The Dead House

 The story I want to tell happened to a family I know in 2007. I lived in a country house, and they were my neighbors. They were such a cute typical couple of young people with children. It's like a decent family, where everything goes according to the rules and in a measured manner. No shocks. In the morning, take the children to school, go to work, return at seven o'clock, pick up the children from school on the way, then sit down to dinner together. "You can die from such calmness," I often thought, watching their measured life. I often saw their faces in the window when they sat down at the table in the evening. It wasn't that I was peeking, I was just coming home late from work and couldn't resist the temptation to peek through the ever-ajar window (and they still need to be curtained). Moreover, I don't have a family myself — at least to see how other people live, hehe.

Only, as it turned out, not everything was so smooth. One night, I was woken up by a heart-rending scream coming from the house next door. At first I wanted to go back to sleep, because it's not in my nature to meddle in other people's business, but it hurt to scream too long. You have to have a conscience.

I got up, got dressed and left my house, building up curses in my head, which are now going to splash out in a dirty stream on the heads of the poor neighbors. But that didn't happen, and here's why: when I approached the neighbors' gate, the last ones flew out like a bullet, almost knocking me off my feet. I was stunned by the sight of them: in their nightgowns, their faces were white. The children clutched at me and began to cry. "What the hell is going on here?" I thought, and I asked in a calm tone, addressing the woman:

"What happened?" I heard screams.

"There's someone in our house!" — the woman began to speak quickly, her tongue slurring with excitement. — I... at first I heard that someone was walking in the kitchen...I was scared, I was afraid to go check... then I heard someone coming up the stairs and opening the door to the children's room... then Katerina, my daughter, screamed. It was so scary! I immediately ran to them, and we ran out.

"Did you see anyone there?" - I asked.

— No, the children ran out of the room, and I didn't check it.… I'm very afraid, I need to call the police," she said, anxiously glancing at the house.

Obviously, her fear had passed, giving way to anxiety. I looked at the children, who were still trembling with fear, and asked:

"Where's their father?"

"He's working the night shift today," the woman replied.

"Go to my house and call the police, while I check your house," I said and handed the keys to the neighbor. She looked at me in surprise, and there was gratitude in her eyes. Taking her offspring by the arm, the woman left.

It was the first time I was alone with this house. The dark tones didn't suit him very well—he looked gloomy. I remembered the days when he was white, gray, whatever he was! But for some reason, no one stayed in it for long. I looked at the empty windows and the open door, and suddenly it seemed to me that the house was also looking at me, taking a closer look.

"It's a trap," said an inner voice.

"What the hell? What should I be afraid of?" I asked myself. It usually worked, but not this time. Humans, like animals, have an instinct for self-preservation. I do not know what came over me at that moment, but I was afraid. I was afraid of the unknown. I was afraid that the eyes of the dead were looking at me now—they were looking from every dark corner of this house.

—Damn it, I'm not a kid anymore," I said out loud. "Nothing's going to happen to me. We just need to check the house.

I decided to take a step per second, and for each step I repeated to myself: "I'm not afraid of the dead...I'm not afraid of the dead...I'm not afraid of the dead... you have to be afraid of the living... I'm not afraid of the dead..."

As I walked, I looked at the asphalt path and counted the steps. Suddenly, I saw that the asphalt was illuminated by a reflection — a light came on in one of the windows, although according to the neighbor, there was no one at home. I looked out the lighted window and saw no one behind it.

"And yet there's someone there," an inner voice whispered treacherously. "And he's not afraid of being found." He WANTS it."

I was stunned. Now I've definitely decided that I won't check a damn thing until the police arrive. I froze two steps away from the door. The situation itself seemed absurd to me. An adult man is afraid to enter the house, because since childhood he has been afraid to see a ghost!

"If it's a burglar, then why did he turn on the light?" I thought.

Click. The lights went off.

"What the hell?"  I thought and took a few steps back.

I still couldn't see anything in the pitch darkness, but I could feel on my skin that a dead man was looking at me.

Click. The light turned on.

What I saw in the window almost gave me a stroke. My sister, who died three years ago, was standing there. She looked at me with glazed eyes and smiled a dead smile.

Click. The lights went out.

I ran as fast as I could to my mansion. When I ran into my room, I felt better, but not much. My neighbor (her name was Lisa) looked at me with fear and concern.

—Water, please," I said, leaning on my kitchen set and breathing heavily. My heart was pounding so hard that I was afraid I might have a heart attack.

My face must have been so pale that the children started crying again. I pulled myself together and tried to smile. But, apparently, it turned out badly.

— Mom!  Katerina shouted.

Lisa came into the kitchen with a glass of water (I had a pump outside, so she had to go out) and handed it to me. I drank for a long time and painfully, I didn't want the water to run out, because I already saw a mute question on Lisa's face. After draining the glass and seeing that Lisa was about to ask me, I stopped the question.:

"Have you called the police?"

"She's on her way,— she said. "Have you checked the house?"

I answered in a voice that didn't seem to belong to me, but to another person.:

—Um... I don't see the need for that... the police are coming anyway."

Lisa looked at me incredulously and worriedly. I looked away—I didn't want her to read everything in my eyes. At that moment, I couldn't vouch for my mental health.

Ten minutes later, the police arrived and searched the entire house in search of the thief. But no one was there anymore. Did I know? that they wouldn't find anything because my dead sister was the "thief"! The police spent another half hour combing the neighborhood, asking the neighbors, especially me. There was no question of telling them what I had seen. When asked, typically in such situations, if I had seen anything suspicious, I replied that I had not. But the image of a dead woman smiling with a terrible unearthly smile and looking at me kept coming back to my mind.

The police, having found no trace, left on their more important business, perhaps laughing along the way at the ridiculous situation with the "invisible" thief. Only me and the family next door weren't laughing. By seven o'clock in the morning, the head of the family, Mikhail, arrived (as he introduced himself to me later). At the sight of his father, the family cheered up, and they all returned to this house. I tried not to look at him, especially at the upper windows.

After that crazy night, I didn't sleep well. As soon as I closed my eyes, I immediately saw the dead. It was only a month later that I was able to live normally. And the neighbors seem to have calmed down, returned to their rut. Mikhail set up cameras and alarms everywhere after this incident, so that everyone could sleep peacefully. And I was happy—no one screamed at night, and I didn't see corpses in the windows. Life was a success!

But a month later, one afternoon, someone started knocking on my door. Moreover, the knock was confident and strong. Someone was persistently trying to literally break through my door. I went up to her and looked through the peephole. Damn, it's Lisa!

"Is something wrong?"- I asked.

- yes. Can I have some water, please?  She said in an unusually plaintive voice.

"Well, we've lived! Don't you have enough water of your own? Or does it taste different?" I thought, but I opened the door anyway.

Lisa smiled. And that smile seemed so creepy and inhuman to me that a shudder ran through me from head to toe, but I quickly got over it and motioned for her to come in. I didn't have to ask a second time — Lisa came in and went into the living room uninvited, never turning around, still with the same frozen smile on her face.

"Well, great, now I also have to pour water for her! And she's waiting in the living room!"— I cursed in my mind, heading for the kitchen. It all seemed strange to me. The irrationality of what was happening bothered me as I filled a mug with water.

It was hot, and the kitchen window was open. Birds were singing, and the weather was fine. I could hear the voices of the neighborhood kids playing catch-up, and…

Stop! What's it?

I froze, listening to the voices, and couldn't believe it. Lisa was there! She was outside the fence, playing with the kids.

I dropped the glass from my hand. My whole body felt like it was paralyzed. I couldn't move. There was only one question in my mind.: WHO'S SITTING IN MY LIVING ROOM?

I don't remember getting out of my house—I think I jumped out of the kitchen window. Of course, I didn't check who was sitting in my living room. I ran to the neighbors and just asked them for a phone, called a taxi to the city. I never returned to my country house again.

Now I live in a city where there are more people and fewer dead people. The neighbors, as far as I know, also moved out after a while. People said that the reason was insanity. And a group one. "They thought the house was haunted, the fools!" my friend laughed. And damn it, I was laughing with him. Maybe even louder than him.

The Invisible Man

 In 1993, during the winter holidays, I came to visit my aunt in St. Petersburg - I wanted to "test the waters" before going to university. My relative lived on Vasilyevsky Island alone in a huge three-room apartment. She was very happy to see me, because, according to her, she felt some kind of danger and was afraid for her life. In those days, which were rather vague, I must say, there really was something to be afraid of — "black realtors" were operating everywhere and probably noticed a single woman with real estate in the old fund. For this reason, my aunt, and her name is Alevtina Lvovna, immediately said that I should stay with her during my studies. In principle, it coincided with my plans.

