The elevator is not working

 I noticed the sign "Elevator does not work" the day we moved from Limoges to Pestrak. My parents did not have their own apartment, and because of this we often had to change the address. At the age of eleven, I was no longer hysterical about such circumstances.

The summer heat was unbearable. The interior of our (or rather, Dad's) BMW was stuffy, and I hurried to get out of it.

—Holy shit! — I heard the screams of one of the movers. — Cargo does not work. We're going to die before we get all this stuff up to the sixteenth floor.

— Let him pay extra! — the voice of another loader rang out. — The miserly bespectacled one.

Dad was talking to someone on his cell phone and didn't get out of the car. Unloading of furniture began without him. She was commanded by a blond guy in a yellow T-shirt and work pants.

I entered the entrance, following the movers, who dragged my wheelchair up the stairs. He stopped at the landing and waited for them to climb two flights of stairs. He wanted to follow them, but changed his mind when he saw the doors of the freight elevator with the sign "Elevator does not work." If it hadn't been for this sign, I probably would have passed it by.

The doors of the freight elevator were in the same wall as the doors of the passenger elevator. There were rusty mailboxes on the opposite wall.

The entrance was dirty and in need of major repairs. The old green paint has partially crumbled. In one corner, a black spider web was waving under the ceiling, and a healthy fat spider was crawling along it.

I pressed the button to call the freight elevator several times and, losing interest in it due to the fact that nothing happened, I moved to the passenger one, but I hadn't taken three steps when I heard a strange screeching sound behind me.

I turned around and saw how the doors of the freight elevator began to open reluctantly, with jerks. I stared at them in fascination. It's still working, it flashed through my mind. There was no limit to my curiosity, I really wanted to look into the opening cabin.

I flinched as I made eye contact with my reflection. A large oval mirror was attached to the wall of the cabin, which caught my eye immediately after opening the doors. Apparently, one of the tenants decided a long time ago that he belonged here. It was old, slightly dusty, with a crack dividing it from top to bottom into two unequal parts.

I entered the elevator car and approached the control panel with the old rectangular buttons. Without hesitation, I pressed the button with the number 16. The elevator doors slowly began to close with an unpleasant screech. It seemed to me that they didn't have the strength to do it faster.

—Come on, you old fart! Come on!  I hurried the elevator as if it were a living being.

The doors obediently slid open. However, it took them twenty seconds or even more. I was disappointed when the elevator didn't move. He didn't even twitch. I pressed the number one button and held it down, trying to force the doors to open. In the old elevators, this technique worked. It also didn't work, although it wasn't new either.

My palms were covered with sweat, and my heart was beating faster. But I didn't panic. There was nothing terrible about this situation—I've been in worse scrapes.

The biggest thing I could get was a slap on the back of the head from my dad. One more, one less. And that's if I have to take my cell phone out of my shorts pocket and call him.

And I wasn't going to call him. Instead, he started pressing all the buttons on the elevator's control panel. First, he ran his fingers over the buttons with numbers, then pressed the "stop" button and then the emergency door release button. Having received no result, I pressed the "dispatcher" call button with my index finger and felt my ears and cheeks turn red.

Something hissed and went silent in the speaker at the top of the control panel. Two seconds later, something crackled and hissed again.

"I'll come for you," a man's voice came from the speaker. — Sit quietly and wait.

The hairs on my head stood up, and I realized that it was time to call my dad. With a trembling hand, I pulled the Nokia out of my pocket and dialed his number. There were long beeps on my cell phone. At the same time, someone outside rattled on the sliding doors with either an awl, a screwdriver, or something similar. I held my breath. The sound was even worse — the nerves were not happy — as if someone was wielding an awl not at the doors, but at something alive, responding with a squeak to all this mockery.

— Hello! — my relative finally responded.

— Dad!  I shouted into the phone.

—Tell me,— he replied roughly and unpleasantly.

"Dad, I'm stuck in the elevator!"

"I'm happy for you," Dad said, "but I have to get to work right away."

My jaw dropped. And it took me a while to find something to say to him.

—Daddy, please,— I whimpered, "get me out of here."

But it was too late — the father broke off the connection. That didn't suit me, so I dialed his phone number again. He didn't answer, and it was very strange, unlike him. Would he leave me alone in a closed, malfunctioning elevator? Is he really going to go to work calmly, knowing that I have serious problems? No, he wouldn't do that.

The scratching became louder and louder. Those who wielded an awl or something similar began to put in a lot more effort. It was unclear why he was doing all this. What did he want to achieve with this?

"Who's there?"  I whined.

The scratching stopped.

"You're scared, aren't you?" "What is it?" a girl asked.

— Very much… Who are you?

— I'm Marina.

— Marinochka, please call someone.

