now put out your tongue,” he instructed. He felt the hot wet muscle prodding against his own, as the sloppy smacking sounds filled the room. He was a smart kid. Learned quickly.

“That’s good,” he said and Jim thrummed happily in his arms at the encouragement.

It was so endearing how innocent he was. They’d found a bottle of lube in the bathroom and he’d instructed Jim to jerk off in front of him with a lubricated hand. The thought of masturbating in front of another person was the kinkiest thing in the whole wide world to the boy. If he had any idea the endless other things they could do it might make his mind implode. All this gentle coaxing was out of character for him. He’d rather drag the boy to a dingy warehouse, string him up in chains, gag him with his own underwear and mark him up with burning cigarettes and his knife. Maybe hang his head off the edge of a workbench and fuck his mouth until his face was dripping with spit and come.

Jim was a skittish little thing though. If he kissed him too roughly, he shrunk up in his arms, shaking with nerves. He reckoned if he even tried to do something as simple as pulling his hair he’d bolt away. He’d already chased and caught him he wasn’t interested in doing it again.

He’d work him up to the more fun stuff over time. It was nice to savour his innocence for now. Jim was sweet. His favourite thing was cuddling, burying himself into his chest like a rabbit into its den. He liked it when he played with his hair, when he kissed him feather light, just the slightest swipe of a tongue against his own.

Still, he liked being more vulgar to make him squirm like a pretty girl with a dirty old man’s hand up her skirt.

“C’mon,” he said, mouthing down over the bulge of his Adam’s apple. “When’re you gonna give me your cherry?”

“Don’t,” he murmured back, face flushed and embarrassed.

“Precious princess,” he teased, pulling up his shirt to lap at the stiff peak of his nipple. Perhaps some people would expect him to be the type to just forcibly take what he wanted. He’d never been that type of psychopath though.

“It’s stupid,” Jim murmured. “People at school always said….said the hole was as big as a pierced ear and if you shoved a….a dick inside it would tear it apart and there’d be blood and dangling skin everywhere and it would hurt…

“No, no,” he drawled. “People who just shove it in don’t know what they’re doing. That’s the amateur way of fucking.”

He settled down between Jim’s legs, a hand at his knees parting them open.

“We’ll get you nice and wet and ready for me baby, don’t you worry,” he said, stroking his fingers over his inner thigh, closer and closer to his crotch. “Take it inch by inch.”

His hand slipped up to rest on Jim’s belly.

 “You’re gonna feel me right inside here,” he said, voice a dark growl. “I’ll make you come on my cock so sweet.”

Watching his face, the kid still looked more afraid then interested. His cheeks were all flushed and there was a curiosity in his dark eyes but his arms were all curled up to his chest defensively, his breath a nervous quiver.

“It’s okay,” he said trying to sound soothing. He knew it only half worked the words sounded sweet but they were still dripping with feral hunger. Dipping a hand between his knees, he opened them wider, pushing his face into the boy’s crotch. He mouthed at his underwear, tasting his cock through the fabric. Jim reached down, clutched at his shoulders, making a delicious little moan. Pulling the briefs down, his cock sprung out, curving against the dark trail of hair on his belly. He had a nice one, uncut, not very thick, but a bit longer than average and his balls were taut and firm.

Remembering what he’d done in the changing room, he slicked two fingers in his mouth and played with the boy’s foreskin, sliding it up and down over the shiny wet tip of his cock. Jim thrashed, his moaning picking up pitch. John pressed his mouth to the delicate flesh of his thighs.

He lapped at his sweat damp hairy skin, smelling him, nice and ripe as he nosed towards his pale pink hole, tiny and tight and trembling. The sound he made when he put his tongue there was a lovely mix of confusion, shock and pleasure.

“Wh-wh-what…?” he said and John shushed him. He slathered his hole with saliva, tonguing over and over it with long wet strokes. He took a firmer hold of the boy’s cock. Jim’s legs were shaking and he was breathing harshly, intrigued yet afraid.

“Taste so sweet,” he said. “Could spend the whole night right here…”

Jim squirmed.

“No-one’s ever done this to me,” he said and his voice was so vulnerable. It was so wonderfully wrong. He should have been lovingly deflowered by a college boyfriend in white sheets sprinkled with rose petals, not roughly taken by a sadistic old hitcher who liked slicing throats for fun. The depravity of it was delicious, making his blood burn hot and boiling.

