Blood Russian

by R. D. Zimmerman

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “Coming out into the woods sounded like fun—”

  He touched his fingers to her lips. “Ts-s-s.”

  The tempo of his heart began to rise again this time not from anxiety. Pressed close to Lara and her lavender scent, he began to recall those afternoons spent hidden in her apartment. His eyes fluttered as he drifted back into wonderful memories of love and lust….

  He pulled at her collar, kissed the flat, silky skin above her breasts. Her hair whisked over his cheek. He caught a clump of it and pulled her down until their mouths met. They kissed deeply, like lovers who had fought bitterly and then pledged never to argue again. A cool night air blew up. Fall leaves danced around them, and Boris and Lara swirled around and fell to the ground.

  Lying next to her on the forest floor, Boris said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. This was a good idea.”

  She ruffled his hair and he propped himself up on an elbow. He plucked at the buttons of her blouse, then tugged it from her pants. As her blouse fell away, he rubbed the side of his face over her warm stomach. So smooth, so talcum-soft.

  The leaves bristled and crinkled as he rolled on top of her, a knee on either side. They stared into each other’s eyes as together they worked her blouse off her shoulders, laying it like a smooth carpet beneath her. Then they freed her bra, and Boris gathered it up in a fist and tossed it far away. In what seemed like a long time, but was actually only a few seconds, Boris knelt above her and stared. Gasping, he dove down, burying his face between her breasts, losing himself in the hot swells of her. Then he nibbled her with his lips, all over on either side, and she sunk her fingers into his hard shoulders.

  Something thrashed behind. Boris froze, panic surging his heart as if they’d just been walked in upon. He sat back, turned, strained to hear what he thought were steps in the birches.

  He gasped. Two fingers pushed at the hardness in his pants. With her other hand, she pulled at his belt. He took one last look behind them and saw, not a person, but Lara’s feet pushing at the leaves, digging with her heels into the earth. As she pried at him, pushed and caressed, he pulled open his shirt, loosened the buttons of his pants. He did not shed them, though. Not Yet. Instead he lay down, pressing his furry chest against her breasts.

  Boris felt himself sink deeper into her as she spread wider. His lips devoured hers as he reached down between the two of them and slid his hand into her pants. The flat plane of his palm moved along, his fingers prying under, then inside her clothing. Her skin was hot here, smoothness giving away to soft curls. He pressed deeper still and suddenly she shook as if he’d pressed a magic button. She pushed up at him with a strength he’d never known she possessed; but he held firm, kept his lips to hers, his hand inside her clothing. Her head twisted, broke her mouth away from his. It was then that he saw her eyes, big and terrified as if she were seeing her own death.

  “Ai!” she cried.

  Boris yanked his hand from her pants, threw himself to the side, rolled to the ground. An enormous figure—entirely dark except for the moonlit blade of a cleaver overhead—charged out of the birches. Boris recognized him at once. The man in the leather jacket—with maniacal determination burning in his eyes.

  Boris lunged over Lara, spreading himself as wide as he could to protect her. Not her, he screamed inside. Not her and the child!

  A single word ripped out of his throat. “Nyet!”

  His cry only caused the assailant to gather speed. Boris tried to see the face, saw only the outline of a nose and a crop of dark hair. The leather coat was clear, though. Thick and crisp and shiny. In a secondary pause, though, Boris saw how the left sleeve hung limp. Then time raced ahead again, and Boris stared high, saw that thick right arm with its cleaver pull back, load the muscles with full force. Dread flushed through Boris. The stranger would not only strike him first, but he’d strike with enough crude force to slice right through his body and into Lara. Boris looked directly at him, tensed his body in anticipation as he saw the man in the leather jacket hurl his arm and the cleaver forward.

  Suddenly something else appeared. Someone. An old woman. And out of her hand flashed a knife so quickly that Boris almost didn’t see it. As fast as an arrow, the blade pierced the air, then slammed into the man’s left shoulder.

  “Ai!” he cried, still charging them.

