Malorie imagines Tom the man sitting across from her, sitting everywhere in here. It’s been sixteen years. In a way, she attributes this progress to him. This is what he’s accomplished. He’s brought back the train.

Just like he once brought back a phone book that led Malorie to the school for the blind, then to Camp Yadin, where a man delivered a pile of papers with her parents’ names on them.

“All right,” Dean says. “Hit me.”

“How many times has a creature got on board?”

“None.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I suppose I don’t. But the people who went mad on this train saw something outside.”

“How do you know?”

“Again, maybe I don’t. But myself and the other staff walk around without folds. So, I suppose something would’ve happened to one of us by now had there been one on board. Again, the people who went—”

“You said people transport dead bodies.”

“We deliver them, yes.”

“Are there any on board right now?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Two caskets in storage car one. About exactly where we first met. By the back door. I would recommend not sleeping in there. Smells a bit of the grave.”

“Thank you for the honesty.”

“Any sunnier questions? Like, how many people died putting the train back together?”

“I’m sorry,” Malorie says. “But right now all I care about is those two teens. All I care about is getting them where we’re going safely.”

“Well, where are you going?”

“I don’t feel like telling you that.”

“But I’m someone who might be able to give you the most direct route.”

“I don’t feel like saying.”

“Fair enough.”

“Are there any passengers on this train that worry you?”

“Worry me? No. There is a blind woman, but she’s better off than any of us. Why do you wear the hoodie and gloves?”

The question catches Malorie off guard. It’s the first time she’s felt anything close to being socially self-conscious in a long time. It’s an old-world state of mind she has not missed.

“You think they can drive us mad by touching us,” Dean says.

Hearing him say it makes it more real. And less.

“And I’m sure you have reason to believe this,” he says.

“I do.”

“Jesus,” he says. “Here I invited you to the dining car to assuage your nerves and you’ve gone and rattled mine.”

“I’m good at that.”

Dean laughs. But not without weight.

“Tell me, Jill,” he says, “how have you been able to keep it up for this long?”

“Safety?”

“Not just that. You act like we all did when it first happened, when they first arrived. Do you have any idea how many people weren’t able to stay focused like you have? I’ll guess we’ll never know that exact number. But you still live by the blindfold and the blindfold alone.”