“Usually?”
Regine grunts in annoyance as they turn another corner. “There’s a lot we don’t know.”
“But we do know some things,” Tomasz says.
“Like what?” Seth says.
“Like we were right to follow you,” Tomasz answers cheerfully. “Because you saved us.”
“What did I save you from?” Seth asks as they finally start slowing their pace. “What was that thing?”
Tomasz looks at him and says, “Death. It was death.”
33
“Not actual death,” Regine says as they hide the bikes in an overgrown garden two streets up from his house. “We call it the Driver.”
“Maybe actual death,” Tomasz says.
Regine rolls her eyes. “Not a skeleton in a cloak with a . . .” She makes a motion with her hands.
“Scythe?” Seth suggests.
“Scythe,” Regine agrees. “But it’ll kill you.”
“How do you know?”
“This isn’t the time to explain,” she says, leading them off down the sidewalk in the direction of Seth’s house. “We’ve got to get inside.”
“But who are you?” Seth says, following. “Where did you come from? Are there more of you?”
Regine and Tomasz exchange a glance. It’s enough to give him the answer in an instant. He’s surprised at how sudden his disappointment is. “There aren’t. Are there?”
Regine shakes her head. “Just me and Tommy. And whatever’s driving that van.”
“Three of us. That’s it?”
“Three is better than two,” Tomasz says. “And much better than one.”
“We figure there have to be more people out there somewhere,” Regine says. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
“Yeah,” Seth says. “Because everything else here makes so much sense.”
Tomasz frowns. “But sense is what it does not make.”
“Try not to use irony,” Regine says to Seth. “He doesn’t understand it.”
“I do, too!” Tomasz protests. “In my language, plenty irony. I could tell you story of the dragon of Krakow who –”
“We need to get inside,” Regine says. “I don’t think the Driver considers us much of a threat unless we get too close, but –”
“Too close to what?” Seth asks.
They both look at him, startled. Regine cocks her head at him. “Where do you think you are?”
Seth says, simply, “Hell.”
“Yes,” Tomasz says. “What I say.”
“Well,” Regine says, pressing on down the sidewalk, “that’s one way of putting it.”
They make their way carefully, walking on the least dusty bits of sidewalk, trying to disguise their footprints, but anyone looking for them could still find them pretty easily.
They’d have to be looking, though.
“Whatever that . . . thing is,” Seth says, “it’s never come this way before. Trust me. Nothing’s driven down these roads for years.”
Regine hmphs. “I’ll still feel better when we’re in the house.”
“Do you have any food there?” Tomasz asks. Regine shoots him a glance. “What?” he says. “I am hungry.”
“Just cans,” Seth says. “Soups and old beans and custard.”
“Exactly what we’re used to,” Regine says.
They turn the corner at the far end of Seth’s street. “That one there, yes?” Tomasz says, pointing.
Seth stops walking again. “How do you know that? Have you been spying on me?”
Tomasz’s smile falters and even Regine looks uncomfortable.
“What?” Seth says.
Regine sighs. “Tommy saw you standing on top of the train station bridge a few days ago.”
“She did not believe me,” Tomasz says. “Said that I imagined you.” He smiles again. “I did not.”
“We’re in a house a couple miles from here,” Regine says, gesturing northward, “but we were out gathering food and Tommy said he thought he saw someone.”
“We looked for very long time in rain that never stopped,” Tomasz says, nodding. “Got very wet.”
“And then we, uh,” Regine says, and she actually seems to blush, “we saw you showering. In the rain. Out in front of your house.”
Tomasz grins even wider. “You were pulling on your willy!”
“Tommy!” the girl snaps. Then she frowns at Seth. “Well, you were. And we weren’t going to say hello when you were busy, and we were hungry and wet, so we went back home and thought we’d come back when things weren’t so . . .”
“Private,” Tomasz stage-whispers.
“Rainy,” Regine says.
Seth feels a burning in his throat. “I thought I was alone here. I thought I was completely alone.”
“That is what I thought, too,” Tomasz says solemnly. “Until Regine finds me.” He smiles again, shyly this time. “And now you make three.”
“So we got here this morning,” Regine says, “only to find that you were running very, very fast toward something in particular.” She crosses her arms. “Almost like you had somewhere to go. Something to do.”
There’s a silence, which Seth doesn’t fill.
“And we could not let the Driver catch you,” Tomasz says. “So we followed. And here we all are.” He shrugs. “Still outside.”
Seth waits a moment without saying anything more, then heads down the street, leading them toward his house. He’s embarrassed about the shower business, but not as much as he could be. Something’s still not right about this. These two just happened to be there when he was running toward the hill, just happened to stop him before he made contact with the black van, just happened to find the perfect place to hide from the Driver?
He sneaks a peek back as he turns up the path to his front door.
A short, happy Polish kid and a big, suspicious black girl.
Did he create them? Because they’re just about the last and weirdest thing he’d pick to create.
He swings open the front door, and they follow him inside. Regine takes a dining chair and Tomasz slumps on the settee. “This is a very terrible painting,” he says, staring up at the panicked horse above the mantel.