Invasion

by Dmitrii Mansurov

  Upon noticing a lonely house ahead, the fox rushed straight to it. Whoever lived there, they would hardly be scarier than the green-eyed monster stalking her. Flying through the open door, the fox's sixth sense helped her determine that the house had a spacious cage inside, so she dived into a narrow passage and slammed the door shut.

  "Try chewing on this!" the fox screamed hysterically, breaking into a wild laughter that ran through her with a huge sense of relief. But the dog didn't even attempt to enter. Making sure that the playful animal was delivered to the final destination, the dog lost all interest in the fox at once and rushed to help the miller. From here, it was impossible to understand what was happening at the mill, but the dog hoped that he would have enough time to get there. But instead, it ran right into the wolves.

  ***

  At the first glance, the miller was as old as the mill itself. He was slowly grinding the flour, the blades spinning, the flour falling into the sack. He didn't want to sleep, and sitting around doing nothing wasn't a particularly thrilling idea either, so instead, he was working.

  It was past midnight when he heard someone's call through the familiar rustling of the millstones. This surprised him. No one came to the mill at night, fearing wolves. And not without reason. After the epidemic, the wolves grew bolder. So, if someone came here, it could only be because of some extreme necessity or emergency. And neither promised anything good. The miller had to check, though.

  Two completely unfamiliar men were looking at the mill doors blankly. They had no weapons, but their clothes betrayed them as foreigners. And travelers without weapons were like a windmill without the wind.

  "What happened?" the miller asked. The men were obviously expecting that the gates would open, not the window, so they began to look around, puzzled, before accidentally noticing the miller.

  "Let us stay the night!" they demanded in a tone that tolerated no objections.

  "What for?" the miller inquired. He didn't like these travelers. Were they bandits? But if so, why didn't they have any weapons? "Where did you come from?"

  "None of your business, old man!" one of them spoke, glaring as if everything was already obvious.

  "Wolves are wandering about here, so you'd better leave," the miller advised. The meaning of the foreign word was unknown to him, but considering how it was uttered, it was clearly an insult. Good guests didn't behave like this.

  "Your wolves, you save them," the second guest grumbled, dissatisfied. "Will you open the gates or not?"

  The miller shook his head.

  "Look, old man, we asked you nicely!" The foreigners looked at each other and the miller realized that he wouldn't be allowed to sleep peacefully tonight after all. Not to mention that their confident demeanor started to make him angry.

  "Better go home now," he offered. "I would so hate to make a meaty and bony kind of flour again... It takes ages to clean the millstones afterwards."

  "Without food?" the guests looked at each other again. "Not. In. This. World."

  They were definitely bandits. They had come to steal some flour.

  "Leave!" the miller warned them. "You won't be getting anything here. Apart from black eyes. Take this as a warning."

  "This is a moot point!" the second one stuttered, but the first one interrupted him.

  "Open up!" he snarled, grabbing the handle and yanking it hard. The windmill suddenly shone with a piercing blue light, making the man jump back with a cry, pressing his scorched hand to his chest. The mill went dark.

  "Told you so!" the miller announced. He was just as puzzled as his guests but decided not to miss the opportunity and pretend that this was intended.

  The second guest turned out to be smarter and avoided direct confrontation. Cautiously approaching the door, he touched it with the back of his hand and immediately withdrew it. Nothing happened. Chuckling, he tried again. And again, nothing happened. Then he boldly grabbed the handle and paused in anticipation. There was no glow.

  "I’ve got grandfather for our lunch!" he shouted happily. "Come on! Let's open this stupid door and drink the old man's blood!"

  The miller was taken aback.

  "What the hell have you been smoking?" he exclaimed.

  The tension on the second man's face gave way to a victorious smile, and he grabbed the handle with both hands. There was a roar and the mill went alight with sparks, shining so brightly that the miller briefly ceased seeing anything but bright spots in his eyes. A booming snap threw the second man far to the side. The two men cried out against the unbearable light, showing the fangs that were sticking from their mouths.

