Summer night

This story happened about a week ago. The summer holidays have begun. My dad worked the night shift, and my mom slept peacefully in her room. As usual, I was in touch and listening to music. A cat was sleeping at my feet, but a loud knock on the door made her jump up and run into the hallway. I looked at the time, it was 2:15 (plus or minus 5 minutes) Without thinking twice, I got up and went to the front door. Everything seemed to quiet down behind her, but I went up anyway and asked urgently: "WHO?" "but no one answered me.".I shrugged and went back to my room. I collapsed on the bed, picked up my laptop and continued to sit in the room.

As soon as I turned on the music again, the knocking started again, and at that moment I was really scared..I shut the door to the room tightly so that I wouldn't hear any knocks. But the sounds kept getting louder and louder, and soon the knocking became so loud that I couldn't stand it, slammed the laptop shut and headed for the hallway. I turned on the light and walked slowly to the door..I wanted to look through the peephole, but I didn't dare. Once again, in raised tones, I said: "WHO?!" - but in response, no one answered me again. I quietly closed the second door and slid down the wall to the floor..I wrapped my arms around my knees and buried my face in them. I sat in silence for a while, not noticing anything, but a terrible slurping sound coming from the kitchen made me shudder.

I tried to get up, but my legs gave out and I collapsed to the floor..I continued slurping, my heart shrank to an incredible size, I crawled to my room, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed some kind of creature in the kitchen..I turned my head and screamed at the horrific sight..There was some kind of ugly creature sitting on the floor, his face looked like it had been burned, his bones were bulging out, and a red liquid, very similar to blood, was flowing from his mouth...I covered my mouth with my hand and sobbed. I sat there covering my mouth and rocking back and forth.

I don't remember what happened next, but I remember that my mom woke me up in the morning, I was lying on the floor in the hallway. She asked me what I was doing here and where our cat was. I looked fearfully at the kitchen and did not answer her. Everything was clean.. I got up and trudged to my room, fell on the bed and sobbed loudly..

I haven't seen Manka (the cat) since..And this creature never appeared again.

Train to nowhere

 My sister and I were on our way home. She and I have been at the camp for three weeks and our train leaves today. She had bought the tickets in advance, so we jumped into the carriage as soon as the train arrived. Strangely, there were few people on this train, and they all boarded the last carriage. Just like my sister and me. The car was new, with reserved seats. I made myself comfortable on the bottom side shelf. Oh, I've been waiting for this moment for a long time! All this time, I've been dreaming of being on a train going home. The camp was terrible. An old building that would be worth filming a horror movie in.

And these children... I didn't tell my sister what I didn't like. We were putting our bags on special shelves when the train started. I didn't even notice it. I just glanced out the window and saw the platform moving. Stop. Not the platform, but us. It wasn't said over the speakerphone that our train was leaving. I poked my sister.:

"Look!"  The train was slowly pulling away. Slowly and very quietly.

We got the food on the table. While my sister was busy with her, I looked out the window. Fog. It's all fog. It was cloudy in the morning. And then there's the fog, you can't figure out where it came from. The situation was depressing. My sister asked me to go to the guide for boiling water. We were at the end of the carriage. I went to the beginning of it. On the way, I decided to count how many people were traveling besides us. Hmm... only 10 people. Not enough. Moreover, people only entered this carriage. But I was even more surprised when there was no guide in place! I went back to my sister.

"There's no one there.

"Why not?" - she was very surprised.

"Are you sure there's no one?" - Yes, exactly.

My sister and I ate and I decided to read. I took out a book. Out of the corner of my ear, I heard a conversation between two fellow travelers. They talked about how sleepy they were. Well, lie down. I looked down the aisle. Almost the entire carriage was asleep! Two fellow travelers, too. I looked at my sister. She had her head in her hands and was sleeping on the table. Unbeknownst to me, I felt tired. My eyelids were closing. I realized that I was going to fall asleep, just like everyone else in the carriage.