Every morning my aunt went to work, and I stayed in the apartment alone. At first, it was difficult for me to get used to the huge rooms and high ceilings, but after about three days I adapted. The apartment seemed to have a life of its own — here and there the parquet boards creaked, there were some rustles and sighs. I began to understand Alevtina Lvovna — it was scary to live alone here. At night, the strange sounds became even clearer, and it seemed that a ghost was about to appear out of the darkness. Besides, in my sleep it seemed to me that someone was walking in the kitchen, flushing the toilet, turning on the taps.

One day on the weekend, when my aunt stayed at home, I decided to ask if she noticed anything strange in her apartment. Aunt Alya reluctantly supported this topic and first told about the strange sounds, and then suggested a walk. On the street, she bluntly stated that "someone" was living in the apartment. Some kind of creature that has the property of invisibility and is not averse to stealing food from the refrigerator. The strangeness started only a year and a half ago, and she is very afraid that this "someone" will kill her if he finds out that his secret has been revealed. Therefore, this topic should not be raised in the apartment. Alevtina Lvovna also told me that, on the advice of the priest, she sprinkled holy water on all the corners before my arrival. And in response to this, a terrible male laugh rang out from the kitchen. She didn't do anything else.

To put it bluntly, I didn't believe my aunt, but my youthful curiosity was aroused. I decided that for the rest of the week I would definitely solve the mystery of this "creature". A recent incident came to my mind. I was coming out of my aunt's apartment onto the stairs, and the door was ajar. At that time, a German Shepherd dog was being led for a walk from somewhere above. The dog almost escaped from the mistress's arms — she wanted to get inside so much. The girl barely dragged her away from the door, and the barking could still be heard on the street.

On the same day, I ambushed Lena — that was the name of the owner of the shepherd dog — on the street and directly asked her for help. I should have let Guy in and seen what was making him so angry. Lena was my age, and apparently she liked me, so she agreed to the experiment.

When the dog had had a walk, we went up to my aunt's apartment together (my aunt herself had gone to a friend's house), and I opened the door. Guy rushed forward barking and rushed into the kitchen. Then he started running around the apartment and eventually stopped at the pantry door. At the same time, his barking began to alternate with growling — he tried to open the doors with his paws. As soon as I opened one of the doors, the shepherd dog rushed into the darkness and clung to something with its teeth. There was a scream, and something shapeless fell out into the corridor. I turned on the light and saw a bearded man on the floor, trying in vain to unclench the dog's jaws.

Grabbing a knife in the kitchen, I put it to the stranger's throat, and at that moment Lena pulled Guy away. And then, right before my eyes, the man seemed to melt away — objects became visible through him. Lena and I couldn't believe our eyes. The knife fell out of my hands, and my mind went blank—I temporarily lost my sense of reality. All I could hear was Guy barking.

I don't know how much time has passed, but I've come to my senses. Apparently, Lena felt the same way. There was a knife on the floor, a dog was rampaging, the floor was stained with blood — red footprints led to the door, which was wide open. The wounded "invisible man" disappeared.

There was nothing to discuss — Lena and the dog went home, and I started cleaning. My mood was depressed, as if someone had messed with my brain. By the time my aunt arrived, there were no signs of a struggle. Listlessly, I told Alevtina Lvovna that the "creature" was no longer in the apartment and asked her never to leave the door to the stairs open again. He went to bed and slept for twelve hours. It was only after that that I was able to explain something to my aunt. But it seems, in turn, she didn't believe me. However, since then, the oddities in the apartment have disappeared.

Six months later, I came to study, and three years later, Lena (Guy's hostess) and I got married. And we're still together. We remember the hunt for the "invisible man" now with humor, although it was not a laughing matter then.

Sweet fear

 He took a drag on his cigarette and blew out smoke rings. They slowly melted away into the ceiling.

—Fear, you say?" Fear has nothing to do with it. When I say "I'm scared" or "I'm afraid," it doesn't mean that it's fear. More precisely, not the kind of fear you're used to.

"What kind of fear?"  The boy looked at Him blankly. — I'm afraid of monsters under the bed. Well, I was afraid. I'm afraid of twos. But this is one fear. Although there are different things. I'm sweating, my legs are shaking, and probably these hamstrings, I don't know where they are, but they're definitely shaking. How is it not such a fear?

He looked at the boy with a grin. Small, bruises under the eyes, skinny. Smart guy, but still a kid.

"You'll understand when you grow up," he took another drag on his cigarette.

— That's what everyone says. Explain it."

The boy was offended and sat sulkily, but the interest made him ask Him further.

"It hurts when she talks." No, it's not like that. There are too few words in human languages to describe it. I don't sweat, I don't shake. I just want to sink deeper into the floor, into the wall, seep through the pores of the earth and hide from this screeching, from this thunder. It pours like hot caramel... Didn't you touch the melted caramel?

— I touched it. It hurts," the boy grimaced. "But she's sweet."

— Exactly! Sweet. Pain and sweetness, those hands, that voice. Fear is like a roller coaster ride, but you want to disappear," He mused. — No, that's not it again.

—Ah...— the boy began, but soft, stealthy footsteps sounded in the corridor. The boy froze, staring at the door of the room. The door slowly opened.

— My little masik, baby, my beloved cookie, you are my candy. Why aren't you sleeping, malipusik?

"That's what I'm talking about," He whispered, hurriedly disappearing into the darkness of the dressing room.

— Mom, the monster under the bed said that he has a sweet fear from you. How's that?

Mom hugged her son tightly, kissing his forehead and face.:

"Sleep, sweet baby, there are no monsters, my sweet darling." And who lit a cigarette under the window that stinks so much in the room?

Korenikha

 Tikhvin district of the Leningrad region is known as the bear corner. The places here are remote and sparsely populated, which makes them attractive for hunters and fishermen. Last fall, Yakov Aizeman, a leading engineer at the Electrosila plant, came here to hunt. He stayed with his friend in the village of Volozhba.

In the morning, Aizeman went into the forest and got lost. The latter circumstance did not frighten him, but it upset him a lot, since the engineer considered himself a good tracker and a good connoisseur of the Tikhvin forests. All day he wandered through completely unfamiliar places, and in the late afternoon he came out on a barely noticeable forest road. "It will lead somewhere," Eiseman decided, and set off down it.

The road led him to an abandoned farm on the edge of a large swamp. Apparently, the farm was abandoned quite a long time ago. Aizeman went up to the porch and pushed open the front door of the hut. It creaked open. There was nothing remarkable inside the house, except for the traces of someone's long-ago sleepover: several empty cans, a bottle of vodka and an armful of firewood thrown near the couch.

It was getting dark fast. A whitish mist was creeping in from the swamp, and there was a dank dampness. "I'll spend the night in the house, and in the morning I'll find out where the hell I've gone," Eiseman decided and began to settle down for the night.

In the middle of the night, he suddenly woke up, feeling through his dream that someone was shuffling next to him. For the first few moments, the engineer lay motionless, but then, startled, he sat up on his bed. Nothing could be seen in the pitch darkness, but Aizeman sensitively sensed someone's presence in the hut and realized with horror that the one hidden by the darkness was deadly. He hastily flicked the lighter. A wavering tongue of flame picked out the corner of the couch from the darkness and the stooping figure of an old woman standing a few steps away from it.

Aizeman screamed in surprise. The old woman slowly, as if blind, leaned towards him, spreading both arms. A sweet smell of decay flowed through the hut, and Aizeman clearly saw what was approaching him... A corpse!

In desperation, he threw a Neva lighter at the deceased, still Soviet-made, hefty and weighty, like a chair. She hit the old one hard in the rotten forehead and, bouncing off, instantly went out. There was a scream in the darkness. Eiseman rushed into the vestibule. Fear gave him strength, and with one jerk he tore the hook and the hole out of the closed front door and jumped onto the porch.

He spent the rest of the night running over some shaky hummocks, falling into the peat muck every now and then. At dawn, I felt solid ground under my feet and collapsed exhausted. After catching my breath, I looked around and realized that I was not far from Volozhba.

When Aizeman appeared in the village, he caused a stir among the locals — his appearance was so wild. However, everything he said did not surprise the villagers at all, since there had been a bad rumor about the farm in the swamp for a long time.

Before the war, a lonely old woman named Korenikha lived there. No one really knew how old she was or what she was doing. It was rumored, however, that the old woman was a witch and kept an ancient book on witchcraft in her house. Once, they even saw a Rootling wandering around the village churchyard, scraping moss from crosses on abandoned graves and collecting cemetery grass in a purse — wet convolvulus. They were afraid of the old woman and avoided her farm.