— It's better not to do that.

— Why?!

— If I call him, it will be bad... very bad.

"Get someone else."

"He's the only one here. I'm the only one here.

"Don't be silly!  I shouted. — This can't be happening! Call any apartment and call one of the adults.

The elevator jerked violently, and the light in the cabin became unbearably bright. I squeezed my eyes shut.

"You calm down and sit down,— the girl advised. "That's better, I know. The more fear overwhelms you, the more powerful it becomes.

"Who is he?"

"He's an elevator. If he moves, you'll die.

The smell of burning plastic was added to the bright light. And black smoke streamed through the upper ventilation grate. I swallowed the lump in my throat and pounded on the elevator door with my fist.

— Marina!  I shouted. — Help me, please. There's smoke.

"I can't help you if you don't listen to me."

— Fire, Marina! Fire!

"I feel sorry for you," she replied in a calm voice.

"I don't want to die," I sobbed, and there was a thud on the wall of the cabin, on the side where the control panel was located. Someone hit the elevator wall with superhuman force, so that it staggered.

"Sit on the floor and close your eyes," Marina whispered.— Try to calm down.

I sat down on the floor, took a deep breath and exhaled well. The speaker hissed. I closed my eyes, and immediately someone rattled the elevator from below.

— Marina, I'm scared.

The scratching was repeated.

The girl didn't respond, and I suspected something was wrong.

— Marina, where are you?  I whined. — Marinochka.

There is silence in response.

We need to call Mom urgently — she will help! She will not betray or abandon. She's not like Dad. As soon as I thought about my mom, I felt better. And most importantly, everything is quiet — no scraping, no hitting, as if nothing had happened. The elevator doors jerked and opened slightly. Through the gap I saw the rusty mailboxes. I tried to push the doors further apart myself so that I could get out, but they wouldn't budge. But I saw my mom.: She took a step back and came into my field of vision.

"We have a whole hour," Mom muttered, and the blond guy who was in charge of the shipment approached her.

He wrapped his arms around her fragile shoulders, hugged her to him, and said:

— Now we will see you more often. You don't have a husband, you have a moron.

"That's right," Mom sang and pulled away from him a little. He smiled at her, and she stood on tiptoe and lifted her lips to his, playfully extending the tip of her tongue.

Uncle's hand slid below Mom's waist, and I screamed at the top of my voice.:

— Mom, help me! Mom!

But there was no reaction from mom and the blond goat. They continued in the same spirit as they started.

— Mom! Mom! Mom!  I couldn't calm down and screamed until my voice was hoarse.

The doors opened a little wider, allowing me to reach out to grab my mom's elbow. I almost reached out, but the doors did a mean thing — they abruptly clamped my hand. And it was squeezed so hard that stars flashed before my eyes.

The elevator started moving and began to rise. I realized with horror what was waiting for me. I didn't feel any pain—my arm was cut off in a matter of seconds. A fountain of blood filled the entire cabin.

When I woke up, I didn't immediately understand why my hand was in place. Slowly, the thought came to my mind that in reality nothing had been cut off. Apparently, after my arm was severely squeezed, I lost consciousness, and my brain plunged me into a nightmarish vision.

The elevator doors were half open, and it was pitch dark. I could have tried to get out. But I didn't want that at all. Only the damn elevator knew what was waiting for me outside. Where did he take me? What was his next trick?

The doors shook and opened completely. In the darkness, something moved and crawled, scooping up fragments of glass or iron, or maybe both, with its body.

I got to my feet and tried to see what kind of creature was approaching me. But I didn't see anything. What I disliked the most was that the light burning in the elevator didn't even illuminate what was beyond it.

The thing was getting closer and closer. A flash of light outside the elevator lit up the corridor for a moment, and I managed to see a huge evil thing that looked like an alligator, really crawling over the broken glass. Her brain was bubbling in her open skull, like pea porridge in a saucepan on high gas. And some of them were overflowing.

Another flash — this powerful toothy creature cut the distance in half and opened its mouth. I pressed myself against the wall, counting the seconds until she attacked.

Suddenly, Dad's voice rang out from the darkness:

"What's the matter with you, son?" Come out. Can't you see the elevator isn't working.

Glass crunched on the floor very close. A flash of light showed that the evil spirits had almost reached the elevator. All she had to do was make one last sharp leap.

One more second and her sharp teeth will close on my body. That's it! That's it! It's going to happen right now!

Against all odds, I rushed into the darkness to meet the creature. The doors clanged behind him, and the darkness immediately dissipated. I saw a surprised father, rusty mailboxes on the wall, and movers trying to shove a book table into a passenger elevator.

"I can't understand," his father chuckled, "why you're so twisted."

I would have told him, but I doubt he would have believed me.