Thr3e+Meeting+2

Major & minor characters: M: Samantha, Slater, Kevin m: Bully, Balinda, Damon, police, photographer

Mood or tone of section: Mysterious & intense Who is Slater, why is Slater after Kevin, why is a man trying to make Kevin confess a sin. Why is this man putting Kevin through such events and hostility just for a confession. What is going to happen next with Kevin, and will he survive?

__Questions:__ 1) Why did Balinda Parson (Kevin's Aunt) allow him to own a dog (Damon) but not allow him to talk to people outside of the property? Balinda knew that Kevin needed some sort of friend to be around so the dog was an alternative to inanimate toys and books that Kevin was given to keep himself busy aside from homeschooling. Balinda thought the outside world is tainted and does not have a manner to life. She wanted to raise Kevin on her own and dicipline him with her own manner.

2) What do you think Slater implies about the title of Kevin's essay? Kevin's essay title is "The Coexistence of Sin, Truth and Peace" and slater implies that "truth and peace" cannot exist with sin.

3) Why did Balinda claim that she saw Kevin sneak out with a friend at night? Kevin had often gone out in the night to visit Samantha as a kid and Samantha was the only friend he was able to reach without being caught by his aunt. Balinda knew that Kevin did this because she once saw him leave on that night that Kevin had seen the bully. She wanted a reason to call Kevin a "traiter" when the doghouse was destroyed.

4) What role does Samantha seem to be playing in this story? Explain how Samantha can be a negative factor in Kevin's situation with Slater. Samantha is an issue for Kevin because Samantha is the reason for the "sin" that Kevin had committed with the "killing of the bully." Samantha is also another issue for Kevin when his Aunt had called him a "traitor" for associating himself with outside people. Lastly, Samantha was a target for Slater to kill in the bus riddle.

5) Do any of the characters bring unbalenced feelings to you as the reader. What characters and how. (by unbalenced feelings, which character do you dislike and for what reason) Kevin - He does not think quickly enough. He is able to search in his memory and reach a target on time but he will never be prepared enough to outsmart his enemy. He could have saved his dog if he told Balinda to do it for him in the first place by just calling her and telling her to take the dog inside. Slater - Slater should not be the one to be telling Kevin to confess his sins, Slater is not god, not the church, not any sort of divine power. Balinda - She acts like a freak and doesn't realize what she has done to her own family. She should have let Kevin grow up like a normal family, and not have disconnected him from the world outside of his house.

=Day 2 Summary= The events flyby very quickly through these scenes and the storyline picks up and does not let down until the conclusion.

Kevin's essay from earlier is used by the riddle killer. The essay title is "The Coexistence of Sin, Truth, and Peace" and the message on the essay written in a bloody red ink is "confess". Slater, the riddle killer, calls and tells Kevin to leave cops and police out of this again or else Kevin will be killed. Kevin is freaked out and yells into the phone at Slater for his reasons for putting him through this situation and Slater only replies with "confess your sins or a childhood memory of yours will be blown away from your world, you spent time with this memory for so long and now have one chance to save it, Kevin. You have three minutes to confess your sins or it will be blown to pieces."

Kevin instantly realizes that his only childhood memory was his dog, Damon, which is at his aunt Belinda's house. Kevin runs down to his old home and is confident that Damon is the only memory that Slater could possibly talk about because Kevin was a lonely boy as he grew up and Belinda had kept Kevin at home away from the outside world and Damon was the only link he had to outside of his life with Belinda. As he runs to Damon's dog house, Slater is still on the phone with Kevin and Kevin has no idea what to say because he is nervous and is pumped with fear and only the determination to take his dog into safety. Belinda comes out of her house when she hears Kevin yelling into his phone and scolds Kevin to not get near the dog and tells him that he is a "traitor" and that his family here hates him and does not want him around. Kevin jumps over the fence and Slater says "time's up" and the dog house explodes with a burst of flames. Kevin is bewildered and Belinda looks at Kevin like he is a madman and starts to believe that Kevin killed the dog. Belinda yells at Kevin and says to him that if he wanted revenge, he had no reason for revenge in the first place and if this was his way of fulfilling that temptation, he is a sick man. Kevin feels all crazed and upset and returns to his apartment.