In 1941, during the fighting in the Tikhvin direction, a German infantry unit entered the area of the village of Volozhba. The Germans shelled the farm where our outposts were entrenched with artillery fire. A shell fragment struck Korenikha to death. "Damn fascists, they killed my grandmother," the soldiers sighed after the fire raid and buried the dead woman right there in one of the craters.

Since the 50s, hunters, berry pickers and mushroom pickers began to tell terrible things about the abandoned farm. Some heard footsteps and groans in the crumbling house, while others noticed a stooping, gray-haired old woman in its windows. Grisha Volobuyev, an atheist Komsomol member, was found in Volozhba, who decided to dispel all superstitious fears, for which he went to the farm. A couple of days later, in the Volozhbinsky swamp, they came across a Volobuev cap and a kirza boot — all that remained of the atheist. There was no doubt that Grisha had fallen into a quagmire and drowned. However, the reason that drove him into the swamp remained unclear.

Over time, the farm and the road to it became overgrown with forest and grass. The locals did not go there, and it was possible to find the old woman's house only with a guide or by chance, as happened with the engineer.

Aizeman left Volozhba for St. Petersburg, without even remembering about the backpack, bandolier and double-barreled shotgun left on the farm. Upon arrival in the city, he turned to Andron Friedman for clarification. The expert's opinion was as follows:

— In the northern regions of Russia, according to an ancient witchcraft rite, a sorcerer or witch had to find a successor in order to pass on to him all the secrets of his forbidden knowledge before his death, usually in the form of a handwritten codex. Otherwise, their black souls could not find peace and were doomed to eternal torment. Korenikha's sudden death may have disrupted this rite and caused the witch's ghost to appear.

Face

 I dated a girl last summer. She invited me to spend the night with her. Naturally, I agreed. Her house was in the suburbs, private and a little creepy. Everything was fine — we had tea and went to bed.

At about three in the morning, I wake up to someone calling my name, and very clearly. At first, I couldn't figure out where my name was from for a long time, then I suddenly realized that the voice was coming from under the bed (!). At first I was very scared, but then I decided that the child had crawled under the bed (my friend had a seven-year-old child). I decided to take a look, leaned out of bed and lifted the sheet. A face was looking at me from there. It wasn't human (although it looked like it)—it was more like some kind of mannequin. He didn't say anything, although I could still hear my name. Then the face began to approach me, and black limbs crawled out of the darkness (or so it seemed to me). I was gripped by a wild horror, I couldn't even move my lips. I lost consciousness when it almost reached me.

Towards morning, my friend woke up and found me on the floor in a cold sweat and terribly pale. It turned out that her grandmother, who used to own the house, was a witch or something like that, and strange things sometimes happen in this house.

This creepy image appeared to me in a dream for about three days, after which I woke up screaming. Then it passed. I never went back to that house again.

"Honey, I'm here!"

 I live in Yakutia. Since childhood, I remember very well one scary story that was told in our village.

The story was about a young family (husband, wife and small child) who came to the village and settled in an old house, which, although dilapidated, was still habitable. At first everything was fine, but then the wife began to feel anxious in the house. She didn't tell her husband about it until one night she woke up and saw an old woman with a red face lying on their bed next to her and looking at their child, who was sleeping in a stroller. The wife became hysterical: "Noooo! Get out, don't touch my baby!" Her husband woke up and began to calm her down, and she screamed at him: "There's a ghost lying on our bed!". But he doesn't see it. Meanwhile, the woman with the red face is staring at the child, and the wife is on the verge of madness. While they were busy there, the woman suddenly disappeared.

It is not known why, after such a terrible incident, they did not immediately leave this house, but continued to live as if nothing had happened. Then my husband suddenly died in a car accident. For a young wife with a child in her arms, it was a terrible blow — she fell into prostration for a couple of months. She cried all the time, and when she fell asleep, she dreamed of her dead husband.

And one night, an unhappy widow lies in her bedroom, unable to sleep. And suddenly she hears the door of the house open. She was immediately alarmed, wanted to get up, but something made her stay in place. The floorboards creak under heavy footsteps, and her husband's voice says loudly, "Honey, I'm here!" The wife is in shock — she quickly turns her face to the wall and is trembling all over. The husband once again: "It's me, can you hear me?". Then the footsteps followed into the kitchen, and a voice exclaimed, "Wow, you made waffles! I'm just so damn hungry." And, judging by the sound, he began to eat the waffles that were actually on the table. After that, the footsteps entered the bedroom. The wife closed her eyes so as not to lose her mind. Her dead husband came up behind her, and a cold breath hit her back, and the smell of damp earth appeared. He asked: "Why don't you look at me?" and kissed her bare shoulder. From this kiss, the woman's whole body became numb, she began to lose consciousness. Meanwhile, the voice said, "Well, okay, if you don't want to talk now, then I'll come back later," and the footsteps came out of the bedroom. The door creaked again. The woman lay for a long time, afraid even to breathe, then got up, turned on the light, checked the sleeping baby. My shoulder hurt. She looked in the mirror and there was a big red hickey where the kiss had been. Later it was discovered that the waffles on the table were missing.

The next morning, she invited a local psychic woman into the house. As soon as she entered the house, she was amazed: "What an evil place! How can you live in a house like this with a small child?" According to her, the whole building was teeming with evil spirits. She added that the house is inhabited, among other things, by kind spirits who try their best to protect the residents from the attacks of evil spirits. The widow was "finished off" by the fact that the psychic peered into the bedroom window for a long time and said: "Move out immediately, otherwise there will be trouble. From the side of the forest (and there was a cemetery there) there comes a very strong yuer" (yuer in Yakut mythology is the undisturbed spirit of the dead). The woman was horrified and moved out of the house the same day. She no longer dreamed of her dead husband, and the bad house remained empty.

An old woman in a cassock

 We used to live in a small Orthodox town. We were born there, grew up there, and never traveled very far.

I grew up as a pretty restless and hooligan child. And all these prohibitions and punishments were already sitting in the liver, and dislike of church servants is generally a separate conversation. To us children, all these nuns looked like old, angry, wrinkled old women who would stop us at every little thing and always grumble to themselves with a displeased expression. And we were very afraid of them.

And then one day (I was about 11-12 years old) My parents left late for a visit, and I was left alone at home. The time was about one o'clock in the morning. I was sitting on my bed reading a book when I suddenly heard a very quiet rustle. I look up from my book and see a small (about half a meter tall) old woman in a black cassock standing in the corner of the room, facing the corner. She stood with her back to me and didn't turn around. I just let out an inarticulate squeak, I couldn't even move from fear... Finally, I shouted, "What do you want?!" A wild growl followed in response, but the old woman did not turn to me, only growled.

I quickly jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway, crying, stumbling, and my heart almost stopped. With trembling hands, she opened the door and ran out into the hallway. She screamed so much that a neighbor ran out and invited me to her apartment. She poured me water, made the sign of the cross over me, and asked where my parents were. I said they were visiting Aunt Inna. Then the neighbor called her on her home phone and told my parents to go home faster — allegedly their daughter had a nightmare and she was hysterical. When my parents came home, I told them everything. My mother replied that God was punishing me for behaving badly.

After that, the mother consecrated the apartment. At first, I was very afraid to be alone, and my parents did not leave me and did not visit so late. Three months passed like that, and I calmed down. Nothing like this happened, and I began to think that I would never meet this old woman again.

One Friday evening, my father was on a day trip, and my mother went to a neighbor on the 8th floor - they watched a movie together, which lasted until half past midnight. I was about to go to bed when someone knocked on the door. I thought that my mother had finally come. I opened the door and saw a small black bag on the threshold. Then he moved, and I immediately realized who it was...

I tried to slam the door shut, but something prevented me. I looked down and saw the old woman's ugly bony hand—she stuck it in the crack between the door and the jamb and wouldn't let me close it. I kept pulling on the door, and she was growling and screaming. All I could hear was a shout: "Open up, you scum!" But I managed to slam the door shut, and the hand disappeared.

After this incident, my mother found a few gray hairs on my head. She took me to some healers, they performed rituals, washed me with solutions and oils and told me that I should burn all my clothes that I had, buy everything new and sell the apartment. That's what we did — we started life anew, moved to another city, and everything stopped. But I still remember that ugly old woman.

Kamenny Lane

 After finishing reading another "scary story" that infested the Internet, Alexander Petryshev closed the laptop lid, allowing the room to plunge into darkness. It's a pity for the guy, the main character of the story: he lived quietly for himself and did not create obstacles to the lives of others, and then one day, one day, or not so much, he was attacked by evil undead, right in his own apartment. A Babai came out of the wardrobe and bit off the unfortunate man's head. That's how it happens.

