The Queen of Spades

 I'm almost sixteen, and I'm going to die soon, not from an incurable disease or a deadly virus, but because of my own stupidity, thanks to which my friends and I opened the door to the other world, releasing evil from there.

At my age, the word "death" is just a word you hear in movies or find in books, a kind of abstract concept. It never occurred to me to use it in relation to myself. I was always sure that if I died, it would be very, very soon, at a very old age. However, to be honest, I didn't really believe in my own old age, and even more so in death. At the dawn of life, no one thinks about its decline. I've never gone on a date with a guy, not even kissed yet.…

Tears stung my eyes.

Trying not to cry, I took a few shuddering breaths.

Daria was the culprit. She's the one who's crazy about black magic. Spells, love spells. Lesya and I only laughed at her at first, because her witchcraft was of little use. Take, for example, the fact that Sergei from 10 "B" never fell in love with me, despite all Darya's manipulations with his photo and the creepy entourage in the form of thirteen burning candles and thirteen dried roses. That's why, when our homegrown witch suddenly announced that she could use the dark forces to cancel the annual math test, we almost burst our bellies with laughter.

— What, your dark forces will dry the pasta in all the pens?  Lesya moaned through her laughter.

— Maybe our notebooks will self-ignite? — I put forward my version.

Twirling her finger at her temple in response to our jokes, Daria dryly said:

— You'll see!

That Saturday evening is etched into my memory in every detail.

Daria was at home alone, her parents had gone to the country for the whole weekend. Lesya and I came to her at the appointed hour with a box of cakes, which, alas, we were never destined to taste.

Daria opened the door and motioned for us to enter, then, without saying a word, led us through the dark hallway to her room. Slightly discouraged by the mystery of what was happening, Lesya and I were also silent. He made not only a frightening, but also a fascinating impression of Darya's unusual appearance. She was wearing a long black silk dress, black ballet flats on her feet, and a black nylon scarf tied with a tourniquet decorated her head. The makeup was also designed in the "vampire" style: lips in black lipstick, black nail polish, black eyeliner.

Everything in the room was ready for the upcoming "sacrament": the windows were tightly curtained, candles were placed both around the perimeter and around the mirror placed on the carpet.

Daria nodded at the pillows. We obediently sat down on them, forming a kind of enclosed space between the three of us, the center of which was a mirror surrounded by burning candles.

— What kind of folk art is this?  Lesya couldn't resist asking.

A symbolic staircase was painted in black lipstick in a mirrored circle, ending at one end in a closed door.

"This?"  Daria smiled mysteriously. — A ritual image to summon the Queen of Spades!

"The Queen of Spades?" But Herman's not here!  Lesya made a mocking face and, becoming serious, added:

— We're doing stupid things!.. How can you believe in all this nonsense?..

— Wait, you'll believe it yourself soon!  Daria smiled promisingly.

Admittedly, I myself have always been skeptical about girls' stories about the spirits of the Queen of Spades or Bloody Mary, supposedly fulfilling any desires of those who cause them. But it was a pity to upset Daria, the poor thing wanted to surprise us with her ability to do black magic. I supported her.:

— Let's get started! "The devil pulled my tongue!"

Daria held out her hands to us, and the three of us completed the ritual circle, after which we bent over the mirror so low that our heads touched, and repeated the necessary incantation three times: "Spirit of the Queen of Spades, come!"

The main wish was voiced, of course, by Daria:

— Help us, please make sure that we don't write the annual math test!

There was silence for a moment, but the next thing Lesya giggled nervously.:

— It's a madhouse!

—Shh...— Daria stopped her, putting her finger to her lips.

An unexpected sound, like the creaking of rusty door hinges, startled us all. I noticed Lesya tensing up in alarm. Daria's pale face, wreathed in a kind of triumphant smile, looked like a grotesque mask of Death in the darkness. It was cold, as if someone had entered the warmth from the cold, without immediately closing the door. I shivered instinctively. And suddenly there were footsteps, light, swift, like a gust of wind that immediately extinguished all the candles. Lesya screamed in fright. We squeezed each other's hands with all our might. I can't tell you how scary it was! I was afraid to move and almost fainted when a woman's crazy laughter sounded in the pitch darkness. The footsteps were getting closer. It felt as if someone invisible had descended an invisible staircase and passed by us. The door of Darya's room suddenly opened and slammed shut. Everything went quiet. There was no sound, no movement, not even the cold. The chandelier flared up on its own. I don't know how much time passed while we were in prostration. Maybe a few seconds, or maybe even half an hour, as Lesya claimed the next day. By the way, she was the first to come to her senses, and her angry scream still rings in my ears.:

—It's a nightmare! Daria, I'll never forgive you! What was that?!

— The Spirit of the Queen of Spades, which you didn't believe in! — came the victorious reply.

"Stop messing with my head! It's clear that you've played a prank on us!  Tossing aside the pillow she was sitting on, Lesya ran around the room. — Come on, tell me, where did you hide it?..

"Who did I hide?"  Daria screamed, offended by the incredulity. "What are you doing?" Stop going through my stuff!

— Not who, but what!.. Phone, tape recorder, laptop!.. Where was the sound coming from?.. You wrote down all these steps and creaks in advance to scare us, and we idiots fell for it!..

— I didn't write anything down!

