The terrible story of my brother

 I woke up in the middle of the night. I was very thirsty. Half asleep, I went into the kitchen and automatically filled a glass with water...

"What are you doing?"  My younger brother's voice made me jump on the spot.

—You idiot! I spilled the water because of you!  I scolded Sasha in a loud whisper.

— Let's play?

"Are you completely out of your mind?" It's three o'clock in the morning...  I looked back at my brother.

Something about him scared me—either his strange behavior, or the fact that he was smiling broadly, too broadly, and without blinking, he was looking at me.

— Go to sleep already...

I yawned, stretched, and went to my room. As soon as I entered the room, I broke out in a cold sweat. In a panic, I crawled under the covers. It became hard to breathe, but I didn't want to go back to the kitchen.

I heard him wandering around there. Such quiet baby steps.

It took me a moment to remember that my brother had died three days ago...

Blizzard

 I want to tell you a story that happened to me and my colleagues one stormy winter night. At that time, I was working as an UAZ ambulance driver. One day in December, Gena, a paramedic, and Vika, a young intern, had to go on an urgent call to a remote village.

The snow was falling in a wall, the frost was about twenty degrees, plus a strong icy wind. I struggled to drive the car along the icy road, gradually coming to the conclusion that everything bad that could happen to us had already happened. My replacement had a habit of stealing anything that wasn't lying well (as well as running, sitting, or moving). Therefore, the front axle of the car was broken (the parts were permanently stolen by my cunning partner), the low beam was not on, and instead of new studded rubber on the rear wheels there were two old "bald" cylinders. In short, driving in such conditions was like a very extreme rally.

After some time, the paramedic asked me to stop for a moment and fell out into the blizzard on his own. Soon he stumbled back into the car, and I drove forward... and I almost had a heart attack when a disheveled, red-haired, completely unfamiliar head poked out of the salon to me with a question.:

"Are we going to leave the paramedic there?"

I slammed on the brakes and asked the unexpected passenger, stunned.:

— And who are you, anyway?

It turned out that while Gena was minding his own business, this guy approached him and asked him to take him to the village, where we were heading. After that, the guy got into the car, and I, mistaking him for Gena, stepped on the gas...

Meanwhile, the real Gena appeared out of the snowstorm, indicating with gestures from the street what he would like to do to me. We moved on cautiously. The unexpected traveling companion called himself Peter. Suddenly, he grabbed my sleeve.:

— Guys, slow down! Igor is there!

Out of the snowstorm, right in front of the nose of our UAZ truck, a short silhouette in earflaps appeared on the road.

To say that I didn't like this situation is too weak. Not only did one appear out of nowhere in the middle of a snowy field, but now the second one has appeared! Moreover, it was impossible to notice him from afar in such a snowstorm, but Petya knew exactly where his friend was even before I flashed my headlights on him.

— Guys, how did you end up here? — I asked them a completely logical question from Gene. In response, both travelers said nothing.

We drove very slowly and carefully. Both men sat quietly, looking down at their feet. The blizzard was raging more and more. I turned on the powerful searchlight on the roof and the emergency light, and only managed to slam on the brakes with swearing. It was a miracle that our car didn't get blown into a ditch by the side of the road.

There was a man standing on the road with his back to us. I got out of the car, sincerely wanting to smash the face of the man standing in the middle of the road. But then I saw his face... It was a mess—swollen eyes surrounded by huge bruises, a nose turned to one side, half of his teeth knocked out, a trickle of blood trickling from his mouth...

"Who are you?" - he asked.

—The ambulance!" We're going to Ilyichevo! — the paramedic shouted to him as he got out of the warm interior of the "loaf".

And then the stranger was transformed — the broken face became whole again, a joyful smile lit up his face. He shouted something unintelligible and ran away from us, into the darkness and snow.

Gena shrugged his shoulders, returned to the car and, addressing our strange companions, asked:

"You don't know him?"

And suddenly he turned to me sharply.:

"Where are they?"

