The Meridians

by Michaelbrent Collings

  "So," she said, as she always did. "Is today the day?"

  And Scott, as he always did, responded, "What day, Cheryl?"

  "The day you ask me out, we fall in love, and you take me away from all this," she responded brightly.

  Scott usually tried to remain smiling, to remain polite throughout this exchange, usually ending the conversation with an awkward excuse why he could not ask her out. He had friends in town. He was busy doing grades this weekend. He had other plans. He had to wash his hair. He had a headache.

  But today was different. He didn't have it in him to continue the pleasant lies that were a staple of human existence. He just wanted to be alone, to steep in the false memories of his past life, and Cheryl was standing between him and that goal.

  "Cheryl," he said, "I don't mean to be a jerk, but I'm never going to ask you out."

  Cheryl's face changed subtly, as though she were the lead actress in a play and her counterpart had just delivered a line that was not in the script. She recovered quickly, though, beaming her smile once again and saying, "Aw, honey, you don't mean that. After all, where else you gonna find someone like me?"

  "I'm sure I don't know," he said. And, truthfully, he had to admit that most men would find Cheryl a catch. She was attractive, charming, vivacious, full of life.

  But it was that last that made her ineligible for Scott's affections. He could not love someone who was full of life; his attentions were reserved for those who lived in the realm of the dead.

  "But it's just not going to work out, Cheryl," he continued. "You should spend some time on someone else."

  Again, Cheryl's face changed. But this time she was not able to recover nearly as well as she had the first time. Her lip quivered slightly, as though she had never been turned down before. And perhaps she hadn't - most people didn't tend to turn down the attentions of women like her, Scott knew.

  But then, most people didn't have families that had been stolen from them, either. Most people could afford to live in the present, because they had something worth living for there. But Scott was not most people. He could not afford to live in the present, because to do so would be to lose the most important and defining parts of his life. He was already starting to lose the memories of his wife and son; he could not bear to complete the process by crowding out what little remained with new experiences with other people.

  Cheryl looked like she was going to cry, but Scott didn't know what to do about that. Should he comfort her? Hardly. That would be inviting her to knock on the doors of his heart even harder than she had been doing before. But he didn't feel right just leaving, either. He wasn't a monster. Or at least, he had never thought of himself as a monster. But perhaps he was wrong about that. Maybe he was nothing but a monster, nothing but a Dr. Jekyll inhabiting the destroyed world of a once-happy Mr. Hyde. Maybe the darkness that lived in his heart had finally escaped into the rest of his life, and would now be an ever-present companion, a new source of misery in Scott's already miserable world.

  And now Cheryl was crying, though Scott had not intended for that to happen. He stood in front of her for a long moment, wondering what to do, then finally put out a hand to touch her shoulder.

  She slapped it away.

  "Don't you dare," she said. "All I've ever been is nice to you, so why can't you be nice back?"

  Scott had no answer for her. At least, he had no answer that he could give her there, in the public space of the office. So he simply turned and walked away, hoping that tomorrow, or the next day or the next month or the next year he would find in himself the strength to talk to her, to explain to her why he could never be happy, and so he could never allow himself to get close to her. Because she might actually try to make him happy, and that would bring her nothing but misery and pain. The universe did not intend Scott to be happy - it had made that dreadfully clear to him eight years ago - and anyone who tried to change the universe's plan would find themselves in mortal danger. He couldn't do that to anyone, so he had to keep everyone away; had to keep everyone at arm's distance.

  Scott left. He walked with his head down to his own office, unlocking it and walking in without looking up, moving around the balls and equipment that cluttered the room without having to pay attention, because after eight years he knew this room better than he knew his own house.

  Which was why it was doubly unexpected when a voice said, "A little hard on her, weren't you?"

  Scott looked up, and as he did the papers he had been carrying dropped from his nerveless fingers and fluttered to the floor like pigeons gathering on the ground to feed.

  He reached instinctively under his armpit. But there was nothing there. No gun. Not anymore. He wasn't a cop anymore, he was just a middle aged PhysEd teacher without many friends or much of anything to live for.

  But that didn't mean he had to leave mortality quietly. And it sure didn't mean that he had to go out without a fight. Especially not when confronted by the monster in front of him.

  "Hello," he said, and rushed at the old man in his office, fingers outstretched and looking for a chance to kill.

  ***

  20.

  ***

  Never before had Scott wanted so badly to kill something. The only thoughts in his mind were thoughts of destruction, of maiming, of killing Mr. Gray; of killing the thing that had destroyed his family and so had destroyed him as well.

  He rushed at the old man, then skidded to a halt as he realized that instead of a gray suit, this man was wearing simple jeans and a button down shirt. Nor did he have gray eyes, but instead had eyes that were as blue as any that Scott had ever seen.

  He also looked familiar, and when Scott realized who the man was, Scott stopped moving completely, arresting his forward momentum so completely it felt as though he might have suffered internal injury with the sudden stop in motion.

  "John Doe," he breathed.

  It was. It was the very same man who had died - Scott had seen his dead body - in the garment district, died of a bullet wound to the head on the day that Scott's family had died.

