The Swamp thing. Part 5

 He muttered something else soothing, but Vitali hardly listened to him, he was too scared. Tears blurred his eyes, but it was, in a sense, a relief: he did not want to look at the dogs running on the roof. If they were dogs. The boy closed his eyes and walked like that, not seeing anything.

"Your mother."..  Grandfather muttered. —Really...

Startled, Vitalka opened his eyes. They were still in the garages, but now the boy recognized the place almost immediately. There were no piles of trash, no dilapidated garages. They were a minute away from the exit.

They ran. The howl rose to some kind of completely insane note and suddenly subsided. Vital looked cautiously at the roofs, but saw nothing: there were no dogs.

The grandfather and grandson jumped out of the garage cooperative and ran along a barely visible path towards the railway embankment. Somewhere in the distance, barely audible, a train horn sounded.

Without stopping, they ran along a path made in the middle of a small swamp overgrown with reeds. The path was barely visible at dusk, but Vitalka had walked along it so many times that he hadn't even slowed down.

— Vitalka!..  Grandfather called out to him. — Wait!.. I can't take it anymore... I need to rest...

Grandfather exhaled weakly and leaned his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Mosquitoes were buzzing around, but the boy didn't pay any attention to them.

"Grandfather?" - he asked.

"Right now.".. now... Let me catch my breath.

There was a soft splashing sound to the left of the path.

- what is it? — grandfather straightened up and looked in the direction of the sound.

- me too...

Splashing was heard again, followed by the cracking of the reeds.

Something was rushing towards them through the swamp, hurrying to get out onto the path.

Grandpa grabbed Vitalka by the hand and ran.

They raced along, almost without understanding the road. It was only fifty meters to the railway embankment, and there were lights and people behind it. Vital even heard the noise of cars driving along the road, but he barely heard it, as if from under water, although the road began almost immediately behind the tracks.

The train horn sounded again and Vital saw it, about a kilometer away from them.

The sound of breaking reeds grew louder: something was crashing across the swamp towards them.

"Hurry up!"  Grandfather shouted.

They reached the embankment and began to climb up. The noise of the train grew, the train was approaching. If they don't manage to run across the paths in front of him, then...

The crackling of the reeds subsided and a slurping sound was heard. Vital was afraid to look back, afraid to see what was chasing them.

He was the first to climb the embankment and looked at the train: it was very close.

— Grandpa, hurry up!  The boy bent down to help the old man.

Extending his hand, Vital involuntarily glanced down... And he screamed.

It came straight out of the swamp. A sinking mountain of black muck, from which reeds stuck out here and there like some strange fragments of arrows. Something resembled a man, or rather, a crude parody of a man: two arms, two legs, and a head that seemed to sit directly on his shoulders. It splashed towards the embankment, leaving black blots of footprints behind it. A stinky steam was coming from the creature's body, as if it had just emerged from the hot womb of the demon who gave birth to it.

— COME ON, GRANDPA! "Stop it!" the boy shouted, tears streaming down his cheeks. Grandfather froze, turned around and groaned. And then he started climbing even faster.

The train horn sounded. The creature stopped for a moment — and suddenly its legs gave way, disappeared, and it just crawled forward. And it crawled much faster than it walked.

Grandfather pulled himself up, climbed onto the embankment and grabbed Vital's outstretched hand. The train was nearby, the train flooded the spotlight of the frightened grandfather and grandson.

Vitali, as if fascinated, looked at the creature climbing the slope. She deftly pulled herself up on her "hands", pushing herself up. The slurry shone brightly with reflected light: It was the same substance that killed Uncle Lyosha. The creature, as if sensing the boy's gaze, awkwardly lifted its neckless head and "looked" at the boy.

They only looked at each other for a split second, but it seemed like an eternity to Vitala. He didn't really see anything. To be honest, he saw only one thing, but it was enough for his legs to give way and he would have fallen to the ground if his grandfather hadn't picked him up and yanked him over the rails, running right in front of the moving train.

Just one thing.

Behind them, the train cut off the slightly late abomination from them. Through the sound of the wheels, Vital heard a thick splash, as if jelly had fallen to the ground, and there was something like a loud sigh.

They were on their way home. The driver, a moustached man, looked curiously at the pale, tired and dirty grandfather and grandson. Both were silent, and the driver was in no hurry to start a conversation.

They made it, the train didn't hit them, the creature didn't catch up. Stumbling and falling, they almost tumbled down the embankment and jumped out onto the road. Lanterns were shining here, Vital saw people hurrying somewhere, it was their world, a world in which there are no holes in the ground, dogs running along the roof and black creatures consisting of disgusting slime.

Vital didn't know what his grandfather was thinking, but he was thinking about two things that were directly related to each other. The first is Uncle Lyosha. The boy could not forget how he screamed, it seemed that the echo of that scream was still in the air. And the second thing was that Vital saw when the creature raised its head.

It seemed to the boy that when the creature looked at him, its eyes flashed. His eyes were completely round, and one was located slightly higher than the other. But he realized almost immediately that he was mistaken.

Not the eyes.

Round glasses with cheap plastic frames sat crookedly on the creature's "face."