Petryshev got up and went to the window, throwing it wide open. There was a pleasant coolness and a whole bouquet of street smells, including: car exhaust fumes, the sweet smell of tobacco from a random passerby and a light trail of his perfume, as well as the stench from the nearest garbage dump, which is carried by the wind on its invisible wings. However, the main component that gives compositional completeness to the fragrance is a note of night alarm and danger. At nightfall, she is in the air, inviting everyone to join her shadowy network.

The moon rose above the rows of high-rise buildings, spilling a pale orange color onto the roofs of the houses. Her crescent moon, surrounded by many stars, today looked like a slice of orange marmalade spread out on a black plastic container with sugar grains.

The moment has come when the streets of the city are the most interesting and attractive. Everything that is hidden from view during the day is exposed. And at this hour, Alexander leaves the house in search of true adrenaline with the constancy of an old neighbor who goes to the store every morning for fresh milk.

Some time ago, he was content to simply wander around the city, even if not in its most peaceful places. The silent figure in a black hoodie with his face hidden in the shadow of the hood did not arouse suspicion. In this regard, often, being mistaken for his own, he managed to blend into the ranks of large and noisy companies, consisting mainly of motley semi-criminal elements. Once I took part in a mass brawl, getting real pleasure from it.

However, Petryshev soon got bored with this type of leisure and began to choose more and more gloomy and remote corners for his research. Abandoned buildings with a dark past, places where serious crimes took place — that's what really attracted and tickled the nerves.

The so-called dead street was on the visiting list today. These are just two dozen Stalinist houses on the outskirts, once built by captured Germans on the territory of a former hospital. It was not a street as such, but was listed on the map as Kamenny Lane. Absolutely nothing remarkable or out of the ordinary happened in the vastness of this corner, the life of the inhabitants went on as usual: young families were formed, new people were born, representatives of the generation of the past grew old and died — as everywhere else. This was the case until the turn of the second millennium. It is still not known for certain what happened and due to what circumstances absolutely all the residents of the house were resettled in record time. But, of course, there are plenty of versions. They talked about the sudden subsidence of the soil under the foundations, which was confirmed by cracks in most of the buildings and the slope of the houses; conspiracy theorists whispered about some secret experiment at a defense complex operating at that time, but now mothballed. The essence of this experiment was allegedly to test the latest chemical weapons on the residents of this alley, who were chosen due to their territorial proximity. After spraying toxic toxins, the military and scientists, who had not previously realized the true scale of the project and the inevitable consequences, urgently evacuated, heroically preventing the death of people.

There were more fantastic guesses. These rumors are generated by the lack of an official version of the incident. The plans of the city authorities for the land and buildings were also not announced. The former residents of Kamenny Lane added fuel to the fire of curiosity, who did not like to talk about the reasons for the move, trying to avoid this topic.

Anyway, about twenty habitable houses have been empty for the second decade, which is why it is a "dead street". Of course, there are homeless people here, but quite a few, probably the bravest. The reason for this is the frequent discovery of the corpses of these very homeless people; perhaps superstitious fear is also a factor in the small number of the lumpenized population. The fact is that the hospital, which stood here from the beginning and almost until the middle of the twentieth century, was nothing more than a house of mourning. The methods of treating mental disorders at that time were, to put it mildly, not ideal. There were rumors that over the years of the institution's operation, many patients were buried right on the territory, not all of whom died of natural causes. This is how another version of the escape from the alley was formed: during the planned replacement of water supply pipelines, workers accidentally discovered an entire cemetery. They did not make the fact public, but simply took the remains to the nearest suburban dumpster with all the ensuing consequences in the form of revenge of the disturbed spirits, because people urgently needed to be resettled, for their own good.

Without obstacles from street crime and patrol officers patrolling the neighborhood, Alexander Petryshev found himself in the right place, where he expected to receive a portion of extreme sensations. Despite the fact that the city in which he was born, grew up and still lives can not be called a big one, Alexander had never been to this corner of it before.

A typical picture of desolation appeared to the eye: walls decorated with yard paintings and mottled with obscene inscriptions; concrete crumbled and cracked over the years on the roads, with young trees growing through it and weeds making their way to the sun. The glass in most of the windows is broken and lies in small pieces on the road. Of course, there were plenty of lanterns here, but, as expected, none of them worked — Alexander's path was indicated by the beam of a flashlight. Judging by the rusty lamp housings on the poles, street lighting has been inactive for a long time. And who would he work for?

There is still someone for whom. Directing the light of the flashlight in turn into one or the other window of the house he was passing, Petryshev caught movement in the room on the second floor. The shadow, feeling the attention on itself, first stirred, and then slipped deeper into the darkness, where the beam could not reach. The black windows of the house resembled the eye sockets in the skull of a dead man, and the accidentally disturbed inhabitant resembled a cadaver worm in them.

In general, Alexander did not see anything special about this place, although it was not devoid of a peculiar sinister flavor. Just about to turn around and return home, before reaching the end house of the street, he stopped for a moment, turning off the flashlight and peering into the darkness.

—No, it can't be,— he doubted.

On the grass, at the end of the house, there was a whole sheaf of light, which, judging by its position, fell from the window. And he looked in such a way that it was unlikely that his nature could be a lamp or a night light, the candle was even more out of the question. The transformer substation from which these houses are powered was decommissioned almost immediately after the settlement.

Maybe the new residents use a gas generator or other alternative energy source? Although it is unlikely that they can afford such a pleasure.

In any case, this is quite an interesting fact, Petryshev reasoned and, intrigued, headed for the third entrance of the last house of the "dead street".

A terrible stench, including the smell of human feces and a rotting dead cat, attacked the olfactory receptors of the adventurer when he forcefully pulled the entrance door to himself. Staggering back and barely able to stay on his feet, he fought back the urge to vomit. The first thing I did was open the door as wide as I could and move away, let him get some air first.

Looking to the left, at the thicket of grass, I immediately realized what was missing — the light was no longer on in the window. As he headed for the corner of the house, he already clearly understood which window could be the source of the lighting that aroused interest. But when he found himself at the wall of the end part of the house and shone a flashlight on it, he doubted his calculations, himself, and everything around him. The heart was ready to jump out of the chest of its unreasonable master and go its own way, the further away from here, the better. The reason was that there was only one window along the entire wall, tightly boarded up with thick plywood.

—Stop, calm down,— Petryshev said aloud to himself.

After taking a deep breath, he decided to go to the entrance, to this room, by all means. After all, this is what he was looking for. A roaring mess of fear, excitement, thirst for adventure and the otherworldly bubbled inside and pushed forward.

After airing, the smell in the entryway did not disappear, but at least this time it was possible to stay in the house. The steps and staircases are littered with a wide variety of debris: remnants of building materials; rags that were once men's and women's outfits; children's toys, from charred dolls with icy blue eyes to small soldiers in combat poses. Empty bottles of vodka and other alcoholic beverages were scattered in all corners, of course; used medical syringes were in the neighborhood.

The flashlight in his hand blinked frantically and turned off. To walk in the dark, risking gouging out an eye with an infected syringe, or to abandon this event?

The apartment he intended to visit was on the second floor. Remembering that there was still a lighter, he decided to continue on his way. With careful movement, the risk of twisting her neck or bumping into a syringe needle is minimal. Very carefully, Alexander climbed to the second floor, making his way through the mountains of garbage.

Once in front of the door, which is the subject of interest, Petryshev saw a glow coming from the apartment through the keyhole.

"What if one of the families still officially lives here? And would my visit be considered an invasion of private property? Explaining to the police who I am and what I am doing here is an extremely undesirable complication." This was the way to formulate the fragmentary and incoherent thoughts that arose at the moment of being at the door.

"I don't care,— Petryshev received approval from himself. "Even so, I'm not doing anything illegal. And what kind of normal people can live in such conditions?!

Before knocking and entering, he looked into the keyhole that had been torn open with a tire iron or other strong tool.

I saw a small hallway leading into the kitchen. There were several people sitting at the kitchen table. Two elderly gentlemen in snow-white shirts and black bow ties, both with sharp, smooth-shaven chins and mobile eyes peeking out from under thick eyebrows like timid mice. Three women of different ages, the oldest about sixty, she had an expressionless face with an absent expression of impassive eyes, as if she had lost everything she valued in life; the middle-aged was a beautiful woman in her forties, with a shock of shiny black curls; The young woman was looking away all the time, and only her profile appeared before Alexander's gaze. Oh, and there was a tall, smartly dressed man standing behind the group, as if ready to pose for a group photo.

