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?

The doll in the field

 It started in my childhood, when I was about ten years old. My street is located on the outskirts of the village, next to a field and forests. My friends and I have always loved to walk in that field — there are many interesting and mysterious places there. And so we went there once with a friend. The road ran on the edge of a field — on one side there were thick bushes growing in a ditch with dirty water, and on the other — a field. We walk, we walk, I look — there are some things on the road. We came up and looked: a big plastic doll with curly blond hair, all dirty, looking with one eye.

I picked it up vertically, and the other eye opened. And the first one wouldn't close, no matter how I turned it. Even when I tried to force it shut, the eye wouldn't close and stared at me piercingly. It was pretty frustrating. A dirty little doll carriage lay broken and flattened on the ground nearby, and next to it... skull. It looks like a dog (probably a puppy), without a lower jaw.

We decided to throw away this nasty doll. I took her by the hair and threw her as hard as I could towards the bushes. She fell in the middle of them and splashed into the dirty water. I threw the skull in the opposite direction, and pulled the wheelchair back and threw it on the curb. We went on to discuss the find — we came up with a name for it, dreamed up all sorts of stories about it, and upon returning home we told the rest of our friends.

The next day, two friends went with me to show me the place. On the way there, at some point it seemed to me that someone's blond hair flashed through the bushes. I put it down to my imagination, but then I saw the same thing again. When we finally arrived, I showed and told everything, but I couldn't find the doll.

A few days later, one of my friends' beloved dog disappeared without a trace. Soon another purebred cat disappeared. The disappearances of small animals continued intermittently for about a year. I personally lost a cat, and then a kitten.

During this time, we went to that field many more times and noticed strange things there. We also found individual bones there many times, skeletons and skulls of animals scattered across the field. Once, a large dog with a hole in its stomach was found in the bushes. And one day I was walking along the road with the very friend with whom we found that damn doll. Suddenly she whispered to me, "Let's run!" We took off, and when we got home, she said she saw a doll standing in the middle of a field and looking in our direction.

One more incident is especially unpleasant for me to remember. I was walking in the field and got my foot in a hole. There was something soft at the bottom. Looking closer, I saw that it was a piece of a dog's body — the hind legs, pelvis, tail and part of the belly. And the hole itself was clearly recently dug by someone.

After about a year, the disappearances stopped. Shortly after that, on a summer day, I found the doll in a field. She was lying about a hundred meters from the place where I threw her into the bushes. The face and torso were almost completely melted, as if someone had burned the doll. But his arms, legs, and hair were almost unscathed.

Overnight visit

 After school, I moved to another city, went to university, and lived in a rented apartment. Of course, I really missed all my friends and parents, but I especially missed my older sister, whom I love very much. I often had dreams about friends and family, rather wonderful dreams. They asked me for something. Then to eat, then to give something. That night, I had a dream about Alyona (my sister). She was sitting on my bed and very insistently asked me to give her salt. I woke up in the middle of the night. Of course, I was home alone. I didn't have time to really come to my senses when the doorbell rang. I go to the door, look through the peephole — Alyona. I was overjoyed and said loudly:

— I'll open it now, wait!

The door was unlocked with keys, the keys were in the bag. I took the bag, dumped all the things out of it and froze. I guess I just finally woke up and realized the situation. It's two o'clock in the morning. My sister is standing in the doorway. Even if you imagine that she took the last bus, drove for five hours, and then for some reason drove around the city for two hours, it remains completely unclear why she didn't call me, and... she didn't have a bag. Nothing. No suitcase, no backpack, not even a handbag.

I stared at the pile of things in front of me, then picked up my cell phone and dialed Alena's number. Five rings, then a sleepy, dissatisfied voice.:

"Hello?"

"Are you standing outside my door?"

—What?" I'm sleeping, actually!

I went to the door and looked through the peephole with a sinking heart. Alyona is standing there. He's looking right at me. And suddenly, something almost imperceptibly changed in her face. But I couldn't figure out what it was, because I immediately heard a bang—the light bulb above the door had blown out. And then something happened that made me jump away from the door and hide in a corner. Alyona (or someone trying to be like her) began frantically banging on the door and shouting inhuman, bestial screams without words. One minute they sounded plaintive, as if begging me to open up, the next they became threatening and scared me half to death. The phone was still in my hands. "What's going on in there? Are you there? Alyona screamed, but I didn't have the strength to answer her. I pressed myself into a corner and watched the rather flimsy door to my apartment shake. It lasted about ten minutes, after which everything went quiet. None of the neighbors came out to the entrance, as if they hadn't even heard the screams.

I called my sister back, who had already gotten everyone on their feet (I called my mom, friends in my city, and the police), and convinced her that everything was fine with me. Of course, I didn't feel like sleeping, so I went to the kitchen to have tea. But before I could get the cup out, my heart skipped a beat again—the doorbell rang again. At first I didn't want to open it, but then they said:

— Open up, police!

I breathed out a sigh of relief. That's right, my caring sister even managed to get the phone number of our precinct and called there! I went to the door and looked through the peephole. Because of the burnt-out light bulb, nothing was visible—just a vague shadow.

