OUTSIDE

by Artyom Dereschuk

  The men above - the ones who guarded the fourth floor - started rushing down to see what was going on. I could hear their hurried steps. In a second, they would turn around the corner and see me, trying to reach their most guarded apartment…

  I could already see the door in front of me.

  His door was unlocked. Just like Natasha had told us. He had no one to fear and no one was above him. Locking the door would be nothing more than a hindrance to him.

  I opened the door: the lights were out, so I couldn't see past the threshold. But the threat that was on my heels was far more real and tangible than whatever waited for me beyond that rectangle of darkness, so I quickly jumped through it and closed the door behind me. As I was locking it I just glimpsed the creature rear its ugly, angular head around the corner of the stairwell: I wasn't sure where its eyes were and whether it saw me, but instinctively I felt that whatever senses it employed had felt my presence there.

  As I was still listening to the pitter-patter of its many feet, trying to determine if it knew I was inside the apartment, I heard another set of footsteps. Much clearer than the sounds coming through the door.

  The steps were coming from the darkness behind me. And they were approaching.

  With an unholy howl, the cutlery in the kitchen clanking from its footsteps, the unknown thing that had been hiding within the depths of the apartment was coming straight at me.

  I turned around and swung my hatchet at it, but it missed its target: I threw my shot in the dark too early. I couldn't see it, but just from the sounds it was making, from the way I heard it shift its weight as it approached me, I could tell that it wasn't a human.

  It hissed and charged at me. Its appendage, faintly resembling a human hand, slammed into my chest, pressing me against the door. The creature outside the apartment immediately reacted to it, starting to scratch the door trying to dig through it. The vibrations of its movements traveled through the surface into my back, and I could feel its claws piercing the foam rubber covering of the door, getting stuck on the layer of metal beneath it as if it was my own skin and bones.

  The weight of my assailant was squeezing the air out of my lungs, the initial shock making me lose my grasp on the situation. I couldn't even find the strength to retaliate. The thing had come out a winner from our initial collision, but it wasn't in a rush to secure its victory and finish me while I was powerless.

  I was struggling to find the strength to resist him when I heard him talking to me. I spent a few moments trying to determine what it was saying before giving up on that idea altogether. The language it was speaking couldn't be human, for even though there seemed to be some complex structure to it, no vocal cords would be able to replicate those sounds.

  In fact, the sounds had nothing to do with it at all. The strange words were not heard, I realized, but felt by me. It was not the thing that was choking me that spoke them - it was something beneath my skin. Something within me was resonating with the creature's presence and was letting me know that it was there.

  The words made no sense, yet at the same time I could feel them as if they were written on my skin, or underneath it, the quill they were etched into me with caressing my nerves and letting me know that I should find humility before a piece of him and then I'd find solace in the shadow of his rags and the brilliance of his gaze that he set on our world was more magnificent than our radiant sun and oh how pleasant his flesh would feel against mine and how his blood would run with mine and my soul would sing in unison with trillions of others that had found him across the countless unimaginable worlds and I just needed to breathe and drink and partake and soak in his radiating warmth and I would feel how big his heart is and he would love me more than a mother loves her son-

  My hatchet rose up without me even realizing it and clumsily slashed the darkness that was choking me.

  Halfway through its arc, its blade got snared on something, and the voice within me got quieter. The creature's hold got weaker, too.

  The sounds of the waking world returned: I heard it stumbling back. I took just one deep breath - just one to feel the oxygen saturate my mind and muscles - and, still weak and confused as to where I was, landed another blow.

  It let out a grunt of pain that sounded surprisingly human and backed away. Not letting it recover, I landed one blow after another, each strike making the voices subside, each strike reminding me that I was a human - a savage and territorial creature. An individual. Not some speck in a greater trans-dimensional collective.

  The thing collapsed to the floor and was crawling away from me in the dark. I couldn't ignore the fact that it sounded more human again - my onslaught seemed to make it shed its vicious side.

  A suspicion crawled into my mind. Feeling the walls in the darkness, I found the light switch and made darkness go away.

  The thing lying on the floor couldn't be called a human - its build was far too different from what could be considered a human being. But I couldn't deny the fact that it had Nikita's face - or at least what remained of it.

  It must've been him - after all, the place was right and he had the resemblance to the man I once knew. I now understood why Natasha didn't describe him in more detail whenever she mentioned that he had changed - I wouldn't have believed her anyway, preferring to think that what she was describing was just a result of stress and trauma.

  He had changed alright. His skin had the same dark, spotty texture as the rest of the possessed, but it seemed that it had progressed to a greater degree. Whatever it was that had been growing under his skin, that was giving it that purple hue, had ample time and resources to flourish on Nikita's body, manifesting in bizarre arboreal growths that had changed his appearance and general shape of his body so much it wasn't surprising I didn't recognize a human in him when we had been fighting in the dark.

