OUTSIDE

by Artyom Dereschuk

  With that, he slammed the door behind him. I felt a bit of guilt for blaming it on him like that - the man trusted me, and I humiliated him with such a ridiculous suggestion. It was a good thing I hadn't done that in front of the rest of the militia.

  "No" - I suddenly told myself. "This isn't some argument of neighbors. We're all stuck in here because of someone, and no one is above suspicion. If he is not to blame, he should understand where I'm coming from."

  With that, I opened my door, intending to have some rest. I've had a crazy day. I felt like I deserved a cup of coffee and a nice book. To hell with Maxim and his militia! My shift was over for the day.

  But it was not meant to be. The moment I opened the door, I heard a familiar voice call out my name through static.

  "Yura, come in! It's Leonid! Come in, goddamnit!"

  ***

  I had already lost hope for the man to contact me, but hope never asks us to come in. It barges into our souls and occupies its familiar spot. Truly, it was the most resilient of all human feelings - a cockroach that you could never get rid of.

  It was that blind, chitinous hope that had made me leave the radio on and tuned to the frequency which Leonid had said he would use to contact me.

  Not bothering to take off my shoes and dropping dirt from the basement, I rushed toward the guest room, where my only ally on the outside was trying to reach out to me through the radio waves.

  "I'm here! I'm here," - I said the second sentence quieter, remembering that Leonid could get into trouble if his superiors found out that he was contacting people outside of the base.

  "Yura, is that you?" - the man asked me. He sounded like he was in a hurry. "Sweet Jesus, man, I thought you'd told me that you're stuck inside your homes, where the hell have you been?"

  "We've got some business here to deal with. It doesn't matter. Where have you been? I'd been waiting all day yesterday for you to reach out to me," - I asked him.

  "Things are going huyovo[12] here, mate. Everything's crazy, I didn't have any time to tell you - listen, it doesn't matter at the moment. I don't have much time. If they catch me contacting you, I'm a dead man for sure."

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise: it was already clear that our situation had gone from bad to worse, but I didn’t expect him to put it like that. Sure, the military likes to keep all of their info under wraps and punished whoever disclosed them, but somehow, I’d gotten the feeling that he wasn’t speaking metaphorically.

  "I'm listening" - I told him, grabbing a notebook and a pen while trying not to make any noise. It was clear that he wouldn't repeat himself, so I had to get everything down so that I wouldn't forget anything.

  "Listen - the military isn't coming for you guys. They have their hands full here with the escapees. They're putting them into camps, I don't know why, and from what I hear they're not treating them well, either."

  The military wasn't coming. It wasn't just a guess, a wild theory. There was no more room for speculation. It was one thing to suspect that your partner doesn't love you anymore, to suspect that the pain in your chest is something worse than just the old age creeping closer, and completely different to see the familiar lips spell it out to you, to see the doctor come into the cabinet with your X-Ray in hand and a somber look on his face. It was the sentence.

  They weren't coming. Leonid had confirmed it. I knew I ought to write that down, but my pen didn't move. I knew I wouldn't forget something like that, anyway.

  "So, we have to get out on our own?" - I asked aloud. I wasn't even asking him - even though he was my ally, I knew it was not up to him to answer such a question. I was just voicing the most terrible conclusion, which was too big, too grand to just sit quietly on my mind.

  But he answered anyway.

  "No!" - he shouted into a radio. For a few seconds he went silent - no doubt he was trying to figure out if anyone had heard him because the next sentence was spoken in a barely noticeable whisper: "Listen, whatever you do - don't try to approach the military base - or any military outposts, for that matter. We have new orders to shoot down anyone we see. Civilians, familiar faces - it doesn't matter. We're told to fire on sight."

  "Why?" - I wondered. That didn't make any sense. Sure, the creatures were dangerous, but what about people? What about refugees? Wasn't the army supposed to protect us? Would they really go so far to keep the information about the incident from leaking?

  "I don't know," - he whispered. "They didn't tell us. All they've told us is that everyone who's still inside the town is our enemy now. I've heard over the grapevine that there are more people like you inside the town - they're calling non-stop. Listen, I don't know what to tell you, mate. I'm sorry things ended up like this. All of you there are on your own. I gotta go - don't try to contact me again. I've risked my life already to tell you this. Don't put my life on the line... I'm sorry."

  With that, the transmission ended. I had been expecting Leonid's message for days, hoping that he would bring me some good news and let me know that I didn't have to play the police anymore. But instead, he swooped in to bring me nothing but dread, and after that he awkwardly left, apologizing for the mess. I didn't blame him, and I knew that it was better than to be in the dark…

  I had to share it with someone. The day had been overwhelming for me. The militia, suspicions rising over whether Maxim had done it or not, the news from Leonid... It was too much to keep bottled up.

  I stood up and went outside. I had only one person to share my grievances with, and besides, she'd invited me to come to visit her earlier.

  Quickly rising to the fifth floor, I pressed the buzzer near Natasha's door.

  "Hey," - she greeted me. "So how did your first day go?"

  "May I come in?" - I bluntly asked her instead of answering. I wanted to settle down before I'd start pouring it all out.

  "Sure, sure," - she stepped aside to let me come through. "I was just going to go invite you, anyway."

  We went to the kitchen where Natasha put the kettle on to make some tea for us, which she filled from the bathtub. I raised my eyebrow and nodded toward the tap, but she shook her head: "I don't use the tap water anymore. I tried to brush my teeth with it this morning but it had such a foul smell… Did you notice it?"

  "Yes" - I quickly lied, realizing that when the militia had come for me I was in such a hurry to join them I forgot to brush my teeth.

  "I think the water's going bad without the maintenance," - she sighed. "Too bad: I thought it'd be the last thing to go, right after the electricity. A miracle we still have it."

  "One old-timer had told me that the water's taste had gone bad because the military had added toxins to it to poison all of us," - I told Natasha with a smile.

  "Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't even be surprised if that was the truth," - she sighed. "These past few days have been crazy..." - she said before getting up and starting to prepare some tea for both of us.

  Hearing the water slowly boiling made me relax a little bit: after crawling through the building, I could use some tea to relax. And it was reminding me of the time when I could take a hot, bubbly bath: back in the day I used to complain that it was barely long enough to stretch my legs, but now I'd give an arm and a leg for just an hour in it. Too bad that it was filled with drinkable water.

  "So how was it?" - she wondered without turning around. I sighed and leaned back. "You're not going to believe this day, girl..."

  She was thrilled to find out about the manhole and the "expedition" Alexei was on. Furrowed her eyebrows when I told her that I suspected that Maxim was the welder. Gasped and covered her mouth when she'd heard about the thugs and gave me an approving smile when I told her how I'd handled it. Telling her about those things and reporting our relative progress was not only showing her that we'd got it under control - I was starting to believe it, too.

  After that, we switched the topic of the conversation. We started talking about things from our previous life, about celebrity gossip, about our pl
ans and dreams (Natasha had always wanted to purchase the biggest telescope she could afford so that she could take a photo of Saturn in the night sky), about the latest books I'd read… It was surprising how easy it was to talk to her and the many things we had in common - during our previous meetings she was just my neighbor's girlfriend, and I was usually talking to him and not to her.

  Throughout the conversation, we hadn't once mentioned or discussed our situation. We were willfully ignoring it, instead preferring to focus on other things - things that were far away from us, both in space and time.

  And throughout all of that talk, she didn't mention Nikita once. As strange as it sounds, I was glad - at least she wasn't tormenting herself thinking about his fate. Her own situation was already as bad as it could be.

  Keeping up the casual conversation, we didn't even notice how time had flown by and the sun had set beyond the horizon. We were too focused on the conversation, so when I finally glanced at the clock and saw that it was half-past nine, I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Excusing myself, I started preparing to leave.

