John Ryder, The Hitcher

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

((Spoilers for the original version of The Hitcher but not the remake, because the remake made me cringe. If you haven't seen this movie, you have to--it's cheesy, it's freaky, and there is no way I can possibly do any written justice to the sheer creepiness that is John Ryder))



A tall man wandered up to the application table, eying his surroundings dubiously. He looked like absolute hell--his flannel shirt was still sticky with blood, and his trenchcoat looked as though he'd been dragged down a dusty highway, which wasn't far from the case. He seemed calm enough, but in his faded eyes was a kind of intelligent insanity--a malice that was somehow tired and cheerful all at once. In short, he was quietly batshit.

Scotland. Huh. He'd known he was going to a castle, but knowing and doing were very different things--the closest things he'd seen to castles were some of the hotels in Vegas. Being out of the desert was damned bizarre, but from the look of things he was going to be here for quite a while.

He picked up the quill and read the application with raised eyebrows.

What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?

That brought a small smile. He didn’t need to eat, but he’d had McDonald's…what, four months ago? “That gooey stuff you slap on a cheeseburger,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s called.”


2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?

“Why kill just one?" he wondered aloud. "I say start with the redhead--there’s something wrong with his brain.” The irony of that statement was totally lost on him, btw. “The purple dinosaur probably wouldn’t bleed much,” he added thoughtfully. "Even if his legs were cut off."

3. What time is it where you are?

He shrugged. “How should I know? I just got here.”

4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.

He snorted. “I’m returned from the dead, and I can’t say I’ve ever really sexually harassed anyone. It’s not part of the game.” Never mind that he’d been totally creepy with Nash, before he ripped her in half

5. If you are pushing to be in:

A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.

“The Styx,” he said, and laughed almost silently. Pennies over the eyes...it was a joke he doubted anyone here would get, sadly.

B. Gryffindor – Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.

He frowned. "Why?" he asked, raising his eyebrows as his thumb traced a gold band on his left hand. "Marriage is damned pointless, if you ask me." He didn't seem inclined to elaborate.

C. Ravenclaw – You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I’m constantly disposing of it.

“Because you don’t know how to use a match. Gasoline and a match tend to take care of most evidence--assuming you even care that it’s gone.” Evidence had never seemed to stick to him--not that he'd wanted it to, with the Halsey kid. The more suspicion fell on the kid, the more desperate he became--it had been, finally, what drove the kid to kill him.
To stop him. I want you to stop me. He'd gone through a dozen people, before he finally found someone who didn't fold like a wet taco at the thought of being eviscerated. Granted, he'd had to step in a few times and keep the kid alive long enough to work up his nerve, but it had worked, in the end.

D. Hufflepuff – Prove you are not useless.

That made him laugh outright. “Define ‘useless’,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “When it comes to a certain kind of work, I’d like to say I’m an expert.” He didn’t elaborate on that, but he did keep laughing. Useless. Seriously.

6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe. Do not threaten us rather than offering a bribe. A threat indicates you either don't really want to be here, or don't have enough sense to answer the question properly. The hat will automatically squib you, regardless of other votes, if you do.

Hmmm… “I haven’t exactly got much on me,” he said. “Pistol and a shotgun, but not a lot of ammo. Oh, and this." He dug a small switchblade from his coat pocket, looking at it like an old friend. "I'm keeping this, though."

"I have read the hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. ____JR________
I have read the hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them. _____JR______.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. ____JR_______.
One day, marmalade will rule the world. ____JR_________"

Comments

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"There are a lot of people here who are... specialized. So I guess you can go do a little happy dance now."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Ryder threw his head back and laughed. "Not quite what I meant," he said. "I don't just mean people who can be...call it generally specialized. I mean a state of mind, if you follow." His faded eyes lingered on the kid with an amusement that was in no way at Nny's expense. "I think you've got guts," he said simply. "Most people don't." Not in the metaphorical sense, anyway. Literally...well, yeah. That was another story.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

Nny tends to imagine such things literally, and he burst out laughing, flipping his knife in his hands. "Well. Maybe. More like, they don't anymore, not when I'm finished."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Ryder actually put a hand over his face, laughing almost silently. "See," he said, looking at Nny again. "You know what I mean. You're not squeamish--most people I run across, even if they've got the capacity, go green at the thought of actually doing anything. Let me tell you something," he added, leaning forward. "There's a little game I have to play every few years, out in the desert in Texas and Arizona. I hitch around until I find someone who's willing--and able--to stop me. Last time I went through a dozen cars before I found a kid who even had a decent survival instinct, and I had to baby-sit the damn bastard halfway across the desert before he got up the nerve to actually kill me."

He smiled again, a smile that was somehow fond, twisted, and amused all at once. "Even then, I had to rip his--well, she wasn't his girlfriend, but his friend--in half before he finally got the balls to shoot me. Anyway, the point is, I'm betting you'd've stabbed me in the neck as soon as I said a damn thing."

