I started scribbling, writing down the code the man kept spelling out for me. Half of my brain focused on writing down what I had already remembered, while the other half was trying to memorize what the man was saying. When I finally caught up to him without missing a single number or a letter, I let out an audible laugh.
"...Five! Three! S-H-G-T-U! Thirteen Hundred!" - he finished the code. I could hear someone shout something in the back, but I could not make out what was said.
"That’s it, pizdets![2]" - the unusual sound of swearing on a government channel jolted through me like a lightning bolt and made me squeal with excitement.
"He said ‘pizdets!’" - I whispered to myself, giggling like a preschooler who heard a swear in his favorite morning cartoon while his parents were still asleep, completely oblivious to their child’s revelation.
I heard the sounds of ruckus in the background, and then the transmission was over.
I couldn’t believe it, yet the sound, familiar to every Russian, was indeed coming out of my radio. The number station which usually transmitted only encrypted messages once a year was now broadcasting "Swan Lake" ballet by Tchaikovsky.
Most people from my generation wouldn’t pick up on the significance of it if they hadn’t heard about it from someone - mostly because we were born after the fall of the USSR. But everyone who’d lived through those times knew Tchaikovsky’s creation as a harbinger of change and turmoil. Russian TV stations were airing "Swan Lake" as a subtle way to alert the people that the secretary of the USSR was dead - the only way Russian leaders left their post since the dawn of the country’s history. The last time it had been used in 1991: when the USSR had collapsed, "Swan Lake" was the only thing on for three days in a row.
So, for everyone over thirty, that serene melody meant only one thing. "The end of an era."
I was not intimidated by the implication, though. On the contrary, I was beyond excited.
On late nights, I’d sometimes sit in grandpa’s chair and open a sci-fi book - either Heinlein or Belyaev - and read it while listening to the monotone buzz of the radio, dreaming of catching a signal from open space or a passing UFO. Often my imagination would start to go wild - conspiracies, men in black, green men sending me the coordinates of their next landing site - and the author’s written fantasy in my hands would take a backseat until my own daydreams would subside.
And now, after hundreds of hours, I had this.
It was unreal. It was my "WOW!" signal. And just like the original, it was just as cryptic.
At that moment, I didn’t care what it was. The declaration of war, the warning of a nuclear holocaust, the countdown for a gamma-ray burst - such trivial, minuscule things didn’t matter for me. At that moment I felt like some personal mission of mine was finally complete. I felt like my grandpa was proudly smiling at me from heaven, his blessings reaching me through radio waves. I did it. I finally managed to catch something noteworthy. Across these unseen waves, I finally spotted my Moby Dick.
When the initial rush of emotion passed, I sat down and tried to analyze what I had just heard. A military radio station just broadcast a worried, encrypted message. A message which I couldn’t yet grasp, yet which made the broadcaster agitated enough that he lost track of his words. I doubted that it was part of the code. For a second, a living, breathing human had peeked through his strict military overcoat. And, after a moment of silence - the universal signal that every Russian could understand. Swan Lake. "We’re done here."
I glanced at the clock to check when the message was received. 8:19 AM. I was late for work. I jumped to my feet and rushed for the exit.
CHAPTER 2 - The End of an Era
I spent a brief minute putting on some clothes - whatever I had lying around - and two minutes looking for gloves and a scarf. The window panes were shaking under the wind's assault, and it would be wise to seek protection from it as I'll be waiting for my bus at a bus stop.
I hopped outside onto the stairwell, closed the door almost identical to the three other doors on the same floor - an iron sheet, covered in puce foam rubber for sound isolation, and rushed downstairs.
Coming down to the first floor, I prepared to hop down the last flight of stairs like usual but slowed down at the last second. There were people on the stairwell - lots of people. Old and scruffy, and with faces that bore a constant mark of dissatisfaction with everyone and everything. My neighbors.
They seemed to be more unhappy than usual - unhappy enough to be voicing their concerns. But everyone was talking at the same time, and I had a hard time figuring out what any of them were saying. All I could tell was that they were complaining about something.
Coming down to them, I realized why they were standing on the stairs - the rest of the space up to the very door was occupied with people. The air was hot and damp from their collective breathing, and I could also feel the heavy atmosphere that lingered there.
I knew that the majority of people who lived in my building were pensioners. Those who came to our town long ago and got stuck here once the town started withering away without the funds from Moscow.
Pensioners always seem to be going somewhere at the oddest hours. Sometimes the reason for it could be to buy groceries on the other side of town where they cost a ruble less, and sometimes, as I suspected, it was to escape the walls of their home. I wouldn't mind it in the slightest if it didn’t mean that every bus wasn't filled to the brim with them. Since I was raised to respect my elders, that meant that they always denied me my sitting place. It was at those early hours when I'd look at a seventy-year old woman and start to wonder where she was taking that enormous bag of hers at 7 AM, and whether there really was a good reason for it or if she was just doing it all on autopilot.
So, I wasn't surprised to see so many of them in the morning - unlike me, most of the old people were early birds. What I was surprised about, however, was that they had gathered in one place - the bottom of the stairwell, of all places. Was this some tenants’ meeting that I was not informed about? Did the town hall raise the cost of utilities again and they had gathered to vent about it?