—Uh,— I said. — Thank you for your concern, everything is fine.

"I need to go in and make sure of that," they said urgently from the other side. — Open the door.

—Thank you very much,— I replied as gently as possible, realizing that I wasn't ready to open the door right now, even to the police. "But it's really okay, sorry to bother you, have a nice night."

There was a pause. The man on the other side didn't seem to know what to do.

"All right,— he said in an impatient voice. "Then could you please lend me some salt"?..

I'll find you anyway.

 When I was a kid, I had a friend, a funny, mischievous girl. When we were 12 years old, she and her parents moved to Kiev, and we never saw each other again.

And so, many years later, I found out that she had returned to Moscow. We called and met. She looks great, looking for a job. When asked about the reason for returning to the capital, she told the following story. And I wish I hadn't asked.…

Her name is, say, Larisa. When she was 19, she had an affair. The kid was a young, handsome student. Naturally, he's poor, without a stake or a yard. The love was hot, there was even sex, and it was very great, but... an older and richer man turned up for her, and she dumped the student. He began to suffer, crying, begging, calling, waiting at the entrance at night, throwing himself on his knees in front of her. But she wasn't paying attention. I decided to marry a rich man.

The day before the bachelorette party, the student called Larisa and said that he would be the eternal shadow of her marriage if she did not change her mind. He committed suicide by hanging himself under her window on a baby swing on Larisa's wedding night. They buried him and cried. Over time, they began to forget.

Only every night before the start of her menstrual cycle, Larisa saw a familiar silhouette in the window. She was worried, afraid, and crying. Her husband laughed and comforted her. As soon as Larisa became pregnant, the silhouette in the window disappeared. But he started coming to her bed! She would wake up to the unbearable smell of a rotting body and see a misty silhouette slipping away to the window. I had a miscarriage, and so on two more times.

The rich man left Larisa after four years of marriage. Two months later, she found out about her new pregnancy. Without telling anyone, she came to Moscow to visit her relatives, hoping to have a baby here. Every night she dreams of a student who turns over everything in her room with the words: "Where are you? I'll find you anyway!"

It seemed to me that my friend's mental health was not all right, we said goodbye, and I rushed home. I came out of the entrance, waiting for my husband to pick me up. It's dark and creepy outside. But here comes the headlights of our car. Andrew, finally!!! I took a step towards the car... and then suddenly a man appeared in front of me, as if he had grown out of the ground. Short and very thin.

He asks if you know which entrance 222nd apartment is in. I automatically answer, "No!" and quickly get into my lover's car. And then I realize that this stranger stinks terribly, is he really a bum?

But he was asking for Larisa's apartment!

Before eternity

 - Dad, how long is it to go?  Tim whined in the backseat again.

- It seems, - the father picked up the mobile phone and checked the navigator, - a couple more turns and we are in place.

"Watch the road, Eddie.

The woman in the front seat unbuckled her seat belt and turned to her son, who was hugging a gray stuffed rabbit.

- It's okay, we'll be there soon. Eddie," she glanced at her husband, "it seems to me that something is missing.

- Don't worry, it's always like this before the holidays. Chores, gifts. But this time, we won't have to do anything. What could be better than celebrating New Year's Eve in one of the best hotels in the suburbs?

Claire wanted to say that it would be more comfortable at home, but for some reason the words stuck in her throat.

"You know, Eddie, it feels like we've left our cat at home.

- It's funny. With your allergy to animals," Eddie grinned, and abruptly turned the steering wheel to the right.

"It's just a comparison. But for your sake, my boys, I'm ready to pretend that we left the cat in the care of the neighbors.

The man smiled, turned right once more, and the car stopped in front of the entrance to a huge hotel.

Golden facade, white columns with Atlanteans, seven floors and many balconies. The family got out of the car and walked cheerfully to the front door. The doorman met them at the door, took the bags, and escorted them to the reception.

A huge hall with mirror-polished floors, a three-meter-high Christmas tree hung with garlands and colored balls. Palm trees in tubs on the edges of burgundy sofas and armchairs. Hundreds of lamps hanging from the ceiling shone into every corner of the hotel.

"Welcome to the ante Eternum Hotel," the girl behind the counter said sweetly, and pulled out a book to fill out.

"Timmy, sit on the couch while Dad and I check in."

"How much longer?" – the boy asked.

- There's not much left.

"You'll be escorted to the upper floors," the girl behind the counter smiled and winked at the boy.

When all the details were recorded and the receptionist took the luggage, the family of three entered the elevator and the doors closed. The girl ran her eyes over the papers, sighed and began to correct the inaccuracies. Newbies often forget to add the last date.

"Okay, Father, nineteen seventy-five, dash, two thousand twenty-one. Mother– nineteen seventy-eight, dash, two thousand twenty-one. Son – two thousand fifteen, dash, two thousand twenty-one. Now, that's right!

A beige Buick drove along a deserted highway, kicking up a dusting of snow that settled in its wake. A girl was sitting at the wheel, humming something, and a guy was dozing next to her, with his feet on a torpedo.

