Dominik pushed him away. “Get off me!”
The man fell backwards, looking hurt and dazed. “You… you can't leave me here!”
“Get away from us!”
Gloeckner ran, stopping another soldier a few seconds later and getting similar treatment.
Something was wrong here, something far worse than the explosion. No one was stopping them. No one was even paying attention.
They walked all of the way to the gate, Dominik's anxiety growing with each second. Two soldiers already stood at the fence, both of them staring into the great beyond.
“My God,” one of them said.
Half a kilometer away, Dominik saw an overturned motorcycle, its headlamp still shining. It had been carrying two riders, but both of them were laying on the dirt face down. He thought they were dead until one of them began to get up. Seeing long hair drop from beneath the helmet, Dominik felt his mouth sag.
“Lucja!” he cried.
He began to move and then stopped. Over the ridge, he could suddenly see what was coming. The hordes were tumbling upwards from the abyss, rushing towards the base. Men and birds and beasts alike, black as pitch and violent as a hurricane. They spilled over one another, sprinting and running and tearing up the dirt with claws outstretched. Their shrieks rolled towards him like thunder.
Ari and the soldiers disappeared from his view. He was staring only at his daughter, his eyes wide. “I have to get her.”
He ran towards the oncoming horde. He ran towards Lucja.
6
Lucja pulled her helmet off, her head feeling like it had been sloshed inside of a water tank. “What was that?” She didn't know if Jan was hurt or even alive, but when the man didn't respond, she asked again. “What was that?”
Jan pushed himself slowly upwards. “We hit something.”
“Did you see it?”
Instead of responding, Jan nodded towards a shape on the ground. It lay crushed beneath the sidecar, as black as the things that had grabbed Harald. Her father had told her about them, but she hadn't believed. How could she, without seeing one with her own eyes?
As for the sidecar, it had detached from the bike during the fall. The attachment bar lay bent out of proportion, one wheel strewn some distance away. That didn't bode well for the bike if they hoped to ride it again.
She clutched at Jan's arm without thinking. She didn't know why, but it felt safe. Staring at the thing on the ground, she needed to feel safe. His body grew rigid in her hands, but he wasn't looking at her — he was looking towards the crater.
An army of shapes was rushing towards the base, crying and screeching and clawing their way forwards. Jan shoved her aside, a gun suddenly in his grip. For a brief moment, she thought she had felt some warmth in him, but now, she saw him as he truly was. Jan was a weapon. If she were to clutch him again, she'd feel the same comfort she would feel clutching a very large, very well-trained attack dog.
Two stragglers broke off from the pack and charged them. Jan aimed the gun and fired. It took all eight shots to bring them both down.
Lucja ran back to the bike. The wreck had been terrible, but up close, it looked all right.
Reaching beneath the seat, she touched the engine and burned her hands. “Aa!”
Jan looked over but didn't comment. He ejected a clip from his gun and thrust in another. More shapes were coming up the path.
Lucja reached under the bike again, being careful to keep her hands off of the metal, and she tried to lift it. She couldn't. The thing felt like it weighed a ton. A few meters away, Jan began firing again. When he was empty, he turned. “If you're going to get that bike up, I suggest you hurry. I'm almost out of shots.”
And then another voice, this one behind them: “Lucja! Lucja!”
As she saw her father running down the path, she was hit with a moment of terrible déjà vu, her mind returning to the shore, to the moment when Hans tore her sister away.
He tackled her. “I love you, darling! I love you. I love you!” Her face was thick with grime, and still, he covered her with kisses. “I'm sorry. I never should have let you go alone!”
“It's all right, but help me. Help me, Papa!”
When she bent down, he bent with her, and together, they put their hands under the bike. They lifted as one, her father's face growing purple with effort. He was never a strong man, her father, but he was strong today. Yes he was.
“There!” he said, laughing.
The motorcycle stood upright once more. She wasn't sure if it would work, but it wasn't leaking any fuel, and the wheels didn't look bent.
We're going to be all right, she thought. We're going to be all right, all of us!
“Step away from the bike.”
When she looked at her new companion, she saw that Jan was not the savior she thought him to be after all. He was pointing the gun at her father.
“What are you doing?” she barked. “Jan, what the hell are you doing?”
His eyes were brimming in the dim light, but they were resolute. “That bike only holds two.”
“What?”
“We're not going back to the base. It's too late for that, now. I think I can get us to the shore if I cut through the hills, but only two of us are going to make it.”
“We'll fit three. We have to! I don't weigh very much, I—”
“No,” Jan said.
She looked at the man, and then she looked at her father. For the past week, he had been a man possessed. He had plans within plans, he had a will as hard as stone. Whenever she and Ari had faltered, he had been there to pull them out of the rut. So when she saw him there, his expression low and knowing, she didn't understand.
“Can you drive a motorcycle?” Jan asked.
Her father shook his head.
Jan lowered his weapon. “Then it's decided.”
Lucja was sure her father would pounce on the man. He would wrestle him to the ground and take his weapon. Or he would pull out some magic powder and blow it in the man's face, blinding him. And she would help him. She would be right there by his side to make a daring escape, maybe circling back around once for Ari. Because as grateful as she was to Jan, if she had to choose sides… well, there was no choice to be had.
As the seconds ticked by, it became clear her father wasn't going to do any of those things. Instead, he took a step back, letting Lucja hold the bike alone. It was not heavy once it was upright, but holding it meant she could not step away.
Jan threw a leg over the seat. It was only then, in that gesture, that Lucja realized the gravity of what was happening.
“No. No! You can't do this!”
“I love you,” her father said. “And you have to go.”
“Not without you!”
Dominik stepped to her and put his hands on her cheeks. “The man is right. I can't drive a bike. So it can't be me who saves you this time. I'm too late, Lucja. I'm always too late.”
“Then I'm not going.”
“Yes you are!”
When he looked at Jan, the man grabbed Lucja by the scruff and hoisted her onto the bike behind him. For some reason, she didn't fight. She felt paralyzed from the neck down.
“I'll be all right,” her father said. “Now go!”
There was so much she wanted to say, so many reasons why it couldn't happen like this. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was for being angry, for doubting him, for blaming him for what had happened to her mother, Magdelena. She wanted to tell him that what happened to Zofia wasn't his fault. When she opened her mouth, however, nothing came out.