Obviously, due to the special lighting inside the apartment, all the people seemed unusually pale. And their clothes are the same colors, but it hardly depends on the lighting, although it may be.

"If I were you, I wouldn't mess with him," he heard a clear voice behind him, from which his soul sank, not only into his heels, but for a while seemed to go beyond the physical shell in order to put his nerves in order and catch his breath a little.

Without turning around, Alexander took out a lighter with trembling hands and struck the drum several times, the light did appear from the seventh time. Alexander abruptly turned around and saw a girl sitting on the steps. In a light dress that looked more like a nightgown, she sat with her head bowed to her feet, and was diligently tracing something on a layer of dust.

"He's crazy, you better drop it," she repeated, without stopping running her finger down the stairs and without raising her head.

"Who are you?"  Alexander finally managed to catch his breath and asked her a counter question.

The stranger looked up from tracing patterns on the step and slowly her head began to rise in his direction.

"Who am I?" — She repeated the question in a whisper. — Your death! — she yelled in an uncharacteristic bass voice for a girl and jerked in his direction, finally showing her face.

Her face turned out to be unusually pale, with terrible dark blue veins and bruises in places. The eyelids have turned yellow and hang over the eyes; the eye whites themselves are cloudy, the green pupils have gone to the side. The teeth were completely rotten and shaped more like incisors.

If Petryshev had been a little more impressionable, he would have fainted immediately. He had never seen anything like it, except in horror movies. What can you say about movies, when you see such a thing in an abandoned house with a flickering light of a lighter!

Recoiling, he rushed down, praying to both God and the devil for salvation and the opportunity to get out of here in physical and mental health. In a matter of moments, he overcame several dozen cluttered steps and almost knocked the door to the entrance off its hinges.

Without turning around, he ran like never before. My head was spinning from exhaustion and thirst, and my leg muscles were starting to ache. Alexander stopped when the first house of the "dead street" disappeared from sight.

Catching the first ride, he rushed home, where, without undressing, he fell on the sofa, hoping for a momentary nap. However, instead of dreaming, my thoughts were occupied by the picture I saw of a completely creepy physiognomy. After turning around for five minutes, he headed to the kitchen, where he opened a bottle of collectible malt whiskey and poured himself a full glass. This is the only bottle with an alcoholic drink, and in this situation, it is simply necessary to calm down. Feeling a pleasant warmth of reassurance spread through his tense muscles, Petryshev returned to the room, undressed and went to bed, trying not to think about the half-witted lady, who was unknown to anyone — just a distraught person or a real ghost.

In the morning, as usual, everything seen at night was viewed through the prism of common sense and critical thinking.

Thus, it was established that behind the door were some of those homeless people who inhabited the "dead quarter". Why are you dressed decently? Nowadays, there are no problems with clothes, expensive and sometimes practically new things can be found in the trash cans at every house.

The girl who attacked Alexander is an ordinary drug addict. Most likely, she is very ill and will die soon, as far as one can assess her deplorable physical condition. The pain experienced daily could become a factor in the occurrence of insanity or insanity — hence the aggressiveness and the words spoken to her, which do not contain the slightest semantic load, are explained.

He had overlooked the light of the electric lamp from the plywood-boarded window, perhaps simply forgetting about this fact.

A month passed, then another, and Petryshev no longer remembered the incident. Despite the fact that, from the point of view of logic, everything seemed to be laid out in its place, since then the genre of modern "horror stories" has lost one of its long-time admirers. Horror films were also rejected by him. What can we say about the old night trips in search of adventures.

However, the old interest was revived by a chance noticed advertisement in a free newspaper, the issues of which Alexander liked to look through from time to time.

A certain contractor of the city administration informed the population about the imminent demolition of all houses in Kamenny Lane. There were four days left before the scheduled date for the work.

Petryshev thought that if he did not go there soon and find confirmation of his theory about what he had seen, he would never be able to do so. What would he be left with in that case? With untested, far-fetched conclusions? What if he really met with an otherworldly phenomenon, with what he was looking for, and when he met it, he was afraid and came up with a rational explanation? One way or another, there is one last chance to test and prove one of the theories — today. The destruction of the "dead quarter" is scheduled for tomorrow.

After waiting for nightfall, Alexander left the house and, with a determined gait, walked under the acrid light of street lamps. He decided, although it was unlikely that he would find the crazy person alive, to take a gas canister with him as a self—defense weapon - the effect was noticeable, it was quite simple to use, and it was impossible to injure an opponent.

Once on the territory of the "dead quarter," Alexander noted that there were no noticeable preparations for tomorrow's demolition, and he did not see any changes. Except that the feeling of this place had changed — this time it seemed so familiar and at the same time truly creepy, no matter how hard he tried to show off and put on a brave face in front of himself.

Light fell from the single window of the end section into the thickets of already withered and dried grass. When he opened the door leading to the entrance, he smelled an even more nauseating smell than the last time. The dead cat had obviously already decomposed, and the corpse worms had devoured its insides completely, so there was nothing to smell. The stench of human excrement faded into the background. Right now, the stench was dominated by a very distinctive smell. It smelled of rotting human flesh, emitting a sickly sweet scent that made one's head spin.

Petryshev went to the last, third floor of the house, from there he went up to the attic, examining every available square meter with a flashlight to find a creepy girl with a lot of problems. When he decided to go to the apartment itself, it dawned on him: only the entrance and the attic were checked, whereas she could hide in any of these nine apartments, and besides, there was also the basement, which she did not want to go to, if only because it seemed that the smell of corpses was coming from there.

Deciding that he would not check all these apartments and go down to the basement, Alexander clutched a gas canister in his hand, convincing himself that in case of an attack he would surely be able to fight back.

There was a glow coming from the keyhole, as on the previous visit. Now there was only one thing to do: enter the apartment and talk to people, making sure that there was no mystery here. Make sure and go home calmly, no longer remembering about this "dead quarter".

Knock, knock, knock — he knocked on the wooden jamb — the door paneling is too soft.

Knock, knock, knock... knock, knock, came the reply. It seems to be an echo. However, the sound was prolonged, as if of a different key and coming from a different surface.

Nonsense, this is usually the case in confined spaces, it may not sound right," Alexander reassured himself, immediately commanding: go ahead!

With these words, he opened the front door. Instead of a lighted hallway and kitchen, he was greeted by a haze with cool basement dampness. The entire chain of rational explanations for the previous visit was instantly turned out, disassembled into links and thrown in a handful at the feet of its author.

Turning on his flashlight, Petryshev illuminated the room without going inside. The same small hallway and then the kitchen, only buried in dust, cobwebs, with black fungus on the walls.

After closing the door behind him, he decided to do a little experiment. Crouching down to the hole again, I expectedly saw the same picture: a group of people sitting motionless in the middle of a lighted kitchen, in the same poses. When he opened the door, he saw the same dark emptiness of the abandoned apartment. So several times, the result is unchanged.

Being in a somewhat puzzled state, he slammed the door hard and heard a soft glass clink. When the clap was repeated, the ringing was repeated. When he looked through the keyhole, he saw a strange picture: the orientation of objects, people, and the kitchen itself had now changed. The people at the table were skewed and pulled closer to the door, lifting the table and tilting it slightly, as well as the people themselves.

After repeating the door slams a few more times, he made sure that the ringing was coming from the keyhole.

Looking through the hole again, Alexander witnessed even greater changes: the people, along with the table, were already almost on the ceiling.

Thrusting two fingers inside the keyhole, he took out, not without difficulty, a simple optical device consisting of two cylindrical lenses of different thicknesses pressed against each other. Enclosed between them is a small black-and-white photograph, the size of a large coin. The photo shows the very people whom Petryshev expected to see alive, behind this very door.

Now everything is clear as far as the people in the apartment are concerned, he thought. It's also understandable why the image was so faded — the photo is black and white. And how I hadn't noticed or guessed before, that's what's amazing. What about the glow? After all, it has not disappeared — a ray of light is still coming from the gaping hole.

Finally, he decided to open the door again, make sure that the opening was obvious, and explore the nature of the glow. When the door swung open, Alexander stuck his head into the darkness and, wanting to get the flashlight clenched between his teeth out of his mouth, made an awkward movement with his brush, which caused the flashlight to roll across the dirty hallway floor, landing on the power button as it fell.

This was completely undesirable, now I had to look for a flashlight in pitch darkness. Following into the kitchen, he began to grope with his hand around the area of his intended location.

