44.
***
Lynette looked around for the source of the voice she had just heard. Mr. Gray was near, she knew. The voice had sounded like it was coming from in the car with them. But there was no one here but Kevin, who was once again typing furiously at his computer. Still, though he might have seemed unaffected to the untrained eye, she could tell he was terrified by the shaking of his hands and the fact that he was typing with his eyes screwed tightly shut.
"Little lady and her boy. Little bitch and her brat." Again, the voice seemed to come from somewhere in the car, from somewhere right beside her. She thought about running, but decided that running before she knew where the sound was coming from would be futile. What if she ran to it instead of away from it?
There was a rushing sound in her ears. She thought it was water at first, the sound like a stream scouring through a forest floor. Then she realized that it was the sound of blood rushing to her ears, the sound of her own pulse blasting powerfully through her mind. She realized what was happening: this was the same feeling she had had before, when the gray man appeared on the day Robbie died. And now she did run. She grabbed Kevin from off the seat and pulled him to her, then fumbled for the door handle. But before she could reach it, the locks engaged.
"Ah, ah, ah," said the voice. The voice of Mr. Gray. It was a whisper, sounding quietly, almost gently, in her ear.
She looked over, and screamed.
He was here.
***
45.
***
Scott gaped as Tina's father suddenly turned on his heel...and ran.
At first, Scott couldn't even process what was happening. Then he realized.
Tina!
The madman was running toward the stairs, away from the tougher prey that Scott represented and toward the much easier form of his daughter, still tied and alone downstairs. And still counting on Scott to save her; to save her family. He knew beyond a doubt that the latter was beyond his power. Even if by some miracle everyone still alive made it through the rest of this night, there was no way that the authorities would let Tina's father stay with her, or even probably see her again for a long, long time. But the former - saving the little girl herself - was still in Scott's power. Or at least, it was in his power to try.
So Scott ran as well. He ran after Tina's father, who was barreling down the short hallway, and now taking the stairs down two and three at a time.
Scott hurled himself at the madman. He somehow sensed that the stairs were the gate through which Tina's death lay. If her father made it down the steps, Scott knew that he would - somehow - also make it to the little girl.
And end her.
The image was almost prescient, as though this world and some future world where the little girl died were pressing against one another, the veil that usually separated them unusually thin in this moment and allowing Scott to glimpse through it. He could see her father, making it down the stairs ahead of him, fighting Scott off in the living room, killing Scott right in front of Tina, right in front of his own daughter, then going to her, tenderly slipping the knife home....
"No!" Scott roared. He reached out as he threw himself forward, retaining the piece of the child's chair he still held in one hand, and with the other hand managed to snag a piece of Tina's father's shirt. The man roared back, and now there were no men on the stairs, only two animals fighting for life and death, battling for the existence of the child who lay powerless below them.
Tina's father slashed behind himself with the knife he still held, but this time Scott moved aside before the blade could pierce him. He caught it on the backswing, slamming into the man's wrist with the piece of broken wood in his hand. Tina's father howled, but somehow retained a grip on the knife, rearing back again and slashing once more with his knife, a lightning quick slice that missed Scott's throat by millimeters, it seemed.
Scott waited for the inevitable backhand cut, stepping outside of range as it came, almost slipping on the steps beneath him, then he stepped inside the man's moving arm, blocking it with an upraised hand and rapping the man on the head with the chair piece in his hand.
Tina's father jerked back, stunned by the force of the sudden blow, blinking as he was rocked by the hit. His foot came down behind him, only there was no floor to catch him there, only gravity, only the feel of air below him. He plummeted backward with a cry, but before he completely fell, he grabbed Scott's collar with a hand strengthened by rage and madness.
Scott felt his head snap backward as the force of the pull nearly gave him whiplash. Then he slammed face-first into the man's chest. But instead of resisting he had the wit to simply ride the man down like some kind of twisting, screaming surfboard, both of them riding the wave of madness that had somehow come to visit this home and had engulfed so much of it.
Tina's father hit the stairs headfirst, with all of Scott's weight on top of his own. There was a crack - it sounded like one or more of the man's ribs broke - and then a dull thud as he cracked his head on the stairs.
Then he was silent. Unmoving.
Scott would have suspected a trick of some kind, but he knew that the madness in the man's mind must have cast out the capacity for such rational and far-seeing strategy. No, all that was left for the man was death and killing. Still, Scott didn't move, laying on the man for a long moment before finally rolling off him onto the stairs with a groan.
The fight was over. The whole thing had probably only lasted ten or twenty seconds. But to Scott it seemed as though he had spent a year or more at hard labor. Every bone and muscle ached, his mind sang as though rather than being involved in brute force he had been working on Kevin's string theory writings once more.
He rose to look for something to tie up the man, then realized that doing so might take more time than he had. Who knew how long the man would be out for? He had to get Tina and get out with her. He could untie her later, then call the police from the safety of a public phone booth and alert them to the madman at large.
Madmen, he reminded himself, for there was still the problem of Mr. Gray.
But that problem would wait, at least for a moment.
***