The Shadow of the Soul Read Free Page A

scanned his large body: the pale hands that hung straight at his sides held no posters or papers, so he wasn’t looking for a missing loved one. The suit was tight against his round body, and although she couldn’t be completely certain, there were no tell-tale breaks in the line hinting at a concealed weapon – plus the three buttons that ran down the middle were neatly done up, making it difficult for a quick attack.
    She watched him while she consciously slowed her breathing, the only noise in the quiet night. He stood next to an old-fashioned red phone box, and for a moment they faced each other across the deserted tarmac. Despite his bulk he looked ill, or perhaps more as if sickness was his natural state. He was pale, his visible skin almost marbling in the streetlights. He didn’t smile, and she was too faraway to make out the expression in his dark eyes. Her feet shuffled, breaking the stillness.
    ‘What do you want?’ she called over to him. The words surprised her. She’d meant to ask if he was okay, or if he was lost, but somehow that wasn’t the question that came out. Maybe it came from that
other
feeling, the one she couldn’t put her finger on. He wanted something, this stranger, she was sure. And he wanted it specifically from her.
    He raised one finger to his lips. The air around her softened and settled in her lungs. For a moment the emptiness was all, and then he walked away, his back stiff, his movements precise as he turned the corner and headed down a gloomy alleyway. As Abigail watched him go, part of her brain thought she should run after him, but her feet didn’t move.
I’ll see him again
. The thought anchored itself in her mind for a moment before drifting away.
    She shook herself. She peered into the alleyway, but there was no one there. The weirdness of the moment slunk away into the night and she shivered a little as her running sweat dried. It had been a long day, that was all: just a long day filled with death. She needed to sleep. She walked the rest of the short way home and she didn’t look back. Whoever the man was, he was gone.
    Inside her practical, modern and impersonal flat she stretched for twenty minutes and then headed for a long shower. The water was almost hot enough to burn and her taut skin was pink when she stepped out. She wasn’t sure she’d even really felt it.
    It was two a.m. when she set her alarm for 6.30 and let her eyes close. She fell asleep quickly, her head uncluttered with any mundane trivia of emotion and reflection. At some point during the short course of her adult life she’d found that where others’ lives were getting filled with more people,and families, and mortgages, hers was emptying. There had been no serious boyfriend in nearly five years, despite her sensual good looks. She had sex when the urge came on her, and she found that she didn’t much mind whether it was with a man or woman, but male or female, she avoided any more than a second or third date. What was the point? They were all incidental; a virus spread across the earth. Nature’s accident, that’s all anyone was – herself included. There was neither logic nor rhyme nor reason to it.
    She would live out her time alone. Her flat was rented so she could leave at a moment’s notice, should she choose, and what possessions she had, though expensive, were all necessary. Life was fleeting. There was no point in trying to anchor yourself with things.
    It was only just before unconsciousness claimed her that she realised she hadn’t thought to check on Hayley today, to see if she had been affected by the attacks. The thought made her soul tremble. Even for her, there was too much that was wrong in that inaction. How could she not have checked?
How could she not have cared?
Her heart thumped loudly for a beat or two and then settled into its normal slow march. Their parents would have checked on her. If anything had happened to Hayley, they would have called. She let that thought