by Pavel Kornev
And there were smokestacks everywhere. They were puking wisps of black smoke into the air. Every time the wind picked up in our direction, my throat started tickling from the strong odor of chemical reactants.
The armored vehicle drove into the village and stopped before the police building. We got out to wipe our feet and, just then, the earth trembled and we heard the percussive ring of a far-off explosion.
"What was that?" Inspector White asked in alarm.
"They're blasting in the quarry," the driver explained. "They do it at the same time every day. You could set your watch by it."
Robert White nodded and turned to me:
"Let's go, Leo! I need to speak with the sergeant about the schedule for night shifts..."
2
AROUND EVENING, it got warmer and the snow started melting but, at the same time, the wind grew much stronger, becoming biting and gusty. From the west, there was a storm front coming in. The dark sky there was occasionally sliced through with bright threads of lightning.
Ramon and I were standing at the entrance to the boiler room the stokers had disappeared from the day before last. At a slight distance from us, we heard the assigned factory guard stomping his feet. It was now entirely dark, and the boy, who had a lean chicken-like neck, would hunch his shoulders up in fear time and again when he saw the shadows of the bats that darted past overhead.
I found it amusing.
"Just what is the sense of all this rambling about in the dark?" Ramon mumbled in annoyance, spitting on the ground. "Say Leo, what are we doing here?"
"We’re reassuring the workers by looking brave while the inspector leads an investigation. Isn't it obvious?"
"If only..."
"Alright, Ramon," I sighed, "let's go!"
The constable threw his lupara belt over his shoulder and we walked down the narrow passage between workshops. The flashing of far-off lightning would occasionally reveal strange and terrifying figures. But as soon as we turned our electric torches toward them, the monsters would quickly turn into exhaust pipes, posts and barrels. And the mobile flame that occasionally passed in the sky was just the signal torch of yet another transatlantic dirigible. Nothing magical.
From time to time, we were met by workers. A cart of workmen drove past. Another group of laborers emerged from the red-hot underworld of their drying plant for a smoke break. A group of haulers stomped past to the gates, finished with their recent shift. Some were leaning, and others were walking with their shoulders hunched up around their ears. Some nodded to our escort, while others just turned away in silence.
And once again, I felt fear. Someone had a tenacious and resilient form of it that didn't let up for even a moment. Their fear was pulsating furiously, like a human heartbeat.
Fear was my domain. My illustrious talent allowed me to catch others' fears, pull them out and bring them to life. And there was nothing even slightly pleasant in that.
Curses! I would gladly trade my talent for that of Inspector White. Sensing lies didn't seem so bad!
"A cross," said Ramon, drawing my attention to a crude drawing made in black ink on one of the walls. "Could it be that anarcho-Christians are mixed up in this case?"
"I doubt it," I replied, shaking my head. "This isn't their style."
Around the corner, a powerful light was flickering, and I placed my hand on my holster. But it was just the local constables who we'd assigned to patrol the neighboring section. We exchanged a few words, turned around and headed back.
I shivered. I was cold and tired. A slight drizzle started coming down. The gusts of wind cast the mist straight into my face. The lightning flashes started growing brighter. The thunder rumbled eerily between the factory buildings.
"I wouldn't mind going in to warm up for a bit," I yawned, rubbing my chilly fingers on the boiler-room door.
"You can warm up out here..." my hulking partner grumbled back, nodding to a factory guard.
I took my sugar-drop tin from my jacket, pulled out a raspberry-flavored drop and offered one to Ramon.
"It'll just ruin my teeth," he refused. "What do you think happened here?"
"I don't have a clue," I admitted as I stretched my talent out to the guardsman, who was looking skittishly at the unquiet shadows flickering through the lightning-lit sky.
Nervousness was filling him and, under it was hidden a true fear, lurking and subconscious. Bringing it to life turned out surprisingly easy: I just stretched out my talent and watched as a bat nose-dived from the sky at the guardsman's head. The boy squealed, waved his arms in the air and turned tail. He was no longer watching when the bat I'd just brought to life dissolved into a cloud of shadows.
His malignant chiroptophobia had been allowed to grow entirely unchecked...
"Are you having fun?" Ramon sighed.
"What makes you say that?"
"Your eyes are glowing."
I squinted, massaged my eyelids, and took another look at the constable.
"Is this better?"
"Right as rain."
The unpleasant pain in my temples really did quiet down; I threw open the door of the boiler-room and called my partner over:
"Let's go."
It was dark and warm inside. Even a bit hot. The boilers and steam lines were humming. The arrows on the pressure gages were twitching wildly. An orange fire was burning in the furnaces, and the sweaty stokers were tossing more and more coal into them.
"Is it always this lively at night?" I asked a workman.
"No, constable," he shook his head. "Our shift is ending in half an hour. Just two people will stay on overnight."
"We’re gonna take a look around, then," I announced, wanting to warm up somewhat.
The man nodded, and I called Ramon into the dark corridor. There were a few tubes running under the roof. The constable turned on his torch, and the bright beam easily chased off the shadows. It didn't take long to check the back rooms. The back yard was full of coal and we didn't go into it, instead returning inside.
