Seth can see the bridge she means. Down from the train station, the tracks go over a brick archway. It’s half collapsed onto the road below, but there’s a space on the right big enough for a bike to go through.
But not big enough for a van.
Seth pedals past Regine, who’s struggling with the weight of Tomasz. There’s a surge in engine noise, and when they look back, they see that the van has made its turn.
And is coming after them, at full speed.
“We are not going to make it!” Tomasz calls.
“Hang on!” Regine yells, her legs pumping frantically.
Seth looks back again. The van is bearing down on them.
Tomasz is right. They aren’t going to make it.
Without stopping to think, Seth veers hard to the right, sending up a wave of ash and turning back the way he came.
“What are you doing?” Regine screams.
“Go!” he yells back. “Just go!”
He rockets past them in the opposite direction, heading straight for the van.
“NO!” he hears Tomasz cry, but he keeps on, picking up speed.
“Come on,” he says as he rides toward the van. “Come on!”
It doesn’t stop or veer.
Neither does Seth.
“COME ON!” he screams.
They’re fifty feet apart –
Thirty –
The van’s engine revs –
And right before impact, it pulls violently to the left, hitting a cracked curb and skidding into the burnt foundations of a house.
Seth makes another hard turn in the ash. “Go! Go! Go!” he yells at Regine and Tomasz, who’ve slowed to watch him. She starts pedaling again and disappears into the narrow opening under the bridge. Seth hurtles after them. They hear the engine revving again, but they ride without looking back, through the darkened dip under the bridge and out the other side.
“Will it come after us?” Seth shouts.
“I don’t know!” Regine says. “We should get to your house and hide.”
“My house?”
“The next crossing point is a bunch of streets north,” Regine says, Tomasz still hanging on to her. “We don’t think it knows where you live –”
“How do you know where I live?”
“We’ll hide the bikes,” she continues, ignoring him. “It usually doesn’t come over to this side at all –”
“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.”