  Scott's world spun around him. How could this be? How could he be seeing a man whom he had seen die some eight years before?

  "Well," said the man as Scott stopped moving, "that's a relief."

  Scott gawked. Somehow as bad as it was having someone in his office who should be dead - who was dead - it was infinitely stranger having the man speak to him.

  "Who are..." Scott stuttered, but the sentence drifted off into silence without him being able to finish it. His head was still reeling, and so rational thought or logical conversation seemed suddenly to be quite impossible.

  The old man smiled, and his eyes seemed to twinkle with barely-contained amusement. In contrast to Mr. Gray, whose eyes were either dead or insane, this man's eyes were expressive to the point of being incredible. They sparkled with intelligence and a radiant charisma that Scott could feel as easily as he could feel heat coming off of an oven.

  The man winked. "Sorry if I scared you, but I had to make sure you did some things."

  "What...who are you?" Scott finally managed. "Who let you in here?"

  "Well, as to who let me in here, I guess I did that for myself. And as for who I am...well, that's something of a secret right now, I'm afraid. But I'm not Mr. Gray."

  Scott started. He had never told anyone that name, no one at the force, no one at the school, no one.

  "How did you know -"

  "How did I know the name?" The old man laughed again. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Not now, at any rate." Then he grew serious, leaning toward Scott with intensity. Scott had the urge to lean away, as though the man were not a kindly old man, but a force of nature like a typhoon or a hurricane. Something that one could observe, but was always best suited doing so from a safe distance. "Now listen," said the man. "You're going to do something in a few days. Something very important."

  "Why should I do anything you tell me to?" asked Scott. He was feeling nervous,
and knew he was translating the nervousness to anger in order to feel like he was having some modicum of control over the conversation, even if the feeling was a complete and utter illusion.

  The older man stopped smiling. "Because you have to do what I tell you or you'll die. And not only you, but a host of other people are depending on you to do what I say. Myself included."

  "Why don't you just do whatever it is?"

  "Can't," answered the man. "It has to be you."

  "And why should I believe you? Who are you?"

  "We've gone over that already, Scott. I can't tell you who I am right now...you wouldn't believe me and it would just get in the way of you believing me when I tell you what needs doing." The old man sighed. "And as for why you should believe me...well, I think you owe me."

  "For what?"

  "You know what."

  And Scott did. He remembered the instant that Mr. Gray pulled the trigger in the alley, remembered the heat on his face, remembered the world spinning...and then this old man was beside him. Dead with a bullet wound to the head.

  Scott looked at the old man now. Hale and hearty, standing in front of him as though nothing untoward had ever happened to him. "How are you still alive?" he asked.

  The old man looked comically wounded. "You don't have to sound so upset about it," he said. "I rather like me alive."

  "I didn't, that is, I...." Scott's voice drifted off into nothing. This was the most insane conversation he had ever been a part of.

  The old man smiled again. "See why I'm not giving you much in the way of answers? Even the questions might blow your mind right out your nose." Then he laughed again as Scott tried to process what had just been said.

  He gave up after a moment. It was no good. Nothing was making sense. There was no way this man could be alive unless...

  Scott looked up. "You're his twin!" he almost shouted.

  The old man got quiet all of a sudden, as though Scott had just told him his favorite dog died. "Nope. Not a twin," he said quietly, then forced a sparkle back into his eye. "But this isn't about me, anyway. It's about you, and about what you're supposed to do."

  Scott shrugged internally. He might as well hear what the crazy old man had to say, since he was clearly not going to get any answers by direct questions. "What is it you want me to do?" he asked.

  The old man told him, and Scott couldn't help but guffaw.

  "You're serious?"

  The old man nodded, and once again the glimmer of jollity was gone from his eyes. Scott could see he was serious, indeed

  "Why?" he asked.

  The old man shrugged and wrote something on a piece of paper. Then handed it to Scott. "Because if you don't, then you aren't the only one that Mr. Gray is going to kill," he said, and his voice, though light and airy, made Scott shiver all the same.

  "Will I get to kill him?" he asked.

  The old man looked at him with an expression that Scott could not interpret. "Why do you want to kill him so badly?" he asked.

  "You seem to know everything, you tell me," countered Scott.

  "Because he killed your family," said the old man.

  "Bingo," said Scott.

  "You might want to be careful about wanting to kill people, Scott," said the old man, and suddenly - and for the first time - he truly seemed old, like some heavy weight was resting on his shoulders. "It's a slippery slope to travel on, and before you know it you've turned into the same thing that you're hunting."

  Scott shook his head in disgust. "You think I could ever be anything like Mr. Gray?" he asked.

  The old man looked at Scott deeply, and then said, "Sometimes I don't know what she sees in you."

  The words struck Scott like a blow. The old man could only be talking about Amy, the only woman that had ever really seen into Scott's heart and loved what she saw there.

  He felt his hands curl into fists at his sides. "What would you know about her."

  Now it was the old man's turn to look surprised. Then he laughed again. "Oh, you think I'm talking about Amy? Well, I'm not, so you can get the wounded knight look off your face. No need to protect her honor from me, I'm not saying anything about her. Never knew her, in fact, though I understand she was a wonderful person."

  "She was," said Scott. He didn't mean to, didn't mean to share his feelings about his dead wife with this stranger, but somehow the words just came out of him. "She was the most perfect woman I've ever met."

  The old man nodded. "I know you loved her, Scott. And that's a good thing. Love makes us into better people, it gives us strength when we're afraid. It makes bad men good and good men better. It's the thing that makes living into life, the thing that separates us from all the other animals crawling over the face of the earth." The man drew a deep breath. "That's why I know you don't love her anymore. You did once, but you don't love Amy anymore."

  Scott felt a growl of rage come out of him. How dare he! Who was this man to say something like that. Every single moment of Scott's life was devoted to his wife. With a sudden pounce, he jumped at the old man, meaning in that instant to hit him, to strike him, to punish him for insinuating - hell, for just straight out saying - that Scott didn't love his wife.

  He rushed the old man, who waited until the last moment, then suddenly twisted and grabbed. Scott felt himself pulled off his feet, and then suddenly was slamming into the ground, his wrist pinned behind him uncomfortably and the old man's knee across the back of his neck.

  "Hapkido," said the old man. "I'm a fifth degree black belt. Comes in useful."

  Scott struggled to get himself free, but it was no use. He just got himself more and more jammed up under the old man's grasp.

  "The more you struggle, the more it's going to hurt," said the old man who had no name but who had the power to reduce Scott quickly to nothing with his words and his body.

  Scott opened his mouth to scream.

  "I wouldn't yell if I were you," said the old man. "I'll just be gone by the time anyone gets here, and you'll have yet another oddity to explain in your life." The pressure eased up on his wrist and shoulder, but the old man did not let him up yet. "You want to know why I say that you don't love Amy anymore?"

  Scott was silent.

  "I'll take that as a yes." The old man shifted his weight, and suddenly the pain in Scott's arm returned. "I want you to pay attention to this, Scott. I think that you don't love Amy anymore because you've turned into too much of a self-centered, egotistical, self-pitying turd of a man to love anyone but yourself."

  Scott struggled again, but again found that the more he struggled, the more pain he was in, so after just a few seconds of ineffectual thrashing, he felt himself calm and grow still.

  "Good boy," said the old man, as though addressing a dog who had just managed to get outside without peeing on the carpet for the first time. And truth to tell, Scott didn't feel much better than a dog would right now. "Let me ask you a question," said the old man.

  "Go to hell," said Scott through clenched teeth.

  The old man laughed, as though Scott had just told the funniest joke in the world. "You're proving my point for me more and more, Scott," he said. "So here's the question: of the last eight years since Amy and Chad died, how much of your life do you think either of them would have approved of?"

  Scott stopped struggling, stopped cold in his movements as though hit by a freeze ray. Indeed, he felt cool inside, then was warmed as the hot humiliation the old man's words caused spread through him like a fire.

  He was right. The old man was right.

  Scott knew that Amy would not have approved of anything that he had done in the last eight years. She was full of love, full of life, and would not have appreciated the way that Scott had retreated from all existence in an effort to keep himself distant from anything that might cloud his memory of her or of Chad.

  If she met me for the first time right now, would she love me? he asked himself. And knew the answer, and was ashamed.

  The pressure on
his arm and neck and back suddenly lessened and disappeared. "I'm guessing you're not going to try to hit me again," said the old man. "Of course, if I'm wrong, well, you kinda suck at fighting, so I guess I'm not too worried."

  The old man moved away from Scott, and Scott slowly - and somewhat painfully - got back to his feet.

  The old man was standing next to Scott's desk, arms crossed.

  "So, you going to do what I asked you to do?" he said.

  Scott didn't know what to say, but felt himself nodding.

  "Good," said the old man. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, their clear blue gaze settled directly and deeply on Scott's face. "Remember to do it, Scott," he said. "And remember what we talked about today. I believe that Amy did love you, and I believe you could be the kind of person that she would love again, but not by hiding in here and living in your memories. Memories are too unreliable to hang your life on."

  Then Scott felt woozy. He put a hand to his head and felt sweat beading across it. He stumbled, then fell to the floor. He looked up at the old man. "What...what did you...?" But he could not complete the sentence.

  "Oh, I gave you a little something to help you calm down while I had you in that nifty arm lock. You didn't notice it because, well, you were hurting a bit so a little needle prick was hardly going to register."

  Scott's legs went rubbery. His vision began to blur. But he saw enough to see the old man step forward and help him gently into a laying position. "Don't want you to fall and crack your head open," said the old man.

  Then Scott's eyes closed, and he saw nothing else.

  He heard something, though. Heard the old man say one more thing before darkness claimed him and he surrendered himself to oblivion.

  "Don't forget what you're supposed to do," said the old man. "Don't forget where you're supposed to be."

  ***

  21.

  ***

  Lynette didn't like moving. She never had, and liked it much less when they were moving in order to avoid death at the hands of some strange gray ghost-man who had apparently targeted her and her son.