I poked my head into the salon. There was no sign of our fellow travelers. Vika, who was watching us and the strange man on the road from the salon, also did not notice how they disappeared. The back door is tightly locked, and no one came out of the side except Gena...

But then we had no time for our mysterious passengers — people with kerosene lamps appeared ahead. They escorted us to the house, near which there was a wrecked car. People clung to Gena and, shouting: "Hurry up, he's still alive!", almost dragged him into the house by force. Vika and I followed.

It turned out the following. About three or four hours ago, three friends were driving back to the village. The driver was not very experienced, this damn blizzard started, and as a result, the car flew into a tree at high speed. Two died on the spot, and the third passenger fell into a coma.

And then I involuntarily looked at the face of the surviving passenger... It was smashed into solid meat, but it seemed strangely familiar to me.

While Gena and the local doctor were working magic on the victim, I went into the next room, from where I could hear quiet crying. Three women were sitting there in the dim light of the kerosene trucks, and the bodies of the dead lay on the beds. I looked at the faces of the corpses. To the left, closer to the window, was the red-haired, bearded Petya, who got into our car first. On the bed next to him, with nickels in his eyes, lay his friend Igor...

Vika and I went out into the courtyard. It was about one o'clock in the morning, and only two or three lanterns were lit in the entire village. There was a deathly silence in the village, even the village dogs did not bark. Strangely enough, we didn't feel any fear.

The door creaked softly behind him. I turned around and saw three vague silhouettes disappearing into the night silence.

A minute later, a woman's sobs were heard in the house with renewed vigor. Gena, with a tired and haggard face, came out to us and lit a cigarette.

"He died," he answered our silent question.—Injuries that are almost incompatible with life. In the hospital, in the city, maybe they would have saved me. And here...

We drove back in silence. When we returned to our home station, no one asked much about anything. And, of course, we didn't talk about it either — who would believe that?..

Only now, after that night shift, an icon appeared in our car.

And to my partner, who tried to steal it, I broke two fingers..

Ghost

 I live in a brick five-story building built about 50 years ago. And all the time we've been living here, strange things have been happening in our apartment.

When I was about two years old, my mother met our "neighbor" for the first time. My older sister Katya (she was 8 years old at the time) got out of the tub and, without even removing the towel from her hair, went to sleep in a small room. And my mother lay down on the couch in the hall with me. Our cat Kefir fell silent at our feet. I was fidgeting and moody all night, as my mother later told me: "Something was keeping you awake." Around two o'clock in the morning, she woke up from a strange alarm, looked around and saw a little girl with a long black braid. The girl stopped for a second near our sofa and went to the bathroom. The mother then thought it was Katya. But the next morning, when she went into her room to get a change of pants for me, she noticed that Katya's hair was still wrapped in a towel—she hadn't taken it off since the evening...

When I was 9 years old, my cousin Olya and her daughter Ksusha came to us for a week. Olya, citing the inconvenience of the sofa, went to sleep in a small room, now mine. She would always remember the night she spent there. Before going to bed, little Ksyusha giggled, playing with someone invisible. She would cover her eyes with her hands, take them away, and say, "Peek-a-boo!" Olya told me: "Of course, I did not immediately react to this — Ksyu is small, she entertains herself. But after she fell asleep, fear came over me from nowhere. I hugged Xia and turned with her to face the wall. About half an hour later, there was a knock right above my head. I was startled. I convinced myself that it was my imagination, but I didn't have time to close my eyes again, as the knock was repeated right above my head, on the table next to the bed." I already remember what happened next: I woke up in the hall from Olya's wild scream, she ran out of my room screaming: "I'm not going to sleep there! There's definitely someone there!"

And my own encounter with this "girl" happened not so long ago. It was like in a horror movie.: I wake up in the middle of the night, and she's standing next to my bookcase. She was looking at the books. I've read so much about ghosts, and I can tell you so many stories, but when I was confronted with a supernatural phenomenon myself, I became numb and fell into a stupor. About a minute passed, and the girl disappeared by herself, as if she had never existed...

