THE BASTARD

 Leah was the first woman I couldn't break

up with for a year and a half. No, it wasn't love, but insatiable madness.  My late grandmother

told me: this is sexual selection, what in fairy tales is called the other

half of the apple. The most, the most. You can't get away.

     Lia was probably really a sexual match for me.  I

was stupefied by it, more than by vodka.

     As an ardent Latin American, he wanted her at any time of the day or night.  And

this is despite the fact that she was already over 30, and she had two children from

different husbands. The latter, I mean the children, had almost no effect on Leah.

     It was so good to be with her... And how scary it became at the end.

     On that memorable day, I sat at my desk and hammered out paragraph after

paragraph of another piece of my scientific routine.  It was summer, and the

boys were playing soccer outside.  Pavlik and Vadim, Lisa's sons, went

swimming on the beach. Lia lived on Leningradskoe Highway, near the Vodny

Stadion metro station. I was in agony, writing jerky phrases, but my real thoughts

were far away. I'll sigh, then I'll think about something, but God knows what.

When I wake up, I find myself looking at the sofa and her body flashes before my eyes, melting

. The elevator door slams, I listen. I'm languishing...

finally she came. When I heard the key turning in the lock, I

rushed to the door. He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the sofa. She was laughing.  But

not for long. I had just unbuttoned my blouse when the doorbell rang,

banging so hard that it immediately became clear that trouble had happened.

     I opened the door: a mustachioed guy in a yellow T-shirt was standing behind it and holding

Vadim, Lia's youngest son, in his arms. Vadim sagged in his arms.  How

a wet rag, throwing back a deathly white face.

     Leah screamed, clapped her hand over her mouth, and was thrown against the wall.

     The guy stepped over the threshold and said softly:

     "Your boy drowned." They pumped him an artificial one, nothing helps...

the men wanted to run - to call an ambulance, but my brother says: it's nearby...

call.

     And he carried Vadim into the room.

     It was already strange: why hadn't an ambulance been called to the scene?

     The guy put Vadim on the floor. Pavlik is whining nearby. They were very different

: Pavlik was black-haired and broad-shouldered, and Vadim was light-haired and skinny.

     Everything is in front of my eyes, as if it just happened.

     Pavlik sobs:

     "Uncle, uncle, make him some more." He'll come alive.

     And Vadim is lying dead, in a gray T-shirt for some reason, with his mouth agape.

     The guy glared at me, at Leah - she rushed to the phone, shaking

all over, not getting her finger in the holes.

     The guy didn't say a word, got down on his knees and started doing

Vadim was given artificial respiration. But it doesn't do any good to be dead

.

     And Leah can't get through, she's on the verge of hysteria.  I her

He pushed me away, started typing himself - busy!

     Pavlik knelt down next to his brother, muttering something through his tears, unable

to make out anything. I can only hear it out of the corner of my ear:

     "Darling, darling, come alive...

darling, come alive."  He opened his eyes, closed his mouth, and stared at

the ceiling.

     And there was silence, like in a silent movie.

     A cold wave washed over me from the top of my head to my heels. The dead don't come back to life!

And his eyes were not alive, even though they looked.

     I was so scared that if I had the strength, I would have run away headlong.  But

I feel like I've been nailed to the spot. I stand there and repeat to myself:  "It

can't be, it can't be..." And it's so unusual and scary: like a dog, I smell

a dead man, but my mind refuses to believe.

     Lia and Pavlik rushed to hug Vadim, but I couldn

't control myself. Thank God they didn't even think about me.

     But he remembered: he looked at me with his dull glasses, like

a cobra, and turned away.

     Lia took Vadim to the nursery, I saw the guy off and sat down at the table.  He picked

up a pen, made a squiggle, and froze over the sheet. I sat and sorted it out

in my feelings. Well, I can smell it like a dog! But God, you can

't really believe that. During our lifetime, having 5 years of college under our belt.  Rave!

Rave! To believe this is to admit that it's time for me to go surrender to

Kashchenko.

