“We should be okay,” Tomasz whispers. “The engine is not near.”
“You shot it in the chest at point-blank range and it stood up again,” Regine says. “We don’t know what it might be capable of doing. You think it doesn’t know we rely on the sound of the engine to tell us where it is? You think it might not use that to screw with us?”
Tomasz’s eyes grow wider, and he slips a cloth-covered hand into Seth’s.
“We really aren’t far,” Regine says. “If we can get across –”
She stops, eyes suddenly alert in the moonlight.
“What?” Seth whispers.
“Did you hear something?”
“No, I –”
But he hears it now, too.
Footsteps.
Definitely footsteps.
Far closer than the distant drone of the engine.
The footsteps are slow, quiet, as if they don’t want to be heard. But they’re coming this way.
Tomasz grips Seth’s hand tighter and lets out a very soft, “Ouch,” at the pain from the burns. He doesn’t let go, though.
“Nobody move,” Regine whispers.
The footsteps grow louder, nearer, coming from somewhere on their right, maybe from the sidewalk on the other side of the street, hidden by darkness and the cars parked there. They have a strange quality to them, oddly hesitant, stopping and starting, as if having trouble getting up a good walk.
“Maybe we hurt it,” Regine whispers, and Seth sees her posture change slightly. She would be happy if it was hurt, he realizes. Happy to face it when she stood a chance of beating it.
“Regine –”
She shushes him, pointing silently with her finger. Seth and Tomasz lean forward.
There’s movement in the shadows across the street.
“We should get out of here,” Seth says.
“Not yet,” she says.
“It’s still got weapons –”
“Not yet.”
Seth can feel Tomasz pulling back, readying himself to run. Seth moves back with him, but Regine stays where she is –
“Regine,” Seth hisses through clenched teeth –
“Look,” is all she says.
Angry, tense, ready to flee, Seth leans forward to look out onto the wide street again, where the footsteps take their last movements out of shadow and into moonlight.
Tomasz makes a little gasp beside him.
It’s a deer. Two deer. A doe and her fawn, hesitantly picking their way into the street, ears alert, stopping every little bit or so to make sure the way is still safe. The fawn steps past its mother and takes a mouthful of wild weeds from the road. It’s impossible to tell their color in the moonlight, but they don’t look skinny or unwell, Seth thinks. There’s certainly enough vegetation around to keep them fed. And if there’s a fawn, then there must be a stag out there somewhere.
Seth, Tomasz, and Regine watch the pair make their way down the street, their hooves clicking on the tarmac. The engine noise is still in the distance, and it’s clear by the flicks of her ears that the doe hears it, but she keeps watch calmly as her fawn feeds itself.
She stops and raises her head higher, sniffing the air.
“She smells us,” Regine whispers. The doe doesn’t bolt, but she turns from them, pushing her fawn away down the road, disappearing into farther darkness until not even the moon can see them.
“Wow,” Tomasz says after they’ve gone. “I mean, WOW!”
“Yeah,” Seth says. “I didn’t expect –”
He stops.
Because he can see Regine wipe two stray tears from her cheeks.
“Regine?”
“Let’s keep going,” she says, and stands to lead them on their way.
They take a long circle to get to the house. The trees are surprisingly thick here in amongst the homes, and the moonlight shines down only in glimpses, as if they’re at the bottom of a steep canyon. The drone of the engine stays far away, and when they reach Regine’s street, there’s no sign of anyone waiting for them.
It’s a nicer neighborhood than Seth’s, he can see that even in the dark. The houses are stand-alones, not in blocks like his, the gardens more spacious, the streets a bit wider. Despite the decent size and niceness of his own house, Seth remembers it was only affordable to his parents because it bordered a prison.
“This is where you grew up?” he asks, already regretting the surprise in his voice.
“Yeah,” Regine says, “and even in online utopiaville, we were still the only black people. So what does that tell you?”
They wait at the corner, behind a better model of derelict car.
“I am not seeing anything,” Tomasz whispers.
“No,” Regine says. “But how would we know? It can probably wait a lot longer than we can.”
“Any of these houses will do for a rest,” Seth says. “They probably all have empty beds.”
“Yeah,” she says, squinting down the road, “but they’re not my house, are they? I don’t think I’m ready to give up my house.”
“I really don’t doubt that,” Seth says, “but –”
“Oh, for the sake of heaven,” Tomasz says, standing. “My hands are hurting. I want to wash them. It is there or it is not, and if it is there, then it knows where to find us and it can do that anywhere we try to run. Besides, I am feeling cranky and over-tired.”
He marches down the street.
“Tommy!” Regine calls after him, but he keeps on going.
“He’s got a point, you know,” Seth says.
“Doesn’t he always?” Regine grumbles, but she stands and heads after Tomasz. Seth goes, too, and he can see now how right Regine was about the lights. Tomasz’s is shining in the darkness like a beacon.
What did happen? he thinks. Why did they link up? Why the sudden immersion into what was clearly the worst thing that had ever happened to Tomasz? It made no sense, but at the very least, it’s calmed down the torrent in his brain for now, all that information still bubbling but temporarily at bay.
He looks at the back of Regine’s neck. What would happen if I connected to her? he wonders.
“Tommy, wait,” Regine says as they near the front path of a dark brick house, hidden behind the same shadows of wild plants and mud. Regine looks around carefully, turning in a full circle – the same way Seth does when he’s being watchful, he notices – but there’s still nothing in the darkness that comes after them.