  The growths didn't look like they were a part of his body - they looked foreign, alien. The very texture of that flesh indicated that it was nothing like ours, and thus couldn't be produced by it no matter what manipulations would be done on it. No, it seemed like the flesh burst forth through him like it had grown from within his skin and dissolved its way from beneath it. The black and purple spots I had been seeing on cultists and bandits before were nothing but the beginning. No doubt the next stage would begin only after those people had infiltrated the rest of society.

  His right eye was covered by a tumor-like formation – a stubby mushroom on the bark of his skin. It was hard to tell whether it was growing from the eye itself or somewhere else. And yet the face was familiar. The face of a man I used to call a friend.

  "Nikita…?" - I asked just to be sure. Even though the evidence was right in front of me, I still couldn't come to terms with it.

  He crawled back to the wall, used it to prop himself up and take a seat, and then smiled, letting out a waterfall of black, oozing liquid from his mouth. "Hello, Yura. Long time no see."

  CHAPTER 19 – The Welder

  It wasn't real. It was too unreal to believe it.

  I had seen Nikita just a week ago. A normal guy a few years older than me. No signs of sickness or anything like that.

  Since then he had changed so much that I struggled to think we still belonged to the same species. As he prostrated himself on the floor, the growths on his body reminding me of barky roots of pines, it felt like I was talking to a stump with Nikita's face.

  "So, it is you" - I said, finally seeing it with my own eyes. It wasn't that I was doubting Natasha's words, but some things needed to be witnessed first-hand to truly believe in them.

  "Yes" - he smiled again, letting out another squirt of inky non-blood. He weakly tried to raise his stumpy hand, covered in deep gashes my hatchet left in barky skin, and then put it back down on the floor. The wounds I had dealt him would've made a normal human die a long time ago from blood loss, but he, despite flooding a quarter of the room with his black fluids, was seemingly stuck in a state between life and death.

  "Although I've
gone through a slight overhaul. Do you like my new look?"

  "You're really the welder?" - I asked him.

  "The welder..." - he rolled that word on his tongue as if tasting the title the people had given him for his deeds and then let out a short, condescending laugh. "I welded you all shut, yes. Don't tell me you didn't enjoy the protection I've given you all."

  "The protection?" - I asked him in disbelief. Who was that person? The Nikita I knew was a caring, calm person. Who was that arrogant imposter? What kind of creature put on his face and started spewing ridicules?

  "We could've escaped the town! We could've evacuated along with the rest!" - I shouted at him. The creature at the stairwell screeched in excitement and renewed its efforts in trying to bring the door down, but I had already figured out that it wasn't up to the task, so I simply ignored it as background noise.

  "You could've escaped it a long time ago, Yura" - he said with a tired sigh, rolling his eyes. "Long before all of this even started. Both you and Natasha. I even offered her a chance, but she refused. No use complaining about it now."

  "She stayed because she wanted to support you!!" - I said with sudden ferocity. Something about how neglectful he was of her sacrifice struck a chord.

  "Yes, I know. But I didn't hold her here. And I told her I had plans here" - he explained with that same tired look as if he'd been through that conversation many times before. At the last moment, his facial expression shifted to that of regret, but only for a moment - he shook his hand and the emotion flew off of his face.

  "Plans like what? Joining some crazy cult? Transforming yourself into…this?" - I gestured at his body, pointing at no organ in particular. "Waiting for the end of the world in the middle of nowhere?"

  "First of all, it's not the end of the world - quite the opposite" - he said with sudden enthusiasm. "And second, we didn't just wait for a random event - we knew it was coming. We knew He was coming. We knew all along" - he said with a victorious look on his face.

  I knew I shouldn't have let my curiosity get the best of me. A hatchet to his head, a quick search through his possessions in search of a tool I needed to escape - and then I'd be gone once the slithering creature outside found itself a new target.

  But after everything I'd gone through, I just needed to know - what for? What the hell was going on in his head? What would push someone like him to change like that and get involved in something so vile?

  What was the greatest secret of our town? What did "the Cricket" fail to tell me?

  "Is your cult behind all of this?" - I inquired. He laughed: "Hardly. Yes. Yes and no. It's hard to explain, it's all started long before I was born."

  "Try me" - I suggested in a dry tone.

  Nikita licked his lips, trying to clean them up from the sticky black substance, coughed out another puddle of it, and then, giving up on the idea, started talking.

  "I don't need to tell you that it all began with the foundation of this town, do I?" - he questioned me. I shook my head: that all of these events were tied to the things the Soviets had been doing in our town, I had figured out long ago. Seeing that, he nodded with satisfaction and continued.

  "I am not sure what's been going on here. The Soviets made sure that not a single person had enough clearance to get the full picture of what they'd been working on. You have no idea how much that spoiled our plans," - he said with spite, his eyes lighting up with fervor of a European crusader who had set foot onto the holy land to find it defiled by heretics. "We've been piecing it all together for decades."

  "So much for knowing it all along" - I sarcastically said. It felt strange to joke with him as if he was still my friend. My mind still refused to accept that he was something else at this point, and the thought of cracking a joke to that thing almost made me lose it.

