The Shadow Walker

by William R Hunt

  Victor drifted close to him. “Today,” he whispered, hardly moving his lips. His hands were in his pockets, probably gripping the Colt, and Dante wondered how many people Victor would be willing to shoot so he could get his hands on one or two of those backpacks. He would kill Yuri, and definitely Gabriel. The Lemming could probably be written off as collateral damage. But Scarlett? He doubted Victor would harm her. There was some kind of connection between those two, a strange chemistry that shimmered in the air when their eyes met or they exchanged a few words.

  Dante nodded with clenched teeth. He needed a plan to stop Victor, but how? Victor wouldn’t listen to him, not unless he told Victor the whole truth. And telling Victor the whole truth would only make him more determined to leave.

  So what? he thought. What’s so bad about leaving the others behind? The two of you did well enough on your own before, didn’t you?

  Yes, they had. For a time, traveling through the forest after they’d left the clubhouse, he had felt an unspoken kinship with Victor that had eluded him most of his life. He had felt not just like a brother, but like an equal. He missed the simplicity of that time. He did not, however, believe that it would be easy to return to that simplicity. Victor had a new set of priorities, and for all the guilt Dante felt about lying to his brother, he knew in his heart that Victor was doing the same to him.

  Just then, before he could think of anything to say to Victor, the Lemming turned aside off the path without warning. He shuffled into a small community park shaded by dogwoods and Japanese maple trees, disappearing as he pushed beneath a leafy branch.

  The brothers instinctively followed, not bothering to tell the others. On the other side of the leafy branch, Dante found himself standing at the edge of a weathered fountain with an angel figurine. The angel held a trumpet, through which it had once blown water. Only a shallow reservoir of water rested at the bottom of the fountain now, murky and skimmed with ice, a thin stain marking the edge of the stone.

  “There he is!” Dante whispered, pointing.

  The Lemming was picking berries from a thorny plant with a few purplish-red leaves still clinging to the branches. His hands slipped quickly and carefully through the network of the thorns, snatching the tiny red berries without once snagging his sleeve.

  “What are those?” Dante asked the man. He supposed another pressing question would have been, What the hell are you doing? But his curiosity had gotten the better of him once again.

  The Lemming turned his head toward them as he slipped a berry between his lips. His eyes were small, his hair thin and prematurely balding.

  “Barberries,” he answered. Then he pointedly ignored them as he dove for his next prize.

  They heard voices behind them as Scarlett and Gabriel tracked them down. While Dante was eying the few remaining berries, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to supplement his diet a little, Victor took a rapid step toward the Lemming.

  “What’s in the backpack?” Victor asked. Dante could barely hear his voice.

  The Lemming shifted, uncomfortable with Victor’s proximity. “You’re not supposed to ask.”

  “I’m not asking. I’m demanding.”

  When the Lemming reached for another berry, Victor slapped his hand against the thorns. The Lemming jerked his hand back, cutting himself even more. He yelped and cradled his bleeding hand.

  “Tell me,” Victor repeated. He was standing toe-to-toe with the Lemming.

  “Vic,” Dante began.

  “Not a word,” Victor barked without turning. The Lemming tried to shrink away, but he was trapped between Victor and the barberry thorns.

  “I’m not supposed to tell!” the little man repeated, straining his neck to see past Victor, probably hoping the cavalry would arrive soon.

  Just as the Lemming was lifting his bleeding hand to his mouth, Victor seized the hand with both of his own and wrenched one of the fingers back. The finger gave a soft pop and the man howled.

  “Vic!” Dante shouted.

  Victor turned and stared into Dante’s face. In that moment he did not look like Dante’s brother, but like something else—a wild dog on a dark street or a shark gliding just beneath the surface of the water. Dante had time to think, He’s going to punch me in the face, but just then Gabriel’s voice broke through:

  “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Gabriel and Scarlett strode toward them. As Scarlett read their faces, her expression of relief turned to a puzzled frown. She glanced at Dante, but he only shook his head and stepped away from Victor.

  The Lemming was fawning over his injured hand. The finger did not appear to be broken, maybe not even sprained. Dante suspected the Lemming had howled more from fear than from pain. As far as the others could tell, the little man had merely cut himself on some thorns. Dante, of course, knew better.

  “Come on, it’s just a cut,” Gabriel said, but there was an odd note of worry in his voice. His gaze lingered on the backpack for a few moments as if to see whether it had been tampered with.

  Yuri at last joined the party. A vein on his temple looked ready to break through the skin.

  “It was my fault,” the Lemming said before anyone could ask.

  “You’re damn right,” Victor answered. “What were you thinking, wandering off like that?” It occurred to Dante that his brother was playing it off as if he had just been scolding the little man. Gabriel’s frown grew puzzled.

