Raw Meat

After my friend and I went our separate ways, I moved in with relatives, while she managed to rent a room for very little money. And so she invited me over to celebrate her housewarming…

The apartment had two rooms. In the other room lived a single woman of about thirty-five. She worked night shifts somewhere—leaving in the evening and returning in the morning. She and Leska hardly ever crossed paths.

My friend’s room was small and very dark. The apartment was located in one of those panel buildings that were soon to be demolished. A large high-rise had been built nearby, and the blank red-brown wall of it had become the permanent view from Leska’s window. On top of that, the apartment was damp, and the air felt heavy. It was only the second floor, yet it felt like a basement.

But my friend was quite satisfied with this temporary place. She especially liked the old bed that had belonged to the owner, with its wrought-iron headboard featuring the head of a real devil with long horns and an unpleasant face. The decoration and the overall gloomy atmosphere delighted Leska completely. I paid particular attention to the bed. It was clearly old. It also turned out to have a very soft mattress and featherbed. The only other pieces of furniture were two bedside tables and an oak wardrobe that blocked off a bricked-up connecting door to the neighboring room.

About two weeks later, my friend began complaining that she was sleeping very poorly, though she didn’t elaborate. I advised her to take something calming and not to wind herself up over nothing.

Another week passed, and when we met again, it was frightening to look at her—pale as death, dark circles under her eyes from constant lack of sleep. This time I questioned her more thoroughly.

She told me that from the very first night in the new room she had begun having prophetic dreams. At first, it was trivial things—a test she would pass, a heel tip falling off, forgetting her phone at a friend’s place… After a while, she began dreaming that she would wake up in the middle of the night and feel that someone was nearby. Then there was also a sound, as if someone were chewing in a very unpleasant way. In her dream she tried to make out her “guest,” but saw only some vague silhouette near the wardrobe. But the most disgusting thing was the smell of raw meat, which, as Leska put it, “soaked the entire room.”

At first, I thought she was playing a prank on me, but she really did look terrible. I advised her to talk to the neighbor—maybe she sensed something too—or to go to church. My words didn’t calm her down, and she invited me to stay the night, but since I was busy, I only managed to visit her a couple of days later.

I arrived early in the morning. Leska opened the door and immediately rushed off to the bathroom—she was nauseous. At my harmless joke about pregnancy, she snapped angrily: “Can’t you smell that stench?!”

I went into her room and literally began sniffing around the corners. There was indeed a smell somewhat like fresh raw meat (it was rather specific), though not very strong. We searched all the corners, checked the ventilation, the stairwell, the window—couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from. Besides, it dissipated very quickly. According to Leska, it was strongest at night and early in the morning. We immediately dismissed ideas about a slaughterhouse under the window or cannibal neighbors. For some reason, I immediately thought the bed might be involved. Leska had once mentioned that she hadn’t dreamed anything when she slept on the floor to escape the heat.

We brought a church candle—the flame crackled loudly and gave off thick black smoke. Near the bed, the candle “spat” black flakes of soot. When we walked through the apartment with the candle, a little calendar with an icon that the neighbor had hung in the kitchen fell down. All of this affected my friend extremely negatively—she firmly decided to go to some old woman to “detach” the unclean thing that had attached itself to her. I calmed her as best I could, suggested she move in with relatives, and in the meantime stay with me for a few days.

Leska did move out. The landlady refused to return the money for the two months my friend had paid in advance, unless she found another tenant. Leska found some acquaintance, moved her into her “wonderful” room, and fled to her relatives.

That would have been the end of it (my friend now slept perfectly well, nothing bothered her), but a couple of months later we happened to meet in a café with the woman Leska had “passed” the room on to. She turned out to be Ukrainian, a mature woman of about forty-five. She looked very worn out as well. Leska asked why she looked so tired, and the woman replied:

“Oh, girls, I sleep badly. I dream all sorts of devilish nonsense.”

We were stunned.

“What do you dream about?” I asked.

The woman grimaced.

“Oh, it’s such nonsense, I’m embarrassed to even say. Some old woman keeps appearing in my dreams. She stands by the wardrobe and chews something. I watched and watched—and it’s meat. She just stands there eating raw meat! I’m moving out, girls. There’s something bad there.”

Leska and I were speechless. And what was that? We wondered for a long time—maybe it was a ghost? Or maybe the landlady was a witch? Or the bed was cursed? Maybe someone had been killed there?.. So many questions, but we have no answers.