The Meridians(39)

"Never done anything?" repeated the gray man, an amused smile playing across lips that had been pressed into a thin line by the prospect of the violence to come. "Never done anything?" He laughed, a laugh that was without mirth or warmth, a laugh that was like icicles stabbing into Lynette's heart.

Kevin groaned and began rocking in her arms. She held his head and cooed to him, determined that if they were to die, she would at least make his transition into eternity as painless and fear-free as possible.

The old gray man leaned in close to her, and again she smelled and tasted the stink of death come to roost, of a soul damned and condemned to rot alive. "You've done everything," he almost spat. "You and your bastard boy."

Then he leaned away, inhaling deeply as though savoring the most amazing moment of his existence.

"Sixty two years," he whispered, and then struck with the blade. The silvered object moved with the speed and precision of a cobra striking its prey, finding its target, slashing down and through the back of Kevin's neck.

Lynette screamed, because she knew in that instant that her son was dead.





***





18.

***

She heard a low, rhythmical sound, like the bass beat of the world's softest and simplest rock song. Someone was whispering something. Someone was saying something. Someone was saying the same thing over and over and over.

"Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy...."

The sound continued and only gradually did Lynette come to realize that it was the sound of her son saying her name.

Kevin!

She opened her eyes, which had been squinched tightly shut against the vision of blood and death that she knew she had been about to witness. She had seen Robbie die, and the sight had very nearly killed her. To see her son die, she knew, would be tantamount to instant death. Not that she would have a heart attack or anything so benign, but rather she knew that if her son died she herself would have her soul ripped apart like cobwebs in a Category Five hurricane.

"Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy...."

The sound continued, but Lynette still did not open her eyes. She was too busy saying something of her own.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name...."

"Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy...."

"Thy kingdom come...."

"Mommy Mommy Mommy...."

"Thy will be done...."

"Mommy Mommy Mommy...."

"On earth as it is in -"

"Goddammit!"

And at last, Lynette's eyes snapped open, and she saw something that, as impossible as the rest of the day's events had been, made them seem like everyday occurrences in comparison.

The last voice had been that of the gray man, who was still swinging his gleaming blade back and forth.

Right through Kevin's neck and back.

And then right through her own neck with a savage swipe that should have left her bleeding, dying, if not outright decapitated.

She blinked and cringed away, but to no avail: the razor went right through her.

And had no effect.

The gray man cursed again, and again swung his deadly weapon...and the same thing happened. It passed right through her and Kevin.

For a moment Lynette was convinced that the man standing before her was a ghost. Either that or she was insane, but strange as it seemed the prospect of having a ghost standing before her was actually less frightening than the thought of being insane. A ghost merely meant that she and Kevin were in mortal - and perhaps immortal - danger. But the shadow of insanity was more terrible, for that story ended inevitably with her son being removed from her care. So a ghost was by far the preferable of the two.

Regardless, however, even as she posited that she and Kevin were under some kind of supernatural influence, she discarded the thought. The being that stood before her was no ghost. It was more vibrant, more present, more alive than any ghost could possibly be. Rather, it was as though the thing that stood before her was a living, breathing being - she could see him breathing, in fact, could smell the rotten fumes he was exhaling after each inhale - but one composed of some different kind of matter, a matter that resonated on a different frequency from her own, so that though they could interact visually, they could not actually touch.

Then how could he have hit the chair? she thought, remembering the vivid gash that had been cleaved in her son's chair in the instant after she pulled him away. And why was the gray man talking about bullets and about shooting if there was no chance for him to use such implements to destroy her?

But even as she contemplated these questions, the gray man cursed again, and began to...change. She could see him, standing there as bright and loud as a circus tent at midday.

Then, she couldn't. Or rather, she could, but what she saw was dramatically different. Instead of a gray man, he seemed for a moment to become a creature of color. He shifted through all the hues of the rainbow, and even beyond, shifting into colors that Lynette had never seen before, and suspected that no one had ever seen before. Colors that were so vivid and unreal that she tasted as much as saw them, so bright that they tinkled in her ears as much as they tickled her optic nerves. It was strange, because it was the most beautiful thing that Lynette had ever seen - probably the most beautiful thing that anyone had ever seen - but because it dealt with colors and hues that she knew were outside the ken of normal human experience, there was no way that she would ever be able to describe them beyond this: when she saw the gray man begin his strange shift into colors beyond those of anything she had ever before experienced, Lynette suddenly suspected that she knew what angels looked like.