Kevin returns to his apartment with Samantha and fans are placed all over his apartment and his thesis to his essay that he wrote was thrown all over the place and the fans where constantly throwing pages around. Kevin gets upset and confused and Samantha only wants to calm him down and get him to sleep. The riddle killer was inside his room and had made this mess. Kevin looks out the window and spots a man dressed in black with a camera, who was specifically taking pictures of Kevin. He calls over Samantha to see the man but once he turns his head back and Samantha looks out the window, the man is gone. Samantha tells Kevin to get some rest because Kevin has been up for longer than a straight day and is starting to see things that don't exist. Kevin agrees but is still worried and finally falls asleep on his couch. Samantha leaves his apartment.

Kevin is woken up abruptly by a call from Slater and is handed a new riddle, "The route you take every day but today and never again is in danger Kevin, if you don't confess your sins now, the 136 line will be destroyed on the third turn. Kevin instantly knows what the killer is talking about, and this was a bus that Kevin took to class everyday of the week but this day and Samantha was on that bus. Kevin rushes down and attempts to reach Samantha by cell phone but Samantha does not pick up. Kevin rushes to intercept the Bus at the third turn at a certain street and he knows that he must stop that bus before it reaches that turn. Kevin beats the doors to the bus and yells at the driver and tells the driver that there is a bomb on the bus. The driver almost hits another car and stops violently and Kevin brings everyone out of the bus. The streets stall and stare at the bus in silence and then the bus explodes just as Slater had said. Kevin is now in a state of insecurity and grabs Samantha by the hand and says that he is leaving.

Samantha questions him and asks him where they are going and Kevin says that they are going to rent out a room outside of town for a little while until things calm down. Samantha stops questioning him. Kevin reaches a room at a motel and tells Samantha to get rest because they might be on the move later. Samantha agrees and Kevin leaves the room when he saw Samantha was in complete sleep. Kevin goes out into the alleys and spots some sketchy street people. He asks them if they have arms and they reply with a nod and show him a collection. Kevin returns to the Hotel with a gun and a pack of ammunition.

Kevin falls asleep in the hotel too and Samantha is up thinking. Kevin's phone rings and room service says that there should be a package at the doorway. Samantha cautiously opens the door and a cockroach infested platter with a tape is at her feet. Samantha wakes Kevin up and they listen to the tape. Slater's voice comes on and tells him that "just like these cockroaches, sin is hated and is very often scary and startling, and sinners only deserve to live in a hell together and the only way to clean the filth is to repent the original sin." Slater tells him to come to the place where Kevin had actually committed the sin and the call is ended. Samantha asks Kevin where and possibly what did Kevin ever do that someone would be so hateful and this hostile. Kevin says that one night he snuck out to see her from his Aunt's house as a kid. He came to her window and saw another older guy looking into the living room window. Kevin explains how he yelled at the Bully to back off and to mind his own business. The bully is offended and starts running after Kevin and Kevin felt in danger and started running away. Kevin explains how he locked up the older bully that was chasing him down the street that night and he thought that night was gonna be his last night alive. He explains that the bull had chased him and Kevin though he would be safe if he ran away and hid in a cellar of an abandoned warehouse. He locks the hatch to the cellar with a thin piece of wood but the bully is strong and was able to break the door. Kevin felt a sudden urge to beat the enemy and picks up a wrench from the ground and hits the bully. Kevin escapes the Cellar and locks the hatch with a strong steel pipe and leaves the bully. He says to Samantha that he thought he killed the bully because the bully was left in there with no escape. Samantha and Kevin call the police and tell the police to search that old cellar. The police tell them that little to nothing was found but a denim jacket with blood on it. Kevin realizes that since there is no dead body in the cellar, then the bully must have gotten out. Kevin and Samantha are now worn out and go home to rest.