By that time, the shop foreman had already called for the end of the shift. The stokers, covered in coal dust, threw their shovels and carts down and started walking toward the entrance. We left the boiler room together with them, but it was raining outside, and Ramon suggested we wait it out in the makeshift barracks. I didn't refuse.
"Who'll fall asleep first?" Ramon wondered, struggling to restrain a yawn.
I took off my cloak, put it to dry on a hanger and took a look at my wrist chronometer.
"Lie down. You sleep half an hour, then I sleep half an hour."
"Great!" said the constable, looking pleased. He placed his lupara in the corner and laid down on the bench. A minute later, he was sleeping like a baby, lost in a dream.
I sat down on a table made of thick stripped boards, but very soon started smelling something, and got to my feet. I locked the door just in case, then checked the head stokers and went back, not wanting to leave my sleeping partner alone for too long.
On the wall of the room, there was a burning gas lamp; in its uneven glow, I took out the newspaper sticking out of my pocket and opened it habitually to the second page. The black and white photograph lost its graininess under my gaze. It started filling with color and taking on dimension. My heart fluttered. Tears welled up in my eyes. I led my finger over the photo. The air began shimmering, preparing to weave itself into the unbearably beautiful image of my beloved...
Kra-ank!
The strange screeching sound broke my trance; I shuddered and started listening, but the sound got lost in the hum that filled the boiler room. I could no longer pick it out of the host of other sounds.
Had the stokers dropped something, or had a gust of wind opened a window?
I took a look into the hallway and shouted:
"Is everything alright?"
No one responded; I shrugged my shoulders and went back to the table, but suddenly caught a sharp splash of fear. Someone else’s fear! My heart wavered. I pul
led my Roth-Steyr from the belt holster and, pulling back the slide, chambered a bullet.
"Ramon!" I called to the constable, not pulling my pistol out of the doorway.
"Yeah?" my hulking partner immediately rapped back, as if he hadn't even been sleeping.
"It seems we've got problems..."
The constable shot to his feet and grabbed his gun, which was leaning on the wall.
"Are you sure?"
"No, but we should check. Let's go!"
Ramon threw his lupara over his shoulder and headed for the exit with a revolver in one hand and an electric torch in the other. The bright beam slid down the hallway and easily drove back the darkness. He turned back to me and reported:
"Clear!"
"I see," I rapped back. I checked the front door, then we went further.
The stokers weren’t near the furnaces. All we saw there were shovels jutting out of the coal heap. The bad guys must have known plenty of secluded corners here, but I didn't shout out to them. Instead, I suggested that we check the coal storage.
Ramon nodded and headed for the side door. I walked behind, ducking down to avoid hitting my head on a pipe running over the door. Just then, the constable shouted:
"Halt! Police!" and dashed down the hallway.
The beam of his flashlight passed over a body on the floor, and he jumped quickly to the side. By the time he’d turned the light back, the stunned stoker had already been dragged past the corner!
Ramon ran off in pursuit, but a shadow jumped out of the side passage and slammed into him, knocking him off his feet. The constable rolled head first on the floor. His revolver flew in one direction, and his torch in another.
The dark figure leaned over Ramon. I raised my pistol and fired two shots into the stranger's back.
Both hit. The attacker shuddered, froze, then suddenly turned and threw himself at me!
I shot and missed in surprise. I stumbled back, but instantly got myself together and opened fire, not allowing any more misses.
One, two, three!
With every strike, the villain gave a shudder and slowed his pace but, at that, he stayed on his feet as if he was being protected by some anti-bullet charm.
I bit my lip until it bled, overcame the panic and continued shooting into the center of the dark figure moving toward me with the measured steps of a golem.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
But it was all for naught!
The invincible scoundrel stepped into the beam of the cast-aside torch, and I caught a glimpse of his pale skin, covered in livor mortis spots. He had lifeless, milky white eyes and root growths jutting out of his body.
Curses! A walking corpse! We’d never stop it with copper and lead!
I raised my pistol and shot the last two bullets into the pipe over the corpse's head. With a thud, a thick column of steam started shooting out. A moment later, the air in the hallway was hot and humid.
The scalded body was blown back to the opposite wall. He tried to cover himself with his arms but, just then, Ramon’s lupara thundered out. A ten-caliber slug entered the back of the creature’s head, bursting it into pieces. A stinking slime was cast out. The dead body fell to the floor, gave a few twitches and fell silent.
"Leo, catch up!" Ramon shouted, running around the corner.
"Wait!" I shouted, setting a stripper clip into my Roth-Steyr, thumbing the rounds into the fixed magazine, then removing the emptied clip. The bolt slid back in place with a juicy clang, loading the uppermost bullet into the chamber.
I dove into the steam cloud, grabbed the torch off the floor and ran on. There was cold air blowing at my face from the broken and thrown-open windows; I got up on a mud-caked window sill and jumped out to Ramon, who was turning his head from side to side, aiming his lupara from one suspicious shadow to the next.
"Point the torch over here!" demanded the constable, bracing his weapon on his shoulder.
