The Meridians (39 page)

He looked for a door to a basement, but saw none. Perhaps this house didn't have a basement; many did not. He would have to keep his eyes open, though.

He left the kitchen through a doorway in the back that led into the hall he had seen from the front room. Holding the knife in front of him, he saw he had been correct in his earlier assessment of the house's layout. There were two rooms off the hall, and a curving staircase that led to the second floor: the location of the mysterious and ominous thuds.

He wanted to rush up the staircase, but that would be tantamount to suicide if he left his back open. He had to check the two downstairs rooms first.

He went to the first door. Sweat was oozing down his neck and pooling in the small of his back, chilling him. He shivered as he touched the doorknob, half expecting the door to burst open in his hands, and some axe-wielding maniac to come charging out.

Neither occurred. He swung the door wide, and looked in.

A sewing room. Homey and comfortable, with the exception of the corpse that was staring at him from its place behind the sewing machine.

He instantly saw the resemblance between Tina and the woman who was in this place. She was propped up in the seat, her mouth open in a rictus of horror that would last forever. Apparently Tina's mother, Scott suspected that the woman had been in here sewing, unable to sleep, when the assailants - the killers - had come in the house. They had stabbed her to death, and cut her throat. There was no point in checking to see if she was alive; it was clear at a glance that she would never put a hand to needle and thread again.

The doors to the closet in the room had been removed, undoubtedly to allow easier access to the many sewing supplies that he could see inside the space, which also let him instantly see that he was alone in the room. Just him and the dead.

He moved back out into the hall, his eyes flicking to glance at the staircase.

Nothing.

He moved to the next door.

Opened it.

Bathroom. No shower or bath, just a toilet and sink. Nowhere to hide.

Scott turned. Time to go upstairs.

The first step on the stairs was electrifying, and Scott realized that the last time he had taken a step like this was when he followed Mr. Gray in the Garment District shop, going up the steps and getting shot in the chest.

This was a bit different, at least: he could see that there were three doors at the top of the stairs. Two rooms and a bathroom, probably. He could see most of the hall even from the bottom of the stairs, so was less worried about getting shot this time. Still, he took the stairs as quickly as he could while still remaining silent, going two at a time until he stood on top.

One door to his right.

Two to his left.

The right would be the master bedroom, probably. It was also the location of the thumps Scott had heard while speaking to Tina downstairs. And as much as it made his skin crawl, he knew that he would - again - have to check the other two rooms before he went into that haven of fear and ill-doings. Though he still sensed that he would be wasting precious time, in this instance intellect was too strong to be ignored. He had to clear his back before taking on whatever wickedness had invaded this home.

He opened the first door, trying as best he could to keep an eye on the door to the master bedroom behind him.

Like all the doors in the house, this one was well-oiled, and swung open silently. The doorknob rattled slightly in its housing as he twisted it, however, and Scott froze in his paces as it did so. Certainly someone must have heard that noise.

But, again, no one jumped out at him from any side. His imagination coupled with the grim circumstances was making him overly jumpy. But he didn't mind. Overly jumpy was preferable in this circumstance to underprepared...and dead.

He swung the door open. And saw instantly that this was Tina's bedroom. A little girl's room, complete with a tiny vanity with a variety of hair care products suitable for a young girl who was just learning to take care of herself. Posters of kittens and ponies adorned the walls, as well as a complete collection of posters featuring all the Disney princesses. It was the space of a little girl who was well taken care of and well loved.

Scott hoped that the love that had been provided to her would suffice to help her get through the horrors of this night. That it would have provided her with an indefatigable supply of strength and courage from which she could draw on during this dreadful time.

He looked around the room. The bed was flush with the floor; no place there to hide. There was a small door to the left. Had to be a closet. Likely no one was in there, but again, he had to be sure. Elementary procedure.

He turned his body so he could see movement in the hall with his peripheral vision, then edged toward the door. It had slats on it, which was a nightmare: anyone inside could see him coming, but he could not see inside. That meant that if there
was
someone in the closet - or bathroom, or whatever lay on the other side of the door - the person would be prepared for him.

He edged up beside the door, out of sight of anyone inside. Then, moving slowly as he could, so slowly he felt certain that dawn must arrive before he finished, he twisted the doorknob.

And it refused to budge.

For a moment he feared that it was locked, and he would have to break it down - surely alerting whoever else was in the house. Then he realized that the doorknob was probably not connected to any latch or moving parts; that it was simply an immobile handle to pull open what was most likely a closet door.

Again, moving slowly, he pulled at the door.

It popped open an inch.

No movement.

His skin felt like it was trying to turn inside out. He held the knife close to him, trying to remain as calm as possible while knowing that he could be opening the door to a deadly assault of some kind. Then he threw the door open and simultaneously glanced inside.

Nothing. Only clothing and toys scattered about the dark space. The room was clear.

He moved back to the hallway. One more room to go before bracing the master bedroom.

The next room turned out to be a bathroom. Open and airy, with a bathtub whose shower curtain was pulled back to reveal nothing but porcelain and tile beyond.

It was time to face the last room. The room where the thumps had come from.

