That evening, my sister Marina and I were returning home from the village club. Or rather, that night, not the evening, we stayed up late. Our village is very small, with only a couple dozen residential buildings standing on one long street. Sometimes it is necessary to walk a distance of several hundred meters from one house to another, overgrown with weeds and shrubs — once upon a time there were residential buildings here, there were vegetable gardens, but over time the village died out. There were less than a quarter of the houses left— ruins could be seen here and there, sadly staring with empty eye sockets at the road, or even just thickets of nettles and burdocks taller than a man. Buses no longer went to this God—forsaken place - it was necessary to get on foot from a neighboring village. The store was closed: bread and other products were delivered by car once a week and sold right on the street. My grandmother lived in this "beautiful" place, and my sister and I visited her for the whole summer. Surprisingly, there were quite a lot of young people in the village: everyone visited their grandparents in the summer to brighten up their loneliness a little and patch up everything that was starting to fall apart after a long winter. It is clear that in such a small village we knew each other like the back of our hand from the very cradle and were inseparable. We usually spent our evenings at the local "house of culture," an old ramshackle building with a collapsed porch, broken windows, and a sagging roof. Discos have not been organized there for a long time — the building simply would not have been able to withstand such a load and would have developed like a house of cards.; There was a huge lock on the door, but we climbed in through the broken windows, played poker until morning, listened to music and told stories.
That night we stayed at the club until two o'clock. Marina was very tired, and we went home. It was pitch dark outside: There were only two dim lanterns left on the entire kilometer-long street. The road was also collapsing, the asphalt surface crumbled, and we walked, stumbling, falling into shallow holes and bumping into bushes that grew right in the middle of the road. Our dog Tori showed us the way — she ran, slightly ahead of us, and we walked, guided by a dark blur ahead. Finally, we stomped to our house, which stood at the very end of the village, got off the road and, almost breaking our legs, went down to the gate.
It was a wonderful night, and the crickets were chirping. We were walking past a thicket of raspberries, and I noticed that Tori had disappeared. Marina had already gone up to the porch and went into the hall, and I stayed to call the dog. In the end, deciding that the dog had gone to wander somewhere in the bushes, I pushed open the door to the hall and, cursing and stretching my arms out in front of me, slowly walked down the corridor towards the entrance to the hut. I must say that we don't have a single window in the hall, so it's a good place to be during the day, and even more so at night. There, in the hall, there is an entrance to the barn and courtyard, and above the door to the hut there is a manhole to the attic. And so I wandered along, remembering Marina with a kind word, who had already entered the house and did not think to turn on the light in the hallway for me, when suddenly I heard a rustle and some kind of fuss over my head. At the same time, my hands bumped into the door leading to the hut. I frantically began to fumble around this door in search of a handle, simultaneously raising my head and trying to make out what was rustling there. Something was scratching and squeaking from above. I thought they were mice, but I finally found the handle and yanked the door open. Light burst out of the room and flooded the hallway, and I saw IT.…
A terrible creature was looking at me from the attic hole. Gray skin untouched by the sun, giving off blue, round bald head… Instead of a nose, there was a dark hole on his face. The creature's huge lipless mouth was slightly open, and the human eyes stared at me unblinkingly.
I screamed and ran into the house. At the same time, the monster jumped noisily to the floor. I tried to slam the door, but the thing grabbed the handle on the other side and started pulling the door towards itself. Through the gap that had formed, I saw behind the monster's back huge leathery wings like a bat's, absurdly narrow shoulders, a short body, long thin legs and arms.… Thin, clawed fingers gripped the door, preventing me from closing it. I screamed like a madman and pulled the doorknob with all my might. The creature suddenly hissed, revealing long, sharp teeth, and I felt like I was going to pass out from fear, let go of the door, and my sister and I would be torn into small pieces, devoured, and our guts dragged all over the room. My imagination vividly drew this picture to me, and it brought me to my senses a little. Without releasing the door, I turned around, looking for something that could help me, and saw Marina. She stood in the middle of the room with a mug in her hands and, with her mouth open, looked at the door.