Suddenly, the door creaked and slowly closed. Petryshev, trying not to panic, was looking for a flashlight with trembling hands, having already wiped a third of all the dust on the floor with his palms.

Anxiety and anxiety grew in the locked room like a snowball on a mountainside, Alexander got up from his knees and decided to make his way through the darkness as it was. As soon as he got to his feet and straightened his shoulders, he felt the touch of a cold hand on his left shoulder. His hand jerked into his pocket for a weapon in the form of a gas canister, but it was not destined to be taken out and used: Alexander was blinded by an unusually bright flash of light, accompanied by light smoke and a pop.

In the next issue of an advertising newspaper distributed free of charge, which Petryshev used to read, there was a refutation of information about the demolition of houses located on Kamenny Lane. The city administration did not involve any contractors for this event, and no decisions were made to destroy buildings at this address.

And in the issue of the same newspaper, which was published about a month after the refutation, the following short article appeared in the form of a small column:

"Citizen A., being under the influence of a large amount of alcohol, as a result of a drunken quarrel, stabbed his drinking companion five times in the chest area and, leaving the wounded man to die, fled the scene of the crime. During the operational search activities, it was possible to establish the possible location of the suspect.

This citizen was hiding in the apartment of one of the abandoned houses on Kamenny Lane, where he was detained by operational officers. Due to the large area and the peculiarities of the territory, service dogs were involved in the search for the wanted man. So, with their help, the bodies of several people were found. Only three of the victims were identified. Among them was A.B. Petryshev, who went missing a month ago.

He was found in the last entrance of the last house on the lane, in an apartment on the second floor. Upon inspection of the scene, a simple device with two lenses and a small black-and-white photograph between them was found in the keyhole of the door. So, looking through the keyhole, I saw the projection of the people depicted in the photo in the natural size for this point of view. The photo placed between the cylinders turned out to be the most interesting for the investigation. It showed the deceased in the company of six people; they were all in the room where the corpse was found. None of the people depicted in the picture could be identified or tracked down."

Thus, the story of Petryshev's death was added to the notoriety of the "dead quarter". From people who knew Alexander remotely, the opinion was formed that he liked, as they say, "to get on his nerves" and was a desperate adventurer, deliberately getting involved in various dubious stories.

"So I found it,— they concluded.

It was rumored, however, that since then someone in the "dead quarter" has been walking around the apartments every night with a flashlight, sometimes stopping and listening, then speeding up and running. This information was received from the most desperate residents of the abandoned territory, of whom there are few left — recent finds have contributed to the unwillingness of the population to pass by. There are the most persistent drunkards and the last drug addicts left — who knows what you won't see under the influence of datura?

"Why are you lying in my place?!"

 My grandmother was a good storyteller, and I loved her life stories. There were funny stories, sentimental and, of course, creepy cases among them. This is not to say that she is overly superstitious and religious, and she would not invent. She told me this story once.

It was when my grandmother worked as a packer at a confectionery factory. The team consisted of young girls like her, so "bachelorette parties" were not uncommon. They have never been without love fortune-telling and other similar entertainment. So this time someone brought a book, thanks to which it was supposedly possible to summon the spirit of the deceased. They decided to call someone they knew, but no one wanted to "experiment" on their deceased relatives, so the choice fell on my grandmother's neighbor. He was a big, good-natured man, a hard worker. He lived with his family in a neighboring barrack, and they were friends with my family relatives, until one winter he was killed by drunks and his corpse was thrown into a steep slope. After that, his family left and contact with them was lost, and my grandmother and her husband, my grandfather, occupied a vacant barracks.

Anyway, they turned off the lights, lit candles, said a spell, and everything was as it should be. But absolutely nothing happened, so we sat and laughed and went home. My grandfather was on a business trip at the time, so my grandmother had dinner and went straight to bed. She was just starting to fall asleep when she heard footsteps. And not only did she hear it: it seemed that the whole room was vibrating to the beat, even the dishes in the cupboard rattled. At first, the footsteps came from the dressing room, as if someone was walking back and forth, but then this someone went to the bed. Out of fear, Grandma clutched the blanket with a death grip and literally slammed her forehead into the wall.

— Why are you lying in my place?!  The voice had the same thick baritone as the dead neighbor's.

Grandma's whole body was covered with goosebumps and her breath caught in fear. Tears started to well up in horror, but I didn't have the courage to turn around and look at the speaker. On the contrary, his whole body seemed to be paralyzed.

The voice repeated its question once more. He asked over and over again, but Grandma didn't answer.

"Don't put yourself in my place anymore!" — the voice almost shouted, and the footsteps began to move away towards the anteroom.

Grandma didn't fall asleep until morning. In the afternoon, without waiting for her grandfather, she changed the bed and wardrobe places. The guest did not return again.

The white face

 When my parents and I moved to a new house, I was 8 years old. I liked its location because my best friend lived across the street. The first night I slept well, but the very next night I had a strange dream. I dreamed that I had two older brothers and one older sister (and I'm actually the only one in the family), and that my sister drowned in front of my eyes and took my brothers with her. Then a black-haired man appeared and said that he was glad to see a new neighbor, wished me a pleasant stay and promised to say something at the next meeting.

I didn't pay much attention to this dream and didn't tell my parents. On the third night, I heard footsteps in the hallway in my sleep. I thought my father was walking, but then I realized that I could hear him snoring at the same time. I finally woke up to some kind of rumbling in the hallway. When I went out there (I didn't turn on the light, I took a flashlight), I didn't see anything unusual. The parents were asleep, not noticing anything. I started to go back to my room, and suddenly, in the hallway, I almost bumped into the man from my dream. His face was as white as paper in the lamplight. I screamed, and my parents woke up... My father said it was all a figment of my imagination and sent me to bed.

The next night, when I woke up, I froze in horror.: The same man was standing by my bed! I started screaming again. Mom came running and managed to see the night visitor before she turned on the light and he disappeared. Then she started yelling at Dad, "I told you not to take this house! But no, you're smart, you know everything! Thank you!" When I asked what they were talking about, my mother told me that a widow had sold this house—her husband had been stabbed to death by a drunken friend here.

Soon we returned to our old house. I don't remember much about the time when we lived in that house, except sometimes, almost falling asleep, I suddenly see that deathly pale face in the dark under my eyelids...

Fear

 The sound from the next room struck him with horror — it seemed that even his lungs had forgotten how to breathe. Fear crawled like a nasty cold snake down my spine, made its way to my head and froze there, disabling control over my entire body. And if Kostya hadn't been lying on the couch, he probably would have fallen to the floor because of his weak legs.

That sound couldn't be real. No, it wasn't a scream, a growl, or a child's laugh, which is so popular in horror films, it was the sound of something falling out of wood. And nothing wooden could fall, even if all the windows were wide open, simply because there was only furniture in that room, and the sound of furniture falling would definitely not be like that.

Kostya, a ten-year-old boy, didn't really like it when his parents left him alone in this huge apartment. It wasn't that he was afraid of anything, it was just that he didn't like it, and he couldn't explain why. The only thing Kostya could do after he closed the door behind his mother was to read a book. Neither the TV nor the computer could lure him with their screens. Kostya was lying on the couch and completely immersed in the "King Solomon's Mines" when this sound was heard.

The boy's fingers were covered with sweat and no longer wanted to hold the book. Turning his head with difficulty, Kostya looked through the doorway that led to the corridor:

"Who's there?"

Silence. The child's brain began to cling desperately to reality: "Yes, something fell from the neighbors... What nonsense... there's no one there..."

The only way to check was to go and take a look. Tears began to form in my eyes, and I wanted to scream and hide in a corner. But the fear did not go away, and even at the age of ten, Kostya understood that the best way to calm down was to go into the next room.

Kostya clenched his fists and went to the door. I should have gone out into the hallway and turned right. By the fact that it was dark in the hallway, Kostya realized that the door to the next room was closed, and since he did not hear the sound of the door opening, he most likely could safely leave the room.

That's what the brain said, but fear rarely obeys reason. Kostya walked towards the door on trembling legs. Listening to every rustle, the boy could only hear the beating of his own heart. Half the distance to the door has already been covered, and the fear is becoming more insistent, rejecting all rational explanations... Kostya, on bent legs, began to look out into the hallway towards the next room. Nothing. Everything is as usual. There's the door. Kostya froze, straightened his legs, and then, for some reason, laughter began to rise in his throat. Kostya began to calm down and, almost without fear, reached the closed door leading to the room from which the sound had come.

Kostya grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. The wave of fear returned, but it was too late to do anything else. The boy entered the room. There was nothing wooden on the floor, and anyway, the room was almost the same as always.

Almost. Something was wrong. A nervous laugh escaped Bones's mouth. What's wrong?..