In recent years, unexplained cases in the apartment have been multiplying. Rustles, quiet voices at night... Recently, in front of everyone's eyes, a rose from a vase of flowers rose into the air and fell on the carpet in front of the TV. Rings, earrings, and jewelry often disappear. But over time, everything comes back, it is found in the most visible place.

She's not doing anything wrong to us, girl. We've already gotten used to it.

Swimming pool. Part 1

 I have a passion for climbing all kinds of abandoned places, especially old Soviet infrastructure elements. I visited almost everything in my city that I could visit. I even went to Pripyat with the same "crazy ones" (there is a photo of me standing against the backdrop of that very amusement park, I am very proud of it). But the real fear caught up with me not in the ghost town, but where my passion for stalking began - on the land of my relatives, in a village near Kharkov. My aunt married a Ukrainian man. He had an apartment in the city and a house in the village where his mother lived. Every summer, my parents took my sister and me to a sunny village to Baba Tanya. There I met my friend Denis (he got me hooked on stalking). Denis and I explored all the local bomb shelters and basements, and once we even took away a bunch of gas masks from some basement.

About a month ago, Denis wrote to me that enthusiasts had discovered a protected pioneer camp from the time of Brezhnev, untouched by civilization, near their city. Naturally, I was all fired up, bought a hospital certificate from a doctor and went to Kharkov. I'll leave out the details of the trip, and in the end, Denis and I are already standing at the entrance to the complex. A gym invaded by fungus and ruin, an empty swimming pool lined with broken tiles with black mold, school classrooms with dilapidated blackboards and portraits of Lenin, broken windows, notebooks scattered along the corridors — how I love all this... I took a bunch of great photos that day.

My favorite moment in stalking is when I pick the basement lock and dig through all sorts of drawers (once I found a box with an AKM—74 in one factory; I kept one Kalash for myself, the rest was sold). It all started when Denis and I were sawing the lock into the basement with a circular saw the next day. I do not know what they thought in the past, when they left piles of army first—aid kits with very interesting contents in the pioneer camps — in general, I collected a whole bag of drugs, and then I wanted to take a last picture in the destroyed pool against the background of the poster "Communism is the youth of the world, and it should be built young!" I've remembered this phrase for the rest of my life).

When I opened the shabby blue door, I saw the corpse of a naked girl hanging over the pool against the background of that poster. I was scared, but I didn't panic (stalkers often deal with the corpses of homeless people or victims of banditry). We got closer, and then it started. There was a metal collar around the girl's throat, which was attached to a chain. The chain was attached to a hook for a spotlight. All this was done at the height of the fourth floor. Nothing was hanging there yesterday. I just can't imagine how it got there — how could you climb to the 4th floor of the gym without the help of a huge ladder and hang yourself from a long heavy black chain, hanging it on a hook, where the spotlight was yesterday? At that moment, it hadn't sunk in yet, so I decided to take a picture of this girl against the background of the poster. She was young (no more than 20 years old), well-built with hair the color of tar. I took my camera out of my pocket and was about to take a picture when the chain snapped.

The corpse fell to the tile, making a nasty sound in which bones could be heard cracking. You can't imagine how terrified I was. Before, Denis stood and timidly looked at the suspended corpse, but now he just began to cry. And I—I don't even know what came over me-I decided to get closer to the girl. The broken body was lying at the bottom of the pool. The girl's face was beautiful and correct, I even felt sorry that she decided to hang herself. I looked at her for a couple of seconds, and it seemed to me that she wiggled the tip of her toe. Seeing this, Denis squatted down and sobbed even harder. I ran to the door and tried the handle, but it wouldn't open! Turning around, I saw the corpse get up and approach Denis. He stopped crying. I started shouting at him, but he didn't even turn around. They stood face to face. I called Denis again, but again he did not respond. The absurdity of the situation was simply maddening.

