The Meridians (33 page)

And in that instant, Mr. Gray disappeared.

Scott's car continued its self-destructive flight, and finally came to rest in several large pieces about a hundred feet from where Scott had finally battled Lynette's car to a stop. The
car
was dead; there was no doubt about that.

But, once again, their futures were still uncertain. Danger still lurked. Because Mr. Gray had managed to do the impossible. He had again cheated death, and had disappeared before he smashed into the ground and died.

Scott did not know where Mr. Gray was now, but he knew that the assassin would not rest - would never rest - until he had killed Kevin, Lynette, and Scott.

He put the car back into drive. The car strained and screeched, but Scott knew he couldn't listen to the vehicle's protestations. He knew that they had to get moving.

Because the gray man was still alive.

And that meant that they were still on the run for their lives.

***

35.

***

"How exactly are we supposed to stop a guy who can disappear and reappear at will?" said Scott.

They were driving along in Lynette's embattled car, trying to keep moving on the basic premise that a moving target was one that was slightly harder to catch. But Scott knew that merely moving was no guarantee against destruction. Not when the enemy was Mr. Gray.

"I don't know," whispered Lynette. She was still sitting in the back of the car, clutching Kevin tightly to her. Kevin was staring to the side again, as though by looking out the window where all appeared normal he might perhaps will normalcy into being for all of them once again.

"Me neither," said Scott. "Kevin?" he added. "You're the boy genius, you have any ideas?"

But though Kevin might have been a person of extraordinary ability when it came to string theory and mathematical formulations of how the world worked, and though he may have some connection to another version of himself in some other dimension, a place where he was not autistic at all, for now he was nothing more nor less than a silent passenger.

Scott turned the wheel. It wobbled beneath his hands and he knew that they couldn't drive the car much longer. If nothing else, police would be on the lookout for a car with the same color paint once they found the wreck that was all that was left of Scott's car, and analyzed the paint scrapings that would have rubbed off on it when Mr. Gray slammed into them repeatedly. More than that, though, he was fairly certain that the car was on the verge of falling apart beneath them.

"What do you think we should do?" asked Lynette.

Scott sighed. That was the million-dollar question, he knew. And it was also one that he was completely unprepared and unqualified to answer. He just didn't know.

"What about John Doe?" asked Lynette.

"What about him?"

"Well, he seems to be helping, doesn't he? Maybe he'll show up."

"Maybe," agreed Scott, though he did not feel at all sanguine about the possibility. "But even if he did show up, what do you think he could do?"

"I don't know," admitted Lynette. "But he saved you once before, didn't he?"

Scott thought about it. He thought back to the first day that he had met Mr. Gray after the assassination of his family eight years before. Mr. Gray had been about to kill him, there was no doubt of that, but instead of dying that day with a bullet in his head, John Doe had appeared and - to all appearances - somehow taken the bullet that was intended for Scott.

"Maybe," he finally said. "But even if he did, I don't feel comfortable putting my hopes in some guy who swoops in like a karate-kicking angel when we least expect it." He grimaced at Lynette in the rearview mirror. "If nothing else, angels aren't famous for showing up when
you
need them so much as when
they
want to."

Lynette whispered something then, hushed words that issued forth from the darkness of the back seat like some kind of prayer.

"What was that?" asked Scott, though he knew full well what she had said.

"You're so angry," she repeated. "Why are you so angry?"

Scott thought about any of the dozen answers he could have given her: because they were on the run from a homicidal maniac, because their predator had some serious mojo that allowed him to escape certain death, because he had just seen his only set of wheels turn into something that roughly resembled a lump of Play-Doh, and on and on and on. But instead he said something that surprised him: he told her the truth.

"Because God sucks," he muttered, "and I don't want anything to do with Him or with any guardian angel that He may have sent."

Lynette sat forward in the seat as though a shock had just gone through her from toe to head.

"How can you say that?" she said.

"Easy," answered Scott. "I just move my lips and the sound comes out."

He got the sense that Lynette would have said more, but at that instant a horrible grinding rent the air as something inside the car began to shred itself to pieces, metal on metal grinding away to nothing.

"What's that?" asked Lynette.

Scott shrugged. "Car's been through a lot tonight. We should find someplace to turn in."

"Like, go home and rest?"

"Not if you want to survive the night," answered Scott. "I was thinking someplace a little bit more off the grid than going home right now."

"Like what?' asked Lynette.

He turned then, hoping without much hope that the car would make it at least far enough that he could get it off the road and bury it in some brush somewhere. When he told this to Lynette, she looked askance at him. "Why are we hiding from everyone? From Mr. Gray, I get, but why hide from everyone? Wouldn't it be safer to get somewhere crowded and stay there?"

Scott smiled grimly. "First of all, if you know a place that's crowded in Meridian in the middle of the night, I'd be very interested to hear about it. More important though: the only reason to get to a crowd is if you're being chased by someone who doesn't want to make a scene. I don't think Mr. Gray cares much about that type of thing."

"Well, do we even know he
is
coming back?"

Scott was silent for a moment when she said that. She had a point: Mr. Gray's appearances, though terrifying and dangerous, were also sporadic. Months or even years had gone by in between visits.

There was a sound from the backseat that Scott couldn't place for a moment. Then he realized what it was: Kevin was typing on his computer.