  "What nonsense is this?" the first of them shouted. "Why can't we come inside?"

  "I'm going to get you, old man!" the second one shouted, forgetting about his role as a peacekeeper. "I'm not leaving until I drink your blood!"

  "Good luck with that," the miller said and closed the window. He had noticed that the upper canines of his guests were longer than usual, and he didn't want to test the strength of their bites. "Filthy scum!"

  The vampire gritted his teeth and looked at his partner.

  "Think! What’s helping him? I've never dealt with windmills before!"

  "Well, I haven't, either!" the first one argued. "I prefer to drink the blood of the townspeople!"

  "And where do you want me to find townspeople in the village at one in the morning?"

  The miller heard this, opened the window, and asked in an innocent voice,

  "You still here?"

  "We sure are!" the first man lifted his head to stare at the sky. "Oh, I’ve got it!"

  The second one sent him a puzzled look.

  "You've got what?"

  "Why the mill doesn't strike every time! Look at it! What do you see?"

  He received a puzzled look once again.

  "The same thing as before."

  "It's a windmill!"

  "So?"

  "Nots and crosses," the first one said. "When the blades become a cross, we turn into a not!"

  The second man stared at the mill. The blades were rotating slowly. They made a quarter turn after that and stood under a straight angle in relation to the ground.

  Another quarter turn, and the cross appeared. The curse of vampires and a protective amulet for people.

  "To hell with that!" the second man barked. "We'll stop the blades and that's it!"

  The window at the top opened, and they heard the miller's voice, "Why the hell are you so obsessed? Go away!"

  The window slammed back shut with a demonstrative thud.

  The indignant vampires gave a long speech and raged until they remembered that their main goal was not inventing the worst insults for the miller but using his blood for gastronomic purposes. Spitting loudly, the vampire went to the nearest birch and struck it hard. The birch couldn't resist the powerful blows and collapsed soon. The vampire exhaled, tired, and blew on his hands. His fists ached desperately, and if not for his dream to turn the miller and his mill into a pile of dust, he would have dropped everything and gone in search of a village. The second man picked up the birch with his tremendous strength and propped it up against the mill, not allowing the blades to rotate.

  When they froze, the miller froze as well. The flour stopped spilling out of the groove, leaving the sac half-full. A wild laughter came after that, accompanied by the sound of blows on the door, a crashing of the planks, and the footsteps of the bloodsuckers that began to quickly approach the miller's room. Soon, they burst into the it. The miller grabbed his stool.

  "Got you, old man!" the second vampire cried out, looking mockingly at the miller's attempts to defend himself. He quickly approached, pulled the stool out of the miller's hands, and grabbed him by his clothes. But the vampires' goal was not about to come to fruition. There was an incomprehensible monotonous sound behind, the surprised cry of the second vampire, and the glazed glance of the miller who was staring not at his attackers but at something else. The bewildered vampire turned and drop
ped the miller to the floor in fright. The creature standing in the doorway could have been called an ordinary dog if it wasn't covered in blood from head to tail and didn't have bloodied teeth along with eerily glowing green eyes. The vampire gulped. He had never seen anything like this before. The miller crawled to the wall while the creature growled with triple force.

  "Go away!" the second vampire clapped his hands, intending to scare the dog, but in response, it rushed to him and bit into his leg. The vampire roared in pain. The dog jumped to the miller, stopped in front of him, and turned to the vampires, making it clear that it would protect him.

  A quiet screeching sound came from the street. The first vampire tried to kick the dog but received such a painful bite in response that he lost his ability to think straight. Furious, he jumped on the dog. It leapt, and he found himself face to face with the miller again. The vampire reached out to strangle him. At this point, he didn't even want to eat the man. He just wanted to avenge humiliation, but the dog jumped on his back and clung to his neck with its sharp teeth. The vampire howled, but then his partner approached and kicked the dog aside. The dog growled so loudly that the vampires lost their hearing for a while. The miller had little idea as to what was going on. His hands were searching for any object to protect himself from the enemies.