The powerful beam of the police torch cut through the darkness of the night, slid over the black heaps of coal, kept going and suddenly came upon a squat figure, dragging the stunned stoker behind him. A shot rang out. A long tongue of flame lashed out from the dual barrels with a flash, and then Ramon shot again.
The dead man ducked, dropped his victim and fled into the night in a few leaping bounds.
We didn't go after him.
3
THE TRACKER DOGS had their tails between their legs. They were whimpering, begging not to be made to pick up the scent.
And I couldn't blame them for that.
Devil! I didn't much want to take part in this raid either!
Even though the sun was long up, yesterday's corpses were too quick on their feet to be run-of-the-mill walking dead. They might well have had some unpleasant surprises in store in the light of day as well...
"Inspector," I said softly to Robert White, "this case is getting beyond the scope of our authority. We should inform Department Three..."
My boss looked sorely at me in reply and smiled:
"Is it the procedural violation that's got you so worked up? Don't worry, Leopold. I've already sent a telegram to the Newton-Markt."
"But..."
"Come off it!" shouted the inspector, cutting me off. "This matter cannot bear delay! We must act at once!"
The head of the factory security was in complete agreement with that, as well.
"The workers are on the verge of rebellion," he announced. "You couldn't get them to work a night shift now at the barrel of a gun."
I could have said that wasn't our problem, but I didn't.
The inspector had made up his mind, so what was the sense of wasting my breath and drawing the ire of my boss?
It was also lucky that the stunned stokers made away with nothing more than concussions, and that fixing the shot-through steam line took a repair brigade less than half an hour. It all could have turned out quite a bit worse.
Inspector White gave the local sergeant the go-ahead, and he commanded loudly:
"Single file! Shoot only on my command! Move out!"
Just twenty people took part in the manhunt; together with the police, a group of factory security was brought into the search for the undead.
The boiler room was on the edge of the compound. Right behind the plank-fence surrounding the coal heaps, began a vast wasteland. A pot-holed road led to the pit behind it. Among the mounds of earth, there was a huge steam excavator. The miners hadn't come to work today.
"There are tracks here!" Jimmy suddenly shouted out, holding his gun over his head. "Inspector, over here!"
The corpse, after escaping the boiler room, had been running without being able to make out the road. In the mud, there were smeared tracks dotted all around, frozen by the morning frost. The bare footprints were interspersed with handprints, and I couldn't tell if they were from jumping and falling, or if he had simply been running on all fours.
The tracks led to the pit; we spread out along its edge, looking in agitation at the shadows at the bottom. There were plenty of uneven spots and divots down there, so an unnoticed person could easily have a hidden underground shelter.
Inspector White bit the mouthpiece of his pipe in thought, then turned his attention to a pile of crudely hewn stone on the slope of the hill and asked the head of factory security:
"What is that?"
In response, he just spread his arms; the sergeant came to his aid.
"It’s said that, under the fallen, there was a monastery here," he told us, furrowing his brow. "It's been abandoned for half a century now. The cells were carved right into the cliff. There's the entrance. It's been filled in to stop little kids from crawling in, though. We're lucky it hasn't fallen in on someone."
"Very interesting," muttered the inspector. "An abandoned monastery. Well, how about that...?"
His words made ants crawl up my spine.
"Inspector, look!" Ramon suddenly exclaimed. "Do you see a hole there?"
And as a matter of fact, again
st the opposite wall of the pit, there was a mound of soil and, next to it, a narrow crack, dark and deep.
"The first one to disappear was a miner, right?" asked Inspector White, snapping his fingers. "Let's go down there!"
So, we went down a wooden gangway into the pit and carefully surrounded the suspicious crack. Ramon walked up to it, shined his torch in and immediately took a step back.
"There’s a passage!" he said.
I cursed mentally, removed the safeguard from my Cerberus and stuck it back in my cloak pocket. The gun, an invention of the weapons genius Tesla, had long tubular barrels attached together into a removable cluster. That made its clustering rather haphazard but, at that, thanks to its electric igniter and aluminum-jacketed bullets, the pistol could take down both malefics and underworld natives alike.
These corpses weren't likely to have climbed out of their own graves with no prompting, after all...
"Leopold!" Robert White shouted out, just as I was expecting.
"Yes, inspector?"
"You go first. Ramon, you cover him. Jimmy, Billy, you're with me!"
I didn't dispute his order. Instead, I took my Roth-Steyr from its holster, chambered a round and took my partner’s electric torch. Ramon took his lupara from the shoulder-strap, braced the stock on his shoulder and turned his head from side to side, craning his neck. There wasn't even a shade of emotion reflected on his craggy face, but I'm sure the inspector's order had been just as much to his liking as it was to mine.
"Sergeant! You and the boys behind us!" White shouted, giving him the go-head. "Leo, you first!"
The fear in my soul cut like razor blades, but I overcame my subconscious rejection of basements and squeezed into the narrow crack. The passage went right into the depths of the mountain. The bright beam of the torch shone for a good ten meters, which caused me slight relief. I didn't have to worry about an unexpected attack.
Ramon was behind me, breathing hard through his nose. Eventually, he stopped and warned the constables following him:
