The Meridians(26)

The magician held his hands up to signal for quiet. And though such a thing as true silence was impossible at a four year old's birthday party, the kids quieted enough to hear what he said next.

"And now for the hard part," he said. "I will make the ball...reappear!"

He pulled back his yellow jacket sleeves, exposing thin arms and highlighting his long, dexterous fingers, which he waved over Ashton's head.

Lynette felt something happen. Something that made the hairs on her arm stand on end as though she was passing through the static of an electrical storm and was about to be struck by lightning. She glanced at Robbie to see if he was aware of the feeling, but he seemed to be fully engaged in the show, a grin on his face as big as that of any of the children.

"Zimbo, zamboni, big macaroni!" shouted the magician, and waited.

Nothing happened.

With a look of exaggerated sheepishness, the man shrugged as though to say, "What happened?" Then he snapped his fingers in discovery. "Of course," he said. "To make the ball reappear, I have to say the magic words in reverse!"

Lynette was barely listening. She no longer felt like lightning was about to strike, she felt like it already had, and left her a hollow shell of shattered skin and bone. She reached out and grabbed Robbie's arm, holding it hard enough that he looked at her in instant concern.

"Lynette, what's wrong?" he said.

"Big macaroni, zimbo zamboni!" shouted the magician.

"I don't know," whispered Lynette, barely able to make the words come from her mouth. "I don't know what's wrong."

Then there was sudden silence. The crowd strained as the magician reached forth a hand, put it behind Ashton's little ear, and withdrew...nothing.

The magician's expression changed to one of genuine bewilderment. He casually put a hand in his pocket, then withdrew it while shouting "Big macaroni, zimbo zamboni!"

The electrical feeling swirling around Lynette intensified. She could hardly breathe. Her heart was beating fast as that of a rabbit, and hard enough that she could feel the pulse throughout her body.

"Honey?" said Robbie.

The magician reached forth his hand again, and this time reached behind Ashton's other ear. "I must have grabbed for the wrong ear," he explained in a theater whisper, though even in her distress Lynette felt like she could detect a chord of real doubt in the musical tones of the magician's voice.

He drew forth his hand. Opened it.

There was nothing inside.

And then the screaming started.

Christian started first, but then a few others screamed, and then a few more. Lynette glanced around quickly. Doris was very active in the FOAC, and so there were a good half-dozen autistic children of varying ages at the party. The screams were coming from them. All of them.

And they were all pointing at one thing.

Lynette's son.

She looked down, and even as she did the feeling of electricity in the air dissipated, replaced by another feeling, one just as awful though less strange.

She felt dread.

Now it was Robbie's turn to grab her arm, his big hand clutching at her arm as though she were a life preserver and he was the last person to jump from the Titanic.

"What -" began her husband.

Kevin was sitting there, playing as usual, organizing his cars in perfect lines, first by size, then by shape, then by classification, then by color.

Only this time, he had added two items to his toys.

He was a good forty feet away from the magic show, but somehow, without moving, he had added two new toys to his collection.

Two small red balls.





***





12.

***

It was official. Scott Cowley was no longer a cop.

In the almost two years since the death of his wife and son, Scott had done what he could to pretend to keep living. He ate food, he drank water, he put on clothes every morning, he shaved every day.

To all outside appearances, Scott had no doubt that he actually looked quite human. But he knew that it was only an act. Inside he was just as dead as his family; it was just that he hadn't had the good sense to lay down and stop moving yet.

He had flown a desk since the day he got back to work almost seven months after the shooting. It was all he was good for. Even if his insides hadn't been blasted all to hell, even if he hadn't carried with him a permanent limp and an inability to run more than a mile without suffering excruciating pain, even then he wouldn't have been able to resume his duties as a homicide detective in the field. No, he was just another desk jockey, just another walking corpse among several of the living dead on the force: people who had suffered some event so traumatic that the act of firing a gun - of even drawing a gun - would be as impossible as if their firearms were nailed to their sides.

The shrink was very understanding. Dr. Simek told him that post traumatic stress disorder was extremely common to those who had suffered a crushing loss like the one that Scott had suffered. So Scott nodded politely and stared at her inkblots and made sounds whenever she paused in an effort to get him to speak, but he knew that it was an act, like everything else he did. He wasn't getting any better under her care - that was the great part about being dead while alive: you didn't have to get better. You didn't even have to keep breathing, so anything you did was gravy.