  The screech sounded again. The birch that was leaning against the mill couldn't resist the blades for long, so it slowly tilted to the side. The millstones twitched slightly. The vampire grabbed the miller and shook him violently. The latter spread his arms, and his open palm passed under the groove just as some flour fell from it. The miller's hand clenched around it automatically, and he threw a handful at the vampire's face. The vampire shrieked piercingly in unbearable pain. The flour glowed with a ghostly blue light and burned right through his body. The vampire dropped the miller, jumped up, and spun around, still shrieking loudly.

  The dog attacked the second vampire, who grabbed it by the throat and tried to keep it at a safe distance. The bloodied fangs clanked, grabbing the air right before his nose, and only now he understood what all victims of vampires felt before death.

  The screeching turned into a continuous noise, the blades swirled, the birch fell to the ground, and the miller followed its example, feeling absolutely exhausted. The first vampire was filling the forest with his pained cries. The second was fighting the dog, and then the blade stopped at the sign of the cross, sending the mill ablaze.

  The explosion shook the mill and pushed it toward the logs.

  ***

  The silence brought the miller back to his senses. The last thing he remembered before falling briefly unconscious was a blinding glow that engulfed the mill and the vampires who exploded at same time.

  He opened his eyes. The vampires were gone without a trace, just like the mill. He himself was lying on the grass, weighed down by a part of the log, and the dog was wagging its tail next to him. It was covered in blood, with wild green eyes, and it was whimpering anxiously, looking at the miller. The man stared more closely, and then the realization hit him. The dog seemed vaguely familiar, and if not for the blood on its fur... and the weird eyes... it looked like…

  "Hunter?" the miller asked quietly. The dog almost stood at his full height from happiness. Wildly wagging his tail, he licked the miller's cheek with a bloody tongue and yelped in excitement. Then he squinted at the miller, saw he was smiling faintly, and began to yelp happily again.

  And then the dog turned, wagged his tail for the last time, and ran away. The miller carefully pushed the log aside and stood up, checking whether his bones were still intact. It looked they were, but he still hurt a lot. "I'm too old for this," he grumbled.

  ***

  Early morning. Yaga's house.

  The plate with an apple was glowing, the apple rolling on its rim. The image of a cow chewing grass appeared. The cow raised its head and bellowed lowly. Yaga jumped up from the stove in fright and stared at the plate.

  She spat, feeling vexed, yawned, and said, "Stop!"

  After a quick breakfast, Yaga rushed to the village to check whether everything was going according to her plan. She flew to the oak tree with the observation tower, took out her telescope, and peeked into the open window of Alena's house. The goat was asleep.

  "Damn.”

  What about the dog?

  “Hey, dog!" Yaga called, staring at the darkness of the kennel and vainly trying to see something. "Dog! What a dog you are! You didn't follow my plan at all. Barbarians! You sent my plan down the drain! Is the leash the only thing left from that creature? Everything had to be different!"

  Wait... Come to think of it, this was exactly what was meant to happen. Given the fact that the leash was not in the kennel, but rather lying on the street, the dog had managed to locate the playful beast... But was it someone else?

  "Which idiot decided to play in front of this house last night?" Yaga asked herself nervously. One hundred and forty countries, thousands of towns and villages, tens of thousands of homes, millions of animals and birds on this Earth, and some fool decided to play with this particular dog! Did he or she lack enough free space or something?

  Who had the dog decided to chase instead of the goat? And where was he now?

  She had to come up with the likeliest version quickly. For example, the dog could go for a walk in the neighborhood to show off his updated eyes. No, absolutely not. The hypnosis wouldn't allow him to escape from the yard before doing his job. What else could be there?

  Yaga dived into her thoughts.

  So maybe someone had broken into the courtyard and the dog mistook the actions as a game. If so, who was that evil, vile, disgusting, terrible being? A stray thief? The locals know there's nothing to steal here. Apart from Ivan, but why would anyone but Yaga be interested in him? This version didn’t seem suitable as well, then. Maybe the neighbor's dog barked at the moon? But this was a normal nightly habit of all the dogs of this village. Running out from the yard for this wasn't necessary. So that theory was out, too. What, then?