"You won't believe what I just remembered," she suddenly exclaimed.

"That you wanted to let me sleep, but then you changed your mind?" – the guy stretched and lowered his legs.

- One story about a family that crashed on this highway exactly a year ago.

"It's so soothing." Is there something else, or can I go back to sleep?

- No, don't sleep! I recently read it somewhere on the Internet. There's an abandoned hotel nearby. So, their car skidded on the road right into the trees, no one survived. There seemed to be a husband and wife and a boy there. But the eldest daughter survived because she did not go with them. But a few months later, she was found dead. The police have not explained what really happened to her. The official version said overdose.

"You can be creepy, Kristy.

- Well, in short, I started telling you all this for a reason.…

- No, no, and again, no!

"Please, Robie, I really want to see it."

- So that road wasn't closed, and this detour was clearly planned? You just wanted to see the abandoned hotel. Kristina, you're driving me crazy!

- Well, please, - the girl looked at the snow-covered road, and at the same time looked at the guy with a plea, - Let it be a gift for the new year, I won't ask you for anything more.

- Kristy, it's three degrees below zero outside, I'm not climbing into a frozen building.

- Oh, come on, I can run there myself. I just need to take a peek.

The girl stopped the car abruptly and turned to the guy. She looked at him with sad eyes for three minutes, and then smiled when she realized that he had made up his mind.

- Just not for long, I want to catch Mom's roast. She always makes an amazing roast on New Year's Eve.

"Robby, you're the best guy in the world," Kristy reached out to the guy, kissed him, and jumped out of the car.

- Take your jacket!

They were standing on the edge of the road, and to their left, almost on a cliff, a seven-story hotel towered like a blackened stone.

"He's really beautiful," Kristina said dreamily.

- A huge piece that should have been demolished long ago.

- Come on, we need to see at least part of the building before dark.

"Mom's going to kill us."

The driveway to the hotel was littered with tree branches, trash brought from the road, and other pieces of paper that appeared from nowhere. The snow stopped falling in the morning, but some places were covered more than others. Sinking ankle-deep into muddy snowdrifts, the guy and the girl reached the main entrance to the hotel.

The walls were peeling off, and they looked like the Middle Ages. The glass was broken in almost all the windows, the Atlanteans who held the columns lost body parts and looked like terrible cripples. The front steps were smashed, and one of the doors had come off and was lying a little further from the entrance.

- It's so cool here!  Kristy whirled around with her head up. – You know, in the immediate vicinity this place is not liked and avoided. They say the hotel was built by an unknown rich man, and died immediately after opening. That was a couple of decades ago. The staff didn't really go anywhere either. The land here is not fruitful and is not needed by anyone, so people have left everything like that. But there are rumors that on New Year's Eve, music and people's voices can be heard from the hotel.

"I hope there are no ghosts here."

- There are no such things!  The girl grabbed Robie by the arm and pulled him inside the hotel.

The hall gloomily greeted the new guests with dampness, twilight and a booming echo. The floors were cracked, and in some places, there were gaping holes in the ground. The Christmas tree in the very center crumbled, and the rotten trunk bent obediently in a creepy greeting. A hole had formed in one of the walls, and the December sunlight illuminated the lobby of the once majestic hotel.

- Christmas tree, Robie, do you understand what this means?

- That even in this backwater they celebrated the new year? – the guy replied and with the toe of his shoe he picked up a cushion from the sofa lying on the floor.

- No! The Christmas tree means that people abandoned this place on New Year's Eve or immediately after it. It's strange, just like that, to take and close such a huge institution. Oh, what a beauty!

Kristina went to the reception desk and took a book for registration from the shelf. The cover is blue, cracked and crumbled at the corners. The sheets were twisted and yellowed.

- Kristy, are you satisfied already?  Robie looked desperately towards the exit.

- No, of course not. Look, you can see the names and signatures here. But the arrival dates are strange, only the years, and even then, everything is written in a different order.

"What are you doing there?"

"I'm registering," the girl replied laughing, and taking a pen out of her jacket pocket, she wrote in the free column: Robert Sloane and Kristina Simon. – Your room is on the third floor, down the corridor to the left.

And Kristina took the key off the board and handed it to her boyfriend.

- Maybe you shouldn't?

"Coward Robie, would you like to see the apartment?"

- The time is almost up, the sun will set soon, and getting to Mom will become more difficult.

"As you wish, I'll take a quick look at the number."

And the girl, without waiting for her boyfriend to decide to keep her company, went towards the elevators, where the stairs were supposed to be located nearby.

The steps, once covered with a carpet, crumbled right underfoot, the wooden railing collapsed, gathering in a toothy heap below. It was damp all around, and small bushes had sprouted somewhere, but the snow clearly couldn't get here. The girl carefully climbed up, pressing herself against the wall with mold, counting the flights.

- Why the third floor?  Robie shouted from below.

- Because it's more fun that way. Catch up, I'm already in the hallway.

