Overdue - Chapter 6

"Dude. How long have you been standing there." It was Mephisto. I don't know when he came into the lounge, but it was 4am when I looked at the clock. He'd obviously been with Kate.

"I don't know. How long have you been watching me standing here?" I asked back.

"For at least a minute or so. You scared the shit out of me, what happened?" he seemed genuine. So I told him about the Coffee Shop, Cameron and Ms Lola.

"Well that explains some of it, but why did Rat leave you here like this?" I didn't want to tell him, but what the hell why not some more humiliation.

So I told him.

"Ouch! Does Rat know that you didn't ummm." Mephisto paused to find the perfect descriptive term."Rise to the occasion."

"Does that matter?" I was honestly nieve about this.

"Craig this is really important. Think of it from her point of view. She wanted to.... help and you didn't respond at all. Either she thinks you don't find her sexy, or you think she's a slut." Mephisto was serious and that surprised me. But I was tired and I still had to go to work. Today.

"I'll tell her ok. But I gotta go to sleep, NOW!." I tried to end the interigation there. But Mephisto was adamant that I tell Rat it wasn't her fault. I didn't know wether he was trying to help me or his sister. I agreed to tell her as soon as I woke up. Mephisto accepted that and let me go to bed. I fell on the bed and into a restless sleep.

I awoke to the telephone ringing. I ignored it and let the machine take it.

"Craig, its 10:30 where are you?" Karls voice pierced my dozing mind and I woke up. "I've gotten Mrs. Hester in. Your lucky she's always able to fill in for you." The way Karl said that sounded like this happened regularly. "Are you comming in for the afternoon shift?". He hung up.

I got up. I went looking for coffee. When I had woken up sufficently I rang Karl.

"Hi sorry, I had a difficult time last night." I went to continue but Karl cut me off.

"Is this an excuse Craig. I don't accept excuses." He was concerned. With Karl that meant he tried to find what happened to you. And then make sure you never do it again.

"Its not an excuse, look I'll tell you what happened when I get in. Ok." Karl accepted that and I hung up. I'd gotten some time to work out how to explian this not only to Karl but to myself. I still didn't understand what had happened.

On the walk to the library I tried to piece the night together. Rat sitting me down to talk about my life, then Cameron the druggie being killed by thugs, lying to Ms Lola and then the failure to launch. Despite all of this, all I could think of was the fact that Cameron had been killed by thugs.

"Craig, earth to Craig." I stopped and looked to where the voice was calling from. It was Kil. He was in his shiny nice black car.

"Hop in I'll give you a ride to the Libarary." he asked politley. As if there was nothing going on between us. I thought about running. I thought about dying. I got in the car. To this day I don't know why I got in Kils car but I'm happy I did. It was a nice car, a very nice car. But thats not why I'm happy about getting in the car.

"Why were you and Rat at Cameron Shalky's flat last night?" That line hit me, hard. I thought about opening the door and jumping out but the car but I remembered I wasn't an action hero. Kil passed the turn off to the library and took the road out of town.