OUTSIDE

by Artyom Dereschuk

  I looked at the radio: just a few days before, it was my tool to uncovering the secrets of our town. Well, not uncovering, per se: I'd had around as much success with that as with trying to find out the welder's identity. But it had been fun to pretend that I could peer behind the veil. It had been my old friend that had always been there for me after another dull day of work. Nowadays, it was nothing but the bringer of bad news. Even that sacred piece of my own tiny world I’d built for myself to take cover in from the world outside had been corrupted.

  I looked at the clock: the position of arrows was reminding me about something. I'd long since lost the track of time and wasn't even sure what day it was anymore - the date had no more significance to me than it would to a caveman, yet somehow, I knew that something was supposed to happen at that moment. My internal alarm was ringing, the springs of my internal clock winding it into motion, but the notification on my mind's screen was blank.

  "That's right," - I remembered. "Those religious nut jobs said they'd be broadcasting about now."

  I thought about it, and then sat in front of the radio, turning it on and tuning to the right frequency. I could use some God in my life.

  As I'd expected, I'd missed the beginning of the transmission: another kick to my self-esteem. I couldn't do even that right. Taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I honed in on the frequency and started to listen.

  I expected the voice of the unseen narrator to soothe my nerves, tell me that at least my end days were going to be calm, but he sounded surprisingly agitated. Even he refused to grant me any peace of mind.

  "...for your hard work.

  The aggressors, the traitors of our plan that had spread across the entirety of our country are trying to oppose us, but rest assured - it will be all for naught. Forty years! Forty years we've spent on this plan, waiting for his arrival. It is through the brave sacrifice and willingness to keep his secrets that the first explorers of the outside had shown that we've managed to keep this event concealed.

  We've been denied our chance to keep talking to him when our old god - the mighty red titan of fifteen bodies - had collapsed thirty years ago. The traitors of his faith had reverted to our old ways of the cross - the ones that we'd rooted out a century ago. They live in palaces while the common people keep on struggling. They've forgotten their oaths they've been giving to keep all the workers fed and housed. They’ve left abandoned our hometown and left it to rot after everything we’d done for them. Well, no more! The King in Rags is here. He is among us. His blood may not be red like that of a worker, but it now runs in our veins all the same. He is one of us now."

  He didn't sound calm at all, I'd noted. Hell, he didn't sound very religious, either. From what I could piece together, he was talking about the Soviet Union - what else could be that "fallen red titan of fifteen bodies"? I had never heard anyone refer to it as an "Old God", though it was an incredibly apt description. I could see how some people, who had denied faith in their laborious fervor, could replace it with loyalty to the Party instead.

  However, what was the plan that he'd been talking about? What kind of plan could they be nestling for forty years? Who even were these people? From the context, it seemed that they were native to my town – most likely some of the old-timers, who had lived there since the town’s foundation and that had been privy to the secret of its foundation. Those folk could always be counted on to tell how glorious the times of the old had been, when the USSR was still a thing.

  As for what their plan was, I had no idea. I could only keep listening. For once in my life the radio was broadcasting not some encrypted messages but actual words – I just had to use my wits to piece their ramblings together.

  "My comrades, I've been receiving your reports about the good job you've done. By now, you should've acclimated to the changes. You’ve accepted him as your kin. You've been getting ready for this moment for many years - some of you since your birth. The time has finally come. Seize your people. Show them the truth. Convert the rest, convert them back to the one true faith. And once you're all ready - lead them outside. Unseal the doors. The time is nigh for our faith to spread. Do not fear the beasts - we will distract them."

  His words made me choke on air, my throat tensing from the shock. Seize your people? Unseal the gates?! After listening to him for a bit, I'd gotten acclimated to his manner of speech, full of analogies and metaphors, so I was confident: the man was talking about the welded doors.

  Leonid had said that there had been more people like us in the town. Back then I'd thought that he meant just the people who couldn't evacuate in time - the sick and elderly, who couldn't get out of their houses on time. Could it be that some of them had had their doors welded shut, as well?

  Had all of us been the victims of some enigmatic cult, working from the shadows? The cult that somehow knew what was coming and prepared accordingly?

  I didn't know what their plans for us were, but I could think of only one thing: we were left behind to be a sacrifice. An offering to their King in Rags, whatever that was. I wouldn't even be surprised to find out that it wasn't some abstract entity, but an actual creature of flesh and blood.

  But what did they mean by "lead them outside"? And how was he going to distract the beasts that roamed the streets?

  The answer to that question came immediately: although their sleep was not too long, they had been awakening just as slow as the first time a few days before – and just as loud. The sound which I had hoped to never hear again in my life was slowly gaining volume, breaking through the silence.

  The sirens. Following the command of their new masters who had somehow pried the control over them from the military, they were coming back to life again - although this time, they were distant, as if they were crying for another town, and serving a different purpose. Where before they were the means to alert the populace, now they were a distraction. A loud noise meant to attract the beasts and draw them away from certain parts of town - the parts where no living soul set foot for the past few days.