  Nikita ignored my remark and continued talking: "It is not clear what they'd been doing there. Some say that they had been testing some new science that helped them get through the barrier between dimensions - but the science on that is quite wacky and, in our Order, I hadn't met a single person who could explain how it worked. Others say that the Soviets have found something in the woods - a door of sorts, built by no one and that led nowhere. They were just looking for a key. It doesn't matter," - he shook his head. "What matters is that in those places, beyond the boundaries of our realm, they have found their messiah."

  "Your so-called King in Rags?" - I asked him. "Is that what you call a messiah – a rabies pandemic? I thought the Soviets were supposed to be atheists, especially in the case of high-ranking academics."

  "Gods come in different shapes - just look at different ancient cultures and you'll see what I'm talking about" - Nikita retorted in a matter-of-fact voice, visibly hurt by my remark. "And it's hard to stay an atheist when a literal deity reaches out to you from the outside. The first explorers who have come into contact with him are mostly dead - they have become the saints of our cause. But they have passed down their knowledge to the rest - only those they could trust. Those who could see him not as a tool for some fleeting political agenda, but as their savior. The infallible leader who had already unified countless worlds and was willing to help the rest. The one who could achieve the utopia that mere humans couldn't. Those brave men could see the signs of their old empire crumbling - it was only a matter of time before the greatest sociological experiment, the Soviet Union, would finally fail from human ineptness. They knew that they needed someone above to take reigns. With that, our Order materialized. We have been secretly growing in this town, waiting for his arrival, all this time," - Nikita finished with pride. "And now that we’ve upheld our end of the bargain and prepared the groundwork for his arrival, he’s going to keep his word and give us what we’ve wanted."

  "And you just believe him?" - I asked in disbelief. "Nikita, he's sent hordes of monsters into our town! Does it look like the actions of someone who gives a damn about people?"

  "It's just a vanguard, nothing serious" - he said in a dismissive tone. "The beasts from one of the fringe worlds. Sure, the animals may be too dumb to be controlled by him, so they are a nuisance to us as well, but at the same time they keep the military at bay for the time being, until our Order can finish the rest of the preparations."

  "Nikita, your cult has been infecting people with something that makes them mad!" – I cried out.

  "Not infecting" - he spat the word out with disdain, showing how much he despised my wording. "It's an act of holy communion. These people partook the blood and flesh of their future savior to become closer to him."

  "Don't you think that sounds messed up?" - I wondered. He just smiled and tried to shake his shoulders: "The Christians have been doing that for centuries. The only difference is that our ritual is a real deal."

  "It also doesn't make them look like that" - I countered, pointing at his abnormal growths. He glanced at them with confusion, as if not realizing what was wrong about them, and then shook his head: "Don't be making any mistakes. I am not like the rest. The offering I was granted was purer and more refined. As a high-ranking member of our Order, I'm supposed to be closer to him, and I ought to guide the rest of the congregation – even if they are unwilling at first. Of course, should enough time pass and should they show enough dedication to the cause, they may also feel the warmth of his embrace."

  "So, you do control them" - I realized, another piece of the puzzle falling into place. What had been just a hunch before was now a certainty. Why else would those bandits call him the boss and lay their lives on the line for him?

  "We have no choice" - I heard him casually say. How could he be so calm when talking about such things? Was he really a monster - not just on the outside, but deep within, too? Had he always been that way?

  "We need the troops, we need infiltrators for the initial stage. Someone to get behind the enemy lines and disrupt them from within. We’ve polluted the water supply – sorry, polluted isn’t the right word," – he winced from how awkward his choice of words was,
but then decided to continue. "You get the idea. But, there has been a delay. We planned to do it before his arrival, but we didn’t get to the water supply in time. So, we had to improvise. We needed to keep people inside their houses for the time being until the process was completed. We came up with this little plan – to weld the doors shut and keep everyone inside so that we would have enough time. It hasn't worked out too well yet - the military had seen through our charade with the refugees, but it's not done yet. When the bulk of his army will come it won't matter. And after his conquest is over, people won't need to accept him into their bodies to seek his guidance. They'll see that he's better than any leader humanity could've produced. He's had millennia of experience of ruling countless worlds. They’ll come around."

  "More are coming?" – I asked him.

  "Oh yes" – he assured me with a smile. "With our savior himself at the helm. Have you looked out your window recently?"

  I knew exactly what he was referring to. The wave of death that had been rolling through the forest, drawing closer to our building with each day. I haven’t checked on it in a long time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was at our doorstep by the dawn.

  And Nikita was relishing that fact. He was ecstatic that he had played his part in bringing death itself to our house. To the building where his closest people had been living for years. I felt another wave of anger rolling through me. I couldn’t fathom such betrayal.

  "Nikita, why?" - I asked him.

  "Why what?" - he clarified.

  "Why did you get involved with this whole thing? This started long before you were born, by some old farts who did it for their own reasons. Why did you get involved?!" - I started screaming at him. "What, don't tell me you believe in this cause?"