35.
***
"How exactly are we supposed to stop a guy who can disappear and reappear at will?" said Scott.
They were driving along in Lynette's embattled car, trying to keep moving on the basic premise that a moving target was one that was slightly harder to catch. But Scott knew that merely moving was no guarantee against destruction. Not when the enemy was Mr. Gray.
"I don't know," whispered Lynette. She was still sitting in the back of the car, clutching Kevin tightly to her. Kevin was staring to the side again, as though by looking out the window where all appeared normal he might perhaps will normalcy into being for all of them once again.
"Me neither," said Scott. "Kevin?" he added. "You're the boy genius, you have any ideas?"
But though Kevin might have been a person of extraordinary ability when it came to string theory and mathematical formulations of how the world worked, and though he may have some connection to another version of himself in some other dimension, a place where he was not autistic at all, for now he was nothing more nor less than a silent passenger.
Scott turned the wheel. It wobbled beneath his hands and he knew that they couldn't drive the car much longer. If nothing else, police would be on the lookout for a car with the same color paint once they found the wreck that was all that was left of Scott's car, and analyzed the paint scrapings that would have rubbed off on it when Mr. Gray slammed into them repeatedly. More than that, though, he was fairly certain that the car was on the verge of falling apart beneath them.
"What do you think we should do?" asked Lynette.
Scott sighed. That was the million-dollar question, he knew. And it was also one that he was completely unprepared and unqualified to answer. He just didn't know.
"What about John Doe?" asked Lynette.
"What about him?"
"Well, he seems to be helping, doesn't he? Maybe he'll show up."
"Maybe," agreed Scott, though he did not feel at all sanguine about the possibility. "But even if he did show up, what do you think he could do?"
"I don't know," admitted Lynette. "But he saved you once before, didn't he?"
Scott thought about it. He thought back to the first day that he had met Mr. Gray after the assassination of his family eight years before. Mr. Gray had been about to kill him, there was no doubt of that, but instead of dying that day with a bullet in his head, John Doe had appeared and - to all appearances - somehow taken the bullet that was intended for Scott.
"Maybe," he finally said. "But even if he did, I don't feel comfortable putting my hopes in some guy who swoops in like a karate-kicking angel when we least expect it." He grimaced at Lynette in the rearview mirror. "If nothing else, angels aren't famous for showing up when you need them so much as when they want to."
Lynette whispered something then, hushed words that issued forth from the darkness of the back seat like some kind of prayer.
"What was that?" asked Scott, though he knew full well what she had said.
"You're so angry," she repeated. "Why are you so angry?"
Scott thought about any of the dozen answers he could have given her: because they were on the run from a homicidal maniac, because their predator had some serious mojo that allowed him to escape certain death, because he had just seen his only set of wheels turn into something that roughly resembled a lump of Play-Doh, and on and on and on. But instead he said something that surprised him: he told her the truth.
"Because God sucks," he muttered, "and I don't want anything to do with Him or with any guardian angel that He may have sent."
Lynette sat forward in the seat as though a shock had just gone through her from toe to head.
"How can you say that?" she said.
"Easy," answered Scott. "I just move my lips and the sound comes out."
He got the sense that Lynette would have said more, but at that instant a horrible grinding rent the air as something inside the car began to shred itself to pieces, metal on metal grinding away to nothing.
"What's that?" asked Lynette.
Scott shrugged. "Car's been through a lot tonight. We should find someplace to turn in."
"Like, go home and rest?"
"Not if you want to survive the night," answered Scott. "I was thinking someplace a little bit more off the grid than going home right now."
"Like what?' asked Lynette.
He turned then, hoping without much hope that the car would make it at least far enough that he could get it off the road and bury it in some brush somewhere. When he told this to Lynette, she looked askance at him. "Why are we hiding from everyone? From Mr. Gray, I get, but why hide from everyone? Wouldn't it be safer to get somewhere crowded and stay there?"
Scott smiled grimly. "First of all, if you know a place that's crowded in Meridian in the middle of the night, I'd be very interested to hear about it. More important though: the only reason to get to a crowd is if you're being chased by someone who doesn't want to make a scene. I don't think Mr. Gray cares much about that type of thing."
"Well, do we even know he is coming back?"
Scott was silent for a moment when she said that. She had a point: Mr. Gray's appearances, though terrifying and dangerous, were also sporadic. Months or even years had gone by in between visits.
There was a sound from the backseat that Scott couldn't place for a moment. Then he realized what it was: Kevin was typing on his computer.
A moment later, Lynette sighed. "I guess we do have to hide," she murmured.
"Why? What happened?" asked Scott.
"Kevin just wrote, 'He's coming again. Soon,' on his computer," said Lynette.
Scott felt a sinking in his stomach. And it grew greater as he turned the car and heard the grinding again. "We better find somewhere quickly," he said.
More typing. Then Lynette, clearly speaking for Kevin again, said, "Soon."
***