I decided not to ask any questions. It was clear that they were already worked up. Why talk to them and face the risk of becoming a scapegoat for their ire?
The tenants didn't like me and were always suspicious of me. I understood that it was not personal. That they were distrustful towards me because after the fall of the USSR, when the country was in disarray, young men like me preyed on the weak like them. That their paranoia that I was after their measly pension check and an outdated TV was a natural state of mind for them. But there was a limit toward how much hostility I was willing to tolerate. And the best way to avoid it was to pretend that it was not there.
I slipped past one person, then another. Mentally congratulated myself for not touching them and alerting them to my presence. But things were getting more difficult fast. I asked someone's shoulder for a permission to pass, received no reply, and tried to gently push past it. The shoulder violently jerked me as I was trying to walk by, and from somewhere attached to it came a grunt of dissatisfaction.
The situation repeated again, and then one more time. Each time the grunts were getting more aggressive, and I was getting more annoyed.
Finally, on the fourth time, somebody voiced their displeasure. "What the hell are shoving me for? Do you need to get somewhere more than everyone here?" - the man in his sixties asked me when I pushed past him.
He growled it into my ear, and I almost lost my footing. I was still on the stairs, and my feet were on different steps. The man was a few steps above me, looming over me, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I didn't want to argue with someone who could send me tumbling down with one push.
"I'm late for my job, sir. Sorry for pushing you," - I explained to him.
That, however, didn't defuse the situation. Instead, I incited him even more.
"What job? Hello?" - the man aggressively inquired, bulging his eyes at
me as if I was missing the most obvious thing in the world, and my politeness quickly ran dry.
"The one you don't have anymore," - I grunted. "Let me through, I can't be late because you all decided to have an alumni meeting here."
The man shook his head, smirked and gave a look to the man on his side that said - "look at this fantastic imbecile" - before looking back at me and pointing towards the door.
"The door is welded shut! You think you can get through that? Well, good luck," - he pointed towards it with his chin.
I shook my head. I heard him loud and clear, but I just couldn't process it.
"What?" - I muttered.
"I'm telling you, the door is locked! Somebody welded us shut in here!" - the man shouted at me. But I still couldn't understand what he was saying.
The door was welded shut? As in, the entrance to our apartment complex? Somebody would do that?
"But… why?" - I wondered aloud. I was asking no one in particular, just voicing my surprise, but the man thought that the question was aimed at him.
"How would I know?" - the man grunted. "They didn't leave a note with explanations. They did their dirty deed and left."
"And nobody saw or heard anything?" - I wondered.
"Heh! Young man, if we knew who did that we wouldn't be standing here. If I knew what asshole and from what apartment did that, I'd go straight to them and show them why messing with people is a bad idea."
I paused for a moment. Something about what he said made me tick. Then I realized what it was.
"You're thinking that it's someone from this block?" - I asked him.
"I don't think that, I know that. Mikitich from 25th had a look at those welding seams. It was welded from our side. He's a welder with experience, so if he says so it is so," - the man explained.
"And who the hell are you?" - some old woman aggressively asked me, all of a sudden. She was a full head lower than me, so when she grabbed and pulled my sleeve I had to try to maintain my balance. "I've never seen you here."
"I've lived here for the past year" - I explained to her, not hiding my irritation.
"Don't lie!" - she shouted into my face. I stayed silent. "Don't lie!" - she repeated after a short pause. "I've known everyone who ever lived here since '68! Is this some kind of prank you and your friends pulled? Why did you come here? To film the honest people in peril and upload it to your internets?" - she patted my chest, as if hoping to find a hidden camera on me. I forcefully yanked her hand away and locked my eyes with her, but deep within I wasn't feeling so confident.
I knew that she had seen me before. I knew that I had held the door for her at least two times in the past, getting only irritated glances in return.
Seeing that my help was not welcome, I decided not to do so on the third time, and she exploded into an angry rant as the door was closing in front of her. So, it could be that it wasn't that she didn't know who I was. It could be that she was just getting back at me for inconveniencing her in the past. Not from my lack of manners - I suspected that there was some deeper frustration underneath all that.
But it didn't matter at the time. She was aiming the crowd's frustration at me, giving it an easy target in the face of an outsider and an easy suspect. People didn't need her suspicions to be justified - they just needed to vent, to funnel their tempered-by-decades-of-hardship hate into someone, and I felt uneasy when I increasingly found myself under their judgmental gazes. Poking, drilling at me from every direction. Even if they wouldn't resort to violence, even if a cane to the back of my head wouldn't hurt that much if it was wielded by a weak from old age hand, I still felt like an ant under the magnifying glass. Like their gazes could set me on fire at any moment.
"Leave the kid alone!" - someone suddenly intervened. "I know the lad, he's Tamara's grandson. Helped with my bags more than once. He's good people" - a man in the back of the crowd said. I turned to him to express my gratitude, but all I saw was rows of scolding faces. The crowd denied me the opportunity to take a look at my savior.