Swimming pool. Part 2

Then I understood everything. It was all a stupid prank to scare me! I breathed out a sigh of relief and shouted, "Come on, I almost died of fright! How did you do that?" Denis said nothing, slowly straightening the corpse's disheveled hair (I thought he was going to kiss her) and told her: "You're unique." He said it in such a detached voice that I immediately realized I had to run away, to hell with him, with a friend. I decided to climb out through the broken window of the second floor — I rushed to the window, threw my bag into it and began jumping up to climb myself. I couldn't do that. It was so scary, I even thought I was going to wet myself. Then I heard the sound of bare feet approaching, and I couldn't help but turn around...

The corpse was coming towards me. And it immediately became clear to me that it wasn't even a person. The girl's face no longer looked cute, it was distorted in a monstrous grimace (the girl's dead eyes were particularly terrifying). It tilted its head slightly to the side, as if studying me with curiosity. The last straw was Denis's phrase, said in the same sepulchral voice: "Don't be afraid of her, she's good. She wants to be friends." Then it dawned on me that I could climb through the window using the Swedish wall. I climbed the wall, jumped, and clung to the window frame with my hands, severely cutting my right palm on the protruding glass. Blood splashed out in a warm stream. Somehow I climbed over, jumped off, and broke my chin during the fall. I picked up my bag and ran to my bike.

Baba Tanya was shocked when I, covered in blood, began to cry hysterically, hugging her. After calming down a little, I asked my grandmother to anonymously call the police to the pioneer camp so that they would find Denis, and I decided to go home immediately. Without packing, taking only a bag of drugs, I asked a friend to give me a ride to the city for a hundred dollars. There I boarded an electric train, then a train, and for two days now I have been at home (you can understand how I was allowed to pass at the border with such luggage).

I wonder if the police found Denis by the pool? And is he still alive?..

Mermaid

 This story was told to me by my grandfather Ivan. He was a stern man, had been through the war, and was not interested in writing.

It happened in Ukraine, in the Poltava region. After the war, my grandfather got a job as a postman, and he worked as one until retirement. He traveled through the territory entrusted to him in a cart pulled by an old gelding. He usually returned at dusk, but on the day he arrived from the post office, his head hurt badly, he lay down, and slept almost until evening. It's getting late, but the mail needs to be delivered. I had to harness the horse.

I was coming back, and the moon was already shining. Part of the road ran along the lake, and in one place there were bridges where the men were fishing. And grandfather noticed a woman with long hair sitting on the catwalk with her back to him. Her hair was long, covering almost her entire back, and her lower body was lowered into the water. Well, he sits and sits, but this woman was crying so much that she wanted to howl herself. Grandfather began to fasten the reins to a special handle in order to get off the cart to find out what had happened, but the old horse, which had never run in his life, carried Ivan so much that he almost fell off.

The grandfather turned back to the woman and saw, and she turned around. He froze — he wasn't a man, but something incomprehensible: his face was angry, grinning, his hair was long and tangled, he was naked to the waist, and what was below was writhing so that the water around him was bubbling like a geyser. She rushed under the water and the water began to ripple in his direction. And the horse doesn't need to be prodded — he jumps and bucks all the time, as if someone is biting him...

My grandfather used to say that in the war, when he cleared the rails, he wasn't as afraid as he was that night. And he kept repeating: "So now believe the fairy tales that mermaids are beautiful!".

Open it...

 As a child, I was often tormented by one nightmare: late at night, my mother was in the kitchen washing dishes, and then there was a knock on the front door. I go to open it, go to the door and hear a quiet but distinct whisper from there: "Open it." My hands are shaking, it's getting so scary... The whispering continues: "Come on, open it... Be brave... I'm going in anyway... Come on, open it... open up..." I run to my mom, pulling her sleeve. Mom reluctantly comes to the door, but she doesn't hear any knocking or whispering — she turns around and goes off to do her own thing, and I stay at the door. Exhaling with relief, I turn around to go to my room — and then there's another knock and an insinuating whisper: "See? Open it...".