  "Hey," - she told me as I was heading for the door. I could see that she was feeling very awkward. "I know it's really strange, but… Would you mind staying here tonight? I could make a bed for you out of our sofa in the guest room," - she quickly added, realizing how it sounded. "It's just that… I'm not used to living alone, and these past few days it's been really lonely in here. And… it's been really scary," - she added with a bit of shame in her voice.

  I considered her offer. Although it was true that she was living just two floors above me, staying together for the night made more sense. We'd go to sleep together, wake up together, cook breakfast together…It would be indeed less lonely that way.

  "Sure" - I told her. She was clearly glad to hear it: she smiled and started hurriedly preparing a spot for me as if worried that I might change my mind any minute.

  It was strange to stay over at your friend's place when only his girlfriend was home. During any other time, it would make people raise their eyebrows. But we didn't have the luxury to choose our company for the night.

  I was worried that I might miss another transmission - but then again, who was going to try and contact me? Besides Leonid, I had no one left on the outside. The rest of the survivors - if there were any - wouldn't try to contact me either. The only transmission I'd heard since the incident that'd started it all was that weird cult speech - and I didn't feel like listening to them again. The air was dead - just like our town.

  Getting ready to sleep, I suddenly remembered something: excusing myself for a minute, I jumped outside and rushed downstairs - toward the basement. While I was heading there, I couldn't help but notice that I had a hint of regret that she specified that I'd be sleeping on a separate bed. Swaying those thoughts away, I entered the basement to check whether Alexei had returned.

  Pavel was still there, sitting next to the manhole. He must've gone back home to get a blanket - or asked someone to bring it because he was sitting there wrapped in it. When I stepped into the basement, he jumped to his feet, but then relaxed when he saw that it was just me.

  "Alexei hasn't come back?" - I asked him.

  "Why would I be sitting here if he did?" - he barked at me: the cold was making him even more irritable than usual.

  "I don't know, maybe you've decided to guard it so that welder wouldn't show up" - I snapped back at him.

  "Makes sense" - Pavel grunted, accepting my point of view. "No, he hasn't come back yet. God knows where he is… Or whether he's even still with us."

  His words made me shiver, but I didn't want to give in to the man's fatalism. I wanted to believe that Alexei was alive somewhere out there. Not just because I was concerned for him - though, of course, that was also a part of it. I wanted him to come back because it would mean that there was at least some hope of getting out of there. Even if upon return he'd inform us that there was no way out, at least I'd know that there were still places left in the world beyond our building where we could go. That the world I'd been used to wasn't filled to the brim with mutants or angels of death or whatever those creatures were. The position of a dominant species on the planet, of a rightful owner of the town, was far too comforting for me to surrender.

  "He will return, I'm sure of it," - I told Pavel, trying to sound as confident as possible. "I'm sure he's just camping somewhere for the night. If he hasn't come back, it means that he's still exploring the tunnels and they're not all dead ends."

  Pavel just grunted: I could see that he was not convinced but didn't want to argue with me. I wasn't in the argumentative mood, either.

  "How are you holding up?" - I asked him, trying to change the topic.

  "Cold," - he grunted. "Scared. This manhole is giving me the creeps. Since Alexei hasn't shown up I keep thinking: what if there's something underground, too? What if it decides to pay me a visit? I haven't been so tense in years. Even when the bandits ruled the streets and me and my boys were sitting in an ambush. The bandits are still humans, but this..." - he pointed at the manhole with his chin. "This is something else."

  "Well, don't shoot Alexei by accident when he does come back" - I grimly joked. Surprisingly, the joke did its job: the man let out a short laugh. His former job had left him with the strangest sense of humor.

  "Thanks for coming by," - he told me. "Now go, run back to your place. No use two of us freezing down here."

  His joke was demeaning in nature, but I didn't pay any attention to that. Throughout the day, I'd already gotten used to the man's manner of speech and didn't take it personally.

  "Don't lag behind" - I told him, making him chuckle once more, and left the basement.