  At that moment, I was one of the two people who knew what was going on - and even armed with that knowledge, I still couldn't help but panic. The dread spread through my veins like oil, clogging the heart, and making it work harder. My breathing had sped up as well. I was hearing the sound which every person had been conditioned to associate with one thought: "run."

  Yet I couldn't. I could only sit and desperately try to calm down, waiting for what was coming next. And I could only imagine what the rest of the people in the building had been going through.

  The last time the sirens had been sounded, the town turned into the hellhole. What was going to happen now?

  CHAPTER 14 – Believers

  The sirens were wailing in the distance, announcing the beginning of something. The people in our building answered with the same call: some were crying in fear and distress, others - panicking.

  The radio followed. Disturbed by the sirens, it started screaming as well. Screaming in a way I'd never heard a radio do. The very white static, the oldest noise in the universe which only those with mechanical ears could hear, was twisting and whining, becoming high-pitched and fast; the next second - low and slow. It seemed as for the first time since the big bang something disturbed it, uprooted it from its primeval roots. Some unknown, unearthly energies were traveling through it, making it squeal under their heels.

  A blinding headache split my head – only for a moment, subsiding so fast I barely recognized its presence. One moment I felt like tearing my hair out and the next one it was already just a memory. I felt something swell within me as well. For a moment, so short I barely registered it, the meaning of those strange sounds became clear to me, before that knowledge retreated into my subconscious. It felt like something reached out to me, but I wasn’t ready to accept it yet.

  I knew for sure that the sirens had nothing to do with it. No, it was… something else. Something that my radio could detect, but not explain. It just screamed tha
t gibberish at me, without translating, without explaining anything. Just bringing my attention to it.

  Something else was going on at that very moment. Something for which the strange radio cult had created a distraction.

  Outside my apartment, people kept on wailing and shouting, completely oblivious to what was transpiring yet feeling with their guts that it was nothing good. I didn't see the point of interfering: I doubted they would listen to what I have to say, and I didn't have much to say on top of that.

  Then their screams changed: someone cried out aggressively, provocatively. A female voice, muffled by walls, wordlessly cried out in shock, in fear. Another voice grunted as if resisting something - or someone. "Stop!" - I heard a man shout with a sudden clarity: the walls failed to contain his call.

  "The bandits?" - I thought, feeling my knees shake. Were they agitated by the sirens and decided they had nothing to lose? Were they waiting for it to happen? Were they in cahoots with those who sealed us in? Were they doing their bidding?

  I remembered the words of that man, back there when I was threatening to carve their heads open. Would he remember my face? Would he remember his grudge?

  The hatchet was still behind my belt, its short handle rubbing against my leg. "I'm here", it was telling me. "I'm with you."

  Pulling it out, I headed outside.

  On the stairwell, things had gotten clearer: someone was fighting a floor above. I didn't hear the swearing of the bandits, didn't hear any heavy blows landing on someone's head. Just struggling.

  "What the hell's wrong with you? Snap out of it!" - some man grunted. It was tough for him to speak. The breath was raspy, uneven. No doubt he was wrestling with someone who those words were aimed at.

  Someone must've lost their mind from the sirens. That, or dementia. Perhaps the second round of sirens had awakened the deep trauma - the memories of an airstrike from some war of the last century?

  Or maybe the transmission I had eavesdropped on had such an effect on them? Maybe they were one of the intended listeners and were doing whatever it was prescribed for them to do?

  Either way, it was worth investigating. I headed upstairs.

  My prediction turned out to be true: two old men were wrestling with each other. Neither of them knew how to fight, and they were engaged in that weird bar dance the drunkards sometimes partake in when they want things settled. Arms on the opponent's shoulders, trying to both push them away and wrestle them to the ground. Legs wide. It looked more like two bulls crossed their horns, trying to find out who among them was the strongest.

  Two people - an old man and a woman - were trying to pull them apart. The rest of the people just silently stood around them, observing them. Their dance had no more open spots. Even if they tried to help, they wouldn't be able to get close enough - all the space around the fighters was already occupied.

  I tried to chime in anyway.

  "What's going on here?" - I demanded to know, trying to sound confident and louder than the noise. The noise of fighting, the noise of sirens.

  "Get him off me!" - one of the fighters grunted. His opponent's fingers were getting dangerously close to his neck.

  "What are you standing there for? Pry them apart! We have bigger things to worry about!" - one of the women who were observing the fight scolded me, pointing at the window where the sirens were still screaming.

  "Right..." - I went behind the other fighter, tried to pull him. His skin felt hot to the touch: the man seemed to have a fever. No dice: the man wouldn't budge, despite being a whole head shorter than me. His old muscles and ligaments, which I had expected to be weak, were surprisingly tense and strong, like a bark of an old tree.

  "Hurry! What’s taking you so long? He'll strangle me, I tell you!" - the other man wheezed. I took a glimpse at him: the man I was wrestling with indeed already had his fingers on the old man's neck. Squeezing it so hard they were almost drowning in the wrinkly skin.

  "One sec! Let me… What the hell are you standing around for?" - I shouted at the rest of the observers.

