The Place Where

by Rodion Pretis

  - I'm not a beggar! I objected. “I am doing away with evil.” Donations, however, are accepted.

  “Get out of here,” said the clown mate, a transvestite. “You won't scare us.”

  Undoubtedly, it didn't even occur to them that I was their only salvation. They were blind, they did not understand that I, and only I could save their worthless necks. All but one: of course, the demon himself. He knew who I was - I read it in his cold, cold eyes. I have also seen fear settle in it. I knew that soon he would beg me; I already heard him begging, and they sounded music in my ears. A hunter-sanctified game against a corrupt Satanic spawn will soon be played again.

  “Don’t you understand?” This is not a man! This is a vampire! Just from the seventh circle of Hell!

  “Well, yes, and I am Batman,” answered another, in a gray tights, “it seemed to me in a completely Renfield tone.”

  - No! - What a blind idiots! “I mean, he's really a vampire!” The real one! He will suck you fools like a cheap bottle of wine!

  And then these nerds began to laugh - laugh, like the true puppets of Lucifer, which they now are. It was truly true to see how easily they were bewitched. I met my gaze with the devilish creature, and he laughed too, with obvious complacency thinking that now he was not in danger.

  I realized that it was time to act. Putting my hand inside my coat, I groped a bubble in my inner pocket, took it out and uncorked the cork.

  “It will make you believe,” I said, raising my hand high. “This is holy water: the only way to recognize a vampire.” - I swung widely and threw the bubble in his direction.

  The bull's eye! The bubble shattered, pouring all over his chest, splattering his hands and face.

  He burst out laughing even more, and the rest joined him. They gasped with laughter and clapped their thighs. They could not stop and rolled up again and again - until the first smoke began to smoke.

  The vampire's skin smoked, swollen, and went in blisters; he let out a heartbreaking howl, like the wild beast that he was.

  The rest, freed from the spell with which the vampire had braided them, fell into a panic.

  Members of the company began to run back and forth, splashing their hands and shaking their heads, as if not believing what they were witnesses. These people, some seconds ago counting the evil spirit in their friends, now saw him as he really was. For them it was an awakening.

  - Oh my God! - exclaimed the clown. - This is all true! It's true! He is really a vampire!

  And then it was my turn to laugh. When you tell them that there is holy water in a bubble, it always makes them lose their heads. But every good vampire hunter knows that all this religious chatter is not worth a damn: if you want a real reaction, there is nothing better than a good portion of undiluted hydrochloric acid.

  It is easy to understand that none of them understood what to do next. It's good that I was there. Without me, they could fall into a state of complete stupor, but I somehow knew what to do. I knew how to finish this thing.

  I pulled a pointed wooden stake from under my coat and threw it at the clown.

  - Pierce it! Come on, right in the heart!

  He stood limply holding a stake in his hand and staring blankly at him with an expression of horror on his face.

  - Come on! I roared. “This is your only chance!”

  The clown brought his weapon - determination appeared on his face - and rushed forward. Kohl found his goal, and a stream of inhuman blood gushed from the chest of the satanic creature.

  Another point in favor of the good guys.

  My work has been completed. I set off further, not waiting for them to shower me with expressions of gratitude and praise. As a final parting word, I shouted over their shoulder:

  - Do not forget to cut off your head and stuff it with garlic! Then burn - head and body separately!

  I turned a corner, leaving them to clean up the scene and deal with local authorities. I suppose they owed me at least that - after all that I did for them. In addition, the night was just beginning: I was still waiting for a lot of unclean creatures for reprisal and a lot of sweets as prey.

  William Browning Spencer

  Armageddon lights

  The light bulb burned out with a soft pop that frightened Mrs. Ward. She was sixty-seven years old, so this was not the first time a light bulb had blown out in her presence - but each time it disturbed a woman. At the first moment, you might think that this clap and the unexpected dullness of the world is happening somewhere inside you, as if some of the brain cells were overstrained and suddenly burst.

  She was very happy to discover that this was not a stroke. Dropping knitting on her knees, she called her husband.

  “What happened, Marge?” He asked, rising from the basement.

  “The bulb is out,” she answered.

  Her husband, without saying a word, went to the lamp, turned out the light bulb and headed for the kitchen, returning from there with a new one.

  “Well, now let's see if this thing starts to burn,” he said.

  “Why don't she burn?” Asked Marge. Her husband was sometimes completely unbearable.

  “But this is one of those light bulbs that you made me buy from that weirdo who was hanging around here yesterday - well, you remember him.” He said that the money would go to a good cause, and I asked: “What's the matter? ”, And he said - not immediately, but as if he had to compose something - he said:“ To the blind. ”

  “I remember that you were rude to him, Harry Ward, and that is why I had to force you to buy a box.” Sometimes you act like you were raised by orangutans.