  Yaga took another look at the yard. A ruffled rooster fell out of the chicken coop, walking on wobbly legs. Apparently, it was the last creature who'd seen the dog alive and well. Otherwise, why would he be so nervous?

  That’s it! The chicken coop! The guest who was crouching in the darkness of the night, as if it was some game of hide and seek, the dog who was waiting for him or her, the collision... and the whole plan fell apart! Well, of course! The only one who could do such villainy was a red-tailed cunning beast who adored chicken and sneak attacks to the point of obscenity. The fox! Probably the same one that had Yaga had spotted twice recently.

  That meant…

  "The dog is gone," Yaga sighed. How could that dog compete with a red cheat? It had probably brought the poor dog to the middle of nowhere, thrown it to the wolves, and was now sleeping in a quiet and secluded place somewhere.

  She had to come up with a new plan. Of course, she could always hypnotize another hound, but if the fox decided to hang around every night, very soon, the supply of dogs in this village would end. And for an absolutely fruitless reason.

  "There’s no time for doing nothing!" Yaga barked, jumping on her broom. "Let's go home!"

  ***

  High above her, the kite was flying, sated and wildly pleased with himself and with his public success. This week turned out to be unusually successful! So successful that he was thinking about tearing a decent piece of the cheese he'd planned to stock for later and throwing it to the doggies to make them fight for it. But who to throw it at? What fun it would be!

  The frozen sparrow fluttered out of the cloud, hoping to warm up, and swept right in front of the kite's beak, brazenly chirping and rushing down the slide. The kite flinched, shouted a couple of insults in the heat of the moment, then took aim and launched some cheese at the brazen bully. Soon, both of them became mere dots and disappeared from sight. And then the sparrow's feathers flew in all directions from an invisible point
.

  "Got him!" the kite exclaimed and flew on. It really was a great week.

  ***

  "I want to eat! I'm hungry!" the crow croaked wistfully, swinging on a branch near her nest. The bones in the nest had been repeatedly chewed on, so they acquired a translucent look. Hunting season had turned into a season of dieting and suffering, and whose fault was that? The suffering was so profound that the crow even heard words of sympathy from her potential food as it darted into the burrow before she had time to catch it.

  The sparrow flew down vertically, stunned by the adrenaline pumping in his blood and the impact of the cheese that hit him right under his tail. This cheese, smelling incredibly tasty, continued falling as well. Cheese! The stunned crow inhaled the alluring smell, but the second after the cheese fell to her eye level, it disappeared, and the crow fell out of reality for a long time, frozen in complete astonishment.

  One could understand the real reasons for her astonishment only if they saw the scene of the cheese falling at a very slow speed. Because in this case, something interesting would become apparent. Here was a crow sitting on a branch. The sparrow passed her by slowly, very slowly, with his open beak and bulging eyes, and a piece of fresh village cheese was falling down unhurriedly nearby. Here it reached the eye level with the crow. Her beak opened suddenly, her neck rapidly extending as she grabbed the cheese. Then she turned around, hiding the cheese in the nest, returned to her original state, and only then did she begin to look surprised.

  The feeling of unexpected happiness that overfilled her was so strong that it spilled out in a long, loud, and incredibly enthusiastic cry of "Caaaaa...(only four hundred and forty-three letters long and a hundred and twenty decibels high)...aaawww!"

  By accident, the cry went straight into the ear of a caterpillar that was chewing the leaf in melancholy, and his ears along with the leaf immediately withered. For the crow, such an outcome had no value. Unlike for the caterpillar and his descendants who never had ears ever again after this.

  The wish that came true so suddenly had improved her mood up to the heavens. The crow exhaled, inhaled, and began to sing a self-created song cheerfully, scaring those who weren't frightened by her enthusiastic scream earlier. From the raucous caw, the caterpillar had temporarily lost its mind, slipping down the wilted leaf and freefalling to the grass where he remained before turning into a neurotic butterfly with a thin little body.