When he pressed the point of his tongue at the tight ring, starting to push inside, Jim’s knees clamped at either side of his head. Trapping him there.

“John!” he cried out. He still wasn’t very used to the name yet. But it was getting more familiar. Maybe if he spent enough time with the boy, he would start feeling like it actually belonged to him.

He pushed and pushed with his tongue against the little untouched hole that was clenching up tight. He swiped his thumb over his cockhead, feeling the pre fluid slide over his knuckle to the webs of his fingers. His tongue just managed to slightly breach the rim, slipping into his body and Jim let out a whine. He was half shrinking away, half rocking down on him, unsure whether he was enjoying the strange new sensation or not.

He swirled his tongue inside him, tasting him, probing deeper. He could feel his pre-come leaking all over his hand. But he couldn’t reach that spot he wanted to. Not with his tongue anyway. Had Jim ever been touched there? Did he even know he could?

Pulling away he saw the glistening spit at his winking hole. He groaned at the sight of it, grasping at his own cock. God, he wished he could shove himself in, fuck the boy raw. But he knew it would taste all the sweeter if he waited. Sliding his cum slick finger over the fluttering entrance, he pressed inside, the muscles in Jim’s belly jumping wildly. The boy was watching the finger disappear inside him, mouth open, eyes slightly damp. Jim was so tight on him he thought he’d break his finger in his ass.

He pressed his mouth to his balls, twisting his finger until it touched the prostate, chuckling when it made Jim come undone at once. His cock shot off like a gun, drenching his stomach and chest with semen. He kept lightly stroking his sweet spot, milking every last drop of come from his cock and Jim shook, overstimulated and overwhelmed.

Kneeling over him, he made sure his finger was keeping Jim’s hole open enough. Then he aimed his cock at his hole and stroked himself until the pleasure burnt like wildfire through his body. His come spilled into him and Jim lay there and took it. The little red bud looked gooey with saliva and semen. Lying down beside him, he continued teasingw his hole, transfixed by the fluid spurting out of him, cupping it up and slipping it back inside, fingering the wet ring of muscle. Jim made an uncomfortable noise, his cock nestled limply in its thatch of dark hair.

He played with his lovely ass for what felt like hours, Jim clutching at his wrist and whimpering helplessly, his cock twitching, his eyelids heavy.

Yes. It was one of the best ideas he’d ever had.

No-one showed up at the house on Friday. Not a weekender then. An idea came to him one morning, his head resting on John’s firm chest, the man playing with his hair, the sheets a sticky mess beneath them.

“I might go take out the trash,” he said pulling away from his inviting embrace. John sent him a quizzical look, his eyebrow quirked.

“What?” Jim said defensively. “I don’t wanna get rats or anything okay?”

As he got out of bed, John reached over to pinch his ass. Jim jumped, sending him a scowl over his shoulder, getting a toothy grin in return. He pulled on his shirt and jeans, feeling John’s gaze burning into his body. Then he went down the corridor into the kitchen. The trash was full of the contents of ashtrays, wine bottles, an empty Capt-n Crunch box and a burnt frypan from where Jim had tried and failed to cook bacon and eggs a few days before. The once pristine house was getting grubbier by the day, the sink full of cereal bowls and spoons, cigarette burns on the white couch, all the surfaces and floors covered in a fine layer of grit.

Like rock stars trashing a hotel room.

Outside he followed another mosaic path to the curb. The house was situated on a gravel road with no neighbours in sight, surrounded by forest. Completely isolated.

He was surprised he hadn’t thought of it sooner. There’d be no reason to send letters to a holiday house, right? He was just about to open the letter-box to investigate when he heard someone cry out and beep their horn from the end of the road.

“Bunny! Bunny!”

He nearly jumped out of his skin. A truck was rolling up to him and he saw behind the wheel, the scowling face of Bill, with Helen hanging out the passenger window, her mouth hanging open with shock.

Jim just stared at them, stunned. The truck came to a stop beside him.

“So, this is where you’ve ended up, Bunny!” Helen exclaimed. “You had us all so worried, disappearing like that!”

“What kinda man runs off on the job?” Bill muttered under his breath. Helen tutted disapprovingly at her husband.

 “Our daughter Nancy and her family live about twenty minutes up the road from here,” she said. “Are you working for the Normans now? They’re a nice young couple, just moved in here a little while ago.”

The Normans? Probably at the bottom of the river in different pieces now. Holiday home, sure thing. He’d wanted to believe it.

