Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

Jackie clicks her tongue loudly, the way she has learned to. The room around her reflects the sound as vague echoes that her brain turns into a three-dimensional map. She clicks again, but is far too scared for it to work well; she doesn’t have time to listen properly, can’t get any real sense of the room.

Panting for breath, she moves on. Her whole body is shaking and she doesn’t know how to stop it. She turns her head and clicks again, and suddenly becomes aware of an opening off to her left.

Jackie reaches the wall with her hands, follows it until she finds the opening, and once again feels the coolness of air from outside.

It’s a narrow passageway, its floor covered with loose grit and what smells like the charred remains of wood and plastic. One foot treads straight through a windowpane lying on the ground, and it shatters with a loud crash. She knows she’s cut her foot, but stumbles on across the floor. As she reaches out to the wall her fingers dislodge crumbs of dry mortar, and then she hears Nelly stand on the glass.

She’s right behind her.

Jackie breaks into a run, with one hand against the wall and the other stretched out in front of her. She runs into a wooden trestle and falls over it, lands on her left shoulder and groans with pain. She tries to crawl but something hits the floor right beside her. It sounds like a plastic pipe, or a broom-handle.

Jackie crawls forward and hits her head on the wall. She manages to get up onto her feet again, stumbles across some fallen bricks, and leans against the wall.

Jackie isn’t entirely sure of the direction of the passageway. She turns and follows the wall backwards for a metre or so, listens, but can no longer hear Nelly. Her own breathing is so laboured that she has to hold one hand over her mouth in an effort to stay quiet.

Something rustles in front of her, down on the floor, moving slowly.

It’s only a rat.

Jackie stands completely still, breathing through her nose. She has no idea how to find her way out. Terror is preventing her from thinking, she’s too stressed to be able to interpret her surroundings correctly.

A short distance away from her something creaks. It sounds like a heavy door, or even an old mangle. She desperately wants to hide, curl up on the floor with her arms over her head, but she forces herself to go on.

Her feet crunch on stones, charred pieces of wood and drifts of sand and grit. The walls have collapsed in places, completely blocking the corridor, and she has to clamber over the heaps. Stones roll down the slope behind her, and fragments of glass break into smaller pieces.

Jackie hears air rushing through a small gap higher up, and keeps crawling, leaning on her hands. A broken plank scrapes her thigh and her feet slide across bricks and mortar.

There’s a rustling sound behind her and she climbs faster until she hits her head on the roof. She can feel the breeze on her face, but can’t locate the opening. She fumbles desperately in front of her with her hands, trying to push through stones tangled in metal wire, sweeping aside loose mortar, and then she finds the narrow gap. Jackie puts her fingers through a piece of chicken-wire and pulls. She manages to loosen a large stone, digs the hole a bit larger, and cuts her palm. She shuffles forward and tries to crawl through. Groaning, she manages to push one arm and her head through, stones tumble away on the other side of the hole and she forces her way through, kicking with her legs and panicking that she’s going to get stuck.

Jackie fumbles in front of her with her hand, trying to get a grip on anything to help her pull herself through the hole. She can’t hear Nelly behind her, has no idea if she’s scrambling up the heap of rumble with her knife raised.

Jackie feels a piece of tape with her hand and starts to pull herself through as she pushes as hard as she can with her legs. Chicken-wire and stones scratch her back, but she makes it out. Taking a load of grit with her, she shuffles down the other side, catches her foot on the edge of the hole, pulls, then pushes her foot back, angles it differently and finally it comes loose.

Jackie slides down the heap of rubble and reaches a floor. Without having any idea of where she is, she walks forward with her hands outstretched until she finds a wall, and begins to follow that instead.

The bricks are colder here, and she realises she must be getting closer to a way out. She turns a corner and finds herself in a larger room. The ceiling is much higher here, noises rise and spread out, like a gentle sea.

Jackie stops and rests for a moment, trying to catch her breath. She leans forward on her knees, her whole body shaking with exhaustion and shock.

She has to go on, she thinks. Has to find a way out.

With bleeding fingers she feels along the wall with her hand, then hears a metal door open with a creak some way off to the right.

Jackie crouches down and hopes she’s hidden behind something. She tries to breathe silently but her heart is pounding hard in her chest.

Nelly must have gone a different way, she thinks. Nelly knows the layout of the rooms, where the passageways lead.

The knife-wound is hurting much more now, it feels oddly stiff and she’s having trouble breathing. She can’t help letting out a quiet cough, and feels warm blood trickle down her back.

Still crouching, she moves slowly forward, and hits something that scrapes metallically. She lowers her hands and feels that it’s a spade.

‘Jackie,’ Nelly calls.

She stands up cautiously and carries on along the wall, clicks her tongue and realises that there’s an opening ahead on her left.

‘Jackie?’

The echo of Nelly’s voice hits the wall on the other side. Jackie stops to listen. All of a sudden she’s sure: Nelly shouted in the wrong direction.

She can’t see me, Jackie thinks.

It’s so dark in here that she can’t see me.

Nelly’s blind.

Moving slowly now, Jackie bends over, picks up a small stone and throws it away from her. It hits a wall, bounces on to the floor and hits something.

She stands still and hears Nelly move towards the sound.

Jackie returns to the spade and carefully picks it up. The blade scrapes the ground and Nelly stops, panting for breath.

‘I can hear you!’ Nelly says, with laughter in her voice.

Jackie moves closer and can smell her perfume. Step by step she puts her feet down on the floor and listens to the gentle crunch of the gravel.

Nelly moves backwards and walks into a bucket, which falls over with a clatter.

She can’t see me, but I can see her, Jackie thinks as she gets closer, listening to Nelly’s strained breathing and the smell of sweat through her perfume.

Jackie can clearly sense Nelly’s billowing presence, hear the movement of the knife through the air, and sense the movement of her feet as she backs away another couple of steps.

She knows I’m here, but she can’t see me, Jackie thinks again. She squeezes the handle of the spade, cautiously adjusts her grip, clicks with her tongue, and knows at once where the wall is, and where Nelly is standing.

Nelly is panting and stabbing quickly in different directions. The knife hits nothing but air and she stops.

She listens, her anxiety audible in her breathing.

Jackie approaches silently, feeling the heat radiating from Nelly’s body. She follows the movements of the knife, then takes a step forward and strikes hard with the spade.

The heavy blade hits Nelly on the cheek with a short clang. Her head jerks sideways and she collapses onto her hip.

She roars with pain.

Jackie walks round her, listening to every movement, every breath.

Nelly is whimpering to herself and tries to stand up. Jackie strikes again, but the spade passes close to Nelly’s head, the metal merely pushing through her hair.