 The third floor looked like a place from a horror movie. The darkness swallowed up almost the entire corridor, and it was impossible to tell how many meters it stretched into the depths. To the right of the stairs, a maid's cart was parked against the wall. The neatly folded towels were slowly rotting, and the shampoo bottles were foaming with green liquid. The girl took out her phone and turned on the flashlight. The left side of the corridor appeared in the twilight. Wallpaper was rolling off the walls, and now it was completely impossible to tell what color they were before. Some of the room doors are locked, some are open, but Kristina seemed to be walking to a certain place.

"The first, the second, the third, I think it's this one.

The girl pushed the door open and shone her light inside. The curtains on the windows had decayed, and the light of the winter sun fell on the huge bed. There were two bags and a suitcase by the chairs, from which protruded the ear of a stuffed rabbit with the child's name "Timmy" embroidered on it.

The beam of the flashlight danced across the walls and corners, and a black hand appeared from under the bed, rotted over the months. She slowly reached for the girl's leg, as if afraid to startle her.

"Where are you?" – I went into Robie's room, and the hand immediately disappeared.

"Your eyes look like you've seen a ghost."

- You won't believe it, but I think I heard music. Some kind of New Year's song.

- Fear can do a lot to our minds, believe me, I've read a lot about it.

- Come on, let's get back in the car and go to my mom. I'm not a coward, but it's too creepy.

- Okay, come down, I'll catch up with you now.

Kristina bent down and pulled the rabbit out of the suitcase. The fur remained gray and clean, and did not fit in with the destroyed hotel.

"That's creepy too, Christy. Drop it!

And at that moment, the creaking of floorboards was heard above their heads. The sound shifted, and clearly indicated heavy footsteps.

"You're right, Robie, we've gone too far.

The guy ran out of the room and raced down the corridor to the stairs, the girl ran after him. They were in such a hurry that they didn't notice that the hallway was no longer dark, and the wall sconces were starting to glow with a dim yellow light.

Robie ran down the stairs, turned the corner and almost crashed into the revolving door of the restaurant. The faint New Year's music was coming from there. The door swung open, revealing a bright kitchen with a set table.

"This can't be happening!" – the guy recognized his mother's kitchen in the setting.

There were candles, salads and a signature roast on the table with a burgundy tablecloth embroidered with Christmas toys and snowmen.

- Robert, why are you always late for family holidays? – a woman's voice was heard, which made the hairs on the back of Robie's neck stand on end.

"Mom?"

- Come in quickly, your father will be right there. The garage was covered in snow again, and he'd be working on it for another ten minutes.

The guy took only two hesitant steps forward and the doors creaked shut, blocking the light from the kitchen into the hall.

Kristina went down to the first floor and froze in complete silence.

"Robie, where are you?" Robie!

The girl walked to the center of the hall and stared at the Christmas tree, which just a few minutes ago was rotten and bent. Something has changed! The plant remained bent over, but some of the needles turned greener and the balls became shiny.

- Robie, this is not funny at all! You know I'm skittish.

Music started playing in the hall, and the gray hare fell out of the girl's hands.

"So it's all true, and my parents are here somewhere." Mom, Dad, Timmy!  Kristina rushed back to the stairs. "That old woman wasn't lying when she said that after death, souls need shelter and they're looking for a place nearby. My family should be here.

The stairs looked completely different now. The railing returned to its place, the carpet was restored and covered the steps. Lamps lit up on the spans. The third floor also managed to transform, the wallpaper turned bright yellow, the flowers in the floor vases came to life, and their scent filled the space.

- Mom always said that her favorite hotel room is four, on the third floor.

Kristina opened the door and found herself... at the reception.

"What's going on?" – the girl was dressed in a hotel uniform and was standing at the paperwork desk.

The hall shone with its sophistication and marble, a three-meter spruce sparkled with toys and garlands. People were sitting on burgundy sofas and chatting with each other. The hotel has regained its former splendor.

"This can't be happening!" Robie, where are you?  Christina shouted, and everyone present turned their heads in her direction.

The girl got out from behind the counter and ran to the exit. There was a doorman standing behind the glass door, and beyond that stretched the snowy expanse.

"Let me out!" – the girl beat on the glass with her fists, unable to open the door. The doorman turned and looked at her sadly through Robie's eyes. "Robie, help me!"

"It doesn't mater anymore," he replied, opened the door, and the girl jumped out. But what was her horror when, instead of the street, she found herself back at the reception desk.

- Please register us. We need to be settled in time for the holiday," a young woman holding a little girl's hand asked.

- what?  Kristina asked, not understanding what was going on.

- We definitely need to make it. Otherwise, you'll have to wait a whole year. Registration takes place only on this day, before the new year.

"Register yourself," Kristina threw a book at them and ran out from behind the counter again.

And so it went on and on. Kristina would run out and then find herself back at the check-in place. And Robert was launching more and more new guests, and soon the hall was so full that the hum of voices became unbearable.

"Register us," the woman with the girl asked for the umpteenth time.

"Why?" – Kristina cried, - We are all cursed here and stuck forever.

- That's why registration is needed.

"Okay," Kristina took the book and opened it to the blank pages.

