by Maynard Sims
Czerwinski nodded and stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “I keep having, I don’t know, visions, Pawel.”
Wallenski shook his head. “I don’t believe in anything I can’t see, hear, or touch. What sort of visions, religious?”
“No.” Czerwinski shook his head impatiently. “I’m being followed, stalked, by the…I’m not sure what.” Czerwinski watched his friend’s face, ready to interpret his reaction. There was a slight tensing of the muscles around Wallenski’s mouth, and a brief look of pity registered in his eyes. The reaction was transitory, replaced quickly with a smile and a laugh.
Tomas waited for the laughter to subside, then said, “I’m not joking.”
The smile dropped from Wallenski’s face. “Haunted?”
“Not actually haunted, but that’s what it seems like. You know how they say that houses, the walls, can soak up bad things that happen inside them? Some houses feel happy, while others feel sad as soon as you walk into them. In prison there isn’t much happiness, but there is an awful lot of sadness and despair. That must build up into something almost tangible. Sometimes inside there was a feeling, an atmosphere. We knew when something was going to happen; an inmate was going to knife another, or a minor riot was going to start. I was new to it all, but it was kind of explained to me once, in my first year, by a man I used to share a cell with.”
Wallenski held his hands up and shook his head. “Hold on a minute, Tomas. Can you hear yourself?”
“Of course I know what I’m saying. And I’m saying it to you because you’re my oldest friend, and you’re the only person I thought I could tell this to who wouldn’t think I was losing my mind. But obviously you do.”
“I’m not saying that, Tomas…but, I mean…”
Czerwinski downed the remainder of his beer and got to his feet. “Thanks for the drink, Pawel. I’ll see you around.”
“Sit down. Don’t take offense. But even you have to admit, it’s not exactly…normal, is it?”
“No, it’s not normal, but that’s the whole point. My life has been anything but normal these past four years. Inside you can’t play by the normal rules or you go under. This…feeling I’ve brought out with me was something I’ve lived with every hour of every day for years.”
Wallenski stared down at the table, avoiding his friend’s eyes, embarrassed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. Just hear me out. You were always good at that, a good listener. Listen to me now, because if I don’t tell somebody about this, if I don’t unload it, I think I am going to go mad.”
Wallenski shrugged and checked his watch. He supposed it was the least he could do; after all, they had been friends for years.
Lucja took the steps down to the towpath. Since Pawel had taken the car and Julia had indicated, none too politely, that she would prefer if Lucja leave, she had no alternative but to walk home, and the canal route was the quickest. She had really screwed up this time—only because she wanted to help Tomas out. When she had seen him in the garden he had looked so…so desperate. As though the world were closing in on him.
She felt a pang deep inside, a resonance of what might have been had circumstances been different. She loved Tomas, had always loved him, and in a way marrying Pawel had been a way to stay close to Tomas Czerwinski and at least see him on a regular basis. Not for one moment did she think that Pawel would see through her plan, but he was more perceptive than she could have imagined, and their marriage had suffered the repercussions ever since.
She caught a glimpse of something moving in the bracken ahead of her. At first she thought it was a cat, and then cats because there was more than one thing moving. Something rustled the ferns behind her, and she turned sharply. She could see nothing.
She walked on, quickening her pace. She had done this walk countless times before, and it had never bothered her. The bracken was low growing, and there were no trees for anyone to hide behind. A stout, chain-link fence bordered one side of the path while the canal edged the other. There was nobody else around and no reason whatsoever to feel nervous. But she did. The hairs on her arms and on the back of her neck were prickling, and she kept seeing shapes flitting around ahead of her—dark shadowy shapes with no form, like ragged, half-transparent pieces of black cloth, eddying in an unfelt breeze.
“Leon Eile was a killer. I was put in his cell when I first arrived at the prison. Of course, if the prison authorities had known the extent of his crimes, he would have been in solitary in some high-security block or other. But as far as they knew, he was inside on a manslaughter charge. The other killings he told me about later. Nine in all: men, women, and children. He didn’t care—he didn’t discriminate. He had a lust for killing, and because the killings were so random, so indiscriminate, the police really didn’t have a hope of catching him.”
“But he was in prison,” Pawel observed.
“Killing a pedestrian while drunk at the wheel. He used to laugh about that. His one unplanned, accidental killing and he was banged up for it. It was he who told me about the shadows on the prison walls and how they got there.”
Wallenski swallowed some beer and decided not to interrupt.
“He called them breathers,” Czerwinski said. “He described them as living shadows and said he could see them and hear them, and they were marking all those people for death, telling him who the next victim would be. He had been in prison for most of his life, and he had learned how to control them and use them.”
Wallenski drained his glass. “Well, that’s not so unusual. A lot of serial killers have claimed to hear voices telling them to commit their crimes. All bloody mad, the lot of them.”
“Yes, I agree. The only problem is, I’ve seen them too.”
Wallenski said, “I hoped you weren’t going to say that. Another beer?”
Czerwinski nodded. The first had gone straight to his head, and his mind was swimming. He had hoped he would feel better unburdening himself like this, but the more he spoke, the more he told Pawel about the past few years, the more he felt that he was losing his mind.
