The Meridians(68)

"Mr. Gray?" said the man in a pleased tone. "I rather like that." Then he said it again, as though trying it on for size. "Mr. Gray."

"I started out with Mr. Shitforbrains, but it took too long to say," said Scott. He glanced around and saw that the version of the Los Angeles alleyway was growing more translucent, even as the Meridian alley - the real alley - grew darker, heavier, more tangible. Scott wondered what would happen if the Los Angeles alley disappeared entirely. Would the gray man disappear as well? Was there still a hope that he would survive this exchange?

"No," said the killer. "I've always been Mr. Gray to you, haven't I? Always the man who killed your family. Always the man who was destined to kill you." Mr. Gray looked around as well, clearly seeing the same changes being wrought in the alley - or was it alleys? - that Scott himself was observing.

The assassin's features tightened. "Not much time left," he muttered. Then he focused his flinty eyes on Scott. "So I guess I won't get to reproduce history exactly after all," he said. Then, with a smile, he said, "But it's the end of a story that people remember anyway, isn't it?"

And Scott saw the killer's finger whiten as he pulled the trigger of Scott's own gun.





***





32.

***

Lynette just sat for a while after Scott left, thinking. But not about her son's strange abilities or even about Mr. Gray or Robbie.

No. She thought - pleasantly and unabashedly - of Scott. About his kindness and charm, about his wit and his interest in helping her and Kevin.

About how he had been the one to figure out how to talk back to Kevin via the computer - something that Lynette could not believe that she had never thought of before, but the very thing that had led to the many revelations of this night.

Not least of which was the revelation that she was very, very interested in the kind man with the scarred face.

She sighed, sipping her cocoa in quiet remembrance, and just hoped that she would be able to wind down enough from the events of the evening to be able to get to sleep before too much longer. She wouldn't be surprised if, after all that had happened, she found herself unable to do more than lay in bed, thinking.

A moment later, however, the question was mooted as a scream came from the back of the house.

Kevin! she thought. Then echoed the thought with a more visceral scream aloud: "Kevin!"

The screaming continued. And now it was more than mere screaming, more than the tantrum shrieks that so often accustomed an autistic child who had been overworked or overwhelmed. No, these were shrieks of terror, of anguish.

Of pain.

Mr. Gray! thought Lynette, and stood up so fast that the backs of her knees popped against her chair, sending it flying halfway across the kitchen with the force of the blow.

She was down the hallway an instant later, rushing into her son's room, turning on the light....

And the instant she did, the screaming stopped.

Kevin was asleep in his bed. Completely, deeply asleep. No way could he have made the sounds that she had just heard issuing forth from this place. No way at all.

Yet she had heard the noise, she was sure of it.

She tousled Kevin's hair. He was sweating, as though he had been running a race in his dream. She wondered briefly what kind of dreams he was having, and whether he could have suffered a nightmare that had led to the screaming she had heard.

But no. The screaming would have continued past the moment when she turned on the lights if it had been something as simple as a dream.

She flattened the covers down around her boy, then moved reluctantly back to the door. She closed off the light.

And the screaming happened again. Worse this time, because she was right on top of it and it was a bone-chilling shriek and how could Kevin not be hearing this? How could he not be affected by it?

But again, the instant she turned on the light, two things happened: the screaming stopped, and she saw that her son was still asleep, not so much as even twitching under the covers.

She stood there in the light for a moment, trying to figure out a way to discern what was happening and to find out if it was something that was going to harm her son. Given the recent past experiences with Mr. Gray, she knew it would be dangerous at best and deadly at worst to ignore whatever was going on in her home.

She tried to wake Kevin, but he stayed asleep no matter how hard she shook him. It was as though he had been drugged. Her shaking grew more and more agitated, but no matter how sharply she pushed against him, Kevin remained boneless-seeming as a rag doll.

Lynette finally decided that she was going to call an ambulance, though she knew in her heart of hearts that when the ambulance arrived, they would be able to find nothing amiss. Whatever was happening now had no answers so easy that they could be discerned by something as mundane as medical science, any more than the presence of Mr. Gray could have been explained by resorting to everyday criminal psychology.

But on the way to call for the ambulance, her heart fluttering against her ribcage like a terrified bird, she got an idea. She went to her bedroom and looked around and...there!

She grabbed the high-powered flashlight from its spot near her bedside table. Born and bred in Los Angeles, she was ever-ready for the advent of "The Big One," an earthquake so severe that all power and utilities would be not only knocked out, but destroyed utterly. So even in Idaho, she was still in the habit of sleeping with the flashlight near to her bed, just in case.