Zavarza

****

— Hello, good afternoon! Nadezhda Viktorovna? Why hasn’t your son been coming to school? No one has seen him for four months now…

— He’s at school… — Nadia replied languidly and hung up.

With trembling hands, she grabbed a syringe and drove it expertly into one of her bluish veins. Her slack, weakened body collapsed across the couch. What son?

— My God, what a bastard! Vasily Petrovich, we need to urgently check on Semyon… Such a difficult child, and a mother like that… Double punishment, — said Galina Stanislavovna, hearing the dial tone. Carefully placing her phone on the table, she looked at Yershov, sitting across from her.

— Galya, that’s not our concern. Other agencies handle that. Don’t worry about it. To hell with them! What’s their last name anyway, what’s the fat trust called?

— Vasya, you’re the deputy principal for educational work. The boy’s name is Semyon. Semyon Zavarza*, — Galina Stanislavovna replied annoyedly, — and it’s you who’ll go to them. If the situation is really bad, we’ll involve the police. They’ll decide what to do: leave the boy with his mother, send him to an orphanage… That’s really not our concern. But a push needs to be given, otherwise the kid will completely go astray…

— Galina Stanislavovna! I have so much to do! I’m not going to go traipsing around to… the Zavarzas! — Yershov protested. — I have a meeting with the parent committee chairman today, uh, our sponsor…

— After the meeting, you’ll go to the Zavarza household, Vasily Petrovich, — Galina Stanislavovna, principal of the 12th secondary school, said firmly, — and after you meet the sponsor, we’ll have… a talk.

Yershov couldn’t argue.

— Fine, Galya… I just don’t usually roam such places. They live, I think, on Bogomolova Street?

— Number five, first entrance, eighth apartment. The neighborhood isn’t the best… But you’re a man, Vasya, — she sighed, — and the boy isn’t a fat trust, he’s just overweight.

— One and a half centners of pure fat, Galya! — Yershov smirked ironically.

— Learn to love children, Yershov, — Galina Stanislavovna said dryly and gestured him out the door. Yershov disappeared in an instant.

“Need another shot, God… Igor is coming today… Again, bowing under him… I should get up… Bastards… Where’s Sema…” — Nadia felt slightly relieved, but her body was so exhausted, so emaciated, that she immediately lost consciousness, sprawling on the couch.

From the locked bedroom came heavy, squelching footsteps (were they even footsteps?). The door creaked open.

— Mom, will someone bring food? Mom! — Sema shouted. Nadia lay motionless.

“Igor isn’t here…”

— Mom… Wake up, I’m hungry! I’m starving!

“Mom needs more… But I’ve taken everything… Gave it all…”

The door closed. Something splashed, and everything went still. Silence.

The meeting went well. Vasily Petrovich Yershov left the school building and got into his brand-new Volkswagen. The engine started smoothly. “The sponsor will talk with Galya and everything will be fine,” Yershov smiled. “Bogomolova Street, okay…”

The car drove through the courtyards onto the avenue and headed for the city outskirts. The town was small—one of many suburban Moscow towns—it would take about ten minutes to get there.

Yershov’s Volkswagen stopped at the entrance of an old four-story brick building. The walls were about to collapse, half the windows broken. Only a couple of apartments had lights on. The yard was empty and quiet. Half past six. Bogomolova 5.

Yershov got out and entered the building. The pungent stench hit his nostrils immediately. He felt nauseous. He shuffled forward uncertainly. The dim light of a bulb barely kept the stairwell from darkness. Faint squeaks under the stairs. Rats.

“Well, I really ended up here… Zavarza… Damn them,” Yershov thought, wrinkling his nose. “First floor… first, second, third, fourth apartments… I need the second floor…”

He climbed the stairs—apartment eight… No doorbell. Yershov knocked.

— Igor… Is that you? Hurry… I’m about to die… — came a choked female voice.

— Hey, who’s there? — a voice from the neighboring apartment, number seven, called.

— I’m from the school, — Yershov replied fearfully, unsure which door to speak to.

— Come in quickly and be quiet, — the voice from seven responded.