  "Please return" - I thought to myself as I was rising to the fifth floor. It was hard to remain hopeful in the face of the facts, but I denied the alternative. I didn't want to think that Alexei didn't return because something had gotten a hold of him in the sewers. I wanted to believe that he - and by extension us, the people who'd entrusted him with finding the exit from our hell - had it under control.

  "Everything's alright?" - Natasha asked me with concern in her voice. I realized that she must've read from my face that something was wrong,

  I didn't want her to get worried about anything. Natasha was slowly recovering from the shock of being stuck inside her apartment and returning to her usual, chipper self. It was pleasing to be in the presence of her - her optimism was helping me recharge, helping me forget about the horror of our situation. So, I wanted to repay her with the same coin.

  "Yeah, you know - just the militia thing" - I told her with a smile. The muscles of my face didn't obey me and tried to rebel, wanting to show her the real state of my emotions, but I managed to keep them in check - until she looked away and my smile finally twitched, as if letting me know that it wasn't okay with me lying.

  We exchanged some pleasantries before going to sleep and she turned off the light. I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep. It was proving to be surprisingly difficult: the sofa wasn't very comfortable, and while thinking about that fact, I started day-dreaming about what I was going to do about it. Those were silly, naïve, and even shameful thoughts, thoughts that were unbecoming of a decent man - but while I was alone in the darkness, I allowed them to stay.

  I was thinking that, perhaps, I should let Natasha know that the sofa wasn't comfortable and ask her if there was some other way to accommodate me. Perhaps we'd be able to fit onto a single bed without touching each other, or maybe she'd even ask me to hug her for comfort and I would reluctantly agree. Perhaps any moment now, I was going to hear her soft footsteps approaching the guest room, and she'd turn on the lights, before asking me with that sweet, awkward, and somewhat guilty look if I'd agree to sleep with her because she was scared...

  My waking dreams were interrupted by a sound coming from above. For a moment I ignored it, being used to my neighbors above shambling their feet while they were going toward the kitchen at a late hour…
But then I remembered that Natasha's floor was the last one.

  Above us were only the roof and the indifferent skies. Or, at the very least, it used to be that way. Now, there definitely was something else.

  My breathing became erratic when I realized that the sound was coming from directly above me. As I was drilling the ceiling with my now wide-open eyes, I wished that I could see through the walls for a moment, to see who was walking on the roof at such a late hour… Before thinking that I could really live without that information.

  Had the steps sounded human, I'd think that it was the welder, and then I wouldn't hesitate to run out there with my hatchet ready. A thug doing reconnaissance for his friends would be another strong suspect. But the nature of those sounds made it painfully clear - whatever was walking on the roof in the middle of the night had too many legs to be a human being.

  Was it the strange cyclopean creature I'd seen the night before? No, that didn't seem right - if it was anything like I'd imagined it to be it would be bulky and heavy, with the roof trembling under its feet. I doubted it could even climb onto the roof, seeing as it was incredibly heavy. No, it was something else. Something new.

  I could hear a soft rustling sound as if something was being dragged across the roof's surface, as well as the pitter-patter of many pointy legs. My imagination painted me an image from my childhood when my grandpa took me out of town to a zoo where, in an aquarium set in the corner of the main building, I saw a centipede drag its body across a blade of grass. The thing was ugly beyond belief - and I was sure that, no matter what the creature above me really looked like, it was not pleasing to the eye, either.

  At that moment another thought crept into my mind, just like that cryptic thing's lesser brother: did it know that I was just below it? Perhaps it could hear my breathing, or feel the vibrations of my beating heart travel through its legs.

  Carefully turning my head, trying not to make a sound and cringing when the pillow's fabric rustled under me, I looked to the window. The curtains were wide open so that during the day whatever little light that had passed through the clouds could find its way inside the apartment. Could the creature look through it and see me - a clear black silhouette on the white sheets? Would it see me as a meal on the plate?