OUTSIDE

by Artyom Dereschuk

  With each step, it was getting louder. What was it so busy with down there? What were those sounds?

  I made it to the second floor without making a sound. Shambled my feet by accident while descending to the first and resisted the urge of running away. Did it hear me? Didn't seem like it - the sounds it was making didn't stop or get closer.

  I was just one flight of stairs away from the apartment. The door was wide open, exposing what was inside: the yellowing wallpaper, the old rotary phone on a decorated shelf. Something I had seen before.

  Just like I had thought, it was the apartment where the welder had killed the woman. Where Pavel had been helping to move the deceased woman's body.

  The sound coming from the apartment was now clear: it was munching. It seemed that the beast had developed a taste for human flesh. How long had it been since that woman had died? Three days? Was that enough for it to start to decompose? Could it be that her neighbor, who had been willing to stay with her and pray for her soul, decided to open the window and let some fresh air inside because the smell was already unbearable? It would explain how the beast sensed it and decided to pay it a visit for a quick bite. It was that smell that guided it, revealed to it that the strange concrete monolith it had been circling around was, in fact, hollow and had sustenance inside of it. The bodies of the dead and, if I didn't act fast, the living.

  The door was right in front of me. Just nine more steps toward it. The key to the apartment was still in the keyhole - when the woman had been fleeing she didn't bother to pull it out. A plan hatched in my mind. Get to the door. Pull the key out. Close the door. Lock it with the key. All without making a sound. A crazy, tense plan - but the only one that could work.

  Carefully, trying my best not to make a noise, I inched towards the door. I wanted to scream in terror from the fact that my steps weren't completely soundless, but I guess the creature didn't hear it over the sound of the bones breaking under its bite.

  I was now right next to the door. One more step and I'd be inside the apartment. The beast was now mere meters away from me, in the guest room somewhere around the corner. If I messed up, I'd have a second, maybe two, to say my prayers.

  There was no going back now. Carefully, I slid the key out of its keyhole. On its way out, it clanked. The munching stopped.

  It growled and took a step.

  I slammed the door shut and started shoving the key into the keyhole, but my trembling hands couldn't pull that off. A muffled roar came from within the apartment and I felt a massive body slam into the door from the other side. Luckily, the door seemed to be reinforced: the ex-tenants had made sure to protect themselves from burglars as with them living on the first floor they were the prime targets.

  My legs were twitching from all the adrenaline in them, begging me to run away. I knew that if the creature somehow turned the door's handle - even by accident - it would break out that instant, leaving me no chances to survive.

  I took a pause, took a deep breath, and then slid the key in. A moment later, I turned it, locking the door. The beast was now subdued.

  I immediately leaped back from the door as if it was blazing hot. Seeing its metal frame shake with each of the beast's strikes was making me tremble along with it. The durable sheet of metal, meant to protect the people inside from the invaders, now contained the threat within instead. I doubted that the door's manufacturers considered that it would one day have to endure the onslaught of an other-worldly beast, and thus I wasn't sure how much longer it would be able to hold.

  The door bulged, the plaster was falling from the ceiling after each bang, the very door frame seemed like it would finally separate from the wall and unleash the evil within onto me… but the door withstood its assault. Whoever had sold that door to the apartment's owners had done so with a clear conscience.

  I let myself relax only for a moment. After that, I started waiting.

  The beast threw itself at the door, again and again, hoping to break through to the other side. One strike after the next. I wanted to run away. My skin was crawling from the realization that death was separated from me by a thin sheet of metal - but at the same time, I needed to see with my own eyes that I had succeeded in stopping it.

  If it broke out, what was I going to do? Stop it with my hatchet? I had already received my fair share of combat that day, but even so, I doubted I'd be able to fight it back.

  Even so, I stayed. I felt like I had to stand my ground. To face that abnormality that was at my home's threshold. Not because I valued it - but because it was my home. I wanted to push back at the world.

  After a minute or so, the beast gave up. I heard it move deeper into the apartment. Carefully getting up from the steps I was sitting on, I sneaked closer to the door and pressed my ear against it.

  I could hear it within. Just there. On any other day, I would look strange, as if I was eavesdropping on my neighbors. But now that apartment wasn't a place where humans lived. There was no privacy to violate. It became a beast's cave, and I was listening to the unknown within to determine whether the animal within was of any threat to me and my tribe.

  Above me, people were carefully coming out of the apartments. No one dared to come down to the first floor. I only heard someone make it to the last flight of stairs and then hurriedly shuffle away when they saw me and realized what exactly I was doing. No one else dared to come down there while the beast was still there - and not later, either.

  After half an hour, I heard the beast leave through the window - the apartment had exhausted its curiosity and it moved on in search of its next prey. Luckily, it decided against prying off grates on other windows. I suspected that it was due to the fact that the tenants had already left the apartments there and there was nothing that could attract its attention.

  Only then did I relax and sit down on the steps. The concrete was cold and hard, but I was too drained to find the strength to move up to my apartment. I was just sitting there, thinking about everything I'd gone through.

