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  "Can you see anything?"– I heard someone above me shout. The welded door had no windows next to it, but there was a window on the flight of stairs between the first and second floor facing that direction.

  "I can’t see a thing!"—someone above replied. "The concrete visor above the door obscures the view!”

  Then the creature went silent: its barrage was over. The crowd stopped, froze in anticipation of what was coming next.

  Bang! The final strike was louder than before. The force of the blow was such that, in defiance of common sense, the bones of the man’s skull made a dent in hard steel. The loud, violent cracking sound, which couldn’t be silenced even by the ringing of metal, indicated that the man didn’t survive that.

  Somebody screamed in fear again. The beast sniffed. I heard its footsteps, followed by a dragging sound.

  It was at that moment that we heard them. The sirens. Old and rusty, they were coming back to life after decades of sleep to fulfill their purpose – to warn people of an incoming catastrophe.

  The years of slumber did not do them any good – they started out sounding low, but with each second, as their mechanical voice chords were stretching and warming up, they were getting louder and higher, until the familiar sound that everyone had hoped to never hear in their lifetime was drowning out everything else.

  The sirens were getting louder, and in the pauses between its pulses, I could hear that the town in the background was getting noisier. The quiet morning suddenly blew up with distant screams, shouts of panic and urgency. Bags full of most valuable things were falling to the ground and were abandoned there, and engines of multiple cars were starting and racing off on screeching tires without even properly warming up.

  My neighbors were wordlessly soaking in what was going on. I knew they wanted to scream, to run along with the rest of the people, to escape from where they were – but the final screams of the postman were still ringing in our ears louder than any sirens.

  “What the hell?" - I heard the man next to me whisper. His eyes were glued to a dent on the door. "What the hell are we supposed to do?"

  Some people outside started screaming. We heard their cries of terror and pain as the unseen forces were preying on them. It was clear that the evacuation was not going smoothly. Perhaps the creature that attacked the postman was targeting them as well.

  "My god"—the man that stood near the window whispered in terror. "What the hell are those things?"

  "What is there?"—someone called out to him. "What do you see?"

  "I… I don’t know,"—he answered. "I don’t know how to describe it."

  "Step aside"—someone pushed him away from the window. I expected the new observer to tell us what it was that he was seeing there, but he remained just as silent as the man before.

  "My god"—was all that he whispered before he, too, stepped away from the window. Stretching my neck out to catch a glimpse of him, I saw his face for a moment. The man was in utter shock. It was clear that we wouldn’t get any concrete answers from him, either. Both of them simply didn’t know how to describe what they’d experienced.

  "For God’s sake, kick that window out! Break the glass!" – someone from the crowd shouted. "What are you waiting for? We need to get out before it’s too late!"

  "It’s no use – it has grates on it, too" – someone else from the crowd commented. "It’s already too late. We’ll have to wait for the rescue party."

  After what seemed like five minutes, the commotion outside was gone. Everyone had left. We were left alone - probably the only people in the entire district, and maybe even the whole town. Standing together on the staircase in front of the welded door, which separated us from both salvation and our doom.

  And when the sirens finally went silent, something in the distance called out to them in challenge. The creature was victoriously howling in the distance, announcing itself to be the sole ruler of the town.

  The people started panicking. Our state suddenly became clear to us. In fear of challenging the creature, we ended up being left behind, being stuck, and everyone started panicking at once. The crowd started rushing in all directions—some wanted to get closer to the door, others wanted to get home as soon as possible. I had to grab the railing to avoid being trampled. I didn’t approve of their panic, but I also didn’t know what to do. Even though I maintained composure it was because I didn’t know what to do, and I was listening to the crowd around me. Perhaps some of them had some valuable suggestions about what to do in such a situation?

  But as I was listening to them, trying to get a hint or a direction from someone, I realized that I couldn't hear them, as only two sounds were playing out in my mind.

  The first one was the howling of the beast. I realized that I had heard it before - back then, during the night. Back when it woke me up the first time at that obscure hour where you know that the position of the arrows on a clock doesn't matter - all you know is that it's not a time for you to be awake.

  And the second sound was the one that I'd heard less than half an hour before. The sound that I was reminded of by the dreadful howling of sirens, the harbingers of hardships and catastrophe. The sound which, in a way, carried the same message as them.

  The playful tune of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" from the morning transmission. The melody that signaled the end of an era.

  CHAPTER 3 - "Stay Where You Are"

  I entered my apartment and slammed the door behind me. I listened. Bickering old people outside, shouting, complaining, bartering with fate. Deciding what to do and where to go. Every fifth word was a "Hello!" - most of them rushed to the phones to call the police or their loved ones.

  I took a deep breath and listened to what was on my mind.

  Confusion. Conflict. Fear.

  What was that thing outside? The only thing so big and strong could be a bear, yet it didn't sound like one. It didn't behave like one, either: I haven't heard of any bears pummeling their victims like that.