     "I have to run away from here," I thought, and at that moment Leah came in.

     "They're asleep," she whispered, and snuggled up to me.

     I flinched.

      I

squinted at her hands and I thought

I saw an intangible, noticeable trace of dead flesh on my palms.

     Leah sank into a chair, leaning her head back helplessly.

     "Oh, my God! God! "What is it?" she whispered. - Why do I have to suffer so much, well,

now I have to lead him by the hand all my life. After all, he's going to go somewhere

now, and I'm going to go crazy...

"You need a drink," I said, getting up quickly.  - Otherwise

, hysteria will begin. There is no need to injure children after such a thing.

     I got a bottle of cognac from the bar and poured half a glass for Leah and a whole glass for myself.

     And from that day on, we began a kind of ghostly life.

     It will accumulate during the day and I was already making up my mind - I'll leave tomorrow,

pack my bags and quietly leave. And during the night, in Leah's arms, all resolve will melt away.

I can't! I can't!

     And I can't stay. At night, through closed doors, in the craziest

moment of passion, I feel his snake-like gaze. And what's terrible: under the gaze

of a dead man, my pleasure increased! I stabbed into Lia's body, raped her.

violently, he strangled her in his arms and all the time he thought: she is the mother of this

dead man, a werewolf. Ah! Ah-ah-ah! Ahhh!!!...

and what is he waiting for, I began to think.  I'm the only one who knows about him, so

waiting for him concerns me.  If he's waiting and watching, then I have

some kind of power that he can't overcome yet. while.  Because it really hurts

He's calm. It's like he knows what I'm going to do and when I'm going to fall under his

power.

     We must run! Run away! We must run!

     I CAN'T!..

     Days passed, a week passed. And the image of him from those

last days was imprinted forever in my memory - deathly pale, with dull eyes, always wearing a gray

T-shirt in which he was brought, as if it had grown to my body. And what's under it?

     As soon as I asked myself this question, I began to notice: his figure

It's changing. Day by day, but I'm the only one who notices it. The flesh flowed from his shoulders,

from his back to his lower back, gathering into a fat, loose fold.  Trembled when

walking like jelly. That's with his thinness! It seemed... no! That's

what really happened- he's decomposing alive.  His spine showed through

his T-shirt like the gnawed spine of carrion. But no one noticed it except

me.

     At night, I would sniff Leah before taking her. But she usually smelled

like perfume, body.

     How do I find out? How do I know for sure?! If I know for sure,

I will break these nets.

     And then the thought occurred to me: if Vadim is dead, then he

shouldn't be breathing! All you have to do is sneak up on him at night and listen.

     The parquet creaked softly under his bare feet, his heart was pounding in his throat,

sweat trickled down his sides from fear, but he no longer had the strength to live in

the unknown. He's not going to kill me after all. In front of my brother, in front of my mother.

There are people all around, thousands of people, thousands of apartments. Shout and they'll come running right away.

Vadim was lying on his left side, facing the wall.  The moon shone on his skinny

shoulder, his arm lying on top of the blanket.

     I stopped two steps away from the bed and listened. I can't hear you!  

Pavlik is snuffling very loudly. One more step, my legs refuse to walk.

     I lean over him. I hold my breath...

and suddenly his hands are trapped on the back of my head. The mouth grins

horribly - teeth, dazzlingly white in the moonlight,

grow unnaturally large in front of the eyes, stretching out with curved fangs.

     I screamed wildly. He broke away. With one mad leap, he dashed through the room and

A moment later, he was already sitting up in bed.

     Leah, blinking often, asked in a frightened voice,

"What happened?"

     "I had a nightmare," I say. - And I hear a quiet malicious laugh

from behind. And I'm thinking: He was the one laughing at my back when I escaped from his

arms. And immediately a foul stench hits me in the face. A spasm catches

my throat.

     The smell gets into my nostrils, clogs my lungs, and I run to the bathroom. I'm vomiting.

     After washing and rinsing my mouth, I come back and collapse on the bed.

