George Right: D

In this face there were no eyes at all.

A disgusting musty smell which had spread in the air distracted Logan’s attention. He looked askance at the squashed bag—something whitish and lumpy had been squeezed out of it, and Tony had not the slightest desire to examine, what exactly. When he raised his eyes again, the bus was not visible anymore. Either it had turned somewhere—meaning that there finally was a crossroads ahead—or it had completely sunk into darkness and fog.

After returning to the sidewalk—no more adventures in the street, however deserted it looked—Tony hastily walked in his former direction. Though he felt less and less desire to go farther, at the same time, having gone so far already in this direction, he did not want to turn back. When you do not know where to go, the silliest idea is to beat about. And besides, in the depth of his heart, he was not sure at all that the place where this bus came from was any better than where it was heading .

Soon his decisions were rewarded: ahead in the fog a crosswise sign loomed—a crossroads at last… Tony, hurried already by cold and fear, still quickened his pace; probably, he would even have run, but he did not like at all the idea of his noise echoing all through the empty street.

And then he understood that he did not have much desire to approach the sign.

Something hung from it. Just from that part which designated the cross street. For an instant, Logan had a wild thought that it was a monkey which had seized the sign with its tail. But, after stepping closer, he realized that it was a cat. A cat which had been hung by its own tail… Dead cats and dogs always caused insuperable disgust in Tony, but he still needed to read the sign, and so he came even closer.

Now he saw that the situation was even worse. It was not a tail. The unfortunate animal hung by its own gut, stretched from the ripped up belly and, apparently, nailed to the sign. And, judging by the look and smell of the corpse, it had hung here for many days already…

How had anyone gotten the cat up there on the sign—by a fire ladder? Tony had heard about firemen rescuing cats, but not…

He painfully swallowed a lump which had risen in his throat and forced himself, straining his eyes in the dark, to read the sign. Amazingly, the street along which he had come, appeared to be Broadway. However… despite all Tony’s efforts, he could not discern the first letter. It was either erased or splotched by dirt, resulting in “ROADWAY”. A senseless tautology, if taken literally… On the sign for the cross street, there was no name at all. Only a black arrow with the inscription “ONE WAY.” The usual road sign designating one way traffic. But Tony could not stop thinking about the literal meaning of the words. “The only way”… Logan completely disliked persistence of this instruction and turned in the opposite direction as a matter of principle.

Especially since the cat hung closer to the sharp end of the arrow.

Shortly afterwards, he praised himself for making the correct choice: though the new street was just the same—deserted and dirtied (perhaps, there was even more litter on it) without a single working street lamp or a lit window—but, seemingly, from a kingdom of wooden ruins, Logan was returning to a stone civilization. Houses on both sides of the street were becoming higher and more modern, and ahead a bus stop with a billboard appeared. Tony had seen this poster many times: at the left, the face of a little girl, and on the right, the face of an old woman—both, of course, smiling. Apparently, it was something about medical insurance, along the lines “we care for your health at any age…” The billboard, naturally, did not interest Logan at all—he wanted to see a listing of the numbers of routes stopping here. He, now, with great pleasure would take any route if only it would take him away from this terrible place.

M13, the sign said. M13? Tony could not remember such a bus. In Brooklyn, yes, there is a thirteenth route; it passes through the cemetery area of Cypress Hills—but in Manhattan? Alas, where there should be a route diagram, Tony found only an empty frame.

And then he almost physically felt someone’s glare. A glare full of hatred and rage.

Tony involuntarily held his breath, afraid to turn back. There was no sound behind him. Tony stood dead still for several seconds, and then, having realized that to stand with his back to danger was even worse, turned sharply back.

Behind him there was nobody. Only this stupid poster.

Nerves, Tony told to himself. Some hell on wheels had plagued him this whole damned night… And then he looked at the advertising more closely.

The faces were the same he had seen many times before, but their expressions were absolutely different. The girl stared into nowhere with the vacant look of a mentally retarded child; her face was wreathed in a senseless smile, her tongue hung out, and saliva flowed down her dropped chin. The face of the old woman was completely mad, too—and much more terrible. It was deformed by a grimace of fierce hatred; the muddy running eyes glared with a fury as stunning as a blow to the solar plexus, and the smile was actually a spasmodic grin which had bared rare teeth and naked gums where teeth were missing.

“It’s impossible to feel a picture’s gaze,” Tony told himself. Oh yes, and the gaze of a living person—is it really possible? Science, anyway, does not know about beams or anything else that eyes could emit and influence another person…

But anyway—who could order and place such a poster? Even if the mentally retarded girl could be explained as a paroxysm of political correctness, that mad old woman…

Tony tried to dismiss his uneasiness and to appeal again to his common sense. Certainly, there can not be such a poster, as well as there can not be such a Broadway and such a business area of Manhattan… But since they do exist, and since a bus does go here—probably, after all it is more reasonable to wait for the bus and ask the driver about the route…

If only this bus would not be even worse than that school bus.

He stepped under the bus stop roof where the darkness was even more dense, and shivered in fright. It seemed to him that in a corner someone was squatting—someone thickset and twisted, with broad shoulders… and with no head.

In the following instant Tony, who already felt arrows of icy horror piercing his stomach, understood that he was looking at a wheelchair. A simple one, without a motor. Empty.

Well, a wheelchair abandoned at a bus stop is probably not the most usual object… but also not the most frightening, is it? There could be plenty of reasons why it had been left here… however, none of them came to Tony’s mind. Anyway, he did not believe that a miracle of healing had happened here. Anywhere, but not here.

He moved closer to the wheelchair. In the darkness he could discern only its black silhouette, and hardly even that. Tony extended a hand and touched the back. His fingers immediately came across some slits… long vertical cuts. The wheelchair’s back was not simply cut—it was slashed to pieces. And.. the torn matter was sticky.

Tony hastily jerked his hand back. His fingers came unstuck with an unpleasant sound, as if the mutilated wheelchair did not want to release them. He reflexively tried to wipe them against the seat… But there it was even worse.

A whole pool, yes.

Cold, thickening, but still not dried up completely.

Tony looked around in panic—and his eyes again found the billboard.

The faces had changed again.

The girl’s face now expressed a spitefully malicious triumph. The triumph of a very bad, very spoiled child who for a very long time, probably weeks and months, had thought over and prepared a delightfully vile dirty trick—and who had succeeded with it at last. And the old woman… on her face an expression of incomparable horror stiffened. A horror from which even young and healthy people lose control over their intestines and bladder—and old people usually just do not survive such horror. Actually, Tony was not sure at all that he was looking at a picture of a living person, instead of a posthumous grimace disfigured by an agony.