His hand reached for the light switch. The light only reinforced the impression that something had changed. Kostya's gaze stopped at a large mirror hanging on the wall, and his eyes began to widen in surprise — something was reflected in the mirror that was not in the room. Stepping to the right and realizing what it was, Kostya screamed in horror and, stumbling, rushed to where he hid when he was very young — to the toilet.

There was a coffin in the mirror in the middle of the room.

His legs gave way, and Kostya fell before reaching his hiding place. The horror was so overwhelming that for a moment Kostya lost all ability to move. Looking back towards the room, the boy realized that no one was following him, and this gave him strength for a moment. The bathroom door was ajar, and light was streaming in — it was at least some kind of salvation, although subconsciously Kostya wanted to lock himself in the toilet, which was a little further away. He always did that when he was a kid. The small bathroom always gave him some peace of mind. But now there was no choice: the toilet was closed, and it was dark in there —and it would take precious seconds to turn on the light. All these thoughts flashed through Bones's subconscious in an instant, and he rushed into the bathroom.

The gray veil of fear receded a little as he slammed the door behind him. Kostya slid to the floor on weak legs and, afraid to make any sound, began to cry softly. "This just can't be happening," his father's reasonable voice sounded in his head. "It's impossible." But the details of what he saw began to surface in his head.

The coffin, upholstered in red velvet, stood on stools in the middle of the room. There was a lid on the floor next to him, and Kostya realized that its fall had made the sound that started this nightmare. As far as Kostya could see, there was no one in the coffin. At the thought of where, exactly, the one who was there, the boy began to tremble. His mind refused to process anything, and for twenty minutes Kostya huddled and shivered on the floor near the sink. It was quiet outside the door—so quiet that it seemed as if the whole world had disappeared somewhere. There was only the little boy and the reflection of the coffin in the room.

Mirror.... There's a mirror in the bathroom too! As soon as this thought occurred to Bones, the trembling immediately disappeared. His whole body went limp, and Kostya felt like he was going to die. His heart skipped a beat, but after a couple of seconds it started beating again, and Kostya found the last of his strength to look at the mirror. Actually, it was poorly visible from below, from the floor. Anyway, even standing on his feet, Kostya couldn't see himself in it, because he hadn't grown to that level yet.

To see herself in this mirror, Kostya had to stand with her feet on the edge of the tub. He had strength from nowhere, and he forced himself to stand on his feet.

The reflection in the mirror was ordinary — the ceiling and part of the wall. Kostya leaned against the sink and began to climb onto the edge of the tub. Standing up with weak legs, Kostya began to climb the wall with his hands, peering fearfully at the view in the mirror. Nothing... everything is as usual. It reflected what should have been reflected. Here's the washing machine, here are the towels, here's the door.

And then my heart stopped beating again. The latch tab in the reflection was in the "open" position. Kostya blinked and looked at the lock. Closed. In the mirror. Is open...

And then the light went out.

Kostya bit his tongue until it hurt so as not to make a single sound. The light bulb didn't burn out, the light was turned off outside — a moment before dark, Kostya heard the switch click. His chin trembled treacherously. In another second, Kostya would have screamed. But then something happened that made him lose consciousness — the door in the reflection began to open...

Falling from the height of the bathtub and hitting his elbow on the sink did not prevent Kostya's consciousness from shutting down. His adrenaline-soaked body was given a few minutes to calm down.

It was still dark in the bathroom when Kostya came to his senses. Turning to the only spot of light, Kostya realized that this light was coming from the mirror — the light from THAT reflected corridor was coming through the open reflected bathroom door, and it was Kostya who saw it as soon as he came to himself. So the door had opened after all.

The boy didn't care what was in the mirror anymore. Curled up, he pressed himself into the corner between the bathroom and the wall like a cub. His chin was shaking, his teeth were chattering, and his mind was having a hard time understanding what was going on around him. After ten minutes of this state, Kostya began to come to his senses. Covering his mouth with his hand, he began to roar. All the fear of the last hour began to come out in those tears. With tear-stained eyes, Kostya stared at the streak of light in the reflected bathroom ceiling. Suddenly, the strip narrowed slightly, as if someone had appeared in the passage.

The boy's heart was about to jump out of his chest. He pressed both hands to his mouth, afraid to make a sound. Nothing changed for five minutes. Kostya closed his eyes and tried to stand up. It was scarier with his eyes closed, and as soon as Kostya opened them, his gaze immediately fell on the mirror. An old woman stared at him unblinkingly. In a shroud, with a piece of paper on her forehead, she looked straight into the boy's eyes.

Kostya, not realizing what he was doing, rushed to the door, opened the latch with numb fingers and rushed out of the bathroom. In the first moments, daylight blinded him, and it was enough for the boy to stumble over the threshold. Getting up, Kostya rushed into the room, the one where he had seen the coffin in the reflection. There was a mirrored wardrobe in the hallway, and Kostya saw out of the corner of his eye in the mirror that the old woman was coming out of the bathroom, inexplicably still looking at him.

Suddenly, there was a creaky old man's whisper: "Why didn't you close the mirrors?.. Why didn't you cover the mirrors with sheets?.." Kostya barely heard it. He could only see the window and the blue sky behind it...

"City News", March 12, 19.. of the year: "A terrible incident occurred today on N street. A ten-year-old boy broke a window and jumped out of an eighth-floor window. No traces of a crime were found in the apartment. A criminal case has been opened. The most likely cause of the incident is suicide, as the apartment was locked from the inside. An investigation is underway."

Red Eye

 I want to share a story that happened to me as a child. It was 1978; I was a five-year-old boy and lived in a Siberian village in the Kemerovo region with my parents and my aunt (my mother's sister) in a house that my father had built. My aunt went to boarding school and lived with us in my room.

One winter evening, my parents were sleeping in their room, and my aunt was doing her homework (history, I think). I asked her to tell me a story, and she read her homework to me from a textbook in the dim light of the sconce above her bed. I must admit, I wasn't interested in listening to her homework, because I asked her to tell me a story. And at that moment, something on the other side of the door began to climb it. There was a distinct noise, as if someone small was clinging to the ledges of the door and climbing up. I should add that the door was wooden, and there was a gap on top between the jamb and the door, about the width of a matchbox. My aunt and I immediately fell silent and stared at the door expectantly. Something from the other side got to the top...

The first thing we saw in the crack was a small hand, similar to a human's, only black. She reached through the crack and grabbed the top edge of the door. Fear took my breath away. I stared at the hand without taking my eyes off it, just like my aunt. At this time, a second hand appeared, which also caught on the edge of the door: the creature began to pull itself up on its hands.

What my aunt and I saw then, I still can't describe in detail. It looked like a huge bright red eye the size of a tennis ball, which began to stare at us. I couldn't see the rest of the creature, because the terrified aunt abruptly told me to cover myself with a blanket over my head, and she covered herself too. So we sat under the blankets most of the night.

We told our parents everything in the morning. My father didn't believe us and said that my aunt should do her homework earlier, and not stay up late, then she wouldn't be imagining things. Recently, my aunt and I recalled the night when I came to visit her, but we were still unable to rationalize this incident.

Wife

 This story happened to my brother. He once came with his wife to the village to visit his wife's mother. Our grandmother lives in the same village, so we visit there often. The village is populated and beautiful, but there is always something going on there that is incomprehensible in terms of supernatural phenomena. Further from the words of my brother:

"We arrived late in the evening. My mother-in-law greeted me joyfully, as she lives alone and has no one to talk to. She immediately bombarded us with questions about how, what, and where. I understand her, she misses her daughter and granddaughters, that's why she welcomes them. After the "interrogation" we went to our room to do business, that is, to put things out and put the kids to bed. My wife said she wanted to take another shower, and left the room, and I lay down on the couch — after all, I was tired, I started thinking about something else. There was a night light on the table, as children are afraid to sleep in the dark. I'm lying on my side, the door to the room is closed. And then I feel someone lying down next to me, from behind, and, of course, I immediately fell into a stupor from fright. I feel like I've been hugged — this makes me even more tense, my thoughts are confused: my wife seems to have left, she's not in the room, the children are asleep, my mother-in-law definitely wouldn't have hugged me, then who is it? And then I hear my wife's voice saying to me, "Kitty, are you still awake?"

I was even more taken aback.: How can this be? After all, she went to the shower, and I don't remember her coming back. Well, I think I either fell asleep and didn't notice that she was back, but I didn't seem to sleep, or I was hallucinating and she didn't leave the room. Nevertheless, it made me feel better to realize that this was my wife after all, and not some otherworldly creature.

