Not understanding what was going on, he jumped up, threw his rucksack and machine gun onto his back, grabbed a flashlight and went out to the platform. He walked mechanically to the place where they had assaulted him during the night.

Approaching closer, he froze. The dead man looked at him through the dim haze of a drunken memory. He remembered it all. It was not a dream. He had to find Oleg or at least help Anton search for his son. It was his fault. He hadn’t looked after the lad. He had allowed Oleg to play his strange games with the pipes, and now he was here, safe and sound, but the boy had disappeared. And Artyom was convinced that he had not run away. Something bad and inexplicable had happened here during the night, and Artyom was doubly guilty, because he may have been able to prevent it, but he had been incapable.

He looked at the spot where the terrifying stranger had hidden in the shadows. A heap of garbage had been dumped there, but, sifting through it, Artyom only frightened a stray cat. Having searched the platform without result, he approached the tracks and jumped down to the rails. The guards at the entrance to the tunnel lazily looked him over and warned that he went into the crossings at his own risk and that no one there would take any responsibility for him.

This time Artyom didn’t go through the same tunnel as the day before, but took the second, the parallel one. As the lookout commander had said, this crossing was also blocked. The guard post was located at the blockage: an iron barrel served as a stove, and there were bags piled around. Alongside them there was a handcar, loaded with buckets of coal.

The lookouts sitting on the bags were whispering about something and, on his approach, jumped up from their seats, intently eying Artyom. But then one of them gave the OK and the others calmed down and settled in as before. Taking a closer look, Artyom recognized Anton as the commander, and hurriedly mumbling something awkward, turned and began to walk back. His face was on fire; he was unable to look into the eyes of the man whose son had disappeared because of him.

Artyom plodded on, lowering his head, repeating under his breath: ‘It wasn’t my fault… I wasn’t able… What could I have done?’ The splash of light from his flashlight skipped ahead of him. Suddenly he noticed a small object lying desolately in the shadow between two ties. Even from the distance it seemed familiar to him, and his heart beat faster. Bending over, Artyom picked the small box off the ground. He turned the handle and the box answered with that tinkling dreary melody. Oleg’s music box. Thrown or accidentally dropped by him here.

Artyom threw down his rucksack and began studying the tunnel walls twice as hard. Not far away was a door leading to office facilities, but Artyom discovered behind it only a ruined public loo. Twenty more minutes of tunnel inspection didn’t get him anywhere.

Returning to his rucksack, the young man sank to the ground and leaned back against the wall. Throwing back his head, stared at the ceiling, exhausted. After a second he once more was on his feet and the beam of the flashlight, fluttering, revealed a black gap, hardly noticeable in the darkened concrete of the ceilings. There was a loosely closed hatch just above the very place where Artyom had picked up Oleg’s music box. However, there was no way to reach the hatch. The ceiling was more than three metres high.

A solution presented itself to him in a flash. Grasping the box he had found and throwing his rucksack onto the rails, Artyom raced back to the lookouts. He was no longer afraid to look Anton in the eyes. Slowing his pace at the approach to the post so the lookouts wouldn’t panic, Artyom approached Anton and in a whisper told him about his discovery. Two minutes later they left the post, to the questioning looks of the rest, alternately operating the handles of the handcar.

They stopped the handcar directly beneath the hatch. The handcar was just high enough that Artyom, climbing onto Anton’s shoulders, could reach and move the cover, haul himself inside and then pull up his partner. Although the tight corridor went off in both directions, Anton decisively moved in the direction of Park Pobedy.

Several seconds later it became clear that he had been right. An oblong cartridge case shone in the dim light. It was one of those that Melnik had given the lad the day before. Inspired by the discovery, Anton broke into a trot. He went about another twenty metres, to the place where the access corridor ran into the wall, and another hatch, also half open, blackened an opening in the floor. Anton confidently began to lower himself down. Before Artyom could manage to object, he had already disappeared. There was a crash from the opening, swearing, and then a choked voice said, ‘Be careful when you jump, it’s about a three-metre drop. Come on. I’ll shine the light for you.’ Placing his hands on the edge, Artyom hung down and, rocking several times, unclenched his fingers, trying to get both legs between the ties.

‘How will we get ourselves back out of here?’ he asked, straightening up.

‘We’ll figure something out.’ Anton dismissed the problem with a wave of his hand.

‘Are you certain that they didn’t think you were dead?’

Artyom shrugged his shoulders. Despite the pain in the back of the head, the thought that some being had attacked him last night at Kievskaya seemed absurd now that he was sober.

‘We’ll go to Park Pobedy,’ Anton decided. ‘If there’s trouble about, the threat can only come from there. You should feel it, too, you were with us at the station yourself.’

‘But why didn’t you say anything to us yesterday?’ Artyom asked, catching up to Anton and trying to keep pace with him.

‘The boss didn’t allow it,’ he answered sullenly. ‘Semyonovich is really afraid of panic, and he has said not to spread rumours. He fusses over his position. But everyone has his limits. I told him ages ago that they couldn’t keep it a secret forever… Three children have disappeared in the last two months and four families have fled the station. And there was our guard with that needle in his neck. No, he says panic will ensue and we’ll lose control. He’s a coward.’ Anton spat out in sudden anger.

‘But who made that needle…?’

Artyom stopped in the middle of his sentence, and Anton stopped dead in his tracks.

‘What’s that again? Did you see it?’ the lookout asked, taken aback.

Artyom did not reply. And so he stopped, staring at the floor and only moving the flashlight from side to side in order to see better what the lookout was pointing at. A gigantic figure had been crudely drawn in white on the floor. It was a twisting outline about forty centimetres wide and about two metres long, resembling a crawling snake or worm. From one side a bulge resembling a head was visible, and that gave it even greater similarity to a huge reptile.

‘A snake,’ Artyom offered.

‘Maybe they just spilled some paint?’ Anton tried to joke.

‘No, they didn’t just spill something. Here’s the head… It’s looking in that direction. It’s crawling to Park Pobedy…’

‘So, we’ll follow it…’

Several hundred metres further on, they found three cartridge cases in the middle of the path. They both started walking more briskly.

‘Good lad!’ Anton said with pride. ‘Wouldn’t you just know he would think of leaving a trail!’

Artyom nodded. He was becoming ever more certain that, while the unknown creature had been able to get to him without a sound, the boy was still alive. But would Oleg have agreed to go with his mysterious kidnapper willingly? Then why would he have marked his trail? Artyom grew quiet for several minutes, and so did Anton. The pungent darkness dissipated the recent joy and hope, and he once more became just a little frightened.

In hoping to make amends to the father, he had forgotten all the warnings and terrible tales retold in whispers. He had forgotten the stalker’s order not to leave Kievskaya. Anton was tearing ahead to find his son, but why was Artyom going to the ominous Park Pobedy? Why was he neglecting himself and his primary mission? For a second he recalled the strange people from Polyanka and the discussion about fate and he felt relieved. But the relief only lasted about ten minutes. Just up to the next symbol portraying a snake.