Vasily Petrovich pulled the door open. Stepping onto the threshold, Yershov saw a man opposite him, about two meters away, in tattered camouflage. Restless eyes. Shaking hands. A typical alcoholic. He sat behind an old oak table. “Like the principal herself,” Yershov smirked, “just missing Galya.”

— Who are you? — the man asked.

Yershov carefully scanned the apartment—the walls were bare, plaster cracked, and brick showing through in places. Buckets, basins, and vats stood everywhere, dripping murky liquid from the ceiling. Moldy bread lay on the floor, remnants of greenish butter—ants swarmed the “sandwich” and slowly dragged it away.

— I’m from the school. Semyon Zavarza hasn’t shown up for four months, — Yershov reported disgustedly.

— Want to see Semyon? — the man laughed. He rolled out from behind the table in a wheelchair. Stubs of legs.

— Disabled, — he said. “In Afghanistan, don’t pay attention. Sit on the stool.”

Yershov remained silent.

— Forgot to introduce myself. Call me Kostyan, smarty. So, Semyon isn’t Semyon anymore. He’s a real monster. Half the hallway’s been eaten. And Igor, my son, a complete druggie, too. Control yourself, don’t soil yourself… listen…

— You’re insane, — Yershov stood up. “I need the eighth apartment.”

— Wait! Listen to me. About three months ago, Igor told me something. He said Semyon turns into jelly, lies in his room, swelling like dough on the stove. He said the room reeks terribly, and if you peek in, you come out gray-haired. At first I thought it was drug-induced nonsense, until about a week and a half ago, I heard horrifying squelching from apartment eight. I rushed out, open the door, and there… A huge, two-hundred-kilogram jelly covered Igor, limbs discarded. Nadia lay on the couch, oblivious… Taking Coaxil… And she herself like a monster, bones protruding… And Igor, the local cook, a miserable junkie… Heh, he was…

Kostyan cleared his throat. Yershov clung to the stool with his backside.

— And then this jelly detaches from Igor, and I see it taking Semyon’s form. The squelching mouth tells me — Kostyan, better get out before you’re eaten… I was scarier than your fear, a stranger… He had eaten, spoke with a full voice, the beast… I decided to try talking to him, almost soiling myself… Semyon, I said, don’t eat me… We’ve got sixteen more apartments full of junkies… I want to live a bit more… So Semyon digested almost the entire building… Protects his mother… And I brew her Coaxil, that’s our deal with Semyon… He told me how it happened… Lying in his little room, lazy creature… Lost interest in life… Lay until he was completely overgrown with filth… Something settled in his ears, under the skin it itched… Like someone was burrowing… And then, don’t be surprised, the creature cried…

From behind the door came squelching.

— Kostyan, who’s there? — the bubbling voice from behind the door finally pinned Yershov to the stool. He went pale, teeth chattering.

— Sema, crawl out… Dinner’s here…

Vasily Petrovich was speechless. A huge gelatinous mass, vaguely human, moved toward him. Human limbs were stuck in it like matches in clay. The mass bubbled, digesting. Kostyan laughed.

Yershov lost control.

The jelly enveloped his legs and, along with the stool, dragged him through the shared hallway straight into the eighth apartment. The lower half of Yershov’s body already sank into the disgusting slime—his legs corroded as if by acid. He didn’t even scream—his jaw locked in fear. His head was dragged along with the jelly. Bulging eyes couldn’t close. His hands went numb. Paralyzed… Zavarza… A mangy rat ran across the floor, carrying a yellowed human finger.

He saw Nadia lying on the couch… her body gray… Her arms completely dead—the right arm at the elbow had no skin or muscles—the yellow of the bone showing… She moaned… The jelly dragged Yershov into the second room… The last thing he saw was a nest… Bubbling gray slime eggs (larvae?) ready to give birth to more such monsters…

Galina Stanislavovna, having seen the sponsor off, decided to call the deputy.

— The subscriber is not answering, or is out of range, — replied a pleasant female voice.

Probably dealt with Zavarza… At home already, sleeping…

The principal sighed with relief and switched on the coffee maker.

---

*Zavarza — “slovenly, unclean,” Vyatka, Olonets (Kulik). From varza “rascal.” From this, zavarzat’ “to mess up,” Vyatka (Vasn.).