“Something about this isn’t right,” he says.
“What?” Tomasz asks.
Seth squeezes Tomasz’s hand, then lets it go. “I’m going to find out what it is.”
“You’re what?” Regine says.
He starts to cross the sitting room toward the blinds. “I’m going to check and see what’s happening.”
Tomasz moves over to Regine and holds her hand now.
Seth stops and looks at them curiously. “You’re not here, are you?” he says, the words coming out, unexpected.
Regine frowns. “Beg pardon?”
“I don’t think you’re really here. I don’t think any of this is really here.”
The engine still thrums outside.
“If we’re not here,” Regine says, holding his stare, “then neither are you.”
“You think that’s an answer?” Seth says. “You think that’s proof?”
“I don’t care what you think. If you let that thing see us, we’re dead.”
But Seth is shaking his head. “I feel like I’m beginning to understand. I’m finally beginning to understand what this place is.” He turns back to the window. “And how it works.”
“What are you doing, Mr. Seth?” Tomasz says. “You said you were just going to check.”
“Seth, please,” Regine says, and he hears her say to Tomasz, “Go, run, there’s got to be a back way –”
“There’s nothing to run from,” Seth says. “There’s nothing here that can hurt me, is there?”
With an almost casual swipe, he pulls up the blinds. The sun blasts into the dim room, and Seth squints in the brightness –
And the Driver punches a fist through the window, slamming it into Seth’s chest, sending him flying across the room with seemingly impossible force.
36
He lands in a tumble at the feet of Regine and Tomasz, who are fleeing to the kitchen. His chest feels as if it’s had a hole punched through it, knocking every bit of air out of his lungs. The Driver smashes out the rest of the glass in the window, throws away the blind in a violently efficient motion and steps over the low window ledge into the sitting room, its feet hitting the floor with a dead thump that feels unnaturally heavy.
It stands there, arms out slightly, feet apart, its sleek featureless head angled so it seems to be looking down at Seth, still curled on the floor, struggling for breath. He can hear Regine and Tomasz as they battle with the door to the back garden, but there’s only high fences and deep grass out there. Nowhere for them to run away from this faceless, horrible, man-shaped thing.
There’s no escape. For any of them.
The Driver moves toward Seth, its steps booming against the floorboards. As it walks, it makes a reaching motion with its arm, and the black, steely baton seems to just appear in its hand. The Driver swings it once, as if to test it. It crackles in the air, emitting a dangerous-sounding hum, tiny spots of light flowing from it as it moves.
Seth’s thoughts jar and tumble as he pushes himself back. What a stupid time to be wrong, he thinks, and Here it is, my death and They just have to pull on it to make the lock work and Will it hurt? Oh, God, will it hurt? and he’s trying to scoot away and the Driver comes on, implacable, baton at the ready –
He is dimly aware of Tomasz in the kitchen saying, “We cannot, we cannot,” and Regine calling out “Tommy!” but all he can see is the merciless, empty face looking back at him, coming for him –
“No,” Seth starts to say –
The Driver leaps, raising the baton to bring it down with a final, terrifying authority –
And is knocked to the ground by a full bookcase tumbling into it.
Seth cries out in surprise, but Tomasz is already running from where he overbalanced the bookcase as Regine scoots her hands under Seth’s arms to help lift him. They drag him into the kitchen, and Seth can see the Driver throwing the bookcase off itself with improbable strength. Tomasz slams the kitchen door behind them, and Regine helps him tip the refrigerator against it.
“Do you have a key?” Tomasz shouts, pointing at the door to the deck. “Please say you have a key!”
“It’s open,” Seth gasps, his chest still throbbing. “Pull on it, wiggle the switch.”
There’s a crash as the Driver throws its weight against the kitchen door, nearly knocking the refrigerator away on its first try, but Regine’s already got the back door open. She grabs Tomasz’s hand and yanks him outside, yelling, “Come on!” to Seth.
He staggers to his feet as a second crash comes, knocking the top half of the kitchen door from its hinges. But it holds. For the moment. Gasping, still hunched over at the pain in his chest, Seth dashes out the back door after them.
They’ve already disappeared into the grass by the time he makes it onto the deck. He can see Regine’s head above the stalks, but Tomasz is only a current running through them, like fish near the surface of a lake.
Seth stumbles past the heap of silvery bandages – still there, still where he left them – and into the grass as he hears a more definitive crash from inside the house.
“Tell me there’s a way out,” Regine shouts back at him.
Seth doesn’t answer.
“Shit,” he hears her say.
They stop next to the ancient bomb shelter, its door long gone, its innards piled high with shards of pots and about eighteen million coat hangers. The back fence is high and wooden with no easy place for footholds, and the embankment on the other side only runs steeply up to another fence, impossibly high with barbed wire across the top.
“Where exactly is this?” Regine says.
“The prison grounds,” Seth gasps. “There’s another fence beyond that and another beyond that –” He stops because Regine and Tomasz are looking at each other in surprise. “What?”
“The prison?” Tomasz says.
“Yeah,” Seth says. “So what?”
“Oh, hell,” Regine says. “Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell.”
“HERE!” Tomasz shouts, pulling at a loose board on the lower corner of the fence. Regine and Seth go to help him, Seth wincing as he bends down, and they yank back two, then three boards. Tomasz scrambles through to the other side. They pull off a fourth and Regine pushes Seth through.
He turns to help her.
But she’s looking back at the deck.
Where the Driver now stands.
Through the hole in the fence, they can see her looking at it, see her turn back to face them.