The woman smiled, took a pen and wrote: Margot – one thousand nine hundred and ninety–three, Clara - two thousand sixteen.

Kristina turned the book towards her and realized that they needed to go upstairs.

"The desk clerk will show you out," she replied, and added "two thousand twenty-two."

After the woman, a man came up, and for some reason, Kristina, without understanding why, sent him downstairs. Feeling that he was different from many who came to the hotel.

"This is a record of life and death," she whispered, examining the book while the next customers lingered at the counter. I flipped through the pages and found the dates of my parents and brother. A cheerful New Year's melody was playing behind his back. "So Robie and I are dead, too?"

And she started looking for their names. After all, she made a record with her own hands at the very beginning, when they first entered the hotel. Does that mean she killed herself and Robie? The pages opened, and the book fell to the floor.

"I'll sign up," the old man asked, barely able to stand, but smiling. 

"Sure, just a second," Kristina bent down to pick up the book, on the pages of which were written: Kristina – one thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight, dash, eternity. Robert– nineteen ninety-five, dash, eternity.

"My name is Larry," the old man said.

"Welcome to the Ante Eternum Hotel, Larry. I've signed you up. You go upstairs, the receptionist will show you," Kristina smiled sadly and made an entry in the registration book. And music was playing behind him, people in the lobby were gradually leaving, the fir tree was leaning more and more towards the floor, the light was beginning to fade, warning that the new year was coming, and those who did not register on time would have to wait in the dark for the next day of registration. He will walk around a ruined hotel with a decomposing body and yearn for a past life, in a place where souls find shelter before eternity.

Highway E105

 I went out, looked at the door, and there was not a dent, but a gap, as if the rebar had been inserted and passed. The men who were in the parking lot crowded around when they saw the case, and they told him everything.

It is rumored that sometimes human bones are found in the swamps, piled up and gnawed white. And when a whole group of foreign tourists disappeared here, the cops raided the forests. We walked for a long time, until finally we found the bones sucked. And among them is a nail sharpener, which is made behind bars. By the way, there were no incidents for a long time after those events. I guess I've had enough.

That's the way it is, San. I'm not going to lie – I haven't seen anything like this myself for as long as I've been traveling. Sometimes something glittered in the headlights, but it could be foxes or wolves, they still roam here. And one day I caught a glimpse of something running across the road. It was as big as a man, but it moved like an animal. Maybe a wolf, or maybe one of these…

Anyway, no one has been missing here for a long time and no empty cars have been found, for three or four years. Either it has subsided, or everyone is lying. One thing scares me, if these creatures are real, they're probably hungry..."

I listened to this guy, to the steady rocking of the cabin, while simultaneously struggling with sleep. It's creepy, of course, to imagine such a thing at night, but so tired after those few hours on foot, my body fell into a doze with pleasure. The driver continued to tell stories and sluggishly answering him, I was already leaning against the window and starting to take a nap. Road signs, trees, poles, and the occasional oncoming car whizzed by, doing nothing to dilute the emptiness of the night highway.

Half asleep, I had been watching the glare for several minutes floating among the trees. It was like the light of the moon falling on the bike's retroreflectors.…

You know, I'm not the timid type. I've heard worse stories and even practically participated. But then I had a cramp. The longing trucker continued his stream of speech, and I was horrified to see two huge glowing eyes in the thicket, moving parallel to our car and staring at me with their attentive and very... hungry gaze.

Chilled to the bone, I turned to the driver, noticing that he had abruptly stopped talking and was staring at the road.…

The silhouette on the side of the road was rapidly approaching, and I was torn between two feelings: to shrink into the seat and become invisible, and at the same time to cling to the glass and see, as far as possible in the dark, this voting person when we pass by.

"Oh, Sanya, how lucky you are that I picked you up," the driver muttered then, without taking his eyes off the creepy figure. Most of all, she looked like a cat staring at you from the dark, with the light from a flashlight reflected in her eyes. Our truck was moving at a decent speed, which was a little reassuring, but at the same time we drove so fast that everything turned into a blur. And somewhere on the edge of hearing, I heard a disappointed howl.

"Our..."

Something was puffing right next to my door. I looked out the window and…

"Drop us off... we won't touch you... he's ours... our prey... why did you pick him up..."

This story was told to me by a trucker when I was hitchhiking in the north of our homeland. He picked me up on the E105 highway in the Murmansk region, between Monchegorsk and Pyrenga. By that time, I had already been stomping for four hours, it was dark, there was a forest around, there was some kind of reserve, I don't remember the name anymore. It's late afternoon, and the cars aren't in a hurry to slow down, even more so, they gasped at the sight of me, as if they wanted to get out as soon as possible. And only this trucker probably regretted it, and even then it was kind of strange: he stopped a hundred meters ahead, leaned out of the passenger window and pointed a flashlight at me. The sun had already sunk below the horizon, of course, but it wasn't exactly dark. And he didn't take his eyes off me the whole way that I was stomping to the car.