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"Interesting hobby." Nny relaxed just a little, enough to not seem on the very verge of a screaming fit. "But I don't think I'd have picked you up to begin with. Cars are awfully good blunt instruments."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

That set him off again, into that strange, near-silent laughter. "Good answer," he said. "Nobody's ever tried to hit me before--at least, not before they'd met me." He nodded at Nny's hands. "That's a nice knife," he said. "Tell you one thing--you find a good one, keep it. So much of the crap they sell these days is...well, crap."

He flicked his switchblade open again. "I got this off a guy who had just come back from Vietnam," he said. "Tried to stab me with it and missed. Pity what a mess he made in his car."

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"People are messy," Nny said distantly. "They bleed and scream and ooze all sorts of distasteful things. A car is... too confined, I think. I wouldn't want to be shut in a car like that. With someone who wouldn't stop shrieking and bleeding and twitching."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Ryder touched his forehead, which had by now mostly scabbed over. He didn't mind the viscera of murder, but the shrieking and twitching definitely got old. "Gags don't really work, either," he mused, thinking of Nash--she'd managed to do a lot of screaming around hers. "Hard to slit a guy's throat while he's still in the car, too. The whole angle's wrong--I wound up stabbing a guy through the chin once. I think of it as bad craftsmanship."

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"Through the chin?" That sent Nny into a fit of unrestrainedly gleeful laughter. "That could seriously dull the fuck out of a knifeblade. God, I hate bone. It's a total pain in the ass to deal with."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"It does," he said, flicking the blade closed again. "You spend forever sharpening the damn things...anything bigger is harder to tote around, though. Bonesaws, things like that...I usually just have a knife and a fireplace hatchet. Guns are more for...play, I guess." He'd given Halsey a gun, and had used one to get rid of Halsey's opposition, but as a general rule he was a knife artist.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"I don't like guns. They're unreliable and unsatisfying." And, of course, there was a certain uncomfortable memory of being shot in the face. "Knives, axes, power tools, kitchen supplies... that's more like it."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

His eyebrows went up. "Power tools?" he questioned, pulling a cigarette from a battered pack in his breast pocket. "You mind?" he added, waving his lighter.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

Glancing at the cigarette, Nny shrugged. He'd never minded other people shortening their life expectancies. "Drills. Circular saws. Nailguns. That sort of thing."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Had Ryder known what Nny thought about cigarettes shortening lives, he would have laughed, but Nny would not have understood why. "Where'd you do all this?" he asked, lighting his cigarette. His own transitory existence meant he had to work with what he could carry--the idea of nailguns and circular saws would not have occurred to him, or at least not in anything more than an abstract way. "How did you not get caught?" Getting caught had never been a problem for him, but he knew that most of the world was not quite so fortunate.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"I had a basement. A big one. It made for a good workspace." He looked at Ryder and shrugged again. "And I don't think I can get caught. I mean, I can cut some asshole's head off on the courthouse steps and walk off covered in blood without anyone coming after me."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"A basement." It sounded...nice, but for him the actual 'work' was only half the fun--the other half was the game, the chase. What Nny said about not getting caught, though....

"Can you?" He took a long draw off his cigarette. "Huh. This might sound like a weird question, but are you sure you're fully human, kid?" He'd never personally known anyone else who could evade capture--even he himself couldn't escape it entirely; he just never stayed caught. It wasn't something a normal mortal could usually claim.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"...human?" Fidgeting uncomfortably, Nny took a step back. "Um. I think so. I mean... being interfered with doesn't mean I'm not..." He began to pace again, visibly agitated.

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"Hey, hey, it's okay, kid," he said--he hadn't meant to freak Nny out. "I just mean from the standpoint that you can't get caught. I haven't known many people who can honestly say that--makes me curious." Mainly because he himself was not fully human, but he probably shouldn't tell the kid that yet--not when he reacted like he did.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"Curious. Well. That's... not always healthy, you know."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

That made him laugh again, very quietly. "No," he said, "no, it's not." Definitely not telling the kid what he was, then--not if it tweaked him out so much. Ryder kind of liked the kid--Nny reminded him a bit of himself, when he'd been younger, though Ryder had never had anything living in his head. Hell, he'd been the one living in other people's heads. "A lot of people who have picked me up have found that out the hard way, too. I should know better."

He crushed out his cigarette, and realized he still didn't know the kid's name. "Hey, what's your name, anyway?" he asked.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"I'm Nny," he told Ryder softly. "I'm the caretaker here."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Nny. Interesting name. "Pleased to meet you, Nny. I'm John," he added, rather unnecessarily. "Caretaker? What's that involve?" So far as he could remember, he'd never actually had a real job--he drifted, when he wasn't...doing his thing...and everything else more or less took care of itself. Granted, his memory was not a complete thing, either--he didn't know how old he was, nor really what he'd been like before he started playing his games.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

"Around here? Not much. Mostly lurking and making people uneasy."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

He half-smiled. "Good work, if you can get it," he said. Nodding to the ring on Nny's hand, he added, "You're married?" His own ring was cold on his hand--an odd, inexplicable weight whose existence he nevertheless often forgot.

[waste-lock.livejournal.com]

The mention of it was enough to make Nny smile. "Yeah. Just a little while ago. It still surprises me."