More Than This (46 page)

The world goes inky and dark –

–
and there is Gudmund, taking Seth’s hand, in a world that’s just the two of them, and they’re watching TV, something unimportant and forgettable, but Gudmund has reached over and taken Seth’s hand for no other reason than that he wants to, and there they sit, together
–

But the pain returns.

And precious seconds have passed.

He’s still on the pavement.

Still with the metal shard stabbed all the way through him.

Still bleeding.

Still dying.

And the Driver only needs one last scraping hop to reach him.

It stands over him, looking down.

And Seth hears nothing, no sound of Regine or Tomasz stirring, no last-minute roar of an engine, no calls of his name or cries of victory.

There’s just him and the Driver.

At the end.

“Who
are
you?” he gasps.

But the Driver, of course, makes no answer, just raises a cracked and melted hand to end Seth’s story once and for all.

It doesn’t punch him, though. It does something much worse. It grabs the end of the leg sticking out of Seth’s stomach.

Seth cries out in an agony so overwhelming, he wonders if he’s going to black out again,
hopes
for it, thinks he can hear himself
begging
for it –

The Driver twists the leg, and impossibly, the pain increases. Seth’s whole torso feels like it’s being dunked in burning acid, like every muscle is snapping from the bone in metal cords.

“STOP!” he screams. “PLEASE! STOP!”

The Driver does not stop. It twists the leg once more in the other direction, as if testing the best way to cause Seth the most pain –

And just like the first time Seth saw it, hiding in the burnt-out neighborhood with Tomasz and Regine, there is nothing to appeal to there, nothing human, no mercy to be asked for or given –

The Driver changes its grip on the leg, fixes a hard fist around it –

“No,” Seth says, sensing what’s coming. “NO! PLEASE!”

It yanks the leg out of him in one terrible, final movement, and Seth loses his mind for a bit, the horror of just the motion of it passing through his back and out his stomach, the terror that all his guts must be spilling out onto the sidewalk (though when he looks there only seems to just be blood, blood and more blood), the utter certainty that his death is really here, that this really is it, that there will never be anything more –

And then the Driver is pushing him over onto his back. He can no longer really breathe, the blood he’s coughing up choking him just like the seawater did.

He’s drowning in it –

(And maybe that, finally, is it –)

(Maybe that’s what this has all been –)

(Maybe he never stopped drowning –)

The Driver effortlessly pulls Seth’s hands away from the wound, and though Seth’s brain is telling him to resist, to fight back, he doesn’t have the strength to do anything at all –

He is at the Driver’s mercy –

And the Driver has none to offer –

It leans over him now, raising its arm above Seth, its hand clenching into a fist –

Seth wishes so many things were different, wishes he knew that Regine and Tomasz would be okay, wishes only that he could have stopped the Driver for
them
–

A line of spikes shoot out from the Driver’s knuckles, sharp and needle-like –

Seth sees sparks start to flash between them, small arcs of electricity casting from one to the other –

This is it,
he finds enough strength to think –

This is it
–

No
–

Bolts of electricity shoot from the Driver’s fist –

For a split second, the pain is worse than should be humanly possible –

And then there is only nothingness.

“Eat up,” says his mother, setting the dish in front of him. “It’s not your favorite, but it’s what we have.”

The table where he’s sitting is absurdly long, too long to fit in any normal room, and the clink as she sets the plate down echoes into the milky whiteness beyond. This is no place. No place he’s ever seen. No place that ever existed.

“It’s
my
favorite,” Owen says, reaching across the table with a spoon and dishing out the steaming hot food onto his own plate.

“Tuna-noodle casserole?” Tomasz says, sitting next to Owen. “I have not heard of this.”

“It’s great!” Owen says, serving some to Tomasz.

“Isn’t that the food you hate most, Seth?” H asks, in the chair next to him.

“Is it?” his father says, down at the end of the table.

“It is, I’m afraid,” Gudmund says, leaning forward on Seth’s right. “I mean, he really, really hates it. Cooked tuna is about the worst taste in the world. And then you mix it with
onions –”

“He’s right,” Monica says as Owen spoons some casserole onto her plate, too. “It’s disgusting.”

“And that’s what the Internet age has done for us,” his mother says, sitting down. “Anything you don’t like is automatically disgusting and anyone who may like it themselves is an idiot. So much for a world full of different viewpoints, huh?” She takes a bite. “I think it’s delicious.”

“Taste has become opinion,” his father agrees, picking up a newspaper and opening it. “When any fool knows they’re two different things.”

“Still,” Tomasz says, frowning at his plate, “neither my taste nor my opinion of this is either of them very positive.”

“You can have some of mine,” Gudmund says to Seth, offering his plate, which has the chicken mushroom pasta that’s Seth’s favorite.

“Or mine,” H says, offering the same thing.

“I want to get in on this action,” Monica says, lifting her plate across the table and offering it to Seth as well, the tuna-noodle casserole replaced on her plate with the same pasta.