  "I'm not coming closer to him - he might have rabies" - someone commented. Still, I felt another set of hands join our struggle and nodded in appreciation.

  The man still wouldn't budge. Where was he getting all of that strength?

  I heard the answer a second later: one of his bones cracked under our combined assault. The man paid it no more attention than he was paying to us. He was going all out, disregarding the injuries.

  "Help..." - the man wheezed weakly. He was starting to sink to the floor, his grip on the assaulter’s hands getting weaker by each second.

  "Pry him off, come on! You're killing him, old man! What are you doing?" - one of my helpers addressed the assaulter, but he remained mute.

  It was time for drastic measures. If he was ready to strangle that old man, then I had to be ready to do the same to him if I wanted to stop him. Letting him kill him would feel like being an accomplice, yet I couldn't imagine actually hitting him. Taking my hatchet, I put it across his throat and started pulling it. I was careful not to crush his windpipe, but as even those measures proved to be ineffective I was drawing more and more of my power with each second.

  "Yes! Like that! Pull him!" - someone shouted. I doubled my efforts, feeling the warmth of their approval spread through me. I was helping them. I was valuable.

  Just a little bit more...

  The old man suddenly let go of the man and turned his face to me. Before that, I didn't get a good look at it. Now, I recognized him.

  It was the same old man who, just a day before, was telling me that the water was fine. That you could drink it without any problems.

  The man didn’t look healthy. His skin was sickly pale, and on top of that it had a strange texture to it. Like paper that got wet and crumbly and then dried up. But only when he looked me straight in the eye, only when his face was right next to mine, did I see what was really wrong with him.

  His skin was covered in strange dark spots – or rather, there was something underneath his skin, some strange growths that were giving it dark pigmentation. Those weren’t bruises for sure – I could see the skin slightly bulging as if something was pushing against from beneath. Something strange, alien had settled there – and it was now pulling the old man’s strings.

  He opened his mouth and let out a guttural sound. The growth on his left cheek twitched in response and moved upward, toward his eye, moving the skin with it – it looked as if the man had a tic. It stretched his lower eyelid to its limit before finally poking from underneath it, rubbing against his eye – a bizarre lump of flesh, almost completely black and clearly with a will of its own.

  It stretched toward me as if it wanted to reach out to me. As it moved, the old man let out another moan, obeying its new master’s will.

  I leaped back in disgust. The other tenants followed. The man whose neck the afflicted old man had been squeezing managed to break free from his grasp, coughing and wheezing, but the old man didn't pay him any attention. He had a new target.

  He - It - opened its mouth. Said something to me soundlessly, like a fish in a tank. Twitched, as if realizing its mistake, and tried again.

  "Yyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..." - it groaned. Its voice was normal - just a little bit coarse. In a moment, the meaning of that sound became clear, making my skin crawl.

  It was trying to say my name. How?! How did it know me?

  "Yuuuuuriiiiiii" - it repeated itself, a bit faster this time. pulling every syllable. It wasn't the old man speaking - something else had possessed him. Something was within him, running with his blood, sharing his flesh. Observing me. Gauging how much of a threat I was.

  "He is among us. His blood may not be red like that of a worker, but it now runs in our veins all the same. He is one of us now."

  The answer came to me on its own. It was Him. I was among those who had come face to face with that cult's messiah. The King in Rags. The one whose blood was running among their own. He had come
to fulfill his promise.

  "Jesus Christ" - one of the men whimpered and disappeared within his apartment. The others, seeing that it was focused solely on me, followed his example. Not a single person stayed around to help.

  "Stand back!" - I screeched, realizing that I was left all alone. I raised my hatchet over my head to try and look more intimidating. "I'll do it, I swear!" - I promised the old man while doubting if I really had it in me.

  Was the old man nothing more than his puppet? Was he like a zombie from those movies Nikita and I liked to watch and laugh at? He wasn't dead - that was for sure. The dead lack the warmth in their touch. The old man, with his fever, had plenty of that.

  Did it mean that he could still be in there? That he was just under some sort of mind-control? They had always made it look easy in the movies. "The man you've once known is gone." How could I restrain him without hurting him? Was there even a way to deal with it in a humane way when all I had was a hatchet for meat?

  In the distance, I heard the sounds of struggle and fight. Judging by the sound, the fight was in the next stairwell. Were people there facing the same threat as I was?

  And then - a gunshot. Clear as a day. Then another one, and another one. Was it Maxim?

  He had just taken the gun from Pavel. Did he know how soon he'd have to use it?

  Did he really have no other options than to use it against the people he called neighbors just a few days prior? Did it mean that I also had no choice?

  Was I going to die, if I hesitated to act?

  The oxygen and horse-load of adrenaline that had been pumped to my brain with another heartbeat, combined into an igniting concoction that exploded in my brain and lit a blue fire deep inside. "It's him or me!" - I decided with sudden ferocity. Fear of the man in front of me, of what I had to do became so enormous, stretched so far inside my mind I couldn't even feel it. It was just a background at that point. The front row, the driver's seat of my head was occupied by things like fury, bloodlust.