I came up, he wouldn't open the door, we exchanged a few words, he looked at me suspiciously, and then, for no reason at all, he told a joke. And I was tired, but this guy was so endearing to himself, and even more so, the warm cabin of his Mercedes, that at first I laughed out of politeness, and then I actually doubled over with laughter. As soon as he saw it, he opened the door, "get in," he says.

We started moving, and he looked at me askance, and we chatted about various things, and I even got a little nervous. And then he asks me straight out what I've been doing here. I tell him that I want to hitchhike to the Barents Sea, but I was delayed on the highway because no one picked me up. Then this guy grinned and said that I was lucky that he found me. Well, and then from his words:

"The roadside empties out after sunset, San. Local villagers, urban residents, only fly through this area by car and do not stop. And while it's still light, the voters are being selected, but that's if they're familiar. I'm from Murmansk, I know the place well, I've traveled all over the region. And if someone sees a pedestrian on the side of the road, he pushes his shoe into the floor and skips by. We have a story that this is not an ordinary passenger. Well, as a story, the village grandmothers will tell you what you want, it depends on the skill, the legend is rather local and I've heard it since childhood.

In general, they wander here in the evenings, until midnight, along the road. You can't make out what they look like in the dark, but no one has the courage to stop and look closely. Those who have enough will not tell. They're called fellow travelers, and they've been wandering for half a hundred years, probably.

There were sawmills here, under the Communists, the place was cleaned for interchanges and branches were made from the highway. Special components were brought from all over the Chernozem region. The places are remote, you can't get to settlements without a map more often, so they didn't keep much watch over the camps. Where are you going from here? So one day we missed an entire shift at the sawmill.

Twelve people disappeared as they had not been. They rushed to look for them, the sailors from the base were pulled up, the forest was combed, and after about a week they began to catch them one by one. The prisoners, they are only united in front of the camp administration, as soon as they are outside, everyone begins to pull the blanket over themselves. So they quarreled in the woods, scattered one by one. Four of them really stuck to each other, three old and one young. And this young man was not easy, the son of some party member, he made a frivolous noise, but did not smear the folder. He was about five years old, I think, and the Urks managed to talk him out of it.

At that time, a warning went out in the newspapers of the nearest cities, saying that there were no mushrooms or berries in the forests, otherwise you never know. The orientation points for the departments were posted. And when they began to find them, they calmed down. Well, how did the newspapermen calm down, and those who were not directly involved in the search? San, there was such a thing that captured loners told creepy things about morals.

these three, the oldest urkagans. And every next one gets scarier. When, apart from those four, the others were caught, the cops ran around like they'd been shot.

Do you know who is called "canned food" in the camps? That's it. Are you getting it now? The last one they caught told them that the grub was over, the three instigators began to look at their NZ, that's why the others ran away, they felt sick themselves. The folder of that kid howled, personally wandered through the woods with the search engines. And not a word in the newspapers, so as not to cause panic.

They found him, anyway. I managed to overcome my hunger earlier. And the scariest thing is that they literally didn't get a kilometer to the highway. They would have gotten themselves something to eat there. After that, the authorities secretly ordered them to be nailed on the spot. And they did shoot after a couple of days. They hid in the swamps, they thought that they would not be searched much there. They were having a meal when the sailors jumped out at them, they didn't even have time to gnaw the bones properly. The bodies were loaded onto an all-terrain vehicle and taken to the city, and it just fell into the quagmire. The driver barely managed to jump out. So they left them in the swamp.

And after a couple of seasons, people began to disappear in the area. Those who walked along the road in the evening are on the missing persons lists. People started to be cautious, stopped walking here, everything seemed to calm down for a year, and then they began to find empty cars on the side of the road. Everything is as one – with its nose in the ground, as if it jumped off the road at speed, the doors are wide open, things are overturned and there is no trace around.

They attacked the raiders, patrolled, ambushed, but to no avail. And the people around are not the police, it's not shameful to believe in devilry. Therefore, when rumors about strange people standing on the night road started, they immediately realized everything. Then they almost stopped finding empty cars, no one stops. It rarely happens, but all the rooms there are not local.

Those who have skipped past this devilry say that when the light hits their eyes, you can immediately see that there is not a person there, because they glow like two saucers. And the longer they go without food, the wider their eyes get. That's why I was looking into your eyes, checking.

And another driver, from Murmansk, said that he unknowingly braked the truck once at night. He was saved by the fact that the cabin was high, and he couldn't reach the window right away. Just as he was about to roll down the window to talk, that's how I am with you, and this creature is already standing at the door. It's dark, you can't see anything, and she says to him, "Open up, man, I beg you from the bottom of my heart." The driver crossed himself, fired up his cart at once and drove off into the distance. He says that people don't wheeze like that and they don't look at you out of the dark like wolves. When he started to turn off the gas, it hit his door like a bang, it was good – metal, this creature did not reach the window. The glass would have crumbled at once. He raced for a long time, and did not sleep a wink until the morning. At first light, I found a parking lot where people were, and I got up there.

A wheezing, growling, breathless voice came from the other side of the cabin. Exactly the same shadow as mine under the door was hopping after the truck and demanding to speak to the trucker. The man frowned, pursed his lips and just turned on the gas, forcing the creatures to stay.