  Without a word, Yuri walked past the others and stopped behind the Lemming. He unzipped the backpack just enough so he could peer inside. Then, satisfied, he zipped it closed again.

  “This won’t happen again,” he said, looking at each person in turn. His gaze rested on Victor for a few extra seconds. “If anyone—”

  He never finished the sentence. One moment he was speaking, the next he was rubbing his stomach as if he’d just eaten a full meal. Dante thought he heard a muffled sound from nearby. Yuri cupped his hand as a trickle of blood flowed from his stomach. Suddenly Dante found himself remembering the first time his dad had helped him change the oil filter in his car and how the oil had dribbled out, thick and dark, pooling in the plastic pan. Yuri’s engine oil was spilling out, and there wasn’t a gas station in sight.

  “Get down!” Victor shouted.

  “Shooter!” Gabriel exclaimed.

  Victor turned to take cover behind a branching dogwood tree when, in mid-sprint, his body twisted sideways and his right arm flung outward. Dante watched his brother’s hand rise, then swing downward like a pendulum, as loose as if it were attached only by string.

  Scarlett and Gabriel began returning fire with their AR-15s, but nobody had a target. Dante crouched behind the stone angel in the fountain, not knowing whether he was exposed or not. He stared at Victor and wondered if he should try dashing to Victor’s hiding spot, but Victor waved him back with his left hand. He was grimacing in pain.

  Bursts of gunfire filled Dante’s ears. The low trees hindered visibility, and he knew that if the shooter had a high enough vantage point (the rooftop of a nearby building, for instance), they would have to cover quite a bit of ground to be certain they had escaped the line of fire.

  “Is everyone okay?” Gabriel called. “Victor, are you hurt?” He sounded like he might actually care.

  “Fine!” Victor called back.

  Dante could see Scarlett and Gabriel huddled together by a stone bench. Several moments had passed without any return fire—an eternity to Dante. But where was the Lemming? Dante had been too concerned about his own safety to worry about anyone else, but now that he thought about it, he didn’t know where the little man had gone.

  Then, like a rabbit flushed from hiding, the Lemming popped up and began to run.

  Chapter 53

  “We have to go after him!” Gabriel shouted.

  “Give me one good reason why,” Victor answered.

  “We need him! He’s the mission!”

  “That’s not good enough.”

&nb
sp; “Damn it, Victor! Just use your—”

  Scarlett interrupted the shouting match. “He’s carrying explosives!” she said. That caught everyone’s attention. “Now can we please hurry?”

  Scarlett and Gabriel provided cover while the Gervasio brothers advanced. Then all four were running together, dipping and weaving through the tangle of plants, trying not to trip on vines in their mad footrace.

  This is how I’m going to die, Victor thought. Chasing a little man with a backpack full of explosives. What would Peter think of me now?

  Bullets splintered through the branches of the trees and thumped into the dirt, but it was impossible to tell where they were coming from. It was also impossible to tell how much damage had been done to his right arm, which he gripped with his left hand to keep it from swinging wildly like the limb of an excited monkey. Dante was trotting beside him with a strange, loping gait, which made little sense until Victor recalled how uncomfortable his brother’s ankle must be just then.

  Scarlett had slipped to the front of the group, and at the end of the garden she turned sharply left. They crossed a six-lane boulevard dotted with abandoned vehicles, and then came to a halt as Scarlett stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Why are we stopping?” Dante shouted.

  “Which way did he go?” Scarlett asked.

  In answer, a door swung shut as the Lemming stumbled into a multi-level office complex.

  The street-level windows were shattered, so they ignored the door and trotted inside. Without the glow of fluorescent lights, the room had the feel of an airy, yawning cavern, a place where you might find bones on the floor and bats nesting on the ceiling. They all paused to let their eyes adjust.

  The first floor was a wide foyer with beige tiles and a pair of elevators at the end. Concrete steps ascended to the second floor on the right side of the room. The stairs were barricaded with a jumble of furniture, among which lay several half-decayed bodies. It appeared they had died trying to get past the barricade.

  “He must have gone up,” Victor said, moving toward the stairs.

  Scarlett stepped in front of him and pressed her hand against his chest. She was stronger than he would have guessed.

  “Hold on,” she said. “You’re leaving a trail of blood.”

  “Are you really worried someone will follow us?”

  “I’m worried you’ll pass out.”

  “Come on, Scar,” Gabriel said, frowning at them. “He’s getting away.”

  Scarlett kept her eyes on Victor. “You get him,” she said to Gabriel. “And when you do, bring him back here. Dante will go with you.”

