Nastenka

I recently ran into a classmate I hadn't seen for thirty years. I noticed he looked absolutely terrible: haggard, thin, his eyes dull... We sat in a cafe, chatting about family and work. After a drink, he told me his story, the one that tormented him. He cried. He said, "I don't know what happened. I don't know how to live now." Here's his story.

"My wife and I moved into a new apartment. I liked it—it was right in the center, with a kindergarten nearby, so our daughter, Nastenka, would have somewhere to go. She was two years old at the time. One day, my wife stayed overnight with a friend whose grandmother had died. So there I was, watching a TV show, while Nastenka slept in her room. It was two in the morning, and I was starting to nod off, when suddenly I heard a deafening cry."  I'd never heard my daughter cry like that, even though she's not a quiet child. I ran into her room in horror. She was in tears, so I scooped her up. I flipped the light switch—both the table lamp and the regular lamp had burned out. Maybe the lamp's slam was the cause of all the crying? I'd never seen a child scream like that.

I gradually calmed Nastya down and rocked her to sleep. I wondered if the sound of my TV series was bothering her. I put her in the stroller, covered her, and went into the kitchen. As I was leaving the room, I noticed the glass in the closet was broken, and something long was hanging from the top window—likely a pair of black tights. I couldn't see it clearly in the dark. Who could have thrown them there? Our windows are high—could my Nastya have done this?

I went into the kitchen, turned off the TV, and got ready to go into the living room, wondering if I should move the stroller into my room.  This will make things easier for her and me...

Then the doorbell rang. I went out into the hallway and looked through the peephole – it was my neighbor, damn her, Grandma Klava. What did she want at night? I already felt a strange uneasiness, as if there was someone else in the apartment besides me.

"Hello," I said. "You're a bit late today."

"Sorry, honey," Klava mumbled. "My heart isn't feeling well. I took my pills yesterday. I didn't expect it to hurt. And my son didn't come home, so there's no one to buy him. Could you give me a couple?"

"Of course," I said. "Right now."

I returned to the kitchen, looking for the pills, listening to the silence. My daughter wasn't crying, so she'd calmed down. Everything was fine – but why couldn't I shake this feeling of anxiety?

Finally, I found the damned pills and took them to Klava.

"Thank you, I'll remember them forever," the old woman said.

 "Goodbye. I have to go, sorry. My daughter's having trouble sleeping."

I wanted to close the door, but the old woman grabbed my sleeve:

"Please walk me to the door. My head's spinning. I'm about to fall."

"Okay," I exhaled. I took the old woman by the elbow and carefully led her to the apartment. She opened the door, and then something clicked somewhere behind me. Yes—the light in the hallway in my apartment! I jerked and turned around. And indeed, the light had gone out.

"What's that, dear?" the old woman asked.

"The lamp's burned out," I said.

And then the old woman grabbed me and said:

"Wait, don't go there. My heart tells me something. Don't go, dear."

"What do you mean, don't go?" I roared. "My daughter's in there!"

 I barely escaped her decrepit arms—to my surprise, they held me very tightly. I ran into the apartment—I couldn't see a thing. The lights were out everywhere. Flicking the switches didn't help. I ran into the kitchen, found a lighter and a phone, and with them I went to Nastya's room...

At this point, my friend's voice trembled. He barely spoke.

"I go in there—there are bloodstains everywhere, the sheets are torn. The stroller is lying on its side. And Nastya is not in it... I couldn't find her anywhere. I only noticed that the footprints led to the window. I started calling the police, my wife. When the police arrived, they turned on the lights. Just like that—the lights turned on by themselves.

The police opened a case. When they searched the apartment, I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find the black tights. They were nowhere to be found."

My friend fell silent.

"I don't know what happened, what happened to my daughter."  My wife recently got pregnant and is currently in the hospital. She keeps calling at night, saying she's scared. It's as if someone is watching her from outside the window...