I don't remember how long I woke up, but when I woke up, the whole carriage was awake. What was that? And why did everyone fall asleep? The carriage was in chaos. Everyone was indignant and said something. My sister said our bags were missing. How? Where to? What happened here while we were sleeping? One of the guys riding with us decided to go to the other cars, but he couldn't: the doors were closed. After his failed attempt, a real panic began. Many women were vying to say something...

First, I was carrying a rare vase! But that bag isn't there!

The second: I'm calling my husband. He works for the police. Oh, damn, it doesn't catch here!

Third: What is the train number?

Four: Where the hell are we?!

And then we stopped. Everyone immediately fell silent. I looked out the window. The fog came down and I saw the station. Just a station. It looked abandoned. The name of the settlement was not written on it, and there was no settlement either. Just an inscription: "station". The fog had almost disappeared behind the nearby pine trees. Everyone clung to the windows. Then I heard the sound of doors opening. It sounded eerie in the silence. Strange thoughts came over me. All the fellow travelers began to leave for the street. I didn't want to leave alone. Apparently, I was the only one who had a strange feeling.

But, my sister made me go out with everyone. We went out. The landscape was sparse: scorched yellow grass, pine trees in the distance... Suddenly, the fog returned. He spread out like a blanket. He was knee-deep to me. There was a murmur from the crowd. People were worried. Someone from the crowd suggested returning to the carriage. Oh, the first sensible thought. But suddenly there was movement in the fog.

"Hey, what's this?"  I asked my sister. Something flashed again. Now it's not just me who's noticed it, but everyone.

A real panic began. At some point, I got scared. And for good reason.

Hands began to appear from the creeping mist! Pale and thin. Someone screamed. Everyone started climbing through the doors.

The guy suddenly shouted:

"They're closed!"

Were the doors closed?! And we didn't notice how they closed! But the hands were followed out of the fog by bodies.

People were coming out of the fog. There were a lot of them. But were they people? They had no faces.

They rose, moving jerkily. The creatures were reaching out to us.

"I'm scared!"  I whispered to my sister.

All the people were afraid and were dumbfounded. The "people" slowly got up and approached us. They looked terrible. We stared into their faces, unable to move or say anything. All this would have gone on for a long time, but suddenly the creature standing in front of me grabbed my arm. I let out a high-pitched scream in surprise. The strange freaks started grabbing the others. The women screamed, the men tried to fight back. But the creatures were stronger. They were slowly dragging us into the pines, into the fog... I looked at my sister with tear-filled eyes. She said:

- Everything will be fine. - But it's not like that.

We were approaching the pines when I decided to take one last look at the train. In the carriage, many people asked what the train's number was. But

there was no number. In place of the number, on the electronic strip, it was written:

- Train to nowhere

The horror in the bathroom

 Max and Alina are my good friends, and they are very serious. They are now married and live in their own apartment. And I'll tell you a story that happened to them back when they were looking for an apartment to build their "family nest" there. They searched for a long time, and so, our young couple found their ideal two-room apartment in a residential area near the city center, a supermarket nearby, both guys are close to work. And the price is quite average for this area. In general, there are some advantages. In their joy, they didn't even ask who owned the apartment, why they were selling the rest of the details. We decided to sign a contract to live in an apartment for a couple of months, and if some "pitfalls" do not surface, then they buy without looking. That was settled. I must say that there were no oddities at first. It was only when the apartment was being disinfected and cleaned that Alina noticed that there were small crosses painted on the upper doorjamb in the bathroom, as many as three of them. She didn't wash them, she thought that the previous tenants were believers, and this is such a talisman. And on the bathtub itself, there were streaks and small grooves, barely noticeable. It was like they were scratching and banging on the tub with something metallic. She told Max, who examined the scratches and shrugged his shoulders.: "Never mind, we'll change the enamel later." A couple of days later, we moved into our new home, everything was as it should be - the cat was allowed through the threshold first, the corners were crossed, the housewarming party was celebrated. It was only over time that they began to notice that it was uncomfortable to be in the bathroom. It's unpleasant to look in the mirror, as if someone else is watching, not your own reflection. The same feeling arose from the ventilation hole (I think many people were familiar with this feeling in childhood - as if some kind of noise was sitting there and shooting at you). Maxim, terribly embarrassed, even admitted that he covered this hole with a towel when he washed so that it would not be so scary. When Alina noticed this one day, she laughed at Max: "Oh, you! A big guy, but are you afraid? What nonsense! There is nothing like that. It's all nonsense." She said that, but she got goosebumps. It was after this statement that something happened to her that made her believe "all these nonsense." A couple of days later, when Alinka was taking a shower (sorry for such piquant details), she turned off the water and began shampooing her hair, while closing her eyes so that the soap foam would not get into her eyes. And now, he hears some kind of grinding going on in the bathtub. Not sonorous and metallic, but soft, barely audible. Shik-shik, shik-shik... "Maybe the neighbors are fixing the faucet. And the acoustics are good here," Alinka mused. But the sound didn't stop. "Or Max wants to scare you, so he's scratching at the door," But the sound is coming from the bathtub itself, right from under Alinka's feet. Curiosity got the better of her, and she opened one eye slightly. It was then that terror seized her. Two thin, apparently feminine fingers were sticking out of the drain hole. They bent over and simultaneously scratched the surface of the tub near the drain. Alinka's eyes widened. With a terrible inhuman scream, she flew out of the bathroom, ran into the room where Max was watching TV, and huddled in the farthest corner of the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. Stunned, Max looked into the bathroom, but of course he didn't see anything strange. Chattering her teeth, the terrified Alinka told him everything as it was. And she flatly refused to go into the bathroom, even to wash the shampoo off her head. Then I had to tinker with a basin and a kettle in the kitchen. On the same day, the guys "took off" from there. We temporarily moved in with our parents, Max and his friends took out all the things from the apartment in a few days, since Alinka flatly refused to cross the threshold of this glorious apartment. The guys then tried to figure out what could have happened there - maybe some kind of murder, or something else. They still hadn't found anything; the police had not reported this apartment. Max himself has one guess, they say, it is quite possible that someone was dismembered in the bathtub (or simply killed), which is why the notches on the surface of the enamel look like they were beaten with something sharp. Max Alinka does not tell this version. She says she still dreams about those fingers in not very pleasant dreams.

Heck

 Olka and I have been friends since school. Then they went to university, got married. Olya's parents are rich — when she got pregnant, they gave her a three-room apartment, so to speak, to kick into the future. A wonderful boy was born, named Vitaley in honor of Olga's grandfather, we affectionately called him Vitka. When the baby turned one year old, Olya and her husband moved into a renovated new apartment to start a happy life for a young family. But the baby immediately began to get sick there often, to be moody, to cry. Later, the tantrums reached such a point that the child somehow climbed over his crib and ran to his parents in the bedroom. Olya complained that now they had no peace from their son. He didn't want to stay in the room at all. Vitka was a completely normal child among his grandparents, but at home he seemed to be replaced.

One day, the mother gave the baby felt-tip pens and paper while she was cooking lunch. When I came to look, I was horrified: the son drew a perfectly clear scary devil sitting next to the bed, the whole sheet was covered with black lines mixed with yellow and red. Vitka couldn't really explain what he had drawn, he said the word "damn" and pointed under the bed.

So a year passed. The boy was still restless. At night, he consistently ran to his parents and lay down between them. He had already started talking pretty well and was constantly complaining about some devil in dark corners. Psychologists and psychiatrists unanimously argued that the boy sees negativity on TV and projects it into reality. Naturally, neither the experts nor the parents wanted to believe in mysticism. The mother was punished by any means to wean the child from the parental bed.

And so Olga took an extreme step. I read somewhere on the Internet that the child was put down and locked up, he cried, and then got tired and fell asleep. After talking to the child that there was no damn thing, that he had made it all up, she went out the door without turning off the night light and locked the boy.