Wallenski put the beer on the table and sat down heavily. “Describe them to me, what do they look like?” he said.
“The breathers?”
“Yeah. You say you’ve seen them—so describe them.”
Czerwinski thought for a moment. “I can’t,” he said. “At least not with any clarity. They’re black, shapeless. I don’t know. It’s like Eile said—they’re living shadows. They seem to flit about on the periphery of your vision. Like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn around to get a really good look, it’s not there. He said they’re the residue of all the bad things that happen in the cells and the badness the prisoners bring in with them. As they spend hour after hour locked up, the…well, evil, I suppose, seeps out of them and gets soaked into the floors and the walls.” Czerwinski sniffed as if trying to make light of it. “Of course, it’s all probably old cons’ stories, and Eile was winding up a new boy. None of it’s real.”
“Nor are the breathers, Tomas. They’re not there at all. It’s like I said earlier: you’re overwrought. I know it made you laugh, but I truly believe you are. And I believe you need to seek help. A doctor…Even talking to Julia would be a start. You’ve had a terrible time of it. You’ve had four years of your life snatched away from you. Helena has left you. These things are bound to leave scars. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t deeply affected in some way by it. But really, all this talk of shadows…and these breathers…” He gave a snort of derision.
The sense of danger was becoming oppressive, and Lucja quickened her pace. The bracken seemed alive now. There were black shapes everywhere, dancing on the path in front of her, skimming across the water of the canal, making the undergrowth rustle and move. She took one more look behind her, and a cry burst from her lips. Not more than three paces behind her was a man; at least it looked like a man, but most of his face
and body were in shadow.
The heels of her shoes were hampering her flight and as she ran she kicked them off, ignoring the pain of the sharp gravel as it drove into the soles of her feet. Her breath was coming in short stabbing gasps, and her lungs were on fire. She glanced back. The figure was still behind her, at exactly the same distance—it hadn’t gained ground or receded. She could see a gate in the fence ahead. Beyond the gate was the road and comparative safety. The road was busy, and it was only early evening. There had to be somebody around.
She was about to veer toward the gate when the flitting shadows came at her, rushing at her legs, entangling themselves around her ankles. With a choking cry, she pitched forward into the freezing, filthy water of the canal.
Water poured into her mouth and down her throat, but she felt surprisingly calm. She was an excellent swimmer, and as she kicked out with her legs, her head broke the surface. She coughed and spat out the filthy canal water, gulped in air, and looked back at the towpath. It was deserted. Her confusion lasted only for a second before hands, infinitely colder than the water, grabbed her ankles and pulled her down to the canal bed.
“What happened to this Leon Eile? If he was the master criminal you portray him as, surely his whole aim would be to get out of prison and start killing again.”
Tomas Czerwinski laughed bitterly. “It was, believe me, it was. Remember, I shared a cell with him for two years, and for one of those years it was just the two of us. He had plenty of time to tell me his plans. He believed that the only thing holding him back from true greatness—that’s how he saw his killing spree—was his physical form. He told me time and time again that he longed to be free of his prison, and he wasn’t talking about jail. He was talking about his body. He believed that his own death would liberate him, that he would become one with the breathers.
“I was the one who found him in the cell when he’d hanged himself. His face was blue, tongue lolling out, but his eyes were open, and I can only describe the look in them as triumphant.”
Wallenski leaned forward in his chair. He was absorbed in the story now, despite his doubts about his friend’s sanity. “All right, so he killed himself. Why does all this worry you now? You’re out—he’s dead. Start again, Tomas. Put all that behind you.”
“I think the breathers got out with me. Whether it’s Eile controlling them or not, I don’t know, but I think they’re following me.”
Wallenski looked at his watch. “I think I’d better get you home,” he said.
“Is that all you’re going to say?” Czerwinski said, suddenly angry. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Wallenski rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Tomas, if I had sat you down and told you a story like that, you’d be telephoning for the men in the white coats.”
Czerwinski opened his mouth to protest.
Wallenski waved him down. “No, don’t deny it, because you know it’s true. Before you went inside, you were one of the most down-to-earth guys I knew. I could always come to you for sensible advice, for a well-reasoned argument. What you’ve been telling me here is neither sensible nor well-reasoned, and frankly I don’t believe a word of it.” He got to his feet. “Come on, I’m taking you home, and I want you to promise me you’ll go and see a doctor.”
Czerwinski stared up bleakly at his oldest friend and realized he had been wasting his time. He got to his feet and followed Wallenski out of the pub.
“You’re probably right,” Czerwinski said. “I probably do need to see someone about it.”
“No doubt about it. I’m glad you’re starting to see sense.”
They were about a hundred yards away from Wallenski’s car. Czerwinski stopped. “Look, Pawel, I owe Julia an apology. I’m going to walk home. I need to clear my head.”
“Are you sure? I mean, of course you can do what you like, but…”
“What you were saying makes a lot of sense, but I need to get it straight in my mind. A walk will do me good.”