  Boris saw the split-second of a chance as the man in the leather jacket stumbled a half-step. He rolled off Lara, grabbed her. His entire body turned to a single muscle as he tried to pull her out of the way. He looked up. The huge figure of the man sliced down. With all his strength, Boris jerked at Lara, who was scrambling on her own. The man, knife hanging from his shoulder, fell short, his cleaver striking much too low. For an instant, Boris thought Lara and he had escaped. But then he heard it, the slicing of skin, the striking of bone.

  “Ai-i-i-i!” curdled Lara’s scream.

  The man fell to the side, dropped to his knees, and clutched at the knife in his shoulder. Boris bounded to his feet. With all his force, all his weight, he brought back his foot, kicked it into the man’s face, and sent him flying backward.

  Boris turned back and was faced with Lara’s writhing body. Naked from the waist up, her pants open, she thrashed about in pain. Her agony seared her eyes shut. Her open mouth was frozen in a silent cry as she pulled desperately at her right foot. Boris couldn’t believe what he saw.

  “Gospodi!”

  The man in the leather coat had missed Boris. But he’d caught Lara, nailing the tip of her right foot to the earth. Boris grabbed her ankle, pressed down and held it steady. The cleaver had cut through her shoe, sliced all the way to the sole. Blood swelled out of the slash in the leather, and from the amount of it, Boris knew that a toe or two had been hacked off. With a single yank, he pulled the cleaver free.

  “Ai!” screamed Lara.

  She twisted on her side, sweeping her foot and a spray of blood through the air. Boris dropped the cleaver, lunged forward, and tried to hold her down.

  He glanced back at the assailant. In the dark he saw the man use all his force to grab at the knife jabbed through his leather coat. He pulled at it, cried out like a wounded beast, then tugged again. The knife moved, worked its way loose of muscle and bone. It was only a matter of moments before he’d pull it free and be after them again.

  Boris snatched up Lara’s blouse, threw it over her stomach, and grabbed her. Scooping her up in his arms, he stood. Steadying himself, he took one last look at the man in the leather jacket, then started to run, Lara in his arms. Just get her away from him, he thought. Get Lara out of harm’s way, then come back and, once and for all, deal with him, kill him.

  “You’ll be all right, Lara!”

  With arms locked around his neck, her sobs fell into his chest, her screams of pain muffled by his body. As he ran, her hacked foot bobbed, blood trailing from it.

  Trees. Birch trees in every direction. Boris ran but didn’t know where he was going. Clutching Lara to him, he turned. The man in the leather coat was gone. Not behind him, not before him. Boris started running again. But was he running right to their assailant? He burst out in sweat. And, bozhe moi, there was someone, someone different perhaps, up that ridge and by that tree. Another person out to kill?

  He ducked to the left, swerved around two trees, charged off in the opposite direction. He looked back as he ran. No one was back there in the night. No one was following them. He turned.

  “Ai!”

  A knife was raised right before him, only several meters away. He tried to stop, slid on the leaves. Lara’s foot smashed into a tree and she wailed in pain. And then Boris recognized the person just before the knife was to come slashing into him.

  “Tyotya! Tyotya, don’t! It’s me! Me, Boris Ankadievich!”

  The old woman’s hand hurled forward, but she didn’t release the knife. She hesitated a second, then eyes scanned the dark of the forest. Her attention came back to Lara and the foot. Tyotya touched t
he ankle, shook her head.

  “This way.”

  Without questioning, Boris followed. Tyotya led them down a low hill, in and out of the birches, which stretched into infinity in every direction. At one point she stopped, seemed not quite sure of which path to take. She stared up at the moon, then started off. Then she paused again. She held her fingers to her lips, looking for something. The sound of trod-upon leaves from behind reached their ears, then abruptly halted.

  “Hurry,” whispered Tyotya. She pushed him to the left, pointed with the knife. “Go straight, always straight. I’ll meet you at the palace.”

  “How many of them are there?” asked Boris.

  “Two. At least two. Now go.”

  He hesitated. “But…”

  “Go!” she hissed. “Hurry before she bleeds to death!”