  “I couldn't help myself,” said Harry. “Light bulbs for the blind are like earplugs for the deaf,” I told him. And that was really funny, damn it, and he didn't even laugh! And I bought him a whole box of these bulbs, right? And there are two dozen in it, Marge! Harry took the light bulb and examined it, squinting his eyes. “It seems that everything seems to be in order, and this is the maximum that can be said - judging by the appearance of the guy who sold them. Just think - it's such a heat, probably ninety degrees in the shade, and he's wearing a coat, his face is white like stucco, his lips are red - just lipstick, Marge! - and even wrap a scarf around his neck, as if it freezes!

  “The poor thing must have been unwell, Harry.” - Marge sighed. Her husband was not a sensitive person. Of course, he had his own merits, but sometimes she had a desire to call everyone by their proper names. Forty years ago, he really looked handsome with his mustache, and some kind of hypnotic energy emanated from him, something poetic ... Now the mustache has long faded into the past, and the energy has become a constant painful concern - like an old maid who is convinced that she has there is a gas leak in the apartment.

  “Harry, I was going to knit,” Marge reminded her.

  “Okay, okay,” Harry said. “You always lacked patience.”

  Harry leaned over the lamp and screwed in a light bulb. The room lit up.

  - Look, it works! - said Harry.

  “Of course it works,” Marge confirmed.

  Harry returned to his basement, and Marge returned to her knitting. She had a little nap and woke up around ten in the evening when Harry again went upstairs.

  “I'm going to sleep,” he said.

  “And I probably still read,” said Marge. “I don't feel like sleeping at all.”

  She followed her husband up the stairs. She waited until the bedroom door closed behind him, and then went into the kitchen. I found a box with bulbs in the closet. Then she pulled out a stepladder, installed it in the middle of the room, climbed onto it and replaced all three bulbs in the chandelier. She threw the old ones into the bin and went into the dining room.

  By the time she dragged the stepladder to the upper floor and unscrewed the light bulb in the bathroom, she was already a little tired. You will never suspect how many light bulbs are in the house, until you have to replace them all at the same time.

  And why, why did she need to do su
ch things? If she had been asked about this - if some interested observer had put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her, - Marge would have answered: “I don't even know ... Perhaps I can't say why I am doing this . ”

  But there was no one nearby who could ask such a question, and therefore Marge only thought about how tedious the task was. Here you go; and the bedroom will have to wait until morning.

  The weird guy who sold Wards light bulbs was a wizard named Ernest Jones. As a result of an accident that happened to him when trying to summon some demons, he fell into slavery to the Brave People, and now he carried out their assignment, distributing light bulbs that were supposed to call them.

  Despite the dazzling sun of Florida, he froze at this job. He froze to the bone, from the top of his head to his heels.

  Ernest returned to the van and was just packing the last light in the box when his rival appeared in the trailer - a tall, sweet-talking wizard named Blake.

  “I know what you're up to,” said Blake. “You illuminate the world so that the Divines can find a way into it.”

  “Maybe so,” said Jones. “I would advise you to go about your business.”

  “Your advice is late,” Blake said. “I watched you yesterday.” I know what you're up to, and I will not allow this to happen.

  “Listen to what I tell you,” Jones said, turning to him. “I can enter you, too.” You will also be at the forefront. Wondrous People can be very generous in relation to those who help them.

  Blake, a thin, arrogant young man with imperious manners, laughed.

  “I'm afraid I already signed another contract.” I made a deal with the Eternal Abyss.

  From his voluminous, like any wizard's pocket, Blake pulled out a light bulb.

  “And I have my own lighthouses,” he said.

  Jones let out a hoarse throaty roar and pounced on his interlocutor, knocking him down. The light bulb fell out and crashed to the floor. In the linoleum, issuing a short bark, a black, metal-casting, lizard-like creature darted.

  Jones and Blake fought rolling around on the floor. Suddenly, Blake's body went limp, and Jones rose to his feet.

  “Ah, you son of a bitch,” he muttered, and began to mumble with a recitative a spell summoning demon cleaners.

  Blake, still lying on the floor, opened his eyes. Then he pulled out a small silver revolver and shot half a shot at Jones.

  Then Blake called his own unclean team to clean up the corpse. And while they crunched the mortal remains of an opponent, Blake methodically destroyed the boxed bulbs, crushing with his boot every arachnid creature emerging from a broken shell. Filling the box again with his Master's beacons, he hummed in an undertone:

  - Oh, old black magic,

  Take me to your spells ...

  For Louise, village life was new, and she immediately hated it. She was a young, blooming twenty-two year old woman; she was not ready to be content with a veranda covered with mosquito nets, a rocking chair and chatting with countless hordes of insects.