They drove on in oppressive silence until the trucker gasped and pressed the horn button. I jumped at the deafening horn and peered into the distance. A car rushing to the left suddenly swerved to the side and I managed to see a shadow flash right in front of it, jumping out to intercept. Jumping into oncoming traffic, she barely managed to avoid a head-on collision, in a lighted

In the cabin, a man and a woman, judging by the horror on their faces, were already saying goodbye to their lives. Children's hands clung to the back of the driver's seat…

He braked right in the middle of the road.…

The trucker and I exchanged glances, and the first impulse to stop and intervene immediately passed when the side mirrors finally reflected what was happening around the unfortunate's car.

"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...

The elevator is not working

 I noticed the sign "Elevator does not work" the day we moved from Limoges to Pestrak. My parents did not have their own apartment, and because of this we often had to change the address. At the age of eleven, I was no longer hysterical about such circumstances.

The summer heat was unbearable. The interior of our (or rather, Dad's) BMW was stuffy, and I hurried to get out of it.

—Holy shit! — I heard the screams of one of the movers. — Cargo does not work. We're going to die before we get all this stuff up to the sixteenth floor.

— Let him pay extra! — the voice of another loader rang out. — The miserly bespectacled one.

Dad was talking to someone on his cell phone and didn't get out of the car. Unloading of furniture began without him. She was commanded by a blond guy in a yellow T-shirt and work pants.

I entered the entrance, following the movers, who dragged my wheelchair up the stairs. He stopped at the landing and waited for them to climb two flights of stairs. He wanted to follow them, but changed his mind when he saw the doors of the freight elevator with the sign "Elevator does not work." If it hadn't been for this sign, I probably would have passed it by.

The doors of the freight elevator were in the same wall as the doors of the passenger elevator. There were rusty mailboxes on the opposite wall.

The entrance was dirty and in need of major repairs. The old green paint has partially crumbled. In one corner, a black spider web was waving under the ceiling, and a healthy fat spider was crawling along it.

I pressed the button to call the freight elevator several times and, losing interest in it due to the fact that nothing happened, I moved to the passenger one, but I hadn't taken three steps when I heard a strange screeching sound behind me.

I turned around and saw how the doors of the freight elevator began to open reluctantly, with jerks. I stared at them in fascination. It's still working, it flashed through my mind. There was no limit to my curiosity, I really wanted to look into the opening cabin.

I flinched as I made eye contact with my reflection. A large oval mirror was attached to the wall of the cabin, which caught my eye immediately after opening the doors. Apparently, one of the tenants decided a long time ago that he belonged here. It was old, slightly dusty, with a crack dividing it from top to bottom into two unequal parts.

I entered the elevator car and approached the control panel with the old rectangular buttons. Without hesitation, I pressed the button with the number 16. The elevator doors slowly began to close with an unpleasant screech. It seemed to me that they didn't have the strength to do it faster.

—Come on, you old fart! Come on!  I hurried the elevator as if it were a living being.

The doors obediently slid open. However, it took them twenty seconds or even more. I was disappointed when the elevator didn't move. He didn't even twitch. I pressed the number one button and held it down, trying to force the doors to open. In the old elevators, this technique worked. It also didn't work, although it wasn't new either.

My palms were covered with sweat, and my heart was beating faster. But I didn't panic. There was nothing terrible about this situation—I've been in worse scrapes.

The biggest thing I could get was a slap on the back of the head from my dad. One more, one less. And that's if I have to take my cell phone out of my shorts pocket and call him.

And I wasn't going to call him. Instead, he started pressing all the buttons on the elevator's control panel. First, he ran his fingers over the buttons with numbers, then pressed the "stop" button and then the emergency door release button. Having received no result, I pressed the "dispatcher" call button with my index finger and felt my ears and cheeks turn red.

Something hissed and went silent in the speaker at the top of the control panel. Two seconds later, something crackled and hissed again.

"I'll come for you," a man's voice came from the speaker. — Sit quietly and wait.

The hairs on my head stood up, and I realized that it was time to call my dad. With a trembling hand, I pulled the Nokia out of my pocket and dialed his number. There were long beeps on my cell phone. At the same time, someone outside rattled on the sliding doors with either an awl, a screwdriver, or something similar. I held my breath. The sound was even worse — the nerves were not happy — as if someone was wielding an awl not at the doors, but at something alive, responding with a squeak to all this mockery.

— Hello! — my relative finally responded.

— Dad!  I shouted into the phone.

—Tell me,— he replied roughly and unpleasantly.

"Dad, I'm stuck in the elevator!"

"I'm happy for you," Dad said, "but I have to get to work right away."

My jaw dropped. And it took me a while to find something to say to him.

—Daddy, please,— I whimpered, "get me out of here."

But it was too late — the father broke off the connection. That didn't suit me, so I dialed his phone number again. He didn't answer, and it was very strange, unlike him. Would he leave me alone in a closed, malfunctioning elevator? Is he really going to go to work calmly, knowing that I have serious problems? No, he wouldn't do that.