Helen peered over his shoulder and her eyebrows shot up with surprise. Jim looked around. Standing in the doorway nearly hidden in the shadows was John, smoking a cigarette, only in his boxers, fixing the couple with his icy cold stare.

Bill’s face coiled up with disgust.

“I knew you were a fag the second I saw you,” he sneered at Jim.

“I didn’t know…the Norman’s were that kind of people,” Helen muttered to herself with shock. “They looked like such a nice normal couple, I wouldn’t have ever of thought…are you swingers or something? My goodness.”

“I don’t want a bunch of orgy having freaks near our Nancy,” Bill hissed to his wife and she shushed him. She reached out and took Jim’s hand in her own. Her wedding band was cold against his skin.

 “I know people in the church, they can set you right,” Helen said soothingly. “We can get you some therapy, help you with these behaviours.”

He took a step back, letting the woman’s hand slip from his own. Hurrying down the drive, he heard Bill shout after him;

“You better leave my daughter alone, y’hear?”

Slamming the door shut behind him he reached over and drew the blinds firmly closed.

Damn him, he’d told himself never to get attached to people again. He couldn’t help but like Helen though, with her sympathetic looks and offers of Sunday dinner.

John cracked the blinds, fixing the truck with his electric blue gaze, cold as the artic, hard as steel. His mouth was a thin harsh line, his face like a death mask. Jim reached over and slid his hand into his. Maybe it was infantile of him but he liked holding John’s hand. It was strong and the skin was rough and he just found it comforting. John’s vicious expression lessoned just slightly almost but not quite becoming soft. 

“This isn’t a holiday house,” Jim said. “What did you do with the people who lived here? The Norman’s?”

His mouth tipped up, a sardonic gleam in his eye.

“What?” he said. “Who’re the Norman’s, Bunny?”

Jim slipped his hand free. Then he padded away from him. In the bathroom he filled up the bath with bubbly hot water and sat in it until his skin was pruny. Could he just sit by and put up with the chaos, the violence, the murder? Was he the type of person to just turn a blind eye to everything John did as long as the man came to bed with him afterwards? Goddamn he didn’t want to think anymore. He wished he could just force his mind to be empty instead of filled to the brim with anxiety.

He went back to bed, exhausted despite having done nothing all day. The stress of it everything was wearing him down.

When he opened his eyes again the sun was dipping down in the sky, turning the room a mix of maroon and magenta. He’d thought he’d heard something but he didn’t know if it was his dream or reality. It was like something calling out. Coming from outside the window.

Getting to his feet, he went over, his socks not making a sound against the soft carpet. The lovely garden, with the grass getting taller, the plants looking slightly untamed, the mosaic path that led to the closed gate in the hedge that would take one to the forest.

He admired for a moment how the sunset made the pool look a dark red. Then he frowned. There seemed to be something floating in the water. He walked out of the bedroom and down the corridor. There was a sick tight feeling in his chest and throat. The air seemed to be thrumming with something dark and deadly. It was like sticky viscous poison, almost making him choke. He was just about to reach the end of the hall when John stepped into his path blocking his way, still only in his boxers.

“Don’t,” he said, putting a hand to Jim’s chest. “Go back to bed.”

Jim looked down at the hand on his white undershirt. It was covered with drying blood, leaving a handprint stain. He slowly looked over the man, a huge thick line of red gore smeared down his face and naked chest, splattered over his hands and sinewy arms.

He remembered the sound that had woken him up, the one he wasn’t sure was a dream.

“Helen! Oh god! Somebody help us!”

Jim put a hand on his bare torso, feeling the sticky coagulating blood.

“Why’d you kill them?” he said, hating his tiny squeak of a voice. John’s bloody hands slipped down to his hipbones, leaving fresh red stains there.

 “They were rude to you,” he said simply.

There it was that horrible fluttering heat in his chest and in his belly. God he was sick. Too much time with John was warping his mind. He didn’t actually think this was…romantic? John was moving close, close to him, until their bodies were pressed together.

“C’mere,” he murmured, hungry and dangerous.

Jim buried his face into the strong line of his neck, inhaling the thick scent of coppery blood and dank sweat.

“I want it,” he breathed desperately. “I want it.”

“I’ll give it to you,” John hissed back. “Make you take it.”

