“Shush,” Regine says. “Later.”
She keeps watching Seth, her eyes demanding. He stays quiet, though, as they walk up and up, this end of the storage facility clearly far deeper underground than the way he came in.
He’s thinking about all that’s happened, about how it happened. Everything that’s led them to this place, the three of them walking up this ramp, into daylight – and here it is, at the exit, warming them, Regine audibly sighing in pleasure – every single event that’s occurred to bring them, him, here, right now.
And as he looks out into the sun over the ash of the burnt-out neighborhood, he’s surprised – though maybe not so much – that a possibility is forming in his mind.
Because this place might be one thing.
Or it might be another.
Or it might even be something completely unguessed.
But he thinks he knows what he needs to do next.
“You ready to go home?” Regine asks.
She’s asking Tomasz, but Seth has to stop himself from answering.
72
Tomasz spends most of the long walk back to Regine’s house repeatedly recounting how he rescued them, each time becoming slightly more heroic, until Regine finally says, “Oh, please, you found a parked car and you sat down. That’s basically it, isn’t it?”
Tomasz looks horrified. “You never appreciate –”
“Thank you, Tommy,” Regine says, suddenly smiling. “Thank you for finding a parked car and sitting down and coming to the rescue at the very last minute. Thank you very, very much for saving my life.”
His face goes all bashful. “You are welcome.”
“You have my thanks, too,” Seth says.
“Ah, you did well yourself,” Tomasz says, generously. “Keeping the thingy person busy until I could drive in like a hero.”
“I’m just amazed you were tall enough to reach the accelerator,” Regine says.
“Well,” Tomasz admits, “it was not easy. Much stretching.”
They find their way to the train tracks, then follow them north. Regine repeatedly pats her pockets as they go, never finding what she’s looking for. She sees Seth watching and glares at him. “Don’t you think after dying a hundred times in a row I deserve one measly cigarette?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“I think you do not,” Tomasz says. “I think you have cheated death many times this day, so why not do it once more?”
“No one’s talking to you,” she says. But not as harshly as she might have.
After a good hour’s walk, under the partially collapsed railway bridge and over toward the supermarket – Seth suggests they stop at his house, but Regine is still shivering, despite the sun, and wants to get out of the bandages as quickly as possible – they cross the road where they saw the deer and turn up to Regine’s house.
“I keep expecting it to pop out,” Regine whispers as they approach her front walk. “Like it can’t possibly be this easy.”
“You think this was easy?” Tomasz says.
“That’s what’d happen if this was a story,” Seth says. “A last-minute attack. By the villain who’s never really dead.”
“You so need to quit saying shit like that,” Regine says.
“You’re thinking it, too,” he says.
She looks defiant. “I’m not. I still know I’m real. That trip back online was all the proof I needed.”
They keep on, and indeed there’s nothing surprising awaiting them at Regine’s front door. Inside, it’s the same sitting room as before, Regine’s coffin in the middle, sofa and chairs cramped around it. She heads upstairs to change, and Tomasz goes into the kitchen to make some food.
Seth sits down on the sofa, the coffin in front of him. He listens to Tomasz in the kitchen, clanking plates, swearing in Polish when the little gas stove doesn’t light on the first couple of tries. Upstairs, Regine is in the bathroom, running some water, taking all the recovery time she needs.
These two funny, difficult people.
He hears them and his heart hurts a little.
But he pushes on it and realizes it’s not a bad hurt. Not bad at all.
He smiles to himself briefly. And then, after a moment, he taps a finger on the coffin like he did down in the prison.
After a few tries, a display lights up, broken but readable.
A little while later, Tomasz comes out of the kitchen with some steaming bowls in his hands.
“Special occasion,” he says, handing one to Seth. “Hot dogs, creamed corn and chili con carne.”
“You’re making a joke, but for an American, this is almost a barbecue.”
“Ah, yes, I keep forgetting you are American.”
“Well, I’m not really anythi –”
“REGINE!” Tomasz shouts at ear-splitting volume. “Dinner is ready!”
“I’m right here,” Regine says, coming down the stairs in fresh clothes, pressing a towel against her hair.
“Is in the kitchen,” Tomasz says. “Keeping warm by lit stove.”
“Good way to burn the whole house down.”
“You are welcome,” Tomasz singsongs after her.
They eat in silence for a while. Tomasz finishes first, burping happily and setting his plate on a side table. “So,” he says, “what are we going to do now?”
“I’d like to sleep for a week,” Regine says. “Or a month.”
“I was thinking we could go back to the supermarket,” Tomasz says. “We never got back there. So much food and things for taking.”
“Yeah, I could use some more –”
“Do not say cigarettes!” Tomasz interrupts. “You are living now. We have saved you. Let the end of the smoking be a celebration.”
“Actually, you know what?” Regine says. “I think maybe we are in need of a celebration.”
Tomasz looks over, surprised. “You mean?”
She nods. “I mean.”
“You mean what?” Seth asks as she takes her plate into the kitchen.
“Well,” she says, “not everything goes bad after years and years, does it?”
Seth glances at Tomasz, who’s grinning madly. “What’s she talking about?”
“Celebration!” Tomasz says, then his face gets serious. “Though we have not had much to celebrate until now.”
Regine reappears in the kitchen doorway, a bottle of wine in one hand and three coffee mugs in the other. “We don’t have refrigerators, so I hope you like red.”