The scratching became louder and louder. Those who wielded an awl or something similar began to put in a lot more effort. It was unclear why he was doing all this. What did he want to achieve with this?

"Who's there?"  I whined.

The scratching stopped.

"You're scared, aren't you?" "What is it?" a girl asked.

— Very much… Who are you?

— I'm Marina.

— Marinochka, please call someone.

— It's better not to do that.

— Why?!

— If I call him, it will be bad... very bad.

"Get someone else."

"He's the only one here. I'm the only one here.

"Don't be silly!  I shouted. — This can't be happening! Call any apartment and call one of the adults.

The elevator jerked violently, and the light in the cabin became unbearably bright. I squeezed my eyes shut.

"You calm down and sit down,— the girl advised. "That's better, I know. The more fear overwhelms you, the more powerful it becomes.

"Who is he?"

"He's an elevator. If he moves, you'll die.

The smell of burning plastic was added to the bright light. And black smoke streamed through the upper ventilation grate. I swallowed the lump in my throat and pounded on the elevator door with my fist.

— Marina!  I shouted. — Help me, please. There's smoke.

"I can't help you if you don't listen to me."

— Fire, Marina! Fire!

"I feel sorry for you," she replied in a calm voice.

"I don't want to die," I sobbed, and there was a thud on the wall of the cabin, on the side where the control panel was located. Someone hit the elevator wall with superhuman force, so that it staggered.

"Sit on the floor and close your eyes," Marina whispered.— Try to calm down.

I sat down on the floor, took a deep breath and exhaled well. The speaker hissed. I closed my eyes, and immediately someone rattled the elevator from below.

— Marina, I'm scared.

The scratching was repeated.

The girl didn't respond, and I suspected something was wrong.

— Marina, where are you?  I whined. — Marinochka.

There is silence in response.

We need to call Mom urgently — she will help! She will not betray or abandon. She's not like Dad. As soon as I thought about my mom, I felt better. And most importantly, everything is quiet — no scraping, no hitting, as if nothing had happened. The elevator doors jerked and opened slightly. Through the gap I saw the rusty mailboxes. I tried to push the doors further apart myself so that I could get out, but they wouldn't budge. But I saw my mom.: She took a step back and came into my field of vision.

"We have a whole hour," Mom muttered, and the blond guy who was in charge of the shipment approached her.

He wrapped his arms around her fragile shoulders, hugged her to him, and said:

— Now we will see you more often. You don't have a husband, you have a moron.

"That's right," Mom sang and pulled away from him a little. He smiled at her, and she stood on tiptoe and lifted her lips to his, playfully extending the tip of her tongue.

Uncle's hand slid below Mom's waist, and I screamed at the top of my voice.:

— Mom, help me! Mom!

But there was no reaction from mom and the blond goat. They continued in the same spirit as they started.

— Mom! Mom! Mom!  I couldn't calm down and screamed until my voice was hoarse.

The doors opened a little wider, allowing me to reach out to grab my mom's elbow. I almost reached out, but the doors did a mean thing — they abruptly clamped my hand. And it was squeezed so hard that stars flashed before my eyes.

The elevator started moving and began to rise. I realized with horror what was waiting for me. I didn't feel any pain—my arm was cut off in a matter of seconds. A fountain of blood filled the entire cabin.

When I woke up, I didn't immediately understand why my hand was in place. Slowly, the thought came to my mind that in reality nothing had been cut off. Apparently, after my arm was severely squeezed, I lost consciousness, and my brain plunged me into a nightmarish vision.

The elevator doors were half open, and it was pitch dark. I could have tried to get out. But I didn't want that at all. Only the damn elevator knew what was waiting for me outside. Where did he take me? What was his next trick?

The doors shook and opened completely. In the darkness, something moved and crawled, scooping up fragments of glass or iron, or maybe both, with its body.

I got to my feet and tried to see what kind of creature was approaching me. But I didn't see anything. What I disliked the most was that the light burning in the elevator didn't even illuminate what was beyond it.

The thing was getting closer and closer. A flash of light outside the elevator lit up the corridor for a moment, and I managed to see a huge evil thing that looked like an alligator, really crawling over the broken glass. Her brain was bubbling in her open skull, like pea porridge in a saucepan on high gas. And some of them were overflowing.

Another flash — this powerful toothy creature cut the distance in half and opened its mouth. I pressed myself against the wall, counting the seconds until she attacked.

Suddenly, Dad's voice rang out from the darkness:

"What's the matter with you, son?" Come out. Can't you see the elevator isn't working.

Glass crunched on the floor very close. A flash of light showed that the evil spirits had almost reached the elevator. All she had to do was make one last sharp leap.

One more second and her sharp teeth will close on my body. That's it! That's it! It's going to happen right now!

Against all odds, I rushed into the darkness to meet the creature. The doors clanged behind him, and the darkness immediately dissipated. I saw a surprised father, rusty mailboxes on the wall, and movers trying to shove a book table into a passenger elevator.

"I can't understand," his father chuckled, "why you're so twisted."

I would have told him, but I doubt he would have believed me.