But it wasn't just in my dreams. Sometimes at night I would wake up to a soft knock on the window. We lived on the eighth floor without a balcony. Sitting up in bed, I saw a thin long finger tapping softly on the window. And I heard a familiar whisper: "Open up...".

Don't believe me, laugh, come up with explanations. But I know it's true, even though now even I sometimes feel like a stupid fear inspired by a child's imagination. But lately, this half-forgotten fear has been haunting me with renewed vigor, making me shiver under the covers on dark nights. Because this is the third night my daughter wakes me up, with tears in her eyes, telling me about a creature that knocks on the window and whispers: "Open...".

And I do not know how to help her...

A comatose nightmare

 We were sitting at a friend's birthday party once. Most of the guests had already left, and my old friend and I were sitting in the kitchen, smoking and chatting about all sorts of things. My friend, by the way, spent two weeks in a coma as a result of the accident. When it came to the mystical, I jokingly asked him if he had seen a light at the end of the tunnel or something like that. He somehow changed his face and became gloomy, but the alcohol he drank loosened his tongue, and he told me this story. Next, I tell you from his words.

"I woke up in a room unknown to me. My head ached unbearably and I was terribly thirsty. At first I thought it was a hangover, and I began to remember where I had managed to get so drunk. I remembered waking up in the morning and having breakfast, and then my father asked me to help move my old things to the cottage. I got in the car and drove around Leningradka. An old Zemfira song was playing on the radio. But I couldn't remember what happened after that. I didn't know where I was or how I got here.

The room looked like a hospital ward, but the devastation, dirt, and stench were such that the thought of it being a hospital made one feel sick. In the hallway and lobby of the hospital (and I managed to make sure that it was a hospital — the reception desk, the nurse on duty, scattered syringes and broken hospital equipment left no doubt here and there), the same devastation reigned. I went outside, and it was night. Despite the light of the few lanterns, it was possible to see everything quite well. I recognized the street and the hospital—my house was two blocks away. There was not a single living soul nearby, no sounds, just the wind. The whole city looked as if all the people had disappeared somewhere twenty years ago.

I didn't understand at all what was going on, and the suspense was frightening. I decided to go home, hoping for something. I was halfway there when I suddenly felt someone's presence. At that moment, I was glad that there was someone else here. When I felt his gaze on my back, I turned around...

There was a huge creature standing about seventy meters away from me. Her head reached the level of the second floor. Most of all, she looked like a monkey. Her skin was brownish-red and shiny (now I think that maybe she didn't have any skin at all). There were huge claws on her paws. The muzzle looked like a dog's—I saw a lot of sharp fangs in its mouth. The creature looked at me and sniffed, saliva dripped from its mouth; it smelled of rotten meat. I couldn't move, animal terror held me down. He probably would have stood there, but then this creature raised its muzzle to the sky and howled. This terrifying howl, tearing my ears, brought me out of my trance, and I rushed like a bullet into the entrance of the nearest house. The creature did not accept attempts to enter my shelter, which surprised me. I went up to the fifth floor and looked out the window. She stood in front of the entrance and waited patiently for me to come out.

I realized that I couldn't get out of this entrance. There were no doors to the basement or roof, the apartment doors were securely locked, and I checked them all. Exhausted, I huddled in a corner and cried. I was hysterical—I was crying like a little kid, at the top of my voice. I don't know how long I sat there like that, but eventually I fell asleep.

I woke up in the hospital, in a normal hospital. His mother was there. I can't describe how happy I was at that moment."

A friend told me this story. It's a little scary for me to die now if "on the other side" we are not waiting for a friendly corridor with a light at the end, but an empty city with a terrible creature...

The Swamp thing. Part 1

A boy, about eleven years old, picked up a stone and, aiming at something, threw it. With a loud and lingering splash, the stone fell into the water.

— Bli-in... — the boy drawled in frustration and squatted down to pick up a new shell.

Vitalik found a suitable one, picked it up, and turned around just in case. No, grandfather hasn't left the garage yet: the gates are open, and the car (an old "six") is still standing on the street. The setting sun was reflected in the side windows of the car, making them sparkle fiercely. The boy smiled: Well, he still had at least five minutes to play.

