The Meridians(85)

Sure enough, the second pull on a car door yielded an open one, and Scott quickly located the key in the visor a moment later. "Get in," he said to Lynette, at the same time as he pushed Kevin into the backseat and put a seatbelt on him. The boy looked torpid, almost drugged, as though the events of the past twenty four hours had proved too much for him to process. Scott was worried about the boy, but couldn't spare the time to examine him right now. He felt as though time was running out, as though they had little time to escape whatever fate the gray man might have in store for them.

He got in the driver's side as Lynette got in the passenger door, and started the car.

The headlights illuminated a stretch of the street ahead of them. They also illuminated Mr. Gray.

He must have followed them out of the fields, past the school, and caught up to them while they looked for a car to steal. Now he stood directly in front of the car they were in, only feet away from them.

Scott squinted in shock for a moment as the older man threw his hands up to ward off the sudden light. In the instant before he had done so, Scott thought he had seen something impossible - one more impossibility on what was becoming a long list of the events. Though Lynette had hit him hard in the face with the two by four only a few hours ago, and though Scott had seen the man's blood splash and seen his nose shatter, there was now no sign whatever that any such incident had occurred. The gray man looked hearty and whole, and smiled widely as he looked back at the car.

His knife, silvery and gleaming like a bright light in the darkness of the night, flashed in his hands.

Beside Scott, Lynette screamed. He floored the accelerator, but the car didn't move for a moment. Scott wondered what had happened, then realized that in his panic he had failed to put the car in gear.

Now he did so, but it was also too late, for Mr. Gray had had the time to rush in toward them. He threw a fist at the backseat window, trying to claw and scratch his way through the safety glass to reach Kevin. Kevin cried out, worming his way down into the seat, hunching low as he could to stay as safe as possible.

The safety glass crazed, and Scott wondered how long it would take Mr. Gray - with his insane strength and maniacally single-minded purpose - to get through the glass and to the boy beyond. Scott didn't intend to find out, however. He again pushed the gas pedal to the floor, and this time the car - a mid-sized sedan with a decent engine in it - leapt forward with a squeal of rubber on pavement.

He felt something jounce the car, and looked into his rearview mirror. The gray man had jumped onto the back of the car, holding onto the trunk with both hands, making his way slowly up toward the rear window; to Kevin.

"Scott!" screamed Lynette.

"I see it," he responded.

Mr. Gray reached up high in the air with the hand holding the knife, clearly intending to drive the pommel through the safety glass of the rear window and from there continue the deadly arc of the knife until it ended in Kevin's small, quivering body. But before he could complete the movement, Scott dragged the steering wheel hard to one side. There was a satisfying thud as Mr. Gray rolled off the back of the car and landed on the side of the road. Scott watched him roll silently along the road, then the older man was gone from his sight as he continued to give the car all the gas she would take.

They were safe.

Or at least, so it seemed, but then Kevin began screaming. Just as Lynette had told him about, it sounded like there were two Kevins making the horrific noise, as though a chorus of twins were shrieking in agony. Scott glanced in the rearview mirror, and saw the boy pointing off to the right.

Just then he passed a small side street.

"Turn here!" shouted Lynette.

Without thinking, Scott cranked the wheel to one side, feeling the car fishtail beneath him as it transitioned from a paved road to a dirt one. He brought the car under control again, continuing on down the dirt road, then said, "Where are we going?"

"I don't know," admitted Lynette.

"What?"

"I don't know. But this is what happened when we found you, when we saved you from Mr. Gray," she said. "I don't know where we're going, but I know that we have to go there."

Thankfully, Kevin - the Kevins - were no longer screaming, though when Scott looked back he still saw the boys' flickering images staring straight ahead, hands at eye level and pointing straight ahead. Scott wondered how long the boy would stay like that, though he suspected he knew the answer: as long as it took.

The trail rode straight for about a mile, then turned into a private driveway. Scott started to slow, thinking perhaps they were going the wrong way when he saw the driveway, but again Kevin began that terrible screaming, and Scott knew he would get no relief from the sound until he capitulated to the will of the nine year old autistic child in the back of the car. So he continued ahead, driving slowly through the corn stalks that shot up on either side of the car like silent sentinels, and finally stopping when he could go no farther, when he was confronted by a house that stood directly in the path before them.

This time when he stopped, however, Kevin raised no hue nor cry of alarm.

Scott looked at the house in front of them. "What now, Kevin?" he asked.

Kevin looked around the car, typically avoiding the gazes of any and all around him. "Hush little baby, don't say a word," he sang in an oddly endearing voice. But though the tune was beautiful in a strange sort of way, it hardly answered Scott's question.