  Our submarine had another breach and sunk even deeper – by exactly one floor. The entire first floor was now unsafe, too – as it turned out, the grates on the windows were just an illusion of safety. It felt like with each day, the hostile environment was seeping in more and more, and the best we could do was patch the hull up and hope that it was the last such case. We were slowly being cornered in our own apartments.

  It was while I was sitting there when I heard another noise: someone was approaching the door to the basement from the other side.

  I jumped to my feet: was it one of the beasts? No, it didn't sound like it. The steps sounded human. One of the possessed, then? The thugs coming back for a rematch through the basement?

  The exhaustion suddenly vanished, my body revitalized, tapping into some hidden resources. Just a few moments before I had felt like I couldn't even get up to my feet, and now I was feeling like I could fight for days. I clutched my hatchet and prepared for a fight.

  The steps neared. The door opened.

  The first thing I noticed was the stench. I had never met a human who smelled so horribly.

  It filled me with the dread of anticipation. I expected another monstrosity or a mutant, or who knows what else - but then I realized that the stench was actually quite familiar. Not the unknown smell of other-worldly miasma I had thought it to be, but the easily recognizable smell of human waste.

  The human that came out of the basement was dirty from head to heels, so it was hard to recognize the camouflage pattern of his clothes. When the person saw me, he tensed up for a moment, seemingly alarmed by how I looked, before easing up and waving at me.

  "I see you had a tough day, too" – the man noted, no doubt noticing my worn-out look.

  "Alexei?" - I finally recognized the stranger, putting my hatchet down. My tension changed for euphoria - every fiber of my body was rejoicing that I wouldn't have to fight anyone, after all. I felt so relieved that I wanted to hug him, and only the putrid smell of the sewe
rs coming from him was stopping me.

  "You're alive!"

  He has returned from his expedition beyond our building. An expedition that lasted for more than a day. There could be many ways to interpret it, but to me, it meant one thing: it was possible to survive beyond the walls we were confined in. There were places to go to. Otherwise, where had he been all that time?

  It was a silver lining I was clinging to, a tiny flame of hope that was struggling against the winds of reality. I wanted him to tell me the good news. I needed it.

  "Barely," - he grunted. "The sewers are crawling with some things. I haven't seen those before. One almost got me once, but I was lucky to shoot it down before it gained on me."

  "Where have you been all this time? We thought you were dead!" - I told him.

  "I couldn't get through to here," - he explained. "There are many things, even in the sewers, and I waited for them to leave. Luckily, I had found the manhole which led to a Khrushyovka's basement - just like that one," - he nodded toward the door leading to the basement behind him. "So, I spent two nights there - many people left their houses unlocked when they evacuated, so I bunked in one of the abandoned apartments. I got stuck there when one of the creatures found its way in."

  "Horrible" – was all I could say. What he’d gone through must’ve been terrible, but I couldn’t be bothered about that. I wanted him to get to the good news. I wanted to hear him get to the part where he’d found the exit, but I also was afraid to rush him, as if that would somehow scare the good fortune away.

  "When you hear something outside of the apartment and you go to take a look through the peephole, and you don't see anything, and then you realize that you don't see anything because one of those things is crawling across the door at that very moment… It's a horrifying feeling, Yura" – Alexei continued droning on. "And when you look out the window… They are everywhere, Yura" - he told me, staring right through me. His gaze became hazy. At that very moment, he was recalling the things he wouldn't be able to even describe. "We've got it easy here."

  I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want that conversation to continue. I already had a clear idea of how bad things were. I didn’t need a first-hand account of that.

  I wanted him to tell me just one thing. But he was taking his time to get to the point. Why? Did he really need me to feel pity for what he’d gone through? Everyone had had it rough these past couple of days. He wasn’t special in that regard. So why?

  He didn’t answer my silent question. He just tried to squeeze past me to go upstairs.

  "Excuse me, Yura, I want to go take a shower."

  A few days ago, I wouldn't object. I would just put his interests before mine and patiently waited for him to do what he wanted to do. But not now.

  "Wait a second, have you found the exit or not?" - I asked him impatiently.

  "Yura, let's talk about it later..." - he said wearily, still trying to squeeze past me. Why couldn’t he look me in the eye while saying that?

  "Yes or no?" - I demanded to know, taking a step to the left to not let him past. I wouldn't be able to wait for even a second. I needed to hear it, no matter what his answer would be.

  He let out a heavy sigh. Stood motionless there for a few seconds.

  "Yes."

  I felt like hugging him. I was ready to kiss him on his filth-covered forehead. Alexei was our brilliant savior. All of our struggles weren't for naught now that he had found the exit. We weren't suffering for nothing. We were just waiting for him to find the way out of that hell.

  "Then screw the shower! Let's go right now!" - I said impatiently. "You won't believe the day we've had here. We need to get out now, while the path there is still fresh in your memory!"

  "The path won't be a problem. I've charted a map of how to get there," - he slapped the backpack on his back to show where he had it. "It's a pipe leading out of the town into one of the rivers in the forest. It's awfully quiet there. I don't think the military patrols that area, and I haven't heard any beasts there, either."

