A Sign on the Wall

This story happened about 10 years ago. We were living in Buryatia at the time, in a military town. My friend and her husband had just moved into another apartment. We were helping them renovate. I was very surprised by a large red circle with some mysterious symbols inside. It was painted right on the wall with red oil paint.

We even laughed at the time—why did the previous tenants need it? What kind of strange decoration was this? Of course, we tore down the old wallpaper along with the sign and put up new ones. Some time passed, and my friend started complaining about strange things happening in the apartment: things were disappearing and then turning up in the most inconvenient places, cabinet doors were opening and closing in the kitchen at night, and floorboards were creaking in the hallway. My friends and I weren't really believing it at first, and we advised her to cut back on watching movies before bed. But one day, something truly strange happened. It was summer, a little after midnight. We were sitting in the tent, drinking beer, and were about to head home when we saw our friend running toward us as fast as she could. At first, we thought something was wrong, as she was wearing a robe and one slipper. Her face was contorted with genuine terror. As she came to her senses, she told us this:

Her husband (he's in the military) was on duty, the child was with his mother, and she was spending the night alone. Around noon, she was suddenly awakened by her cat jumping onto her bed—its fur standing on end, it was trying to hide under the covers with its owner. Lena (that was our friend's name) heard shuffling footsteps in the hallway. The door opened, and a teenage girl (or so she thought at the time) entered her room. She walked slowly toward Lena. The cat had become almost silent under the covers, only trembling slightly. Lena couldn't move in terror, and only when the girl approached did she peer into her face: it wasn't the face of a girl, it was the face of an old woman! This old woman's lips moved silently, as if she wanted to say something. Lena came to her senses, screamed, and threw the first thing she could find—the lamp from the nightstand—at this monster. The old woman instantly vanished.

Lena, terrified, threw on her robe and rushed out of the apartment, even forgetting to lock the door. She had come running to us because she knew we were planning to stay here longer today. We calmed her down as best we could, even tried to turn it into a joke—like, you had a nightmare and mistook it for reality. But Lena insisted she wasn't crazy, that she had seen it all for real, and that she would never return to her apartment alone.

We went to her. When we approached her door, it was indeed unlocked. Laughing, we entered the apartment, turned on the light, and were absolutely stunned: not only was the light fixture broken, but everything was turned upside down. The carpet had been ripped off the wall where that mysterious sign had once been painted, and the wallpaper had been peeled off! Lena herself simply couldn't have done it—she didn't have the strength.

Our friend's knees buckled at what she saw, and she turned white as chalk. The cat had disappeared somewhere, and no one had seen it since. After that, Lena and her husband hardly lived there. They left the military compound to live with Lena's parents.

The haunted apartment was listed as departmental, so it was leased to the military unit. We don't know who lives there now, or whether the strange ghost haunts the new tenants, because they've all moved away. But when communicating by email or phone, we occasionally recall this story. What kind of sign was drawn by the previous owners of the apartment, whether it protected the residents from evil spirits or vice versa, remains a mystery.