A moment later, Lynette sighed. "I guess we do have to hide," she murmured.

"Why? What happened?" asked Scott.

"Kevin just wrote, 'He's coming again. Soon,' on his computer," said Lynette.

Scott felt a sinking in his stomach. And it grew greater as he turned the car and heard the grinding again. "We better find somewhere quickly," he said.

More typing. Then Lynette, clearly speaking for Kevin again, said, "Soon."

***

36.

***

They finally settled on going to Scott's office at the school. It was a weekend, so no one should bother them, and it was as safe a place as they could think of, mostly since it was a place that Mr. Gray had never appeared or even hinted that he was aware of. Plus, it had a small cot in it - ostensibly for injured athletes - that would serve well enough for Kevin. The boy was still in his pajamas, and had started nodding in the car, as though wanting to doze but not trusting himself to do so until they found a safer place to operate in.

There was a small farm near to the school, one that Scott knew had been foreclosed on in the most recent credit crisis and now stood empty. So rather than park conspicuously in the school's parking lot they went to the farm and Scott used the car to gently push on the padlocked doors to the vacant barn. The padlock parted with a ping, and then the doors could be rolled open easily. He parked the car inside the barn, threw a mildewed tarp over the vehicle in the hopes that it would buy them an extra hour or an extra day, and then they quickly walked to the school.

The walk itself was miserable. Though days were still quite warm, the nights were beginning to cool off significantly, and none of them was really dressed for the weather. Kevin in particular started shivering almost immediately as cool wind whipped through the thin cloth of his pajamas. He didn't complain though, either in word or via his laptop, but merely trudged forward with the adults, as stalwart as any pilgrim traveling across the Old West.

And not only was the walk uncomfortable from a weather standpoint, but it was mentally taxing as well. Meridian wasn't a big city, so there weren't many cars out at this time of night, but there were a few. And each time they heard one coming, or saw the distant pinpricks of light that signaled the headlights of an oncoming car, they would have to hunch down in whatever cover they could find at the side of the road and pray that whoever it was, wasn't looking for them.

At one point they had a scare when one of the cars stopped suddenly, and Scott felt certain it must be the police looking for them. Not that they would have had time to run forensics on the car Mr. Gray had been driving - and crashed - but if they
had
found the destroyed vehicle, they could easily be doing spot-checks for anyone who might be wandering around after such a massive accident, confused and in shock.

It turned out that the car was just a solitary man in a car, no doubt coming back from a late date or from hunting or one of the few other nocturnal activities that the people in the area engaged in - other than sleeping.

During the walk, Scott told Lynette about his most recent encounter with Mr. Gray, about the alley turning into a perfect rendition of the alley in which he had lost his family all those years go, about Mr. Gray's attack, and then, when he got to the part where Lynette had come to his rescue, he added, "How did you know I was there, anyway?"

Lynette stared pointedly at Kevin. "Oh, right," said Scott. "Our ESP kid to the rescue."

"Scott," said Lynette, "I'm scared."

"You could have fooled me, the way you swung that piece of wood at Mr. Gray," he said.

"I'm serious," she insisted. "It was one thing when it was someone after us. A whole other thing when the guy turns out to be some kind of homicidal ghost. But now that this is something that is involving -
coming from
- Kevin, I've got the willies."

Scott stopped walking, looking at her in amazement. "Lady," he said, "I've been scared pretty much non-stop for the last eight years of my life. But you...just now you're getting scared? Because this is something that's somehow coming from Kevin?" He shook his head. "You are one tough gal."

She looked away from him and started walking, not speaking a word.

He hurried after her. "Sorry if I embarrassed you," he said. "I didn't mean -"

She turned on her heel and kissed him. He was too shocked to respond at first, but then felt his hands go around her, felt his body mold to hers. "Don't you dare take back a single nice thing you've said about me," she said when they broke the kiss.

"No, ma'am," he said. It was all he could think to say in that instant, but Lynette laughed. Then she gasped and put her hands to her mouth, and looked beside her.

Scott could guess what she was thinking, because he was having the same thoughts. How was Kevin going to react to this? What would someone who relied on consistency in so many things do when confronted by something new like this?

They both looked at the boy at the same moment. And Scott felt relief wash over him when he realized that Kevin was smiling. He was not looking at either of them, it was true, but he
was
smiling, his gaze fixed firmly to the right of the two of them, a large, lopsidedly goofy grin on his face.

"Does my smile look like that right now?" asked Scott somewhat dreamily. "I bet I do."

Lynette smiled. "I'm guessing he approves."

They held hands the rest of the way to the school.

Scott thankfully had not lost his keys during his altercation with Mr. Gray in the strange alley, so he was able to take Lynette and Kevin through the school gates, past the auditorium and the pool, beyond the baseball diamond and football field, and out to the small building that held his and several other offices. They entered and put Kevin to bed in the cot that Scott had in the office, Scott watching while Lynette went what must be their a ritual to put Kevin to bed when he was upset.

She pulled back the covers - just a tattered bedspread and some linen sheets so threadbare you could see the mattress through them - and Kevin lay down. But he was rigid, his hands clenched into tight balls, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he waited.

Lynette inspected one of his feet. It was filthy, but remarkably unblemished given the trek they had had to take. "Do you have any paper towels?" she asked.