— Yeah, tell the donkey, his ears are more authentic!

I stopped the argument by pointing with a trembling hand at the cracked mirror.:

— Girls, look! — The rays diverged at an angle from the painted door, crossing the schematically depicted staircase, in the direction of the exit from the room...

On Monday, in math class, we were informed that the final test in the tenth grades had been postponed to Thursday.

— Okay, at least Darya's witchcraft partially worked!  Lesya laughed.

It was funny to me then, too, but now I realize that witchcraft worked one hundred percent. The Queen of Spades fulfilled Darya's request exactly: none of the three of us are destined to write an annual test... ever!..

Daria didn't show up at school that day. At the last break, we called her, and when we found out that she was in the hospital, we rushed there, but we were too late. The disease developed so rapidly that the doctors did not even have time to make a diagnosis. "It's all blackened, like it's charred!" was all the nurse on duty in the intensive care unit could tell us.

It's Tuesday night.

Lesya died this morning.

I can hear my mom sobbing into the phone, listing my symptoms to the ambulance dispatcher. My fingers and toes became numb, lost their sensitivity, and began to turn black. The blackness is rising higher and higher by the minute.…

And I'm not even sixteen yet!..

The old man

 There was an apartment next to us — my grandfather lived in that apartment, who was ill for a long time and then died. My grandfather had no arms or legs.

The room where my sister and I slept was next to his apartment. After my grandfather's death, it remained empty for some time. The balcony of the empty apartment was located next to ours, at a window distance.

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard some strange noises. I looked at my sister's bed, and she was sleeping quietly. Then I realized that these sounds were coming from behind the wall, from my dead grandfather's apartment. I lay there in silence for a while, but the sounds didn't stop, repeating themselves periodically over and over again. They were very indistinct, but they made me listen anxiously. Then I got out of bed and put my ear to the wall to listen to what was going on there.

Some kind of blows, they were repeated periodically. Then there was some rustling. But suddenly the nature of the sounds changed. The noise was as if someone was jerking a full bag. Moreover, he dragged it towards the balcony. Suddenly, the noise stopped. In the silence of the night, I heard something click behind the wall.

"It's the latch on the balcony," I suddenly realized. And he froze, waiting for what would happen next. But then nothing happened.

The noise was repeated the next night. I told my sister everything this morning.

"Do you know what that is?"  My sister asked after thinking about it.

- no.

— It's a dead grandfather crawling on the floor, then he opens the balcony door and goes outside.

"And how does he open the door?" He doesn't have arms and legs!

"He's dead!" — The nurse replied meaningfully.

The next night, she didn't sleep with me. The noise was repeated. First a rustle, then the sound of a balcony latch coming off, and then silence. The two of us listened to the sounds of a dead disabled person moving. He seemed to us to be some kind of monstrous maggot- maggot — which, writhing, moved across the floor.

The next morning, my sister said:

— So this grandfather goes out on the balcony.

"What if it's not Grandpa?"

— Who else could be in the dead grandfather's empty apartment? Grandfather himself! — the sister answered confidently.

—Well, that's okay," she continued, "the important thing is that he goes out on the balcony. Meanwhile, we can also go out on our own and see what it is!

It was decided that the two of us would go out on our balcony tonight and see who was going out on the next one.

During the day, we reached over the railing and tried to look into the empty windows of the next room. There was nothing to be seen but a yellowed sheet of newspaper pinned to the window.

And then the night came. The scuffle behind the wall began. We waited for the latch to click and went to the balcony door. We were walking together, but it so happened that I was the first. I wish I hadn't done that.

"No one,— I said quietly to my sister.

Yes, the door to the next balcony was open, but it was empty. It wasn't that scary.

And suddenly...

A rounded object appeared at the level of the railing of the neighboring balcony. For a moment, I thought he had fallen from above, because I heard something soft fall on the metal surface of the railing.

And then the sister rushed back to the apartment.

I suddenly realized what kind of object it was. On the next balcony, the corpse of a legless and armless old man hung with his teeth on the railing. His glassy eyes turned and fixed on me.

I rushed inside the apartment. I rushed to the light switch, groped along the wall and couldn't find it, forgetting in horror where everything was located.

—The door! Close the door to the balcony!  My sister screamed and, not waiting for my reaction, rushed to lock it herself.

I rushed to help, and in the dark we almost collided and fell. Finally, the door was closed and the light was on.

We stood in silence — there was silence outside the windows. And with the electric lighting, it already seemed like everything that had happened was a terrible dream.

I turned to my sister, who was staring intently into the blackness of the window.

"That's nonsense.

—Didn't you get it?" — she looked at me, - Do you still have any idea how he opened his door latch? With my teeth. He jumped up and opened it. So he can jump on our balcony!

I felt cold.

— Let's wake up the parents?

"What are we going to tell them?"

My sister was interrupted by a noise on our balcony. We froze. You can't see much in the dark through lighted windows. But nevertheless, I figured out something. On the other side, a dead mask pressed against the window, which was the face of an old man with a disability. Glazed eyes stared at us.

Yelling, we rushed into the bedroom to our parents, who were fast asleep after their shift at the factory.

My parents came with us to our room.

We didn't tell them the details, just explained that something had fallen on our balcony. My father went outside, looked, and found nothing. His sister was looking out with him—the door to the next balcony was closed.