Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

The old man seated himself behind the jumbled desk and hummed as he sifted through piles of softly crackling papers. ‘I thought I had a picture, of me and Lev in the yard.’

Albina decided to check on how Olga, or whoever she was, was getting on behind the sofa. Perhaps they should call an ambulance? Or better still, tie her up? She bent down and reached a hand to touch the girl’s shoulder. The blanket collapsed under her touch, and the breath caught in her throat. She dared not move.

‘Tolya?’ she whispered.

Albina patted all over the blanket, her hands meeting the floor.

‘What is it?’ He didn’t take his eyes from the papers. ‘Is she dead?’

‘She’s… she’s gone!’

‘Dead gone?’

‘No!’ Albina wailed, leaping up from the floor to press her back against the window behind her. The shattered doors of the serving hatch swayed on their hinges and she squealed at the black shadows leaping in the kitchen beyond. ‘Just… gone! She’s not on the floor! Where… where is she?’ Her eyes flew around the room. ‘Put the light on!’

‘Magic! It’s wicked magic!’

‘She’s not magic! She must be here – somewhere.’

‘But I have only these rooms!’

Their eyes met across the shadowy darkness and, as one, they looked towards the black hole of the doorway into the hall.

Tolya stood and lifted the lamp, the sallow light splashing over the floor and up the walls in waves as he moved. Albina jumped behind him. They stood together, pale faces turned towards the doorway, their round eyes staring, straining to make out a form.

‘I am afraid,’ whispered Tolya. ‘Help me.’

They crept a tiny step forward.

‘Olga?’ called Albina.

‘Scary girl?’ whispered Tolya, eyes shut.

They stood as statues and held their breath, straining their ears: the human hum of a neighbour’s TV; the grinding of wet trolleybuses beyond the birches; a crow cawing its evening call. Beneath the everyday noise, there was something else, subtle, low, threatening; the beast of winter creeping across the eastern plains.

They took another step and the lamp shook in Tolya’s hand. ‘Shhh!’ breathed Albina. She sensed something in the hall: rhythmic breathing mingling with the darkness, vibrating in the space; a slight creaking on the floorboards, a breath stirring the dust. She peered blind into the blackness.

‘Do you hear that?’ whispered Tolya. ‘It is the sound… of wings.’

‘Wings?’ Albina screwed up her nose.

‘Giant wings, flapping. Listen…’

Albina listened. As she concentrated on the silence, beyond her own heartbeat, the blinking of her eyelashes, somewhere in the air of the flat she felt an oscillation, a flutter…

tap-tap-tap

‘Moth boy!’ Tolya’s hand gripped hers.

‘It’s her!’ whispered Albina. ‘It must be her!’

The tapping had come from the hallway, nails on wood: an empty sound.

tap-tap-tap

‘She’s trying to scare us! Don’t be scared!’

‘You don’t understand,’ he waved the lamp around his head. ‘He comes in the night. He is my friend!’

tap-tap-tap

‘It’s not a spirit! It’s her!’

‘Come in, Yuri! Where is Baba?’

tap-tap-tap

Tolya took a step towards the darkened doorway, arms held wide. The light from the lamp swung over the walls, washing into the hall. Albina pushed back the fringe of the headdress. She thought she saw a face, just for a second as the lamp swung up. A glowing pale face with huge, moonlit eyes. The face grinned. The lamp swung back, the hall melted into darkness, and she cried out for her mama.

A rush of air feathered her face as something leapt past, springing into the room, smashing into the lamp swinging from Tolya’s hand. Fire flashed as the old man windmilled his arms, flailing at his attacker, slamming the lamp this way and that.

‘No!’ shrieked Albina, cowering against a wall as the glass of the lantern shattered. She heard a thud and saw Tolya lurch to one side, falling like a rotten tree. Burning paraffin spilled from the lamp onto the floor in snaking, livid trails. She saw a boot raised to kick, a fist to punch. And she sensed the wind rushing through the black arms of the forest, the silver moon riding high. Tolya’s hands reached out, fingers gripping the air, as the shadow of his attacker loomed large against the wall.

‘Baba!’ he cried.

Albina leapt, hands, arms, thighs ready as the blood sang in her ears.

An elderly man, tall, skinny and nut-brown, chased up the corridor, a short, well-built woman with curving eyebrows and a very blonde bob just behind him. He reached out a bony finger, and depressed a doorbell very hard. Their eyes locked as they stood panting.

‘I didn’t hear anything. Did you hear anything?’

‘I did not hear anything. But it might be one of those bells that rings in the depths.’

‘It’s a one-room apartment, you said?’

‘Ah.’

Sveta applied her finger to the bell, repeatedly and for a long time.

‘It doesn’t work.’ She began rapping her knuckles on the door, the pain creasing her face.

‘No, no, Sveta; rest your hands.’

Gor bunched a fist and hammered. The noise echoed down the corridor. No one came.

Sveta bent to put an ear to the keyhole. ‘I can hear… things!’

‘And?’

Her eyes bulged.

‘It doesn’t sound… thudding – fighting!’ Her voice rose. ‘And burning! I can smell burning! Oh Gor! Quick!’

He dropped the string bag from his shoulder and carefully unwrapped the axe. Its blade shone.

‘Time for special measures?’

She nodded.

He drew himself tall, creaking at the joints and sucking in a big breath. The axe wheeled over his shoulder and down onto the door with a clank. Shock pinged up his arms and wobbled his eyes in their sockets. The axe clattered to the floor as he bent double in pain.

‘Akh, metal?’ observed Sveta.

Gor grimaced and gripped his right shoulder. Down the corridor a neighbour peeped silently around the edge of a door and hurriedly shut it again.

‘Here, let me try.’ Sveta rolled up her sleeves and wrapped her sore, red hands around the handle. The blade glinted as her hands shook above her head.

A door slammed and riot of footsteps echoed up the corridor.

‘Wait!’ cried a voice. ‘Let me help!’

Sveta turned to see an unlikely trio dashing towards her: one tall and handsome, one thin and grey, and one squat and orange, carrying a cake.

‘We’re here to help!’ puffed Valya. ‘Give me the axe, come on! I’ll manage that better than you!’

Sveta put the axe behind her back.

‘Have you spoken to Polly?’ asked Vlad.

‘Spoken to her? We can’t get in! What do you think the axe is for?’ cried Gor.

‘I knew something like this would happen!’ wailed Alla, tissue to her nose, sniffing wildly. ‘I was just saying in the car, I always knew—’

The door vibrated as something hit it from the inside.

‘Sveta, I think maybe—’ Vlad held out a hand, and she placed the axe handle in it. ‘Right! Stand back ladies! And you, Papasyan! I’ll sort this – I’ll take it sideways – slice off the handle.’

They spread out down the corridor in a straggling horseshoe. Again something heavy thudded against the door and the handle rattled.

‘Hurry!’ cried Sveta, fingers pressed to her throat.

Vlad wiped his palms on his trousers, wrapped them around the handle of the axe and planted his feet wide, side-on to the door. Smooth muscles bulged as the axe flew into the air over his head, only to be brought down softly, slowly, as a golfer might, practising his shot.

‘Oh, come on!’ cried Gor.