  “Sure,” Dante said. “Send the guy with the bad ankle.” Then he got a clearer view of Victor’s arm and grew serious. “Hang tight, Vic. We’ll be back soon.”

  As Gabriel and Dante crawled over the furniture barricade, Scarlett led Victor to a security desk on the left side of the room. The top of the desk held a few telephones, some papers, and a row of small built-in monitors.

  “Scar?” Victor asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Shut up. He came up with the nickname, not me.”

  “I don’t get you two.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She began opening the drawers beneath the desk and rifling through them.

  “I mean he doesn’t seem like your type,” Victor answered.

  She paused her search long enough to meet his eyes. “And what is my type, since you know me so well?”

  “Forget it,” he said, shaking his head.

  “No, I want you to tell me.” She opened another drawer. “Is he too tall for me? Is it because we weren’t busy having sex at the first opportunity last night?” She straightened, holding a red canvas case with a white cross on it.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything. I was out of line. Satisfied?”

  She glared at him as she set the medical kit on the desk. “Not by a long shot. But it’ll do for now. Can you take off your coat or do I need to cut it off?”

  Victor slipped his left arm free, then gingerly pulled the sleeve off his right arm. He had felt almost nothing since the injury, but now the movement brought a sharp pain up through his shoulder.

  Scarlett pulled back Victor’s sleeve to expose the wound. The injury was surprisingly small, but enough blood had already escaped to soak his sleeve.

  “The good news is there’s an exit wound,” Scarlett said. “The bad news is that if it’s not properly cared for, you may lose some of your motor functions.”

  “I thought you were going to say I might lose the arm.”

  “That’s a possibility, too,” she said as she dabbed blood from the wound. “But thanks to this kit, we may be able to prevent that.”

  It was quite a stroke of luck, Victor realized. A medical kit was a valuable commodity, and if it had not been hidden so well, they never would have found it. Ironic.

  After cleaning and sterilizing Victor’s wounds, Scarlett bandaged them and made a sling for his arm from medical gauze. Then she began removing the remaining items from the medical kit, one by one, taking inventory. It took Victor a few moments to realize she was just passing the time.

  “Thanks for the help, doc,” he said. “I probably would have bled out if you hadn’t stopped me.”

  “Mmhmm.” She didn’t look at him. A lock of hair dangled in front of her forehead and she left it there. She gave the impression of someone deeply engrossed in an important matter, and for all Victor’s experience with reading other people, he could not read Scarlett. This fascinated him.

  “Look,” he said, “I get that you didn’t know what Yates would do. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought us into the Commune.”

  She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

  “Maybe before you got to know us, sure. But after—”

  “No.” She faced him. “It’s because I knew you that I would have turned you in.”

  Victor felt the nape of his neck prickle. “And why would you have done that?”

  “Because you’re dangerous, Victor. You risk the lives of everyone around you. Dante told me what happened with the horsemen. They came to the cabin because of you. They kidnapped Dante because of you.” She paused long enough to let this settle in. The words burned Victor, but he could hardly dispute them.

  “So that’s what I am,” he said quietly. “Toxic.”

  She put the rest of the items back into the medical kit and leaned against the desk. She looked like she needed a smoke.

  “People change,” Victor said.

  She laughed bitterly. “Do you really believe that?”

  “Not all at once, maybe. You can’t just flip a switch or look at yourself in the mirror one day and decide, Everything is different from here on out.” He frowned, feeling a bit light-headed. “But every choice I make is my choice. It’s not predetermined, set in stone, molded by the choices of my past.”

  “That’s what addicts tell themselves,” she said quietly.

  “What is?”

  “They distance themselves from who they’ve been. They have this nebulous idea of who they are, when really they’re just the sum of their actions.”

  “You really believe that?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  He thought for a moment. “So what if I wasn’t like that any more?”

  “Like what?”

  “Toxic. What if, instead of endangering the people around me, I started protecting them?”

  Her face softened. “Then maybe I’d have to revisit my opinion of you.”

  “Fair enough.” He leaned beside her against the desk and stared up at the stairway leading to the second floor. “Think they’ll ever come back?”

  “Probably captured by a tribe of cannibals by now.” A sly smile curved the corner of her mouth.

  He wanted to ask her about her claim that the Lemming was carrying explosives, but just then, leaning against the security desk with only a few inches between their arms, he didn’t dare disturb the silence. Ther
e was a sweetness to it, a closeness. It represented all the angry words they were no longer saying.

  “Maybe I’m a bad person,” he said. “But this world needs bad people more than it ever has before. Dante’s a good man, but he doesn’t have the stomach to call the shots when there are nothing but bad choices and worse ones.”

  “You don’t have to justify yourself to me,” she answered, staring thoughtfully up at the blocked stairway.