  Besides, the postman didn't say: "there's a bear out here", he described it simply as…"something." Something he didn't have a word for. Save for his possible extreme short-sightedness, I didn't have any explanations for that.

  Could it get inside? I doubted that. Despite its monstrous strength, it couldn't break through the metal door, and as someone had noted the windows on the first floor had grates on them - a simple counter-measure against the burglars which ended up turning our building into a fortress.

  I felt a sudden rush of gratitude toward the mysterious welder who shut us all in. There is no doubt, he had made sure we were all stuck in here, but the creature showed up just as I was trying to leave the building. If I had been outside, perhaps it would be my skull cracking under its strikes and not the postman's. Could it be that it had been his intention to protect us all?

  But then I remembered what that man who was trying to get out said - "I'll get to the next stairwell through the roof." I realized what he meant - there was a door to the roof at the top of every stairwell in the building, and thus we could exit through the next-door apartment block.

  Did it mean that the creature could find its way inside our stairwell through the neighboring one? Of course, that was quite a route, and I doubted that an animal could navigate the building so well, but that wasn't out of the realm of possibility anymore. I looked outside through the peephole to see if the creature was already outside my door, but all I saw were the panicking pensioners, rushing up and down the stairs and actively discussing what had happened.

  Had all the doors in our Khruschyovka been sealed the same way, or was it only ours? And if another door was open, what would be the best course of action? To make a break for it, try to outrun the thing in a race across the entire town toward the presumed evacuation point? Or to stay put inside and await rescue?

  The latter option seemed more reasonable to me. The siren coincided with the beast's appearance, so it could mean that the crisis we were facing was not just a local event. Perhaps
its appearance was just a harbinger of something greater, like the Beast from the Bible rising from the sea to signal the coming apocalypse. The sirens wouldn't be used to warn everyone about the danger that only our apartment complex on the outskirts of town was facing. Which meant that the authorities knew what was going on.

  So, the reasonable thing to do was to stay where I was, warn the authorities that we were left behind, and wait for them to come to rescue us.

  I slid down my door and looked around. I looked at the old walls. At the paintings that didn't match the wallpapers. At the old furniture that surrounded me. I elbowed the door behind me in frustration. Fate sure had a way to rub its intentions in your face.

  When I first received my own place to live, I was ecstatic - to have your own place at 18 years old was amazing, and these old walls had borne witness to many parties I threw with my friends. But as time went on, I was slowly starting to realize that the apartment didn't come for free, after all. It came with a dangerous curse, and I first realized what it was when I caught myself thinking about tearing down the hate inducing grey wallpapers to replace them with something else.

  The apartment was an anchor. A cozy harbor that protected me from the hardships of the outside world, but at the same time corroded my hull, covered my engines with rust. Sure, I was starting to call it home, but at the same time, I knew that my attachment to it would not bring me anything good. I knew that if I started sinking money into refurbishing the place and give into that desire to sell the moth-eaten sofa in the guestroom and replace it with that newer one I saw on Avito[3], if I focused on making a better place to live instead of setting my gaze on getting out of town for good, then in some ten years I'd be left here forever. I'd marry some neighboring girl - not out of love, but because there wouldn't be many other options, and, perhaps, out of a hurry to secure her before she chose some tractor driver instead of me, and these walls would once again be filled with the laughter of children - children I wouldn't be able to leave anything save for this old decrepit home. And maybe a few bruises if by that time I had accumulated enough misery to share with them.

  I feared becoming the same thing as my neighbors. Old, bitter, and forsaken people, living out their days in a town which would eventually, once again, disappear from the maps.

  And now that apartment wasn't just an anchor. It became my prison. That entire building, that ship in my quiet harbor - it sank down, leaving its crew stranded.

  My heartbeat was picking up the pace, not letting my brain slow down and focus. I squeezed my fists and held my breath. I kept holding it until I started seeing dark spots in front of my eyes. Until my panicking mind didn't have enough strength to keep struggling.

  "It is temporary," - I told myself. "Once this is over, I'll tell my mother that I don't want to live here anymore and that I want to move out of town. I'll tell her that it left me shaken and traumatized. Something along those lines. I just need to endure for now."

  That was a lie, I knew that. I had always been too much of a wuss to stand up to her. Had that not been the case I would have already been studying in some University in Moscow or Saint Petersburg - not rotting away in this town.

  But even though it was a lie, it gave me strength. I clung to it, clung to the silver lining I'd found in that grey haze of the situation around me. I wanted to believe that I could use the situation to further my own goals. To finally get my shot at freedom.

  I got up to my feet and listened again. A new sound was humming in the background. The sound of rushing water.

  "They're filling their bathtubs with water" - I realized. After all, we didn't know for how long we'd be stranded and whether the water was going to be supplied. At that moment I couldn't help but feel some sort of respect towards these people, bubbling up from within me. The moment things started going south, they started preparing for the worst. It was perhaps this kind of experience for which the elders had been valued since the dawn of time, where a minute knowledge could save the entire tribe.

