“I’m willing to risk it for one less bad thing in the world,” Regine says.
“Seth?” Tomasz asks. “Regine, something is very wrong with Seth.”
Regine turns at the worry in Tomasz’s voice. Seth presses his hands to the sides of his head, as if to keep it from exploding.
“No,” he says. “Oh, no.”
In the flood of thought whooshing through his brain, the memories are crowding his vision, fighting for attention, swamping him, pulling him under –
But he can still see what’s in front of him, though it’s getting harder –
Still see something not quite right –
Still see movement –
As behind Regine, the Driver starts to rise.
52
Tomasz calls out something in Polish so horrified there’s no need for translation. Regine whips round to the Driver and screams.
“The bikes!” Tomasz yells.
Regine grabs Seth’s arm as she runs past him, but his eyes are locked on the Driver, slowly sitting up.
Slowly rising to its feet.
“Go, go, go, go, go!” Regine says, pulling him so hard she nearly knocks him down.
And now he’s running, too, though it feels more like trying not to fall than anything else. Tomasz is at the bikes but can’t lift them with his injured hands. Regine grabs one and practically throws it at Seth. He catches it by reflex, and Tomasz is already climbing up behind him, wrapping his coat-bound hands around Seth’s waist to hang on.
Seth takes one last look back at the Driver.
It’s standing next to the van now, balancing with an arm on the broken door. It watches them, facelessly, the visor of its helmet reflecting the moonlight back at them.
An enormous chunk torn from the middle of its chest.
How? Seth thinks in the maelstrom of his brain. How?
But then they’re riding, as fast as Seth’s confused legs can pump the pedals, Tomasz gripping him tightly. Regine darts out of the square in front of him, and he does his best to follow her, struggling to keep his balance.
“Oh, do not fall,” he hears Tomasz say behind him. “Do not fall, do not fall.”
He focuses on that, trying to keep his overwhelmed mind on the task at hand. Tomasz’s wrists are pressed so tight around Seth’s middle it’s making his sides hurt, but he rides out of the square after Regine and past the first building. Seth listens for the engine, but there’s no change in tone or volume, no sign that the Driver is chasing them.
Unless it’s on foot, Seth thinks. Who knows how fast it can run?
He pushes harder on the pedals.
Regine is ahead of him, fighting her way up the hill on an overgrown concrete path. Go, he thinks, forcing his body to work. Go, go, go, step, pedal, push, go, go, go.
“You are doing very fine,” Tomasz says, as if he can read Seth’s reeling mind.
“I’m finding it hard,” Seth says, sweat seeping into his eyes as they climb the small hill. “I’m finding it hard to keep . . .”
Keep what? he thinks. Keep conscious? Keep in this place?
He doesn’t dare blink for what he sees whenever his eyes are closed. Even when they’re open, he can still see shadows of it all, one world laid down over the top of another, everyone he ever loved, everyone he ever knew, seeping into the flight of bicycles up a hill –
“It is not following us,” Tomasz calls to Regine.
“How is it still alive?” she shouts backs. “How did it just stand up like that?”
“Bulletproof?” Tomasz suggests, but Seth can see Regine shaking her head and he knows what she’s thinking. That was something more nightmarish than simply a bulletproof vest or uniform. The hole in its chest was too big.
It should be dead. It should have lain there forever.
But instead, it got back up –
They ride through the collapsed fences until they reach the rubble by the train tracks, where the electric light still burns. There’s no path through, so Regine stops and lifts her bike over the tumbled bricks.
Seth and Tomasz do the same, hopping off. Seth grabs the frame of the bike, hoisting it up –
And the world empties.
Sound and noise, memory and image, all of it close in on Seth in a silent crush.
He calls out, strangely softly, and the bike slips from his fingers, clattering down on the bricks, the wheel bending sharply as it crashes.
“Seth!” Tomasz says, shocked. He crouches down by the bike. “Can we bend it back into place?” He looks back up. “Can we –?”
He stops. Because Seth is frozen there, hands out in exactly the same position as when he dropped the bike.
He can still see Tomasz, see the bike, see Regine hurrying back to them.
But he can see everything else, too.
Everything.
He can’t stop it.
His mind has filled, in a quiet tumult so enormous he can no longer fight it, no longer even move –
Everything. Everything is there.
“What’s going on?” Regine says, her voice echoing faintly in his ears, as if from three rooms away.
“He is stuck,” Tomasz says, eyes wide.
Regine steps over to Seth. “Are you there, Seth? Are you with us?”
Her words echo across the miles of everything that’s ever happened to him, and any answer of his will take too long to reach his mouth to explain –
He is far from them. So far, he’ll never reach them again –
And then Regine takes his hand.
She presses it between her own, squeezing hard, but not untenderly.
“Seth,” she says, “wherever you are, it’s okay. You can come back from it. Whatever happened to you down there, whatever the world looks like now, that’s not how it always looks. That’s not how it’s always going to look. There’s more. There’s always more. Whatever you see, wherever you are, we’re still here with you. Me and Tommy.”
Seth opens his mouth to try to answer her, but it’s like slow motion. His mind and thoughts are so full, there’s no room for action, no room for speech.
“Yes,” Tomasz says. He takes Seth’s other hand, gently, his own still swaddled in the torn-off sleeves of Regine’s coat. “Here we are, Mr. Seth. We will be taking care of you. We will be finding you.” Seth can see him suddenly smile. “Like we did just now in big prison breakout! Including guns!”
Regine shushes him but keeps staring into Seth’s eyes.
“Tell us where you are, Seth,” she says. “Tell us where you are so we can come and get you.”