He guided him backwards down the corridor and towards the bedroom. He was too strong to resist even if Jim wanted to, his hands unyielding at his hips. Across the bed, they pulled at Jim’s clothes, John making encouraging sounds. As soon as his chest was bared, John slicked his thumb in his mouth, pushed it to the hard nubs of his nipples. It made Jim arch, nearly off the bed.

“That’s it,” he murmured as he thumbed them until they ached. “There you go.”

He pulled his cock out of his boxers, thick and hard and heavy. Then his hand sunk into the dark curls of Jim’s hair.

“Get it nice and wet,” he instructed, pushing Jim’s head down to his crotch. He felt it smack his cheek and the rich scent flooded his nose, making his mouth fill with saliva. Normally John did this to him, not the other way around and he tried to mimic his method. Shoving the entire head and shaft all the way down his throat, gagging and pulling away, spluttering spit down his chin.

John laughed, fondly touching his cheek.

“Take it slow princess,” he said. “We have all night.”

Breathing in hard, he took a hold of the shaft, slipping his lips over the head. Swirled his tongue over the underside, feeling the vein there. Tasting him, musky and masculine. Saliva was pooling down and soaking the blond hair, darkening the skin.

John’s breath was heavy as he slid his hand through Jim’s hair. Taking a firmer grip of his head he started to rock his hips up, his cock sliding in and out of his throat. Jim tried to pull away, choking on it, but John held tighter. Thick drool coated his shaft, wetting his balls.

“Look at me,” he rasped. Jim fluttered his eyes towards him, the sweat and blood a slimy mix over his face. He touched his cheek again, feeling the bulge of his cock through the skin. Grasping his head, he pushed all the way in until Jim’s nose brushed his blonde pubic hair, his balls pressed into his chin.

Feeling it all the way in the back of his throat, he pushed his hand down to his own cock, grabbing at himself. He moaned, gulping uselessly around the hard flesh. When John’s hold relaxed, Jim pulled away, coughing, tears streaming down his cheeks. A thick line of spit stretched from the tip of John’s cock to Jim’s mouth.

John pressed a hand to his chest, coaxing him to lie down across the mattress. He wedged his knee between his thighs and Jim opened his legs wider. Lying down on top of him, he ached beneath his heavy muscular frame.

The man pushed his mouth hungrily to his neck, teeth grazing the skin. He started moving down his body, mouthing and kissing and biting down over his collarbone, chest and stomach. Jim whimpered, gripping at his blond hair, the heat burning through his skin. John pressed a wet kiss to his perineum, tongue tasting the delicate flesh.

Jim moaned. He didn’t know he could be kissed there. He only knew about sex through schoolyard whispers. John seemed so effortlessly knowledgeable. It made him feel all the more naïve and virginal.

John reached over him to the bedside table where the bottle of lube was. He squeezed the liquid into his hand, pressing his damp fingers inside him. It felt uncomfortable, strange. He hoped he’d find that sweet spot soon, the spot that made fire burst through his body.

John fisted himself, his cock soggy with saliva and lube. Getting down between Jim’s legs, he spread his cheeks, fingertip sliding over his hole. He spat on it, spreading it with the lube until Jim felt slippery and open.

He teased his insides with his fingers before sinking down to the knuckle, popping sloppily in and out of him. Jim felt his stomach twist and he made a tiny uncertain sound. John rested his hand, large and steadying over his belly. His fingertips made the lightest little soothing circles, playing with the dark hair that started at his navel. He felt his fingers slip out, felt the spongy head of his cock press against him. Jim’s breathing shortened and John’s hand found his own, a steadying grounding grip.

It squelched inside him and he clutched at his hands, sucking in breath. He felt the rim of his hole stretch to take in his girth, felt his inner walls clinging to the length of his cock.

His body instinctively tried to expel the intruder, a pained pressure at his lower belly. He let out a broken sob. John’s mouth was on his, kissing away the cries, going up to his eyes to taste the tears at his lashes. His cock was forced back out and John bared his teeth.

Cradling his face in his hands, he played with his lower lip and Jim tasted the sharp metallic blood on his fingertips. When he cringed at the taste John smiled and slipped his blood-soaked fingers deeper into his mouth so he could taste every last drop. Jim felt it sliding thick and coagulated down his throat and he gagged.

“Yeah, spit up baby, soak my hand go on,” he grunted, voice thick with lust. Jim slobbered over his fingers and John reached down, slathering it over himself. He poured more of the lube over Jim’s clenched hole.