  Tyotya’s words shocked him into action. He kissed Lara on the forehead, then started off at once, holding her like an injured child. Just focus on one tree, he told himself. Run to it. Then focus on one after that. All the other ones you have to pass by, dare not look at. All the other birches you must ignore. Straight. Charge straight. Hurry.

  “Lara? Lara?” he whispered into her ear.

  She moaned, stirred her head, and her voice came from a person on the edge. “The… the pain’s going away, Boris. It’s not… not so bad.”

  “Good.” But was it? Was it just shock or was she slipping, the loss of blood causing life itself to fade? “I love you. I love you so much.”

  She kissed his neck. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Nyet, of course not.”

  Her head bounced, then fell forward, and Boris ran faster than ever. There seemed to be no end to the white trees, but then like a wall of rain in the queerest storms, the birch forest suddenly ended. Boris flinched and burst out, then stopped immediately.

  His dacha lay down to his left, the palace just up a ways to his right. He searched the open area, glanced back another time, and started off. In the full moonlight now, he saw Lara clutching her blouse over her naked breasts, saw the chill rising on her skin. Her foot bobbed as he ran, a soaking pulp of shoe and skin and bone. Her life fluid was emptying through her mangled foot. He had to get her somewhere warm, somewhere safe, then bandage her foot.

  Rising from behind, blasting out of the forest, came a scream so piercing that Boris did not know if it belonged to man, woman, or animal. He looked back down into the birches. Except for the ringing of the scream in his ears, all was quiet.

  He trotted onward, his movement slowing under the weight of Lara’s lifeless body. Climbing the hill, he felt as if he were running in slow motion. All his energy was being exerted, every gram of power he could muster, but his body just couldn’t move fast enough. One leg up, then down. One grueling step after the other upward to the palace. His heart swelled under the strain, pounded as if ready to burst. His body, beaded with sweat, soaked him as if he’d thrashed himself with birch twigs in a sauna.

  At the crest of the hill, he reached the fence around the palace and turned. The moonlight, bouncing off the silvery river, shed a haze of light over everything. His log dacha sat quiet, the front door still open. Yellowish light still cascaded from the open front door. The birch forest seemed quiet, too, as if Tyotya, the man in the leather jacket, and everyone else had been swallowed up by the trees. What had happened back there, he wondered. Who had cried out?

  A figure moved to his left. Someone below was emerging from the woods, charging up the hill. It didn’t look like Tyotya, and so Boris cradled Lara deeper, pressed himself back up against the fence, strained to see who was following him. But he couldn’t tell. The moonlight only gave a hint of a person, not an explanation.

  Boris couldn’t move. His mind was blank. Exhaustion had sapped his ability to think.

  Something clawed and shrieked behind him and he leapt forward. It was not just one thing, but many, with long nails and sharp noses. Bozhe. The hounds. This was the far corner of their pen, and the pack of them sniffed wildly at him and at the scent of blood. One followed by another, followed by another, began to leap hungrily against the fence, pushing the cracked wood outward.

  Down the hill and to his left, Boris could no longer see that figure. Whoever it was had already reached the palace. If Boris slipped around to the left toward Tyotya’s house, he’d certainly be trapped. He hunkered down, the weight of Lara numbing his arms. He headed to the right, leaving the pen of animals behind.

  “Lara,” he whispered into his chest. “Lara, can you hear me?’’

  As if she were in a deep sleep, her head moved slowly up and down.

  “Just hang on. Please, just hang on.”

  He came to a corner of the fence. He glanced back and saw no one. Right in front was a break in the wall of wood. A gate. He didn’t know where it led, only that it was a passage from this open territory and into the protected heart of the palace. He checked over the fence, found the space empty, free of both humans and hounds. Without another thought, he lifted up the heavy wooden handle, pulled it open, and entered a wildly overgrown courtyard. They were right in front of the old entrance to the palace, three stone arched doorways that once opened onto the main entry hall and the great staircase. Princes and revolutionaries and Fascists had all passed through here before.