  Johnny persuaded her to move here. He said: “This is me, and you will not have to go to work every day for fifty miles. All I ask is for you to try. ”

  And where were her brains? She wondered now. “Remember, Louise Rivers,” she said, referring to the empty room, “an alarm should sound in your head as soon as Johnny starts something with the words“ Everything I ask for ... ”Everything I ask for - this one time to go to the cinema with me. All I ask for is one kiss. All I ask of you is to remove the tights so that I can admire your lap. Old songs! ”

  And here you go: she sticks out here in the village, five miles to a wretched, numbed local shop, but no car! In addition, the heat is such that it would not melt the dark glasses that she left lying on a chair on the lawn in front of the house.

  Louise stepped out onto the road and started toward Ward - feeling the midday sun, like a mad dog, breathing into the back of her head. The wards lived on an old farmhouse deeply rooted in Florida dust, with a palmetto on either side of the door and an old pickup truck under a single oak tree in the yard.

  Louise had a list of groceries in her hand, and the words in her brain were ready: “If you are going to the store, could you grab something for me?”

  The Ward family seemed to her pretty sweet old men - of those couples who seemed to be always married; they even looked a bit like each other, as happens with long-married spouses.

  Louise knocked on the door. No one answered her.

  - Hey! She called. Maybe they decided to take a nap? Village life has a dream ...

  Louise knocked louder. Then she turned the handle and pushed the door. She threw open inward and a bright pulsating light surged towards the woman.

  “Mrs. Ward! ” - shouted Louise. The living room was flooded with silver light, sucking colors from the walls, from the sofa, from carved armchairs. Mrs. Ward rose from the couch to meet her. Due to stroboscopic flashes of light, it seemed that it was moving in jerks: one image was superimposed on another.

  “Come in, my dear,” said Mrs. Ward.

  She took Louise's hand and led her to the sofa.

  The room was cold, as if in a refrigerator car. Mrs. Ward wore several sweaters, and a woolen hat over her head that covered her hair.

  Mrs. Ward turned and shouted:

  “Harry, look who's coming!” This is our neighbor!

  Louise looked at the top of the stairs and saw Mr. Ward. He began to descend the steps, moving a little awkwardly from behind a large cardboard box, which he was clutching in his hands.

  - Good afternoon, good afternoon! Mr. Ward shouted to her with a smile. Like his wife, he was wrapped from head to toe to withstand the cold.

  Louise got a little used to the light. The brief moment, when fear and awe seized her, passed, and now the light seemed to her charmingly inquisitive - like children's fingers, shyly feeling her face, sliding on her hands, gently stroking her hair.

  “Your place is very light,” said Louise. She forgot why she came here.

  Mrs. Ward leaned forward and patted her blue denim knee.

  “More than enough,” she said. “There is still more than not enough light here.” It is dark as at night, from the point of view of the Marvelous People. Harry and I are doing what we can, but there are only two of us. Will you help us, right?

  “Uh, of course ...” said Louise.

  Harry shuffled toward them and set the box down on the floor. He put his hand into her and pulled out a light bulb.

  “My dear,” he said, and held out a light bulb to Louise with an exquisite half-bow, as if offering a rose to her.

  Louise was fascinated.

  - Oh thanks! - she said. She put a light bulb on her cheek - she was cold and seemed to vibrate.

  “I beg you, when you leave, take the whole box with you,” said Mrs. Ward. - We have a lot of them.

  The villagers are so generous, Louise thought.

  It was already dark when Johnny turned off the highway into a turn toward Polk Hill. Once he had to stop, because the lover bugs stuck up his windshield; there were so many that he could not make out anything. Oddly enough, the travel brochures dedicated to Florida did not say anything about these little bastards who hung in black clouds over the highways, constantly copulating - hence their name appeared. These vile insects have spawned a whole industry here: guard shields from lovers on the radiator grill, solvent lovers for windshields, comic stickers with lovers attached to the bumper ...

  However, Johnny loved Florida - as soon as a guy from Minnesota could love her. He did not mind at all that he would never again see snowfall or an icy tree. And Louise thought the same. The first place they settled in was Tampa - but it turned out to be too crowded, and he persuaded Louise to move to Polk Hill. There was already a real village - with cows, thistles and red-faced farmers with dogs.

  Johnny fell in love with this place, but Louise was still a little depressed by the move. She liked tampa more.

  He turned near Waples Drive and slowed down
to fit into patched asphalt. Ahead, near the Wards, light shone in every window of the house. “For whatever reason?” Johnny wondered.

  Johnny turned a corner and saw his own house. Light poured from all the windows. That's interesting: here, in the village, the electric light seems brighter - he had already noted this before, but now, on a moonless night, it was even more noticeable.

  Johnny stopped the car and turned off the ignition.

  Walking along the stone slabs rising up the stairs, he noticed that the light in the windows seemed to pulsate. Strange ... Looking at his feet, Johnny saw hundreds on the ground - no, thousands of beating moths. Some of them were no more than a cent coin, others were rather large, with pale green or yellow wings.