"Where are you parked?" I asked, as the bus pulled away, its internal lights casting flickering shadows of Delilah and me onto the pavement. Other commuters, dark figures in the night, moved quickly into the gloom.
"The top car park. It is close. Up there." She pointed, but there was nothing to be seen but the darkness. Rain blew in under the shelter, and Delilah automatically pulled my jacket about her body for protection. Her skirt blew against her legs, clinging to their slender length. I was warm inside, from standing body against body in the crowded bus, but my clothes were wet through, as were hers.
"Follow the path then, don't slip. Come on, let's go."
Delilah took my arm and we stayed close together as we walked quickly up the path, the click of her heels a steady step.
"There," she said. "The little blue one." She knew the car was blue, but in this gloom without colour, it was black. I heard the zip of a bag and a tiny clink of keys. "Always in the right place," she said, and I knew then that she was a methodical woman, tidy in her actions, not wasting time. My car keys were in the pocket of my coat, so she had them.
With a press of the remote the driver's door unlatched, and the car's headlights came on, along with the interior light. She pressed the remote again, and the passenger door unlatched. "It is for my safety, how the lights come on. Quick, we are wet. Get in."
She pulled her skirt in around her legs. I closed the door and went around the back of the car. She'd leaned across to push the passenger door open, and I got in. I reached down for the seat slide, to push it back.
"I'm sorry," Delilah said, "I'm not used to a man. In my car." She smiled at me with that quiet smile of hers, her slightly crooked teeth revealed, and I knew she'd said those words filled with precise meaning.
"Here, take this." She placed her bag in my lap. Delilah started the engine and turned around, her arm across the back of the passenger seat so she could see clearly out the rear window. It was an automatic gesture, I'm sure, done a thousand times, but I felt I was caught within it. The interior light dimmed and finally went off, and I saw the blackness of her eyes and her lips were black too, in the dark. She reversed, and straightened the car up between the rows. She brushed wet hair away from her face, then placed the car into drive. "My place, Adam, and we get dry, out of these wet clothes. It isn't very far."
Delilah concentrated on her driving in the dangerous conditions. The streets were black and the only distance was in her headlights; everything else was uncanny, mysterious. I thought of four dark riders, and wondered if this was how the apocalypse started. I still didn't know what had happened, other than the city was black and the rain fell.
I looked at Delilah, seeing her face in the glow of the dashboard lights. She sensed me looking. "Nearly there, Adam." She had my name, she had my keys, she had me in her car, and we were nearly there. I didn't know where we were going, but Delilah drove me there.
She pulled up in front of a group of small apartments, a mirrored pair in each block. "I have a garage around the back, but it's more convenient to park out front."
The parking bays were paved with brick, and the car wheels rumbled as Delilah came to a halt. She sat still for a moment after the engine fell silent, then touched my arm. "You're cold without your jacket, Adam. I'm thinking what I have to keep you warm." She looked at her hand, then patted my arm twice, as if to check I was solid. "But look at us, sitting in my car. One last dash through the rain, and we're inside. Are you ready?"
I wasn't sure if Delilah meant ready for the dash, or ready for the door. "You go first, Delilah, since you know the path. I don't think I can get lost between here and there, can I?"