It was quiet for 20 minutes, but then the boy started crying. Olga suffered, but somehow it is necessary to wean the child. With tears in her eyes, Olga sat and waited for the baby to calm down and fall asleep. But Vitka started shouting. Thinking that the neighbors would come running to swear, the mother opened the room. His son was sitting on the windowsill, pressed against the glass, his eyes were wet, and he was sobbing nervously. There were fresh bruises on his son's arms and legs. Stuttering, the child continued to say that a terrible devil was coming out from under the bed, which wanted to bite him and drag him along. The mother, exhausted by her son's phobias, ran to the doctors with the boy again tomorrow morning. Vitka saw nothing but cartoons, which were taken away by his son's parents. He also didn't look at the scary pictures. Where did this terrible fear come from in the child's head? The doctors were already throwing up their hands. Some believed that the parents were beating the baby, but he said that mom and dad had never beaten him, the neighbors described the family as positive — in general, there was no evidence except bruises. Mom and baby went to a sanatorium for a week to relax. There the boy was calm and slept on his own without shouting and scandals.

Upon arrival, everything resumed again. And then Olga couldn't stand it. On the advice of an elderly neighbor, she decided to consecrate the apartment. When the priest came, he immediately said that they lived in an unclean place, and that the boy should be taken care of.

It was a quiet evening after he left, and nothing foreshadowed trouble. Olga was preparing to meet her husband from a business trip, she put her son in her bedroom, and she was cooking. It was late when she discovered that there was not enough flour. She went out to the neighbors. As they were talking, suddenly there was an inhuman terrible scream, and immediately silence fell. Olya and her neighbors quickly returned to their apartment. What my mother saw left a deep impression on her whole life. Her dead little son was lying on the bed with his arms outstretched, his whole body covered with bites, his eyes rolled back in horror. Running up to the child, the mother discovered that the boy was not breathing.

The examination revealed multiple human bites on the baby's body. The investigation concluded that the parents were innocent of his death, and the woman had an alibi, because the boy was screaming right when she was talking to the neighbors from above.

Then Olya and her husband told me a big secret that they later found out about the apartment. Ten years ago, a man shot himself in it, who also suffered from nighttime meetings with the devil. Olya now believes in mysticism, she has not found any other explanation for the death of her child. They did not find any in the police either.

My friend says she still cries a lot for the baby. They sold the sinister apartment, and they sold it to people who didn't have children.

Forgotten children

 I'm going to Pskov to pick up my car from customs. It's a sunny summer day, not a cloud in the sky, and there's food, drinks, and a sleeping bag in the trunk. You may have to spend the night on the road. I stop for a smoke break, sleep for about thirty minutes, have sandwiches, and get back behind the wheel. Stable at 150 km/h. A smooth, straight highway.

I arrived at the customs office in the evening. Paperwork. Boring faces. A photocopier. Payment of the fee. Drivers of huge trucks. Smoke breaks, queues, waiting hours. Only after midnight – on the way back. The road is almost clear at this time. Oncoming drivers politely switch the high beam to the low beam. Suddenly, the headlights pick out a grandfather sitting on the side of the road with buckets, apparently selling something. I stop the car and get out. There's nothing in the buckets. Grandfather sits on a stool, giggles and looks somewhere into the forest, does not answer questions. I throw twenty rubles in a bucket, get behind the wheel, and drive on.

Fatigue affects, sleep takes its toll, I know that in this case it is impossible to continue moving. After a couple of kilometers, I carefully turn off the highway. A dirt road leads to a strange wasteland. There is a forest around the edges, and the playground is covered with asphalt with deep potholes. I park the car in the center, lay out the seats, spread out the sleeping bag. There's silence all around. For some reason, I don't want to turn off the lights in the car. I finish my cigarette, lie down, turn off the lamp and the headlights. I toss and turn for a few minutes, but then I fall into oblivion, a dream as dark as the forest around me.

