There was a long pause before Mike answered. 'You want to be alone with him, with the Termite?' he finally said, sounding like he had surrendered something. 'He's a hell of a driver and he digs graves faster than anyone I know but he's not much for conversation. Not to mention what's going to happen when you run out of scooby snacks. You think he's tweaking now''
Mellowman laid down on a piece of foam rubber that was almost large enough to serve him as a mattress. 'You got a point there, I suppose. Now shut up. I want sleep. Mellowman wants sleep!'
'Sure. Sure thing,' Mike said. Nilla couldn't see his face from where she sat.
Silence after that, for a long time. The sound of wheels on concrete, which after a while stops being a sound at all and becomes something different, more fundamental, less liminal. Nilla started listening for the jingle of the keys in the ignition, or the sound of Mellowman's heavy breathing. He never snored, though occasionally he muttered something dark and foul in his slumber.
She wasn't allowed to sleep. She wasn't allowed to just zone out. It seemed that whatever fate had let her live through so much wasn't in the business of being kind.
She heard Mike come across the floor toward her just fine when the time came. When he was sure that Mellowman was fast asleep, most likely. He spoke to her in a dry whisper. 'I know you're dead. Undead. I know you're not like the others, though. What the hell are you?' He didn't seem to expect a straight answer from her. Perhaps he thought she was some kind of spy, that she would refuse to give him that kind of information. If she'd known, though, she would have told him everything.
'You have some friends in high places, I'll give you that. Getting you out of that shallow grave like that' it had to take some serious incentive. Or some serious threats. Somebody wants you really bad if they can talk Rick out of a thrill like that. Care to tell me about it?'
She shook her head, gently so as not to dislodge it from her neck. The vibration of the moving van made her feel as if she would fly to pieces at any moment. 'I don't know,' she said. 'There's this guy, he's dead, but like me. His name is Mael Mag Och. He said he would try to help me. That's all I know. He talks to me' he sends his thoughts into my head, like, like telepathy, and he told me he would try to help.'
Mike sat up and looked down into her face.'Mael Mag Och?What kind of name is that?' He leaned closer. 'Do you think'I mean, what kind of a deal is he making with us?'
Nilla squinted. 'Oh, he would never make a deal with you. You're the one who makes the vaccine. You're trying to stop us.'
Mike's face folded in half down the middle. 'No, that's not' I guess you don't know.' He looked over at the jar of iridescent red pills. 'That stuff's just a placebo. A sugar pill.' He stared into her eyes looking for comprehension. 'It's worthless, it doesn't do anything. This is all a scam that Rick came up with. I have a degree in environmental chemistry, I knew how to make them. Them, and the stuff that keeps the Termite marginally sane. It was Rick's idea to call it a vaccine. He called it a psychology experiment at first, he wanted to see if coming back from the dead was all in people's minds. Either that or he was bullshitting me from the start. Listen. I need to get away from him. You need to just get away. Maybe you and I can make our own deal. Maybe we can help each other out.'
She lacked the strength to turn herself invisible. She lacked the strength to sit up for very long. She couldn't imagine any way in which she could help him but she knew this was her big chance, her one long shot at getting away from Mellowman and the Space Van. Mael Mag Och would never broker a deal with a living human, of course, but maybe if she just lied, made something up'
In the end she lacked the energy to think up a convincing lie.
'I' I'll try,' she said, finally, her voice very small.
Mike's face froze, expressionless and cold. 'I hope you try hard. Rick's not like other people. He's violently insane.'