Wallenski nodded. “Fair enough.” He started back to his car alone. Czerwinski breathed a sigh of relief. He needed to get as far away from here as possible. He had said nothing to his old friend, but as they came out of the pub, there, on the other side of the street, standing in the shadow of a shop doorway, was the pale form of Leon Eile, a wide grin on his face, an evil glint in his eyes.
Czerwinski looked from Wallenski’s departing form to the shop doorway. Eile had gone.
When he reached the car, Wallenski looked back and waved, then slipped inside and started the engine.
They came from nowhere and everywhere. Flitting across the road, seeping out from the shadows, the breathers moved toward the car. They looked like nothing more than scraps of black rag, though less substantial than cloth, but Tomas Czerwinski knew that these were the harbingers of his friend’s death.
They were swooping on the car, passing straight through the bodywork, filling the interior with their shadows. And as Czerwinski stared at the departing car, a face appeared in the rear window staring back at him. A slow smile spread across Leon Eile’s face as he flicked his hair back from his eyes.
Tomas opened his mouth, to scream out a warning, but before the words could even reach his lips, he knew it was too late. The petrol tanker was barreling down the road a hundred yards away from the car. If Pawel had only kept a straight course, he would have passed it safely. But just as the tanker reached him, he spun the steering wheel and hit it head-on. Czerwinski could see the look of horror etched on the tanker driver’s face as the small hatchback disappeared under his wheels in a scream of twisting metal.
Czerwinski turned away from the carnage. Wallenski was dead. No one could have lived through that. The breathers had killed him. He knew he ought to stay, to offer help, but he couldn’t face it. He couldn’t bear to see his best friend’s twisted and mangled body, knowing that he, Tomas Czerwinski, was responsible for it.
He started to walk, back past the pub, dropping down from the road to the canal towpath. Already he could hear the sirens as the emergency services raced to the scene. He tried to block out the sounds, lowering his head and quickening his pace. Finally, when he had walked half a mile or more, the sirens faded into the distance, and the only sound he heard was that of his feet crunching on the gravel path.
There was something on the path ahead of him, something white—a pair of shoes. He stopped walking and looked down at them. The shoes were Italian, well made, and expensive, and for some reason he couldn’t quite understand why they were significant. He stood staring at the shoes for minutes before a movement ahead drew his attention. Three black, formless shapes slithered into the canal.
Seconds later something else broke the surface of the water. He took two paces and recoiled when he realized it was the body of Lucja, floating there, unnaturally faceup, dead eyes staring into infinity. He rammed his fist into his mouth and bit his knuckles, drawing blood, to stop himself screaming. First Pawel, now Lucja. Was no one he knew safe?
The answer came to him with shocking clarity. No, nobody he knew was safe, because somehow the breathers had been released with him. Julia, Jacek, Czerwinski’s entire family and all his friends were potential targets. As he stared down at Lucja’s strangely peaceful body floating on the torpid water of the canal, facedown now, he realized what he had to do. Burying his hands deep in his pockets, and keeping his head out of the freshening wind, he walked back to town.
The multistory car park was high and accessible. He slipped under the barrier, paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom, then walked past the cars to the elevator at the back of the car park. Once inside he pressed the button for the roof.
The wind had picked up, and it cut through the thin cotton of his shirt as he crossed the tarmac and climbed onto the highest wall of the car park. He stood there looking down at the road below. Now he was here and staring death in the face, he wasn’t certain he could go through with it. It should have been so easy to step off the wall int
o space and to drop like a stone, but it was as if he was paralyzed, frozen in this spot, never to move again.
He felt a cool breath on his neck and a voice whispered into his ear. “Can you see them, Tomas? Can you see the breathers?” And as he looked down, he could. They were pouring out onto the street, emerging from under parked cars, flying out from open windows, whirling and spinning through the air, black and shadowy, gathering below, calling him down.
The formless shape materialized beside him. “Don’t you want to join them, Tomas?”
Czerwinski turned and thrust out his hand. It went deep inside the wavering figure, but eventually he felt something hard, and he gripped it tightly. The shadow shape shivered like a fish on a hook, trying to free itself. Czerwinski held on and tightened his grip. He had no death wish, but he wanted to ensure his family was safe. He wanted to guarantee the breathers returned to their prison home.
He pulled as hard as he could, and gradually he felt something inside the shape tear and his hand began to pull out. As it did, the shadows on the tarmac behind them rushed forward and molded into the cloudlike shape, adding to its bulk. It towered over Czerwinski now, his whole body all but immersed into it as he struggled to pull the shifting center out. Then, suddenly, it was free and the emaciated figure of Leon Eile lay in front of Czerwinski. The shadow shape reared and opened up like a flower, a black pulsating mass of fleeting shadows and movement. Deep inside there seemed to be eyes, red, yellow, peering out wide and beckoning. Muted screams echoed from within the dark body.
Czerwinski grabbed the cold, slippery figure of Eile and hoisted it onto the wall. With one hard shove the body was in midair, shadows opening in greeting, and then the broken body on the road below was covered with a swarm of them.