John Saul: Brain Child

“It’s no one. I’ve never seen the car before, and I don’t think anyone’s in it. Whoever it was must have gone across the street.” But even as she spoke, she had the uncanny feeling that she was wrong, and that whoever had arrived in the car was still outside.

At that moment, the doorbell rang, its normally friendly chime taking on an ominous tone.

“What shall we do?” Lisa asked, her voice barely audible.

“Nothing,” Carol whispered back. “We’ll just sit here, and whoever it is will go away.”

The doorbell sounded again, and Lisa seemed to shrink away from the sound.

“He’ll go away,” Carol repeated. “If we don’t answer it, he’ll go away.”

And then, as the bell rang for the third time, there was a pounding of feet on the stairs, and through the dining room Carol could see Kim, apparently having leapt from the third step, catching herself before crashing headlong into the door. Knowing what was about to happen, she rose to her feet. “Kim!”

But it was too late. Over her own cry, she heard Kim’s exuberant voice demanding to know who was outside before she opened the door.

“Don’t open it, Kim,” she cried, but Kim only turned to give her an exasperated glare.

“Don’t be dumb, Mommy,” Kim called. “It’s only Alex.” She reached up and turned the knob, then pulled the door open wide.

Carrying the shotgun in his right hand, Alex stepped into the Cochrans’ foyer.

“How long we going to sit here?” Jackson asked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, then cupped his hand over his lighter as a brief flame illuminated the dark interior of the car they had parked fifty feet up the hill from the Lonsdales’.

“As long as it takes,” Finnerty growled, shifting in the seat in a vain attempt to ease the cramps in his legs. He’d been up too many hours, and exhaustion was beginning to take its toll.

“What makes you so sure the kid’s going to come back here at all?”

Finnerty shrugged stiffly. “Instincts. He doesn’t really have any place else to go. Besides, why shouldn’t he come back here?”

Jackson glanced across at his partner, and took a deep drag on his cigarette, hoping perhaps the smoke might drive away the sleepiness that was threatening to overwhelm him. “Seems to me that if I were in his shoes, this is the last place I’d come. I think I’d be heading for Mexico right about now.”

“Except for one thing,” Finnerty growled. “According to the kid’s dad, the kid couldn’t have done anything, remember?”

“You believe that shit?”

“We saw Alex Lonsdale the night he wrecked himself, remember? By rights, that kid should have been dead. Jesus, Tom, half his head was caved in. But he’s not dead. So who am I to say how they saved him? Maybe they did exactly what Doc Lonsdale says they did.”

“All right,” Jackson replied. Though he still wasn’t accepting the strange tale they’d heard, he was willing to go along with it for the sake of conversation. “So what’s your idea?”

“That maybe the kid was programmed to kill after all, and was also programmed to forget what he’d done, after he’d done it.”

“Now you’re reaching,” Jackson replied.

“Except it accounts for the discrepancy in our notes. Remember how you wrote down that Alex said he parked across from Jake’s last night, and I wrote down that he said he parked in the lot next door?”

“So? One of us heard wrong.”

“What if we didn’t? What if we both heard it right, and we both wrote it down right? What if he told us both things?”

Jackson frowned in the darkness. “Then he was lying.”

“Maybe not,” Finnerty mused. “What if he went down to Jake’s, parked across the street, then changed his mind and went up to Mrs. Benson’s? He kills her, then goes back to Jake’s, and parks in the lot. But he forgets what he did in between the two arrivals, because that’s what he’s been programmed to do. When he tells us everything he remembers about last night, he remembers parking both places, so that’s what he tells us. We didn’t make any mistakes, and he didn’t lie. He just doesn’t remember what he did.”

“That’s crazy—”

“What’s happening in this town is crazy,” Finnerty rasped. “But at least that theory fits the facts. Or at least what we think are the facts.”

“So he’ll come home, because he doesn’t remember what he’s done?”

“Right. Why shouldn’t he come home? As far as he knows, nothing’s wrong.”

“But what if he does remember?” Jackson asked. “What if he knows exactly what he’s doing, and just doesn’t care?”

“Then,” Finnerty said, his voice grim, “we might have to do exactly what his father suggested. We might have to kill him.”

Jackson took two more nervous drags on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in the ashtray. “Roscoe? I don’t think I could do it,” he said finally. “If it comes down to it, I’m just not sure I could shoot anyone.”

“Well, let’s hope it won’t come down to that,” Roscoe Finnerty replied. Then, giving in to his exhaustion, he slid deeper in his seat and closed his eyes. “Wake me up if anything happens.”

“Kim!”

Carol Cochran tried to make the word commanding, but her voice cracked with fear. Nonetheless, Kim turned to gaze at her curiously. “Come here, Kim,” she pleaded. Still Kim hesitated, and gazed up at Alex, her face screwed into a worried frown.

“Did you hurt yourself, Alex?” she asked, her eyes fixing on the cut over his eye.

Alex nodded.

“How?”

“I … I don’t know,” Alex admitted, then turned to look into the kitchen, where Carol and Lisa seemed frozen in place. “It’s all right,” Alex said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

As he spoke the words, Carol took a step forward. “Kim, I told you to come here!”

Kim glanced uncertainly from her mother to Alex, then back to her mother. She backed slowly into the dining room, then turned and dashed on into the kitchen.

When her younger daughter was in her arms, Carol’s strength seemed to come back to her. “Go away, Alex,” she said, the steadiness in her voice surprising even herself. “Just go away and leave us alone.”

Alex nodded, but moved slowly through the dining room until he came to the kitchen door, the gun still clutched in his right hand.

From her chair, Lisa watched Alex’s eyes, and her fear, instead of easing, only grew. There was an emptiness to his eyes that she’d never seen before. It was far beyond the strange blankness she’d almost grown used to over the last few months. Now his eyes looked as if they might be the eyes of a dead man. “Go away,” she whispered. “Please, Alex, just go away.”

“I will,” Alex replied. “I just … I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for what’s happened.”

“Sorry?” Lisa echoed. “How can you be—” And then she broke off her own words, as her eyes suddenly fell on the shotgun. Alex followed her gaze with his own eyes, and his expression became almost puzzled.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said softly. “I mean … Alex didn’t kill anyone. It was the other.”

Lisa and Carol glanced nervously at each other, and Carol shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“I’m not Alex,” he went on. “That’s what I came to tell you. Alex is dead.”

“Dead?” Lisa echoed. “Alex, what are you talking about?”

“He’s dead,” Alex said again. “He died in the wreck. That’s all I came to tell you, so you wouldn’t think he’d done anything.” His eyes fixed on Lisa, and when he spoke again, his voice was strangled, as if the very act of speaking the words was painful for him. “He loved you,” he whispered. “Alex loved you very much. I … I don’t understand what that means, but I know it’s true. Don’t blame Alex for what I’ve done. He couldn’t stop it.”