Russian Horror Book. Victor Bacau
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on, mom, I’m going to be okay,” it was me who started the conversation, and I had to calm her down. I hugged her and kissed her gently on the top of her head, as she used to do to me fifteen years ago.
“Everything will be okay,” I said again, “you know I don’t get into murky waters.”
I calmed her down and sent her to bed, and sat down in my room at the computer and began to look for information. I didn’t believe I was looking for it.
Vuver means ‘vampire’ in our region.
Regions are different, people are different. In our country, each region is dominated by some native, local ethnicity. And each ethnicity has a legend or a story about vampires. Such an old exploitive subject! We’re in the twenty-first century, and we still believe in magic, in Baba Yaga, and in people who can to revive after death and to drink blood!
Century twenty-first.
Outraged, I still kept googling it – about vampires, and about the cases people could suddenly wake up in the morgue and so on and so on. I tickled my nerves with scary tales, morgue stories and all that stuff, and then somehow it imperceptibly happened I began to look through our pictures in social networks, pictures of Max, Marina, and other friends. Our class, our graduation party, our first day at uni.
And that hag kept coming to mind. Everything about her was weird. She kinda was hard of hearing nevertheless she managed to hear Marina was knocking at the wrong door. She said Max and Marina never came to see her… No, no, – she didn’t say anything about Max.
She never said a word about her grandchildren, but old people love speaking on this subject! They are happy about having grandchildren, and feel pity if they don’t have any. Older people like to talk about themselves also, but that one didn’t say anything about herself, not even a word.
I leaned back in my computer chair and closed my eyes. Suddenly I remembered the moment as once went to the kitchen when Mom was drinking tea, and for some reason I asked her,“Mom, where’s the garlic?”
I don’t remember why I needed it. She looked at me like I was a dope and said, “Garlic’s in the fridge. Look for a wooden stake in the cupboard.”
We then laughed to tears. My Mom could have pulled a joke like that.
And then I found myself in a cold sweat.
The fridge.
I saw something on the hag’s fridge! The same I saw on Max’ pictures!
I started flipping through them again, clicking my mouse like a madman.
Not here.
Not there.
Maybe Marina’s pics?
That’s right. Marina had posted a picture from her office where their working team was all together. The table, some documents on it, business cards and…
Cards. Green and white business cards. I saw a card like this on the hag’s fridge. A small card, clamped under a magnet. I, too, had those cards lying around the house, – Max brought me alot of them when he got that job.
The hag definitely met one of my friends.
Maybe Max. He would never refuse to drink tea for free and he could talk endlessly with anyone, even with annoying old ladies. He could have left a card for her grandchild, or just forget it. He was there anyway!
Unless, of course…
It had to be found out. Definitely. I didn’t care if I would be called paranoid, I had to go back to that house.
***
On the way there I was sure of being ready for anything. But when I was finally close to her house I realized that I was afraid. It was about half past ten. Not a window in the house was lit.
I scheduled a day and lied to my mother about going on duty at night. I took with a flashlight and a knife with me, as if I’d going camping. I was ready to shoot everything on camera in my smartphone and, among other things, I bought a small recorder, just in case.
And though there was not fear inside, the closer I was to my goal, the more I was shaking. Literally shaking with the rush of adrenaline.
The door of the second entrance was wide open – there was no light.
I enabled video mode of my smartphone, put it in a special pocket. I turned on the flashlight and went up the creaking stairs.
Those stairs! When we visited the house together with the district police officer (by the way my friend is really giant, not like me) and bulbs lighted up at the entrance, I didn’t pay attention to the stairs. But that moment, with every creak giving a deafening echo that was heard from every corner, – I remembered the stairs from my childhood nightmares; I ran, choking with fear, and the stairs fell under my feet…
In was chilly inside – that made my skin crawl badly.
What nonsense, I repeated to myself, I am only going to visit a lonely old lady to learn a little more than I know now.
When I reached the third floor, I knocked her door. My heart was pounding like a tambourine. I heard a small shuffling, then a faint creaking as she looked through the peephole to see who was knocking.
I pointed the flashlight to my face and waved my hand.
“Hello!” I said, trying to do loud enough to be heard from outside.
There came a clang of keys, and finally the door opened.
“Electrician?”
***
There was no any light in the whole house, so the hag’s apartment was dark as a grave… I put on the flashlight the way it was bright enough, but not to shine in anyone’s eyes.
“Hello! Remember me? I was here with the district police officer, you treated us to tea!”
The old woman looked at me with her big, colorless eyes.
“And what?”
“I am… I want to thank you. And ask a few more questions.”
“Can’t you fix the light?”
“Well… I’m not a master at this, to be honest.”
The old woman looked at me and was silent, as if waiting for something else. Then she woke up, shook her head and waved her bony hand.
“Come in then, don’t let the cold in here.”
I was tempted to ask her, “Aren’t you afraid to let me in? What if I’m some kind of maniac?” but I kept my mouth shut.
There was pitch black everywhere, and if I hadn’t my flashlight, I would have tripped over something and smashed my nose. The old woman shuffled to the kitchen, and I followed her.
There she lit the candle. She struck a match, and it became even lighter, and it turned out that was the third candle she lit. Two short candles had melted right onto the bare table.
“Some tea, if you want,” she muttered, but I refused.
I felt uncomfortable. I felt stupid, blaming myself for coming there!
What’s going on in her old brain? She’d probably already thought of something wrong. If the tale my mother told me was true, even a part of it, – that poor old woman must have nothing good to expect from a guest like me. She knows, for sure