Open Windows

****

I have a friend I’ve known since school. We went through fire and water together in our years of secondary education, so to speak. We don’t see each other very often, but every time we do, our conversations turn out extremely candid. And so last summer she suddenly came to visit me and stunned me with the news — she had broken up with her boyfriend. He was, I should say, a rather hot-tempered and suspicious person, so I didn’t feel much grief over it.

The reason for the breakup was fairly mundane as well: the old feelings had faded, and in everyday life he hadn’t shown himself in the best light. And since they had been living in my friend’s apartment for the past few years, she decided to act like a “true gentleman” and not throw her now ex-boyfriend out onto the street in the dead of night. Instead, she took vacation time and went to stay with relatives for two weeks so that the guy could calmly pack his things and find new housing, without scandals or mutual hysterics.

My friend returned to her home, found the keys in the mailbox, and expected to discover an empty apartment. In a sense, that’s what it was — but what greeted her was a horrific mess. All the mirrors were smashed, clothes pulled out of the wardrobes and scattered across the floor, the numerous plush dust collectors had either had their heads torn or cut off, and in the kitchen all the knives and forks had been driven with force into the countertop. On top of that, the windows were wide open — and clearly had been for more than one day, because piles of dust and leaves had blown into the rooms.

When my friend showed me photos of this chaos, we were shocked and horrified. And of course, we immediately assumed that her ex had simply gotten drunk one fine evening and caused all this havoc, because he flared up at the drop of a hat even under more peaceful circumstances.

At first, my friend wanted to report him to the police, presenting the photos as evidence, but after her anger cooled, it became clear that no one would bother with something like this — just ordinary domestic drama. Besides, her conscience kicked in: after all, she had been the one to initiate the breakup, so he had every right to lose his temper — though, of course, not to this extent.

In short, the hope for an amicable separation had suffered a crushing failure, but life went on. The shards were cleaned up, the things put back in place, and everything seemed to return to normal. Except that a few days later my friend showed up on my doorstep and asked to stay the night. And she looked absolutely terrible.

After a few hours, I managed to get her to talk and find out why she suddenly didn’t want to stay at home. It turned out that after everything that happened, very strange things began occurring in the apartment. Light bulbs either burned out or started flickering oddly, the electricity kept cutting out, the TV showed nothing but static, and the Internet — if it appeared at all — worked only in the morning and only for a couple of hours. Support services just shrugged and assured her that everything was fine on their end. And while all of this could, with some effort, be blamed on wiring issues, the rest defied all logic.

Constantly glancing around like a hunted animal, my friend told me she had begun seeing dark silhouettes out of the corner of her eye — more and more often with each passing day. And nights turned into sheer torture: as soon as she turned off the lights, darkness literally collapsed onto the apartment. There were no reflections from passing cars, no light from the streetlamp outside the window. Nothing at all. And silence. This darkness seemed to absorb all sounds that could and should have come in from the street.

The darkness closed in from all sides and seemed to be watching. And whispering — dozens of different voices murmured something unintelligible right into her ear. Sometimes she even felt someone else’s icy breath on her cheek. That gave me goosebumps.

It didn’t look like my friend was lying or suffering from excessive imagination. Although that initial destruction could well have triggered a nervous breakdown… But for some reason, I believed her. About the living, dense darkness, about the creaks and rustles that had never been there before, and about the night-light bulb that instantly burned out whenever she tried to sleep with the light on…

In the end, I calmed her down as best I could, we had a few drinks and somehow fell asleep. But in the middle of the night, her phone woke us up. No, it wasn’t mysterious ghosts — it was just her downstairs neighbors, who without any pleasantries tore into her for a loud party involving furniture being thrown around, and promised to call the police if it didn’t stop. Naturally, they didn’t believe that no one was in the apartment at the moment. We spent the rest of the night on edge and took the very first bus to the ill-fated apartment, expecting to see the police called by the neighbors waiting outside.

Fortunately, there was no police. But the apartment was a mess again — all the chairs lay overturned, one stool was even broken, as if it had been violently thrown against the floor, and things were once more pulled out of the wardrobes. My friend grabbed her phone and started calling her ex, because the first thought that came to both of us was simple as mooing — he had ordered duplicate keys and, to make his revenge even more colorful, waited until she left and repeated the stunt.

However, the ex swore up and down that he hadn’t done anything — moreover, he was in another city visiting friends. And he hadn’t wrecked anything; rather, he had wanted to throw out a couple of my friend’s things, even opened the windows for that purpose, but then just spat on it and left. So the only thing he was guilty of was the wide-open windows.

We didn’t know whether to believe him or not and started tidying up the apartment. When I was putting things back into a wardrobe, I noticed something strange — the top hinge on the door was broken and barely holding on. At first, it didn’t seem odd to me, but in the next wardrobe I found the same damage. And another one… In the end, I started checking everything, even the pantry door. Everywhere it was the same. Because of these broken hinges, the doors didn’t close tightly, leaving small gaps — literally half a centimeter wide.

When we had dealt with all the consequences of the mess and sat down to drink tea, I could literally feel with my skin that from these cracks, from these narrow strips of pitch-black darkness, someone was watching me. My friend caught my look and turned pale, but said nothing.

Then I developed a terrible headache. The feeling was as if I had single-handedly dug up an entire potato field. I wanted to collapse and fall asleep. But sleeping in that place was out of the question, so I hurried home, assuring my friend that she could always come and sleep at my place if needed. Which she did, literally two days later. But once again, we weren’t allowed to sleep — the same neighbors complaining about a loud party. For some reason, when my friend stayed overnight at her own place, nothing happened. Well, nothing except that she lay there half-dead with fear until morning.

All this continued until my friend’s aunt came to visit. After spending a night at her niece’s place, she packed up silently and left, and the next day returned accompanied by some strange old woman. What that old woman did or said, I don’t know — my friend flatly refuses to talk about it — but after her visit, all the oddities in the apartment stopped.

My friend and I still see each other, but we try not to remember this story, especially since everything ended without consequences. Except that now she very rarely airs out the apartment and vigilantly makes sure all the windows are tightly closed after nightfall.

And you know, I now understand that the ex had nothing to do with it — it’s just that at some point, during several nights in a row, not only leaves blew in through those open windows. Along with the wind, something evil seeped inside. Something that may have been wandering the area for a long time, looking for shelter. Shelter and food.

That’s why I don’t air out my place before bed anymore either.

Just in case.