  Of course, nothing less could be expected of them. They had survived through the Soviet Union and the tumultuous times after its fall. They may have not looked the part, but they were the ultimate survivors.

  I headed for the bathroom and opened the valve so that it could join the quiet choir of its brethren. The water pressure was weaker than usual, but I was sure that it was because everyone lit up with the same idea to fill the bathtub. As if the entire building was having a bath day.

  I stepped back and took a look. The water kept coming. I congratulated myself on successfully doing something.

  "What next?" - I wondered to myself. "I have to do something else. What are you supposed to do in such cases?"

  I remembered the sound of people talking on the phone and nodded. The police. You call the police once things go south. That was the appropriate reaction of civilized people.

  I knew that at this point it was pointless. At this point, the phone of the local police station was probably bursting from calls of seventy-nine other tenants of our building, and who knew how many more from other parts of town. At this point, they already had the perfect picture of what was going on at our end of town, complete with a thousand details that may have been unnecessary.

  They probably weren't even in town anymore. Those sirens were meant for the entire town, police included.

  But even with that in mind, I still wanted to give them a call. I just wanted to have a first-hand account of what they would say in case they were still there to get my call and hear me say: "Hello, someone welded the doors to my building shut and there's a monster outside that kills people."

  My curiosity, which had already been teased by the morning transmission, was pushing me to learn more - even the most unimportant details.

  I pulled out my phone and raised an eyebrow in surprise when I looked at the screen: there was no signal.

  I guess I had to use the landline.

  I walked up to the old rotary phone mounted on a shelf near the main door, picked it up, and listened. The long humming sound of the dial was in there. The phones were still working.

  I dialed 02[4] on the rotary disk and listened.

  I expected the silence to be followed by short beeping sounds, but instead, I heard a long beep. Despite the insane number of people trying to reach out to the police, I was the one who cut in the line and succeeded.

  An unimaginable, downright impossible luck.

  After another beep, someone picked up the phone. "Novoyarsk police department, I'm listening" - a calm voice inquired. There was no urgency, no panic in it. No usual swagger inherent to our police inspectors. Just a quiet, dutiful expectation.

  I was so taken aback by that, that at first, I thought the siren was some sort of mistake, and we all foolishly misunderstood something, blowing a chain of random events out of proportion. The voice didn't sound like its owner was under any stress. Which would be weird even under the normal circumstances. There wasn't anything our local police hated more than being bothered by phone calls.

  Then I heard it. Dozens of voices talking in the background on the other side of the line. Calm and monotone, they were colliding with each other and against the spacious walls they resided in, humming at the frequency of a bee nest.

  I tried to remember how big our police department was.

  Clearing my throat, I started. "Hello, I'm calling from Krayevaya Street" - I started talking, carefully picking my words. "Someone has welded our doors shut, and we're stuck here, we can't evacuate with everyone else. And…" - I paused, trying to come up with a better way to describe what I'd heard. Suddenly it was much harder to put it into words than I'd expected. "There is something lurking outside on the streets, so we can't leave" - I mumbled under my breath. "Please send someone in. There are a lot of elders here" - I said, faking concern.

  Once I finished talking he stayed silent for a few seconds. I expected the man to burst into anger, to tell me that he had no time for my pranks, but all I heard was th
e pitter-patter of a keyboard as he was typing something in.

  "Have you seen it?" - he demanded to know with a sudden strictness in his voice once he finished typing. I was taken aback by his question: out of everything I’d told him that would be the last thing I expected him to verify.

  "No, but I..."

  I heard a loud tap of a keyboard key - so loud and definitive it stopped me from talking. As if the man put a stamp on something or checked a box.

  "Stay where you are, the situation is under control," - he coldly instructed me and hung up.

  I looked at the phone, as if hoping to see a note with further explanations crawl out of it, but the only thing coming out of it were short beeps.

  The weird phone conversation defied all of my expectations. I had had a faint hope of getting answers - reading our local papers I knew that our police was police in name only. What I hadn't expected was getting more questions.

  Somehow, even though the conversation turned out to be just as useless, it didn't feel like I had a conversation with our town's finest. The commanding, indifferent tone, their lack of surprise when I described our situation, the strange question…

  The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that I never reached our police department. That the man on the other side of the line was from a different line of duty altogether.

  I then dialed my mother – she lived on the other side of town, not far from the road leading out of it. I was calling to make sure that no one would pick up the phone, that she had evacuated, but instead I heard only short beeps. The line wasn’t working.

  She was probably also trying to reach out to me, too, I realized. Also, desperately trying to reach out to her only child, her only future crutch. The only one who, according to her, would be bringing her a glass of water when she'd turn old.

  I quickly dialed my relatives who lived out of town. The result didn't change - short beeps and nothing else. The mysterious police department was the only place I could reach.