Investing in Real Estate

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It all started when my parents decided to invest their hard-earned money in real estate. They live in a private house in the Moscow suburbs, and an opportunity arose to purchase a three-room apartment in Moscow, conveniently located near a metro station in a fairly decent and green neighborhood—specifically, on Ryazansky Prospekt, right by the metro station.

At first, we were plagued by collective suspicions that something was off—after all, the apartment was in excellent condition, with one of the rooms newly renovated, and the rest tastefully finished. Only the kitchen needed some work, and the price for all this splendor was surprisingly low. By Moscow real estate standards, it was practically nothing. A lawyer advising my parents found no catch, and Mikhail Yuryevich—the guy selling the apartment—fumbled a bit and explained that sometimes a very noisy group of nonconformists gathered under the windows, with motorcycles, guitars, and vodka. The apartment was on the fourth floor and had plastic windows, so the argument was, to put it mildly, weak—but hey, it was an opportunity not to be missed.

Two months later, I went to the newly acquired apartment to do some renovation work in the kitchen. I brought a sleeping bag and a foam pad, and after finishing the first session of plastering, I collapsed to sleep.

And then, through the wall, a child started crying very clearly. Not a tiny child, maybe five or six years old. I couldn’t determine the gender by the voice. The little one whined softly, repeating: “Papa… papa…” It went on for quite some time, and I thought I’d finally figured out the main reason for the apartment’s low price. Few would enjoy living next to a neighbor’s whiny child.

But then it hit me. Through the wall where the child was crying, there were no neighbors. Just a small room—the only one that had been freshly renovated.

I generally don’t believe in the supernatural and chalked it up to the neighbors upstairs. Maybe the acoustics of the empty room distorted the sounds? Whatever the case, I wrapped myself in the sleeping bag and fell asleep.

I was awakened by a phone call. The previous residents had left the phone behind, and I had no idea it would be so loud, especially at 4:30 a.m. Immediately, I thought something had happened to my parents—I ran into the hallway and grabbed the receiver.

There was a long hissing and crackling in the line, as if the connection was faulty. No one responded to my endless “hello,” and only a minute later did I make out the same child’s voice that I had heard through the wall. I could hear only the words “papa,” “don’t,” and “I’m scared.” Then there was more crackling and rustling, followed by dial tones.

This time, it seemed to me it was a girl.

That’s when I started feeling uneasy. I threw on a t-shirt and pants and rushed upstairs to the neighbors—maybe there really was trouble, and the child remembered our phone number, hence the call.

I was met by a sleepy and extremely angry neighbor—a man of about forty, in his underwear and a t-shirt. I started to explain about the child and the call in a flustered manner. Halfway through my nervous story, he asked who I actually was.

As soon as I said I was his newly moved-in neighbor downstairs, the remnants of sleep vanished from his face. He invited me into the kitchen, made instant coffee, and poured a generous amount of brandy into it. Then he demanded that I tell him everything from the beginning. My story didn’t take long; much longer was the neighbor staring at me and struggling to process what I had said. Then he topped off my coffee with brandy and spoke…

On June 20 of the previous year, three people had been killed in this apartment. A bankrupt businessman shot his two daughters and his wife, who tried to protect them. The youngest girl was only seven years old. The bodies were found in the small room—the one later renovated. The murder occurred at 4:30 a.m. The businessman’s name was Yuri, and the bodies were discovered by his son, Mikhail, when he returned home the next morning.

I was more ready to believe I had gone mad than that I was hearing the voices of dead children over the phone. But I did not want to stay alone in this apartment. The neighbor and I stayed up until dawn, and as soon as I could, I called my brother over. He arrived three hours later, and the rest of the day we worked together on tiles and baseboards. I slept like a log that night, hearing no voices.

Only in the morning did my brother ask whether the neighbor’s child was always this nervous, and why idiots were calling me in the middle of the night.

I choked on my hot tea and didn’t tell him anything.

But the next night, for some reason, I picked up the phone again.

She managed to answer my question—her name is Katya. And she added that she was scared. Very scared.

Then the connection was cut off.

We are renting out this apartment now. And the new tenants, for some reason, have disconnected the landline and only use mobile phones. But I now know her name is Katya, and she is very scared. Her father shot her twice—once in the stomach and once in the head. She is very scared.

Very.