  That sounded like terrific news. It was just what we needed, but we needed to hurry. We needed to get out there before either the military or the anomalous life forms that had been stalking us got there. Why couldn't he see that?

  Why was he still refusing to look me in the eye? Why was he so weary?

  "Then let's go!" - I told him again, although with less enthusiasm in my voice. I already understood that something was wrong, but I refused to accept such a deduction. Alexei was just too tired from his trip. We all were. I just needed to cheer him up, to let him know how horrible it was while he was away, to show him that we were fucking dying and going crazy in that hellhole and that his goddamn shower could wait!

  "Yura… The pipe has a grate on it."

  I stood in silence for a few seconds, contemplating what it was that he just said. Then, I laughed.

  "What?" - I said through laughter. I wasn't feeling cheerful, but my guts were shaking. The muscles and the diaphragm were quaking on their own, squeezing laughter out of me.

  Alexei just nodded to confirm that I'd heard him right. I found that hysterical.

  "Wha- What?" - I asked again, laughing so hard I could barely breathe in. I was laughing so hard that tears started streaming down my face. I knew how improper my reaction was, but that only made me laugh harder.

  "The- The- The grates? The grates on a pipe? We've been welded shut and grated, but the moment we've found the exit… It has grates on it, too?"

  I was laughing harder and harder. I was laughing so hard my sides were starting to hurt. I wanted to stop, but at the same time, I knew that the maniacal laughter was the only thing that was keeping me sane. If I stopped laughing, my mind probably wouldn't be able to take it.

  I thought that the building was our prison. But it turned out that the prison extended all the way out there. You could walk up to the very border of freedom, take a peek at it through grates, but you wouldn't be able to grasp it. It would remain just a striped picture.

  "I tried dislodging it," - Alexei said as if explaining himself. My laughter wasn't bothering him in the slightest. "I spent six hours there trying to do something about it. I even tried shooting at the bolts that were holding it down. No dice. The metal's too thick, and the bolts are covered in rust. We won't even be able to unscrew them if we had a tool. The grate has been installed there when the town was first built, so the bolts are a part of the whole thing by now."

  I just kept on laughing. Every sentence he said was like another nail into my coffin, and I was finding it hilarious. It was like some very dark joke that just wouldn't end. With some killer punchline.

  "I'm going to go take a shower" - he told me, walking past me.

  "Hey, Alexei!" - I told him through laughter. He stopped and looked at me, waiting for me to say something.

  "Don't drink the tap water. It makes..." - I took a deep breath to overcome laughter. "It makes people go crazy," - I finished, reeling from laughter.

  "Yes, I see that" - he said, making me laugh even more and walking away. I stayed there, on the stairwell, my laughter echoing across all five floors, and getting quiet just in time as I started sobbing.

  That was where Maxim found me later - I wasn't sure how much time I had spent there, ruminating on the state of things around me.

  "Hey, Yura. Are you alright?" - I heard him ask me cautiously. When I looked up at him, I saw how tense he was, how ready he was to bring down the pipe in his hands on my head had I hissed at him or showed any signs of being possessed. When he saw the look in my eyes the man eased up, but I could see that he was still cautious.

  "Alexei's back" - I told him quietly, burying my face back into my knees. I now understood why Alexei had refused to look me in the eye: it was surprisingly difficult to be a bearer of bad news.

  "What? How long ago?" - Maxim asked, alarmed. "Where is he now?"

  "I don't know. An hour ago, maybe" - I told him my estimate. It could be an hour, but it could as well
have been five minutes. It didn't make a difference to me.

  "Why didn't he tell me? Why didn't YOU come to me?" - Maxim inquired. So that was what I looked like when I met Alexei...

  I told him what I'd been told. Maxim fell quiet.

  "Yeah" - I said, still not looking at him.

  "Well, we ought to find something that can cut through those grates! There are eighty apartments here, surely someone has something!" - he shouted at me.

  "Sixty apartments," - I reminded him. "The fourth flight of stairs is off- limits, remember?"

  "Well, even so, we're bound to find something if we just look for it!" - he wouldn't calm down.

  ***

  "Don't worry, Yura" - Maxim said with a heavy sigh. I could tell that he was trying to calm down not only me but himself as well. "We'll get through. We'll find something. We'll go through every apartment and find something that can cut through those grates. We'll earn our freedom, we just need to keep going."

  "If you don't mind, I'd like to stay out of it," - I told him quietly. "I feel like I've had enough for today."

  "Sure, sure," - he quickly agreed. "No one will hold it against you. You go have some rest."

  He helped me get up to my feet and gave me a reassuring pat on the back.

  "Don't worry, Yura. We, Russians, have been through worse. Someday, this is all going to end, you know. Just like all the other things," - he told me with a tired smile. I appreciated that he was trying to cheer me up even though he himself was out of fumes, but I couldn't return the gesture.

  "Yes. I'm afraid that day will come soon" - I told him with a bitter smile and went upstairs.

  I went past my apartment straight to Natasha's place. I didn't want to be alone. If I were to stay alone with my thoughts I'd just be sulking. I wanted my last days to be spent in someone's company.

  "Everything alright?" - she asked me when she saw my face.