They tried again, pushing, pushing in. Jim realized there was probably the blood of Helen and Bill mixed up inside him along with the spit and the lube. It made him shudder, a sick pleasured wave rocking through him. His legs fell open as wide as they could go and he felt the tight knot at the base of his stomach release. John groaned as he felt him open up. Their hips met, the man’s balls pressing snugly against his cheeks.

“John,” he said in a pinched voice. “Oh god…”

For a moment John just stroked Jim’s belly, watching his face. Jim’s mouth was open, his eyes wet, the man all shimmery with tears above him. It was an aching heat, his cock like a steel rod wrapped in silk deep in his stomach. John slowly shallowly started to thrust. All at once his insides felt like hot simmering oil and he grabbed at John’s wrist, nails digging into his skin.

“There,” he choked out. “There, there, again, again…”

John was murmuring sweet dirty nothings and it made Jim writhe, all the feelings too much, too overwhelming. His hips sawed into him, growing harder, harsher every time Jim gasped and cried out, parts of him being stimulated that he didn’t even know could be stimulated.

“You’re still too tight,” he hissed. “I’m gonna have to fuck your hole all soft and loose for me.”

The blood and the sweat dripped down over Jim and he could feel John’s pre-come sliding down between his cheeks. His body felt wet with he didn’t know what, a mixture of tears and spit and sweat and semen and blood. Moving together, mixing their fluids together. He could feel his eyes, strange and shiny bright, dragging over his body, savouring all his reactions. Ducking his head down, he twisted under the burning gaze. Jim felt delirious, a shuddering fever burning sick through his body. John looked unearthly above him, the sunset pouring from the window and over his muscular form, making his eyes glisten, catching the shimmering sweat and dark line of blood down his face, neck and chest.

 John’s body fell over him, covering him up and Jim felt his cock being rubbed against John’s firm stomach. His tongue swiped at Jim’s mouth and he remembered what he’d been taught, pushing his mouth back, prodding his tongue against his. There was blood on his lips. Blood on his face dripping onto his own.

The hot oil boiled over and the muscles in his belly and thighs began to uncontrollably tremble. His cock was spurting come, adding to the moist mess of liquid smeared between them.

“Uhhh, uhhh…” he sobbed out. His cock twitched as he dribbled out the last few droplets of come. He clung to him, clung to his slick arms. Like a child seeking comfort after waking from a nightmare. Squeezing rhythmically on him, hole pulsating.

Jim slurred out, dumb with bliss; “Iloveyou…”

John’s teeth sunk in to his throat, like they always did whenever he came. It’s funny how he knew his tell-tale signs now. He pushed in right to his very centre as he emptied himself inside his body. It felt strange, the semen sloshing inside him. When John pulled out, Jim’s lower stomach cramped and he felt it begin to gush out. His thighs felt damp, his cheeks were wet.  John’s lips brushed right under his dark lashes. Then he buried his face into Jim’s sweat-soaked hair, inhaling deeply, breathing him in and carrying him in his lungs.

Jim felt safe, cradled in the murderer's embrace.

I love you?

The boy was curled up in his arms like a satiated house cat, warm and flushed all down his neck and upper chest. Hadn’t he looked so fucking sweet, doe-eyed and vulnerable, being penetrated for the first time, the blood and sweat from his face dripping down onto him? His pleased squirming when he hit his prostate, the way his burning inner walls clung to his cock so tight it hurt, milked every last drop of come from him, the way his expression looked almost confused, incredulous at all the new feelings he was experiencing.

I love you? God. What was wrong with the stupid kid?

Hearing him say those words had made him come harder than anything in his life. What was wrong with stupid him?

It was only supposed to be a bit of fun. But then he had to go off and kill a random couple just cause they said a few things that made his boy go all teary eyed. Then he had to feel like Jim spread across the bedsheets, face red with pleasure, mouth hanging open, chest covered with droplets of come and blood and sweat was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. He’d just had to start adoring him.

All these years trying so hard to die. Now, in this moment, he didn’t want to anymore. He’d rather stay alive with him.

His eyes fell closed, basking in the odd unfamiliar feeling in his chest. Strange and hot and spreading through his body. Listening to the crickets outside the window and the call of a coyote…

The call of a…

He sat up, feeling a jolt in his heart. Outside the window, he could hear something. A strange crying call that sounded almost like a laugh. He hadn’t heard it in years. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. A cold terror suddenly gripped him all over feeling like his organs had dissolved into nothing. He was going to be sick.