He sidled up to it, put his hand to the doorknob, and turned it. Slowly. Careful not to let the knob jiggle in its housing as the knob on Tina's door had done. Absolute silence had to be maintained.

He opened the door, swinging it with only the slightest murmur of displaced air as it moved inward. He stood to the side as he did so, bracing himself for the inevitable attack. But it didn't come. Instead, he was immediately treated to the origin of the mysterious thumps.

He also revised his previous assumptions of what had been happening. Until now, he had believed that a person or persons unknown had entered the house - not difficult, considering that many of the people in this place did not even lock their doors when they slept - and had then overcome Tina's family by force, killing Tina's mother and tying Tina up for some nefarious purpose.

Now he saw the truth.

Whether Tina's father had gone insane all at once, or whether it had been building over time could not be extrapolated from the vision that greeted Scott when he opened the door. But what was immediately apparent was the fact of the man's madness. He was bloody, holding a serrated knife that was clearly the thing he had used on his wife, and was in the process of running straight at the wall when Scott opened the door.

THUD.

The entire house shook with the force of the impact when the man hit. Scott could tell it was Tina's father because there were numerous photos all throughout the comfortable room that featured a smiling trio - Tina, the dead woman downstairs, and the madman before him. All this Scott took in at a glance, but little else. Because immediately upon rebounding off the wall, the man looked at Scott with a gaze that seemed to hover in the air a few inches in front of him, and then charged.

***

42.

***

Lynette agonized.

She didn't want to leave her son in the car alone. But neither did she feel good about the fact that Scott had gone alone into the dark house that stood before them. It had been several minutes, and he had neither come out to signal all clear nor to give any other clue what was going on in the place.

The house simply stood dark and empty-seeming, a vast monster that might as well have swallowed Scott whole in the night, like the whale that had emerged from the depths to swallow Pinnochio. Only she knew that in this case, there would be no joyful reunion with a long-lost father deep in the belly of the beast. Rather, there was bound to be only death and danger.

He was alone. Scott was alone.

She could not help but feel that she ought to be inside helping out somehow. But then, again, there was Kevin. Under normal circumstances, she might have chanced leaving him alone for a few moments, as long as he had his laptop to keep him company.

But then, under normal circumstances she would not have followed her autistic son's directions to an apparently abandoned house into which only Scott had to go. Normal circumstances would have found her peacefully in bed right now, not in a car in the middle of a field waiting hopefully for the return of a man she had inexplicably come to admire, respect, and even love in the past hours. Normal circumstances would not have included Mr. Gray, or the fact that her son was currently acting as though he had some kind of strange pipeline into future events.

How was that happening? she wondered. How was he seeing what he was seeing?

Kevin was typing on his laptop, his fingers flying frenziedly across the keyboard, typing what she now knew to be mathematical phrases and theorems that were so far beyond the norm that the average college professor would have been baffled by them.

"Kevin," she said on a whim. He kept typing, but she knew that that did not necessarily mean he was not hearing her. Indeed, it was likely that he
was
hearing her, though he would not show it. "Kevin, I'd like to talk to you. Can I have your keyboard?"

He did not answer, but his fingers stopped moving across the keys. He sat back, expectant.

She slowly moved the laptop into her own lap. "Where is Scott going?" she typed, then handed it back to him.

"Into the mouth of darkness," he typed back. She shuddered at the uniquely adult phrasing he was falling into when "talking" on his computer. Not only was he typing mathematics at an advanced level, but apparently he was also able to communicate in an advanced though oblique manner when doing so through the medium of his computer.

"What does that mean?" she typed.

"It means that everything matters. Everything counts. Everything is critical. The timing has to be perfect," he wrote back.

"What happens if it isn't perfect?" she typed.

"The world we know will never end. The world that must be will never come to pass."

She sighed. This wasn't helping her understand anything that was going on with Scott, or with herself for that matter. She tried another track. "Who am I talking to right now?"

"Kevin."

"Why do you sound different on the computer?"

"Because I'm different on the computer. I'm a different Kevin."

She felt a thrill of fear, remembering the dual children she had seen in Kevin's bed and then again in the car.

"What kind of different Kevin? How different?" she wrote.

He paused for a moment before typing. "I'm older. I'm an older variant."

"Variant?"

"Dimensional variant."

"What does that mean?"

This time he did not reply, either in word or on the computer. He merely sat, limp, as though the words he had already typed had taken a heavy toll on him. She tried typing several more things, but apparently he was done talking - or writing - for the time being.

She reached out a hand, and slowly took his. Usually even that level of personal interaction was too much for him to handle, and would signal a withdrawal both physical and mental. But this time he did not pull away. Indeed, he actually curled his small fingers around hers, holding them tightly. She sighed in happiness, for in that instant it felt as though all would be right with the world. As though things could be fixed. As though whatever was happening would come to an end, and they would be happy again. Her, and Kevin, and Scott. Happy. A family.

Then a voice spoke.

"Aww, ain't that sweet."

Lynette grew instantly cold. She looked all around for the source of the voice, but saw nothing. Even though no one was apparent, though, she knew the voice. Knew who it was.

Mr. Gray.

He was here.

***