The old woman gave me another skeptical look, grunted and turned around. There weren't any friends of hers behind her. It was just to rub into my face how unpleasant my presence was. I couldn't resist rolling my eyes.
"Okay, I've had enough! Open up!" - someone shouted from the stairwell. I heard buzzing of a doorbell, muffled by a door, and heavy thumps on the door - it seemed that just one thing wasn't enough. They needed this particular tenant's full attention immediately.
"What are you doing?" - someone wondered aloud.
"I have places to be, I can't stay here, alright? I'll ask these people to let me crawl out through their window," - the man explained while continuing to buzz and knock on the door. "Open up! We have an emergency here!"
"Mitya, the windows on the first floor are all grated, what are you thinking?" - somebody exclaimed. The man paused for a second, breathed out through his nose, and then headed upstairs.
"I'll go to the next stairwell then. I'll get there through the roof," - he shouted to the crowd below as he was leaving.
"Good riddance" - someone quietly said.
"So, what are we going to do?" - someone else asked the crowd. The answers started pouring in immediately. The elders seemingly forgot that they were in distress for a moment and were now eagerly trying to make up for a moment of silence.
"Call the police!"
"Call the firefighters!"
"Can somebody just pry this door open? I need to be somewhere, too..."
"Can you not push? The door won't open, stop pushing me against it!"
"Hello?" - we suddenly heard a male voice coming from the outside. "Anyone in there?"
"Postman..." - one of the women in front of the door sighed. "Petya, is that you?" - she asked through the door.
"Yes! Varvara, is that you? What's with the door?" - the voice from the other side of the door inquired.
"We're stuck here, Petya! Somebody broke the door. It won't open! Call the police or go get someone!" - she shouted.
There was a short pause as the man processed what he'd just heard. I didn't blame him. The whole thing felt surreal.
"I don't know about that, but I'll do my best!" - the man promised. "Oh, where to go?.. I think I'll..." - the man suddenly paused. Then, a few seconds later, the door suddenly shook. The man was trying to pry it open.
"Petya, what are you doing?" - the woman who had been talking to him earlier wondered. "You can't open it on your own."
The door shook again, and the postman said something. The entire stairwell went silent to listen to what he was saying, and I found myself straining my hearing together with everyone else.
In a sudden and complete silence, where I couldn't hear neither rustling of clothes nor anyone's breath, we all heard the postman's quiet words.
"Open this door, please. Open this door."
"Petya, we can't open it" - the woman patiently explained, but the door kept slightly shaking as the man was trying to open it.
"Please, open this door. If you all push it, maybe you can break it," - he quietly pleaded. It was clear he was trying to keep his voice down as much as he could. "Please. There's something out here."
"What's out there?" - Varvara asked again, but the postman just started yanking the door with more strength.
"Shhh. Please, keep your voice down. Just… please help me. Please! I can't outrun it, I can't..."
His last whispers were drowned out by a sound, a sound which alone spoke louder than a thousand words, that painted the full picture for everyone who'd heard it. In an instant, the panic and irrationality of the postman's actions became clear to us.
There was a low growl coming from outside. A deep, rumbling sound - unlike anything I'd ever heard, yet somehow so recognizable for what it was. I didn't know the animal it belonged to, but just from its pitch and volume I could tell - its lungs were at least five times the size of my own.
"Open it, please!" - postman loudly whispered. "Open it! Why won't yo
u open it?"
"Come on, push the door!" - someone from the back of the crowd shouted. "Maybe the seams are weak!"
"We've tried that!" - someone answered from the door. "It's no use! Petya, run!"
"Come on, shove the door! Everyone, push!"
"Don't shove! There's no more space here!"
"Just push the door, don't complain!"
"Somebody call the police!"
"Let me out of here! I don't want to be near this cursed door!"
"I said don't push me! What are you, deaf or stupid?"
"Open this door, please… Don't shout, please, you're making it nervous, just open this door! Open it! Open!"
All the voices were silenced, pushed out of relevance by a loud roar coming from outside. Whatever it was, it seemed that our shouting had aggravated it. The sound's origin was very close - closer than it had been a few moments ago, when the creature was growling. With the roar being so clear it almost seemed as if it was right outside the door, as if the door didn't separate us. As if it couldn't keep it out.
"Open it!" - the postman screamed, his voice breaking through the roar, and the creature growled once more - it did not appreciate being interrupted and now wanted to punish the man for speaking out of line.
It rushed towards the door, each step announcing the creature's massive weight. The metal door that the old man on the outside couldn't get through rang like a gong when his skull collided with it. Everyone inside froze in place. The postman gasped and moaned, tried to say something - but then the door shook again when his body was slammed against it once more.
I heard the sound of tearing cloth, heard the flesh underneath being separated from the bone in the most crude, primal way, and the man gasped in pain. For some reason, he couldn't take a full breath to scream louder - broken ribs? A massive paw pushing him down into the ground?
The door shook again and again: the man's body seemed to be thrashed around like a rag doll, as if it was trying to get a better hold of him. The people standing closest to the door started pushing back at the crowd behind them. Someone screamed after a particularly loud strike.
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