— I see a fascist "submarine"... battery, aim... five degrees to the left...  The kid muttered to himself. He narrowed his brown eyes, taking aim, and shouted, "FIRE!"

The thrown projectile splashed into a small river, causing the "submarine" (played by a bottle of "solvent") to sway on the waves. Vitalik grunted and sat down again, hoping to find another stone.

The August sun flooded the garages with a pleasant, slightly diffused light. The river—if a stream four meters wide could be called a river—shone iridescent with oil and gasoline stains, which, however, did not bother the garage owners. Empty bottles of vodka, beer, and solvent lay scattered here and there on the bank overgrown with stunted reeds, interspersed with pieces of iron that looked strange to the boy, the contours of which were securely hidden by a layer of oil and dirt. The kid found a piece of asphalt and got to his feet. He looked hopefully back at the garage again. No one.

Aim, throw...

— Fire!... — a pause and almost immediately a disappointed sigh, — eeeehh!

The stone lightly struck the side of the bottle, but did not break it. However, Vital was not very upset: the game was interesting and he did not want to go home yet.

At the age of eleven, Vitalik understood that his mother would not approve of such fun. How, how, to pick up stones and throw them into bottles with a very specific purpose — so that they break! The boy even wrinkled his sunburned nose, imagining how she scolded him for dirty knees and explained that breaking bottles is not a cultural thing. He knew that his mother was probably right, but he liked this game: if he hit it well, the glass would shatter, and the bottle with the broken neck would sink to the bottom in such a funny way!..

There was the sound of an engine starting and the boy turned around. That's right, it's time to go home — grandpa was putting the car in the garage. Vital sighed, threw the last stone — missed again!  And he walked away from the river.

Grandpa had already driven the car and Vital looked into the cool interior of the garage. It always seemed to the boy like a cave full of incomprehensible treasures. Shelves along both walls were full of all kinds of spare parts; one was completely filled with boxes, in which, as the boy knew, you could find rusty nails, huge bolts with nuts screwed on them, and a bunch of other incomprehensible devices and pieces. Against the far wall lay a rolled-up inflatable boat, on which he and his grandfather had sailed on the lake this summer and caught carp and "rotans". There were broken skis with only one stick nearby.

His grandfather was sitting in the cabin of the "six" with Uncle Lesha, a neighbor in the garages. They were talking about something, sometimes laughing. Vital saw a neighbor take a bottle out from under his feet and pour something - probably vodka - into glasses. The men clinked glasses and drank.

Vital sighed and went to the car.

— Hello, Vitalka! — Uncle Lyosha greeted me. His horse-like face was flushed, and he squinted myopically at the boy through dirty round glasses with cheap plastic frames.

—Hello, Uncle Lyosha,— the boy replied without much enthusiasm.

Grandfather looked at him and said:

— Now, we'll go in about five minutes. Play for now.

Vitalik nodded and left the garage.

It's Uncle Lyosha again... Today, my grandfather might not have been drinking if it hadn't been for the neighbor.

Vital sighed. He had a very vague idea why adults drink, but he liked that his grandfather was becoming cheerful and good-natured. But then Grandma would start yelling again, and they'd probably have a fight. This means that grandpa will gloomily watch TV for the rest of the evening, and grandma will go to a bench near the house and sit there until it gets dark. And Vitalka won't see the promised pancakes as his ears.

The boy went out into the middle of the dusty passage between the townspeople, and began to pick at the gray mud with the tip of his sandal, absently thinking about delicious pancakes with jam. The sun was sinking towards the horizon, and occasionally the sound of cars could be heard from the road behind the garage cooperative. A train horn sounded from afar. The boy raised his head and hopefully thought that maybe he would be lucky and his grandfather would allow him to put a couple of 2 kopecks on the rails. That would be great! Vital promised to show the guys in the yard what coins turn into after the train passes over them...