Turning to her, I tried to hug her too. I felt that she was naked, and even somehow cold—well, she was probably frozen. I covered her with a blanket and told her that I thought she was coming out. She didn't say anything about it, and we started talking—or rather, she started talking about the supernatural and the incomprehensible. She asked for my opinion and my idea of the afterlife, and I began to rant about this topic, telling her that I had seen and heard some strange things and sounds a couple of times, but attributed everything to fatigue or hallucinations, etc. I can't say for sure how long we lay there talking, but it seemed like a very long time. She kept telling me something.

Then the door opens and my wife comes into the room! My gaze falls on her, then on what was lying next to me, and I discover that "it" has already disappeared! There was no limit to my—I don't even know what to call it—fear, misunderstanding, and other feelings. Jumping up from the couch, all I could think of was to ask, "Where did you come from? You were just lying with me!" My wife looked at me like I was sick in the head. Well, I understand her about that. I started telling her everything that happened here, and she believed me anyway and told me that they had had strange cases on this site, where the house stands, and I'm not the only one who has encountered something like this.

In general, until the morning, my wife and I (already a real one) We couldn't sleep because we were scared. But I still couldn't fully explain who or what it was, especially since it was in the likeness of my wife."

The shadow in the apartment

 My mother and I used to move from house to house a lot, moving around rented apartments, but I remember one of our homes forever. I was about ten years old at the time, and once again we were preparing to move. It was a pity to leave friends and school, which I was just getting used to, but, alas, the move was inevitable — the landlady urgently needed her apartment.

After packing up all my modest belongings, my mother, her boyfriend Ilya and I went to a new place of residence. Do you remember the old two-story wooden houses? That's exactly what we were supposed to move into, on the second floor. There weren't really any neighbors nearby—it was the middle of summer, half had gone on vacation, and the other half were working in their garden beds. So there was peace and grace.

We broke the silence of the house with our noisy entrance. Mom was rattling pots and other utensils, distributing everything in the kitchen. Ilya grumbled and adjusted the TV. I looked around the apartment — an ordinary two-bedroom, with creaking wooden floors, nothing noticeable. Finally, the boxes were sorted, we had a modest dinner and went to bed — mom and Ilya went to the big room, and I went to the small one.

I woke up at night to the creaking of wooden floorboards. The door to my room was open, and I saw a hallway in which someone was clearly walking. I thought it was Mom or Ilya who went to the bathroom, or to drink water. But a minute later, I saw a huge shadow slowly pacing the hallway, the floorboards creaking from this tread. It was monstrously huge and thin, its head touched the ceiling, its long arms reached to its knees, but there were no clear outlines. There was no face, no clothes, just a shadow that walked back and forth. I was sweating profusely and pulled the blanket up to my eyes, watching this and not believing that such a thing could happen.

The shadow wandered down the hallway and headed towards the kitchen, from where, in a matter of seconds, the clink of pots and plates began to be heard. I was shaking under the covers at the time. There was silence, and IT reappeared in the hallway. It was clearly looking at me now. I couldn't even scream—it felt like my throat was being squeezed by my hands. When it took a step into my room, I closed my eyes. I was shaking like an aspen leaf, and I could hear from the creaking of the floorboards that IT was coming to my bed. No, there was no cold, no breathing, just an oppressive heaviness, as if the air was made of cobwebs and could be touched.

I spent the whole night shaking under the covers, falling asleep only in the morning. She didn't tell her mom anything, and who would have believed a small child? And I saw THIS a few more times, but it didn't fit me anymore. I do not know what it was — we moved out after a couple of months, I have never seen anything like it anywhere else.

Hands

 It all started with the fact that my light bulb burned out. As usual, I was working at night, staring at my computer monitor with reddened eyes and finishing my fourth cup of coffee, when the light bulb flashed on with a loud crack and went out. At the time, I didn't pay any attention to it, since there were five of them in the chandelier. One more, one less— it doesn't matter. At least that's what I thought at the time.

When the second one burned out about half an hour later, I was a little tense — I wouldn't want to be in total darkness. The fact is that I've had a phobia since childhood — I'm afraid of the dark. No, it's not even like that — she makes me panic, hysterical, in a state close to fainting. I do not know where it came from. For as long as I can remember, I've always had to sleep with a night light. That's why now I went to bed in the early morning, because work allowed.

The third light bulb didn't just burn out, it exploded, as if the mains voltage had jumped fifty volts. However, the computer was working as if nothing had happened. Cursing briefly but colorfully, I took a flashlight out of my desk drawer just in case and went to the kitchen for a broom to remove the shards that littered the floor of the only room in my apartment with a predatory carpet. Then I heard something strange.

The sound came from the front door. Light slaps. It was like someone was tapping the metal with his palm. Armed only with a flashlight and a broom, which I held in my hand like a sword, I followed the sound.

I flipped the light switch in the hallway as usual and peered through the peephole. No one. Only darkness. The very idea of opening the door, and even more so going out there into the pitch darkness of the night entrance, terrified me, so I thought, "Well, no, you won't!" Turned around and headed back when I heard another sound that made a trickle of cold sweat slide down my spine. The distinctive creak of the front door opening. Needless to say, a couple of seconds ago, when I looked through the peephole, it was securely locked with two locks?

The following events occurred almost simultaneously. I turned toward the slowly opening door, shining the flashlight beam through the crack, when the light bulb above my head flashed on and off. I was left in total darkness, which was painfully dispersed in half only by a narrow beam of a flashlight. There was a rustle from somewhere in the darkness of the entrance, and I saw a pale child's hand feeling my door.

Children? At night? In the entrance? I let out a hysterical laugh, almost a sob. One handle was soon joined by the other, slapping the lintel with her palm. Then a third, a fourth… I think I started to lose consciousness when I noticed that all the hands seemed to belong to one creature, and it was looking for something to grab, to pull itself up, to drag its body inside.

Then, already in a daze, I remembered where my phobia came from. I've seen this creature before. A long time ago, in my early childhood, it came to me to play. I remember that at that time, for some reason, I was not at all frightened by these children's hands feeling the pantry door. He had such an insinuating, pleasant voice. A low male baritone voice. I remembered that, being an unintelligent child, even I was happy to help him open the door. And then I think I saw him and almost went crazy. Here, my memory throws me only the blurred outlines of something disgusting in the darkness of the pantry.

It all took a split second as I stood there, shining my useless flashlight somewhere in the darkness. At this point, the coherent memories come to an end. The last thing I remember is falling to the floor with a sharp pain in my chest, crawling to the phone and dialing an ambulance.

I woke up in the hospital. As it turned out — cardiac arrest. I was dead for a little over a minute. I'm lucky I didn't become a vegetable. I would probably have thought that I was imagining everything, but when I asked a reasonable question about how the doctors entered my apartment, I received the answer that the door was wide open.

It found me. After all these years, it finally found my door.

Of course, I didn't tell anyone about it. The last thing I wanted to do was end up in a mental hospital. There are so many doors... and absolutely nowhere to hide.

As soon as I got out of the hospital, I packed my things and ran. I was confusing my tracks like a hare running away from a fox. From city to city, never staying anywhere for more than a day. Finally, I thought I had confused him enough and calmed down.

Now I live far, very far from my hometown and it won't find me here. Isn't that right? Wasn't I finally able to hide? I hope so.

Wedding

 At one time, there was a story in our village that allegedly happened to our fellow villager. The man went to a friend in a neighboring village to help with construction. After work, he was treated to moonshine and offered to stay the night, but he decided to go home, although it was late. The distance between the villages was about seven kilometers, and it was necessary to go through apiaries, where houses stood in some places. And so, passing through the apiary, the man noticed that in one house people were walking, there was a lot of noise, songs and dances. Then the drunk wanted to "continue the banquet," and he went into the house.

It turns out that a Mari wedding was taking place in the house — who doesn't know, they are attended by a crowd in national costumes and with national songs, but according to Mari customs. Well, the man began to walk and dance with them. He was fed, watered— and everything was as it should be. However, the man vaguely noticed during the feast that the wedding was somehow strange - no blessings, no mention of God.

At the end of the wedding, according to custom, small gifts are given to the guests (mostly from clothes). The man was given a shirt and told to try it on right here. He, out of habit, said: "Lord, have mercy!" he began to put on his shirt.

And then he woke up. There was no wedding. There was silence around him, and he was standing on a wooden chair in an empty house and he put a rope around his neck — all he had to do was twitch. It is unknown what would have happened if he had tried on the "shirt" without prayer. And later he realized that he was eating manure instead of pies.

I think it's not for nothing that people say: if it seems, cross yourself.