     Pavlik looks in on us. For a moment, I tense up, thinking, you bastard

I came to enjoy the effect. But no, the one standing in the doorway

has dark hair. Leah gets up, waves at her son:

- Go, go. Nothing interesting. I need to sleep. Otherwise, you won't be able to get to school tomorrow

.

     He slams the door and cuddles up to me.  I lie there blankly, with

cold hands and feet, only my body is shaking all the time.

     For the first time, I did not respond to her caresses, for the first time I did not want to.  And finally

I decided: I'll leave tomorrow.

     But I couldn't leave in the morning. The boys didn't go to school in the morning.  Pavlik

He coughed, sneezed, and had a fever. Vadim also tried it on, and it

turned out to be elevated.

     I remember: he gives his mother a thermometer, and he grins at me out of the corner of his mouth.

     "37.5," says Leah.

     It's from a week-old corpse! But I couldn't get through it.

I have already developed a plan in my mind. I'm sending Leah to the pharmacy, and during this time

I'll pack my things and run away.  The boys are in one room, I'm in the other -

it's not difficult. I'll shout from the door:

- I won't be long! They're being called to work.

     That's all.

     But that was not the case. Leah did not go to the pharmacy, but called a doctor.  Sits,

He's waiting. The doctor is not coming. I tell her to go, I can manage here perfectly well alone.

She's not in any: how can I leave, and suddenly the doctor. He will tell me everything, I answer. And

she says, "men can rely on you," and waves her hand. I waved too. I'm waiting.  But the doctor

doesn't come and doesn't come.

     The boys dragged a sleeping bag into our room and sprawled on

the floor, fooling around. Leah sat, read, and occasionally shouted at her sons

so that they wouldn't get too mad, otherwise they would catch up with the fever.

     And then the bastard made a joke.  He came up and stood in front of me,

grinning nastily.

     "Go, go!"  I waved at him, and he got even closer.  I instinctively

put my hands out, and he turned his back and pressed it against my palms.

Just that fat crease above the small of my back. And I felt that his body

was soft under his T-shirt, like badly frozen jelly. My vision blurred.

     I came to my senses: They're messing with the bag again.

     I'm sitting here completely dazed. That's when it all happened.

     Vadim pinned Pavlik under him and, biting into his throat, pulled

him sideways like a wolf. Blood gushed from the slit throat.  Face

the corpse was blackened: only the eyes were white on it and the teeth glistened pink with

blood. The nails stretched out like yellow claws, and the little bastard began to tear

his brother's chest with them, howling. I don't remember anything else. Then everything is from hearsay.

     It turns out that a doctor rang the doorbell seconds later.   He heard

an inhuman howl, wild heart-rending screams, and ran after the police.

     The door was broken down and two teenage corpses were found in the apartment. One hasn't

had time to cool down yet, the other was a long time ago, about two weeks old.  

I was found unconscious near the sofa, covered in blood. The main thing -

I also had blood on my lips. And in the armchair, a crazy woman was sitting and howling, swinging from

side to side like a pendulum.

     I have a lot of time, and I often wonder about two unsolvable

mysteries: where did Pavlik's blood come from on my lips, and how did Vadim become

a ghoul, because for this it is necessary that another ghoul bite through his throat and drink his blood

. It's not transmitted that easily, it's not the flu, it's two.

     Maybe I'll get out of here someday, maybe not. What if I'm a ghoul now,

too, and I'm just hiding and waiting to be released?  Why bite

Idiots? They're already good: whispering, making signs in the air,

looking around. Those who are already attached to the invisible world, see it half-blindly, it

torments them already now.

     And who am I? A lurking creature?..

     They say I'm completely gray-haired. I don't know if it's true.  I don't have a mirror.

My hands are shaking-yes, I can see that.  Sometimes I whisper out loud, make faces,

look around, and when I remember everything, I whine in fear.  Then they come and

calm me down with an injection. And I'm dreaming, blissful. The only time I

'm human.