Michael Walters - The Shadow Walker

He continued to alternate between struggling with his bonds, and lying as still as possible, trying to gain some sense of what might be happening. But both activities were equally fruitless, nothing more than an empty gesture, a vain attempt to demonstrate to his captor that he had not yet ceased to resist.

And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, he felt the soft touch of a hand against his, the startling warmth of human contact. The touch was so gentle that at first he thought that he was imagining the sensation. But then he felt his hand being grasped firmly in another’s grip, a strange feeling because the hand felt harsher, drier, than human flesh. He twisted his head, trying at least to see the hand, trying to see what was gripping his fingers.

And then he saw it. It was, indeed, simply a human hand clutching his own, but the fingers were enclosed in the kind of protective glove worn by those handling food in a shop or café. The kind of glove that might be worn by someone who did not wish to leave any trace of fingerprints.

Drew arched his back, trying to see more, but could still see only the hand and, beyond that, a wrist surrounded by a white shirt cuff. The hand was grasping his own tightly, pulling it hard to one side. He felt his heart beating loudly, his breath pounding through his chest as he wondered what would follow.

And then he heard something metallic, something heavy, being lifted from the ground. He could hear his captor’s breathing, the slight strain of someone lifting something heavy, high above his head.

Drew tensed as he felt the momentum of the object through the air above him, his mind jumped back to the sights of the dismembered bodies, the thought of how those limbs had been removed. And as he felt the draft of air above him, he did not even have the breath to scream.

He felt, rather than heard, the heavy thump of metal on wood. He remembered, crazily, stories of those who had lost limbs initially feeling no pain, not even recognizing that they had been injured.

But then his breath and his senses returned, and he realized that he was genuinely not hurt. He twisted his head to look at where his captor’s hand was still gripping his own.

In the bench just by his hand, a large ax was buried a centimeter or so into the wood. His hand had been pulled back to avoid the ax, so the blade had instead cut neatly through the bindings around his wrist.

Drew opened his mouth to shout, though he had no idea what words he might utter to this still unseen figure who was unlikely to speak any English. Before he could speak, a handcuff was slip around Drew’s untied wrist. He felt his arm being pulled again, and was then aware that the other half of the handcuffs had been firmly attached to an object, as yet invisible to him. He twisted again in his remaining bonds but could still see nothing.

The figure moved behind him, and his other hand was gripped and pulled aside. Again, there was the swish of the ax falling through the air and he felt another bond fall free.

He tried to move, but the remaining bonds on his ankles and neck still held him firmly in place. He caught a glimpse of his captor as he moved rapidly around the room, a black shadow passing swiftly across his constrained vision. The figure was down at his feet now. Again, Drew felt the hand on his leg, holding his feet to one side as the ax fell again, severing the bond on his left leg. And then the same on his right. His legs were free, and only the tight binding on his neck still held him in place.

His captor moved slowly alongside the bench. Drew twisted his head as much as possible, and for the first time saw the figure who was standing beside him.

The man was unremarkable. He was of average height, stockily built, dressed in a cheap-looking, black Western-style suit. He wore a white shirt, open at the neck. He stopped now and stared at Drew.

He was wearing a black skiing mask which entirely covered his face except for two small eyeholes. And, whereas the rest of this figure was unexceptional, the eyes were striking. They stared fixedly at Drew, reddened, burning, unblinking. It was impossible to read the emotion that lay behind them, there was just an emptiness, a blankness, that seemed almost less than human.

Up to now, Drew’s terrors had been substantial but unfocussed, nothing more than a fear of what might be impending. Now, though, the threat was real and immediate.

Drew lay still on the bench, his legs and right arm free, but his neck still pinioned to the bench. He shifted his head further, feeling the bindings cutting painfully into his neck, and saw that his left arm was fastened with the handcuffs to a ring on the end of a metal pole. Drew pulled hard on the handcuffs, but it was clear that the pole was set into some heavy, immovable base. It was this, perhaps, which Drew had heard his captor dragging along the floor.

The figure stood motionless, watching Drew. The ax hung loose in his left hand. And, in his right hand, held equally loosely, was what appeared to be a pocketknife, gleaming brightly in the room’s stark illumination.

Drew stared back in terror, as the figure began to move slowly forward, raising the knife before his face. His eyes still seemed expressionless, empty of thought or feeling.

As the knife approached his face, Drew suddenly felt as if life and feeling were flooding back into his inert body. Too late, he kicked out with his legs, trying to thrust himself free, feeling the grip of the bond around his neck, preventing him from throwing himself off the bench. The knife rose above him, and Drew screamed, the echoes bouncing ineffectually around the walls and empty spaces.

Nergui had been here before.

How long was it? Three years, maybe four. Something like that. But the sights and sounds and smells-especially the smells-of this place had stayed with him ever since.

It was a place he would dearly have liked to forget. He remembered what he had seen here, at a time when he thought that his country was finally succumbing to irrevocable chaos. This place had seemed almost like a symbol of those miserable days, an image of the depths to which the nation had sunk and from which it had seemed unlikely ever to arise.

But things had changed, and Nergui supposed that this augured well for the future, even if his cynicism did not allow him to entertain excessive optimism. This place was as eerie and unnerving as ever, but its connotations were changing. Already the past was being put behind it.

Visually, the place was extraordinary, a tortuous tapestry of black twisted pipes and billowing steam. It was the entrance to a sewer pipe, a massive construct built in the Soviet days. The pipe network had been built to transport not only sewage but also steam heat from the then thriving factory units around to domestic buildings in the neighborhood. It had not been a particularly efficient arrangement, in that substantial amounts of steam billowed out into the frozen air. But it did ensure, with characteristic Soviet ingenuity, that heat that would otherwise have been wasted-and which, in the West, would perhaps have been discarded without a thought-was transferred to a practical use.

But, with the collapse of the economy, the steam tunnels had been transformed into something more than merely practical. For some, in the most unpleasant and tragic circumstances, they had become lifesaving. This area, only a few years before, had been overwhelmed by those with no other homes to go to-the majority of them children or teenagers.

Whatever their various backgrounds, the hordes of homeless young people had congregated here, trying to find some way of enduring the bitter cold of the icy Mongolian winter. The steam pipes had provided one source of warmth, and the homeless had come in their hundreds to shelter inside, braving the stench of the sewers in exchange for survival.