“I do not have that,” Tomasz says, his own plate now filled with a red savory-smelling mixture of meats and vegetables, “but this is my favorite from when I was a little boy.”

His mother shakes her head. “Everyone thinks they know what’s best. Everyone.”

And then a voice behind him says, “Sometimes you need to find out that you don’t, though.”

He turns. Regine is there, a little away from the table, the light behind her making a silhouette. She is different from the others. Apart. He senses that she’s waiting for something.

Waiting for him somehow.

He squints into the light. “Is that what I’m supposed to find out?” he asks her, his voice raspy, as if it hasn’t been used for years and years and years. “Is that what all of this means?”

Regine steps out of the light and it dims behind her, becomes a swath of stars against a night sky, the Milky Way blazing. She stands in front of him, the same big, awkward Regine he knows her to be.

Except she’s smiling. It’s a don’t-be-an-idiot smile.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says as the voices behind him fade.

“This isn’t a memory,” he says. “Not like the others.”

“Well, obviously.”

He looks back to the quiet dinner, everyone still eating and talking around one table. All the people he knows. Gudmund glances back at him. And smiles.

“It doesn’t feel like a dream either,” Seth says, his heart aching.

“There you go again,” Regine says, “expecting me to have all the answers for you.”

“Is this death?” He turns to her. “Have I died? At last?”

She just shrugs.

“What am I doing here?” Seth asks her. “What has all this been about?”

“Hell if I know.”

“But haven’t you been leading me somewhere?” He gestures to the room, to the guests at the table again, Gudmund still watching him carefully, a look of concern crossing his face. “What does it all mean?”

Regine chuckles. “Are you serious? Real life is only ever just real life. Messy. What it means depends on how you look at it. The only thing you’ve got to do is find a way to live there.”

She leans down until her face is close to his. “Now, make hay, dickhead. While the sun still shines.”

He opens his eyes.

He’s still on the pavement. The Driver is still over him. The sparks still coming from the needles on its fist –

But they’re dying down, dampening, receding.

Stopping.

Seth takes in a breath.

He
can
take in a breath.

He coughs up some blood and has to spit it messily out –

But he can breathe. His lungs feel wet and heavy, like he has a terrible cold, but they’re working. He breathes again. And once more.

And it’s easier.

“What’s happening?” he asks. “Am I dead?”

The Driver remains motionless. The needle-like protrusions disappear back into its knuckles, but it stays looming over Seth. He tries to scoot away and pain shoots through his rib cage. He puts a hand on the wound –

But something’s different.

He’s still covered in blood, but it’s no longer spilling out of him in a great rush.

“What . . . ?” Seth says.

The Driver seems to be regarding him, watching to see what he’ll do –

As if it’s waiting.

The pain is still terrible as Seth pulls up his blood-soaked shirt where the Driver’s leg pierced him, and below, on his skin –

Is the wound, set in the curve just below his ribs. It’s horrific to see, a wound that looks impossible, that looks fatal –

That looks as if it’s sealing itself.

Seth glances up in bafflement at the Driver, still motionless, still watching him, then back down at the wound. There are little sparks flashing within it,
inside
his skin somehow. He can feel the shocks of them as they fire –

As they seem to be stitching the wound shut.

It still hurts,
a
lot,
but even as he watches, the torn layers of his skin are coming together, like little fingers reaching for one another. After a moment, there’s no trace of bleeding at all.

He cries out as he feels the sparks moving deeper into his body, and he realizes he can feel them working on the exit wound on his back, too. He puts his hand there but has to pull it away when he’s shocked by the sparks.

And still the Driver watches him. However it is that it manages to watch, Seth feels
watched.

“What have you done?” he gasps, turning again at the pain in the wound –

The pain as it seems to be healing –

“What have you
done
?” he says again, and his voice is full of emotion. “I don’t understand.”

He curls forward at another shock in his body, arms around his middle, but he finds he can bear it. He looks back up at the Driver, and his own eyes are clouding with tears.

“Why?” he whispers, and then he says again, “I don’t understand.”

The Driver makes no sound, no sign that it’s even heard him. It’s as mysterious and unreadable as ever, its face as blank and empty as a void.

The shocks in Seth’s body seem to be dissipating. He looks down at the wound again. The scar is ugly, purple, painful to the touch. But it
is
a scar. His mortal wound has healed.

He looks at the Driver again and repeats his question from earlier. “Who
are
you?”

The Driver makes no response. Balancing on its one leg, it pulls itself up on the parked car, rises over Seth again, and regards him. Seth licks his lips, tasting the drying blood there. He’s too weak to run, too weak to fight anymore. All he can do is wait and see what the Driver does next.

Seth has absolutely no idea what that might be.

And then the Driver twitches, its whole fractured body twisting oddly in one violent jerk –

It raises its arm as if reaching out for something –

But there’s nothing in front of it, nothing to reach for, Seth is still on the ground at its feet –

A point of light appears in the middle of the Driver’s chest, just a small white spot at first but then exploding out in a shower of sparks so wild that Seth scoots back on the sidewalk, grunting at the ache still running through his torso.