The Meridians(55)

She parked the car, and went around the back to open Kevin's door.

And that was when everything changed. The second she opened the door, Kevin did something he had never done before, not once in his entire life. Without waiting for her to help him out, without needing any kind of coaxing or asking him to please leave his laptop so that they could get out of the car, the boy jumped out, dodged under her arm...and ran.

Lynette stared after him for what seemed like an eternity before her legs finally started to work, before she finally started moving after her son who was now almost invisible between the many parked cars at the market.

"Kevin!" she screamed, and her voice was loud enough and so full of audible panic that several people looked over. They saw instantly what was going on - at least, they saw that there was a mother running after her son - and several of them gave chase as well, trying to corral Kevin toward her like a pack of dogs after a fox. Like a cunning fox, though, Kevin was able to outrun them, to switchback and change directions with almost preternatural fleetness so that no matter how many people were involved in the chase, he was always just a step ahead.

Lynette felt like her heart might burst out of her chest. Not only was she not used to having to chase someone all over a parking lot, but Kevin was constantly darting out from between the cars and into onrushing traffic, apparently not noticing or not caring about the times that he came frighteningly close to being crushed in the path of one of the gigantic SUVs that were the only thing that half the population of Idaho would drive.

"Kevin!" she screamed again, and reached out a hand. If it had been winter, if he had been wearing a coat with a hood, she would have caught him then, because she was so close, so close to catching him and stopping his sudden insane race. But it was still late summer, and Kevin was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and so there was nothing for her to grab onto, nothing for her to hold and stop his movement. He danced away again, not like a fox now but like a zephyr, like a summer wind that came and went so fast you didn't know if it was real or a dream.

He was going to die, she knew. She could feel it in her bones. After all the strangeness of his life. After her embolism, after the many complications he had suffered as an infant.

After the gray man.

After all that, he was going to die here, now, in something as tragic and mundane as a collision in the parking lot of a supermarket.

It was too much to bear, and she redoubled her speed.

She caught him at last, pinning him to the side of a red Toyota so hard that the car rocked slightly on its hinges. Kevin screamed, but not in pain as she might have expected. Rather, he acted as though she had just taken away his laptop and forbidden him to use it ever again. It was as though he was having a tantrum, only one that was far worse than any she had ever previously experienced with him.

Then he kicked her. Just as he had on the day he had saved her from the knife of the gray man, her son aimed a perfectly formed front kick. This one, however, did not knock away a threatening blade, but instead hit her right in the nerve cluster below her left knee. Lynette's mouth turned into a round "o" of shock and pain, and her grip loosened just enough that Kevin was able to shrug entirely out of his shirt, leaving the empty clothing in her grasp, and ran through the parking lot again, this time bare-chested and screaming.

Not far, though. Before he had run too long he found what he had apparently been looking for. Lynette hobbled after him as fast as she could, limping slightly as her deadened leg stolidly refused to function properly, and caught up to him at the front of the Albertson's.

Where he was terrorizing a baby.

Lynette almost couldn't believe it, but there was no denying what he was doing, what her eyes were plainly seeing. A young mother had just left the supermarket, her cart full of groceries and with a small baby in the seat of the cart. Kevin was standing in front of the cart, screaming wordlessly and striking himself repeatedly on the head with his fist.

The mother tried to back up, to back away, and young Kevin followed her, moving as one with her cart, staying exactly the same distance from it at all times. The baby started crying, and Kevin redoubled his efforts, screaming even louder as though he was engaged in some kind of bizarre contest to see who could shriek the loudest.

Lynette finally caught up to Kevin, and tried to stifle his screams and self-flagellating attacks with a bearlike embrace. But her son sidestepped her outstretched arms, remaining focused on the baby as he continued to wail and rant.

They were drawing a crowd, adding embarrassment to the long list of unpleasant feelings that Lynette had experienced on this day. One of the store managers appeared, saying, "What's going on here?"

The young mother pointed at Kevin and used the word, the one word that Lynette hated most when used in conjunction with her son, her treasure. "This little freak is trying to attack me and my baby!" she wailed.

Lynette bristled, even as she continued trying to get her shrieking son under control. "He's not a freak," she half-screamed. Kevin was kicking and hitting at her with hands and arms, though thankfully no longer with the superlative aim he had earlier exhibited. Now instead of a fighting expert he merely looked like someone having the worst temper tantrum of all time. "He's got autism."

"I don't care if he has..." the young woman searched for an appropriate word, "...leprosy. He shouldn't be allowed out to hurt other children. He should be locked up."