  Boris clambered over a mass of broken boards. That’s what he’d do. Run inside the old palace, seek shelter at the top where at least he could see anyone coming. The roof was long gone here at the front of the palace and over the left wing—burned away by the Fascists—but further in there was more shelter. He made his way over some shattered stone steps and passed through an arch. Weeds poked through cracks in the marble floor and a young birch had pushed through a wall, past an old fountain. Towering walls, the shell of a once great body, surrounded him, stuck high into the sky, naked and unprotected by ceiling or roof. Filling a huge window was the moon, white and scabby gray.

  Boris kissed Lara again and again as he hurried to the staircase. They were passing through the remains of the entry hall when suddenly he heard a charging noise from over on the right.

  “Tfoo!”

  Like a speeding white cloud, upwards of ten hounds raced through the palace. Having broken through some other part of the fence, they flew over worn marble, through crumbled walls. Following the scent of blood, they charged Boris and Lara. The creatures snapped at the intruders, yelping with joy as if the long-awaited hunt had finally begun.

  Boris hurried to the marble stairs and saw only black sky atop the palace. There had to be some sort of protection, though, some defense high up there, and hugging Lara, finding the last of his strength, he jumped the stairs two at a time. When he was only halfway up, though, the hounds scrambled around the base of the staircase and shot upward. Their crying rose in fervor and signaled the moment for the kill. With snapping jaws, they bounded up, twisted their heads sideways, and bit for a chunk of Boris’ leg. Lara stirred, the racket rousing her. Glancing down, she saw the creatures swarming around them and she screamed as if she were lost in a living nightmare.

  Boris leaned against the stone railing, attempting to keep his balance. He kicked. He swung his foot out, hurled it into the face of one of the animals. The creature, unfazed, snapped back with whole rows of pointed teeth. Boris lost his balance, sensed something giving away behind him. The railing began to waver, to crumble outward. He jerked Lara and himself back from the edge as the stone toppled to the ground below. But he lost his balance, and as he fell sharply forward on a knee, a hound snapped its jaws on his foot.

  “Ai!” he cried.

  Another hound bit into the meatiest part of the calf and shook its head, fangs ripping at muscle. Yet another followed the smell of blood to its source. Pulling back, it prepared to lunge at Lara’s dangling foot. Boris saw this, yanked himself free and upward, and struggled to his feet. In a frenzy, four hounds started in at him, when suddenly a figure charged up the stairs and waded right through the hounds, hur
ling them aside.

  “Away! Away! Back!” cried Tyotya as she kicked and shoved, swung with the blunt end of her axe.

  Caught up in the excitement, the creatures continued to fight and did not obey. One snapped at the old woman. She smacked it on the nose with the side of the axe, beat it away, and one by one they recognized their master and backed off.

  As she tried to push away the hounds, Tyotya turned to Boris and said, “To the top—hurry!”

  The pain burned in his foot and leg as he carried Lara up the marble stairs. He reached the top, stumbled over a pile of stone and wood. War and weather had worn away the baroque walls here, the florid plaster now ghostly and gray. Boris leaned against a column that rose out of nowhere and watched as Tyotya beat back the hounds with chunks of marble. As she climbed up the steps, she yelled curses at them. A few cowered away, slithered down the stairs, and sunk into the skeleton of the palace. Others jumped back, barking and snapping at the air. Finally, Tyotya made it to the top, grabbed up a handful of marble rocks, and began pelting her animals. She drove them to the bottom; then, huffing, she blocked the stairs with boards.

  The short figure draped in black hesitated only a moment as she caught her breath. Next she headed off into a room and waved Boris to follow.

  “Who… are they?” she asked.

  “A gang of black marketeers.”

  She inquired no further. They bypassed an entire wing of the palace that had neither roof nor floor—simply charred walls—and made their way into a less damaged section. Passing over parquet floors now weathered like driftwood, they wove from room to room. From a roofless ballroom, they passed through a series of small chambers, then walked around the edge of a caved-in floor. Boris glanced back, thought he saw a figure dart out of the shadows, then disappear behind some wall.

  “Tyotya, there’s—”