— Come on, help me! Pull!!! I shouted. Marinka woke up and rushed to me. Together, we were able to slam the door shut, almost pinching the creature's arms. There was a loud, irritated hissing and muttering outside the door. We closed the door with a hook and froze, staring at each other in amazement. Marina's lips were moving as if she was trying to say something, but she couldn't make a sound. Suddenly I noticed something moving behind her. The window! It was a hot summer outside, and we didn't close the windows even at night. Even now, a light breeze was stirring the weightless curtain, and behind it was an impenetrable, frightening darkness.
— Close all the windows, quickly! I shouted and rushed to the window. Marinka ran into the next room. The two of us quickly ran around the two rooms and the kitchen, closing the windows everywhere and pulling the curtains, and again stood at the door. My grandmother went to the regional center in the afternoon and stayed there overnight with relatives. We were alone in the house. There was no sound outside the door— it was so quiet that we were afraid to breathe. Marina was crying silently, silently.
—What... what is it?" — She whispered with her lips.
"I don't know,— I said, shaking my head.
We stood there for a long time and, having not heard anything, we sat down at the table. I do not know how long we sat like that, not moving. We were just waiting for the dawn. There were noises outside the window, but they were the usual night sounds. The wind rustled the leaves, crickets chirped, and a cat meowed somewhere. There was a window to my left, and I heard a light thud, like night moths hitting the glass, flying towards the light. I pulled back the curtain.…
That gray, lifeless face stared at me. His breath misted up the window, his mouth was slightly open and pressed against the glass. It hung upside down like a bat, apparently hooked by its feet on the roof slope. I stumbled deeper into the room, and the stool toppled over with a crash. Nearby, Marina screamed, jumping up from her chair.
The creature did not move. It stared straight into my face with its cold, unblinking eyes. They were human, those eyes, but the cold, the terrible cold was coming from them. Suddenly, the creature slowly stretched its mouth into a creepy smile and pressed even closer to the window. A thin trickle of saliva slid down the glass…
"The Light… I need to turn off the light," flashed through my mind. Steeling myself, I jumped to the light switch next to the window and turned off the light. My sister and I were standing in a dark room and looking out the window, where a dark, motionless silhouette loomed. I wonder if he can see us in the dark.. Marina ran to the window and pulled the curtain shut with one jerk. We pressed ourselves into the far corner of the room and suddenly heard a rustle coming from the stove. Someone was crawling down the pipe… Ashes fell down with a soft rustle… With a squeal, we ran up to the stove, Marina grabbed the flap and closed the mouth, and I began to look for something to press it down. Suddenly, something violently began to hit the flap on the other side. Marina screamed and held the shutter with the last of her strength. I rushed to help her, but I didn't have time... a strong blow knocked the flap out of the mouth, Marina fell. Screaming, I began to hurl everything I could lay my hands on into the dark hole of the stove: logs, pans, cast-iron pots…
I don't remember what happened next, and Marina doesn't remember either. All we know is that we woke up on the floor in the morning, when the sun was high above the horizon. The creature was nowhere to be found. I prefer to believe that I killed this monster with my grandmother's frying pan, and it went far away and won't come back, but there was a residue on my soul.
Needless to say, when I visited my grandmother, I was afraid of this corridor for a long time, and when I went out at night, I always left the light on in the hallway, and when I came home, I took Tori in my arms, and poking the dog in all directions, I went to the door. During the day, when it was also pitch dark in the hallway, I stood at the door, holding my breath, and like a sprinter in a hundred-meter race, I rushed down the corridor, knocking down everything in my path. One day she got her foot stuck in a bucket, but she didn't stop and stumbled into the room, rattling and remembering Satan and all the devils at once, scaring her grandmother half to death. Now fear lurks deep inside, and as I walk through the dark corridors, I always remember this story with a shudder.
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