“John?” he heard him whisper, half awake. He leaned down, brushed a quick kiss to his temple. He stroked his hair until he fell back to sleep again. Going to the window, he looked over the overgrown garden. The gate to the forest was open wide. Out of the corner of his vision, he thought he saw a flash of yellow eyes and a curling grin. When he looked again, there was nothing there.

Down the corridor, he heard the sliding door begin to open.

His legs gave out beneath him and he sat down heavily on the bed, his breath thick and broken in his chest. It was like a waking nightmare.

Of course. The little bastard animal. What a horribly cruel curse it had inflicted on him. He couldn’t die because he’d wanted to and it refused to give him what he wanted. The moment he didn’t want to die anymore, that’s when it would finally come for him. In a way, it appealed to his twisted sense of humour. It was a joke he’d have liked to have pulled on someone else if he’d had the chance.

Outside the door he saw it, crawling on its hands and feet down the corridor. It was a humanoid shape, bare naked with hanging breasts, a big mane of greyish hair, yellow eyes and a horrible smile all cracked lips, blood red gums and needle like teeth. He thought in the face it looked a little like that girl, the one who’d gotten in between him and his boy. He’d felt a furious, burning jealousy seeing them snuggled up together in the motel bed and he knew she had to die in the most horrible way he could imagine. Maybe the creature had just taken her face to make him feel all the more terrified. Look, the victim you killed the most brutally, for the pettiest of reasons, here to return the favour.

“Can I least put my pants on first?” he said trying to be nonchalant, trying to hide the raw terror in his voice. He felt Jim shift beside him, murmuring in his sleep.

It was in the doorway now, peering in at him, smiling with a mouth that was all chittering teeth, yellow eyes full of gleeful mockery. He felt suddenly very young again, not a vicious old hitcher but just a young boy, fresh and new and vulnerable. A part of him wanted to burst into tears, try to run. But that would wake Jim up and he didn’t want him to see this creature trapping him into the corner sobbing and cowering. He had to have a bit of dignity.

It was moving, still crouched down on its hands and feet, taking one slow step at a time until it was at the end of the bed. The moonlight shone over it, made its eyes shine, its teeth glitter hungrily. Then its hand shot out and he bit back a moan of fear. It was gripping his wrist, its long yellowing claws digging into the skin. It tugged his arm down and he couldn’t fight it even if he wanted to, an unearthly strength in its wiry arms.

Its lips brushed his hand and he realized. The same spot. The same spot where it had bit him all those years ago.

There was a strange bright feeling in his chest. His mortality sliding back into him like liquid gold. If he ran himself into a knife right at this moment, it would finally stick. But of course, now, he didn’t want it to stick. With all his damn stupid heart, didn’t want to die.

“Y’know, fuck you,” he said, jerking his hand away. “It’s a good thing. I’m not gonna outlive him at least. I’m not gonna see him die.”

It just stared up at him, head cocked to the side.

“You’re tryna fuck me over, it’s not gonna work,” he insisted. “This is a good thing. Y’know I was just a kid, didn’t take life seriously, now I do…now I…”

Then all at once, he was struck silent, feeling like he’d been hit with a brick. He stared at it, gobsmacked. It was smiling wider and wider now, making harsh little giggles in the back of its throat. Was that why it had done this in the first place? To teach him a twisted lesson? To make him value his life instead of taking it for granted?

He kept on staring down at the creature, dumbfounded. Its eyes glittered with mirth. He watched as it headed for the window, smacking its hand against the glass. It was clawing at the sill and for a moment he didn’t know what it was doing. Then he realized. He went over and pulled the window open. It climbed over the sill and into the garden. He swore he only blinked a second and then it was a coyote again, running towards the fence that led to the forest, its tail whipping out of sight.

Jim was making fussy sounds, bare body twisting around in the sheets. His eyes were fluttering half open, half closed with confusion.

“I thought…” he said, trying to sit up. “I thought I saw Nash ….at the window?”

He felt shaken, like he’d nearly fallen off the top flight of stairs before catching himself. His skin was clammy, heart feeling sick in his chest. He lay back down beside him, wrapping his arms around his dewy, lithe body, tucking his head beneath his chin. His warmth was lovely on his skin that felt icy with cold sweat. The boy squirmed in his embrace, nervous breath all stuck in his throat.

“Just a bad dream, Jim,” John whispered into his hair. He felt him settle, his breathing becoming calm again.

"That's all."