I wake up to the sound of the car rocking and laughter. Children's laughter, cheerful and sinister at the same time. The windows had fogged up by then, and nothing was visible from the inside. I lean against the window, trying to see something. Suddenly, a child's palm hits the glass from the opposite side and slides down, leaving a clean trail behind it. I screamed with all my might and, without stopping shouting, I got behind the wheel. I frantically search for my keys, slap my pockets, but I'm nowhere to be found. The laughter doesn't stop, the car is rocking harder and harder, and the smell of burning has started to come from somewhere. It turns out that the key was in the ignition. I turn the key. The engine roars. I automatically turn on the headlights. There are children standing in front of the hood in a tight row. There are about fifteen of them. They were dressed in old, still Soviet-style, official pajamas. There are black spots on their faces and clothes. I'm putting it in reverse gear. I'm flying over potholes, engine whining. The children's figures are moving away, one of them waved her hand.

I hit the highway, gas up to the stop, rushing like crazy. It's only now that I'm noticing that it's raining heavily. A traffic police post appeared ahead. I drive up to him, almost crash into the wall, jump out of the car, rush to the surprised guard, confusedly tell him what happened. He laughs and doesn't believe it. Conducts an alcohol test. Then he takes me to his place, offers to rest. He pours tea, lights a cigarette, and asks where it happened. I'm telling you. He listens attentively, then darkens, exchanging glances with his partner. Then they tell me a story that there was a boarding school in that place, and in the late eighties there was a fire and it burned down, almost all the students died. Despite this, the police assure me that I just had a nightmare. I agree. Here, in the warmth, in the company of armed traffic cops, everything really seems like a dream. After a while, I thank them, pack up, and go out to the car. On the hood, almost already washed away by the rain, the prints of small children's hands stained with soot are visible.

A strange apartment

 This happened quite recently — about three years ago. At that time, I lived with my parents in a three-room apartment. My dog was constantly looking at something, as if he saw something that we didn't see. She was barking at something in the doorway and growling.

After some time, I spent the night at home alone. I watched a movie and went to bed. I hadn't had time to turn off the lights everywhere and get under the covers when someone knocked on the bathroom door three times (probably anyone knows exactly how knocking on every door in their apartment sounds). I quieted down — there was a deathly silence. I started to reassure myself that it was my imagination, but then there were three more knocks on the front door. I jumped out of bed, picked up my phone, called my boyfriend, and started explaining to him what had happened. He told me not to panic and calm down, reminded me that I had definitely locked the door when he left me that evening. He advised me to go and look through the peephole. I did just that — I walked down the hall to the front door, simultaneously turning on the lights everywhere. When I got to the door, the lights in the whole apartment went out. I was just dumbfounded by the shock. Through the peephole, it was visible that the light was on on the lower floor. I started crying into the phone and begging the guy to come to me. He said he was on his way out, but before he could finish the last sentence, my phone went dead. He couldn't discharge in any way, as he had been charging all day. I pulled myself together and resolutely went to the pantry to get candles.

She lit a candle, took it in her hand and went to her room and began to pray that everything would stop. And then I heard footsteps IN THE APARTMENT RIGHT DOWN THE HALL — slow at first, and then someone seemed to come running into my room and stop next to me. And then I just started vomiting out of fear — I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Then I heard the bell ring. I had no time to run to the door when suddenly there was a STRONG KNOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR again! I froze, but then I heard my boyfriend's voice outside the door. With a sigh of relief, I opened the door. At the same moment, the lights in the entire apartment turned on, and I heard the beep of the phone turning on in the room. The guy also saw how the lights were turned on all over the apartment, and looked at my face, pale as whitewash. We spent the whole night in the kitchen.

After this incident, everyone at home constantly began to hear someone walking around the apartment. Dishes were breaking, wires were flying through the air by themselves... Family relations became strained — we were always fighting. Soon we decided to move out of this apartment. They sold it, and new residents moved in.

Just a month later, the tenants called us early in the morning and mockingly asked if we had noticed anything unusual in the apartment. We answered in the negative with a shudder, and they told us that they had heard their baby daughter screaming and crying at night. We ran into the room, and there the child was hanging in the air, as if someone invisible was holding her by the throat. When the adults entered, the "hand" abruptly released its grip, and the girl fell to the floor and suffered a concussion...

What it was, and how these people are now, I do not know. But I am very glad that we left this apartment on time.

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.