A car door slammed behind him, Vitali turned around and saw his grandfather locking the six. Uncle Lyosha had already left the garage and was now standing, wiping his glasses with a T-shirt.

— Lech, — grandfather nodded at the garage door.

— Now, wait a minute! — Uncle Lyosha finished wiping his glasses, and began to help close the garage.

— Well, that's it, let's go, Vitalka! — said the grandfather and smiled cheerfully.

"Home?" — the boy asked. I clarified it because Uncle Lyosha could well have offered his grandfather to go to the nearest wine bar.

Grandpa nodded and smiled again.:

— Yeah, home. Making pancakes.

— Hurrah! Honestly?

Grandpa put a big warm hand on the back of the boy's head:

- of course.

— Great! And the grandmother...

"I wouldn't mind pancakes with sour cream either,— Uncle Lyosha chimed in.

Grandpa pulled a beret over his head and grinned:

— Let your wife cook for you, be awesome.

The neighbor jokingly swung at the grandfather, and they laughed. Vitalka joined them, completely forgetting about his recent unhappy thoughts.

So they walked along the passage between the garages: the adults a little in front, Vitalka following, five meters behind. Grandpa and Uncle Lyosha were talking about something, but the boy wasn't listening, he wasn't very interested, and he didn't like his grandfather when his grandson started "warming his ears," as he called it. So the boy walked behind, hardly paying attention to the elders. He looked down at his feet, hoping to find a coin, which would be a very wonderful end to a wonderful day. Yes, I should have remembered to ask Grandpa to wait for the train and put it down...

Alexey laughed loudly in front.

— You're giving it, Sergeyich!  Uncle Lyosha exclaimed. Vitalka looked at the adults with interest. —Did you just tell her that?"..

— Be quiet! — grandfather tsked at him, turned around and looked at Vitalik.

"Come on, come on, I'm sorry," Alexei said, giggling, and lowered his voice so that only vague fragments of words reached the boy again.

The Swamp thing. Part 2

 The sun flooded the earth with orange light, forcing the adults to cast long, slightly blurred shadows. The breeze died down, and somewhere in the distance the whistle of a steam locomotive was heard again, followed by the lonely barking of a dog.

Not knowing what else to do, Vitalka began to memorize the numbers of garages, the doors of which were painted green — the usual shade was some kind of red, similar to rust. It's still a twenty-minute walk to the bus stop, it's boring. He walked along, a little regretting that he hadn't found a single coin and that he couldn't hear what the adults were saying. Probably about something funny, Uncle Lyosha is still giggling. Eh-huh... So, "515" is green... "497" too...

There was a walking man painted in white chalk on the gate of garage 471.

Vital approached the gate, not really knowing what attracted him so much to the drawing. An ordinary sketch made by a child's hand: a man was walking somewhere with a smile on his round face, with his hands in the pockets of wide trousers, and a cap on his head. He had seen this drawing before, but where?

Vital looked at the adults, and wanted to call them to look too, but suddenly changed his mind.

The boy took one last look at the drawing and ran after the men.

— ...the swamp will be drained," Uncle Lyosha lit another cigarette. Vitalik was walking half a meter away from them. — At the last meeting, Vitek said that money had been found for this case. We need to make it before the cold weather, while the weather is good.

"Well, they've been talking about it for two years," Grandpa replied.

—Yeah, that's right... It just seems like we've decided now," Alexey shrugged his shoulders. — Maybe we will be asked to help as members of the cooperative.

Grandpa chuckled, and then said:

— This swamp used to be much bigger... and the cemetery is old on Berezhka. Then the cemetery was moved, the land is painfully convenient for building... Well, the swamp was partially drained, but not completely, I don't know why.

"I probably didn't have enough money, as usual," Uncle Lyosha coughed and spat on the road. — Eternal trouble. Listen, do you know Mitya Tolstoy? He sort of worked at your factory.

— I remember there was one.

— So imagine, he died recently. They say it's cancer...

The adults again started some kind of incomprehensible conversation about the unknown Vital Mitya, and the boy fell behind. As he walked, he thought about how he could die of cancer, and there didn't seem to be anything particularly scary about him. Besides, the crayfish are delicious, they then caught a whole bucket in the river near the cottage. Maybe he bit where with his claws? I'll have to ask later...

Suddenly, there was a long, drawn-out howl, followed by hoarse barking. Vital started and looked back, expecting to see a dog making such a mournful sound.

Nothing: the same garages, refreshed by the slanting rays of the orange-like setting sun. Nothing unusual, only...

"THE SWAMP"

The boy looked confusedly at the garage gate they were passing: it was on them that this word was written diagonally. In the same white chalk as that drawing. It was just a swamp, nothing more, but the boy suddenly felt uncomfortable. Why would anyone write "swamp" on a garage? Maybe, of course, his peers were joking (he himself sometimes drew and wrote all sorts of nonsense on the walls of houses and on asphalt). But one word "swamp" — what's the point?

Vital looked confusedly at the setting sun, which was almost close to the roofs of the garages. Now it was not orange, but a little reddish, pulled up by a haze, as if some hot liquid was bursting it from the inside.

"THE BOY IS HERE"

The kid even stumbled when he saw the new inscription on the next gate. It was indistinct, as if written with a trembling hand, but still quite legible.

And again it was written diagonally.

—Grandpa,— Vitalik called uncertainly, but Vitalik did not hear him: they were arguing in low voices with Uncle Lyosha.

Vital caught up with the adults and walked as close to them as possible, not listening to the voices. He looked around, feeling a sense of unease he couldn't understand. The road he had walked a hundred times seemed strange in the light of the reddish sun, as if it had suddenly been taken and replaced by some unfamiliar one.

There were no more inscriptions, and the boy began to calm down, when suddenly the long-drawn howl sounded again. Suddenly, the sound stopped abruptly on one note. The adults fell silent and exchanged glances.

"They've got mongrels," Uncle Lyosha said through his teeth. He adjusted his glasses and lit another cigarette.

—Yeah, like uncut dogs,— Grandpa replied, and they laughed.

Vital pulled his grandfather's sleeve.

"What is it?"  The grandfather looked at the boy.

"What does that mean, Grandpa?"  Vitalik asked.

"Eh?" You about...  But then he saw it for himself.

There was a white inscription clearly visible on the gate on the left, which they were passing by now.:

"SHAB-NIGGURAT IS COMING"

The three of them walked up to the old, rusted gate.

"Yeah, someone's not watching their garage at all," Uncle Lyosha muttered under his breath. He took off his glasses and began to wipe them off from dirt and dust again, as unsuccessfully as the first time.

"What is it, Grandpa?" — the boy asked again.

"I don't know, Vitalka,— he read the inscription again. — Someone was messing around.

—Okay, let's go,— Alexey replied. He only glanced at the inscription that alarmed the boy. — I feel like sleeping, there's still football tonight.

— Yeah, let's go, Vital, — the grandfather took the boy by the hand and they started walking towards the exit of the garages again.

Vital was glad that he was walking next to adults, but he still felt somehow uncomfortable. There was something unpleasant about the gibberish written on the rusty iron. Here they passed another intersection — straight rows of garages went off in all directions. The boy remembered this place, which meant that it took seven minutes, at most ten, to walk to the bus stop.

"What the hell is this?"  Uncle Lyosha drawled.

Vital stopped looking at the garages they were passing and looked ahead.

The exit that he and his grandfather always went through was closed by a gate.

—That's it,— said the grandfather. "Where did they come from?"

Uncle Lyosha was the first to approach the shutters and shake them.

"Who the hell knows. It's also locked," he angrily pulled the old padlock. — Did you climb?

He had already put his foot on the bottom rung.

— And what about Vitalka?  Grandfather asked. "It's about three meters away, and I can't carry him on my back."

Vitalka looked fearfully at the high gates, and then turned his gaze to his grandfather. No, of course, he liked to climb all sorts of fences, but at such a height...