Rita

She woke up and immediately glanced at the window. It was getting dark. The girl suddenly jumped up from the couch and looked at the clock hanging on the wall. 5:40 PM. Could she have missed it?.. No, impossible! No—no… How could she have missed it when she would have definitely heard it, even in her sleep! Trying to calm herself with these thoughts, she stood in the middle of the room, listening to the silence around her.

The silence was suddenly broken by the cellphone lying on the coffee table. The girl picked it up. A coworker from work.

— Hello.

— You’ve been fired.

— Uh-huh.

There was a brief pause on the other end.

— What happened to you? You haven’t been at work for four days. I stopped by your place but didn’t find you home. I called your mobile many times— —she kept talking.

— I’m fine, — the girl replied shortly.

— But why…

— Sometimes I just want to be alone. To think…

— But…

— Bye, — the girl hung up.

Away, away with all their endless questions!

She went out into the hallway and listened again. Silence.

How much she wanted to hear it again, to see it!.. What if it never happens again?

No—no, it definitely will! She just needed to wait!

She crouched by the front door and soon didn’t notice how she fell asleep again.

A terrible crash coming from the stairwell woke her.

There! Finally! She had waited!

The girl immediately snapped out of her sleep. Oh God, how long had she slept? Sunlight filled the apartment—it must already have been the next day. But none of that mattered…

She approached the front door, opened the peephole, and started looking. Fear gripped her from head to toe, yet with all her being, she wanted to see what filled her with indescribable horror.

Could she be crazy? But… Horror movie fans watch them precisely to get their nerves tingled. They know they’ll be scared, and still turn on another scary film.

And this… This was her horror. A real-life horror. One she wanted to watch, mesmerized and helpless, obeying some inner feeling she herself didn’t understand.

She was bustling in the kitchen. She put a frying pan on the stove and began kneading dough. Denis was supposed to come soon, and she wanted to treat her boyfriend to his favorite cabbage dumplings.

The girl was cooking, humming a little tune to herself, when she suddenly heard a terrible crash, so strong that even the walls vibrated. What was that? Judging by the sound, it happened in the stairwell. As if something very heavy had been dropped on the stairs.

She went out into the hallway and looked through the peephole. Her apartment was right across from the stairwell, but she didn’t see anything unusual—neither above nor below. She was about to return to the kitchen when she noticed some flickering movement from the stairs above.

A few seconds later, a strange dwarf appeared on the floor. He was descending the stairs. The girl looked at him in fright. The dwarf was an old man—disheveled gray hair, wrinkled skin… He was wearing striped pajamas. He was shaking all over, trembling like jelly. It seemed he might transform into something else at any moment, so intensely and rapidly did his body convulse. Yet he moved slowly, unsteadily, hobbling down the steps, and kept repeating:

— Ri-ta! Ri-ta! Ri-ta! Ri-ta! Ri-ta!

The dwarf articulated the syllables like a talking toy, like a parrot, and his voice sounded artificial. Inhuman…

Fear paralyzed the girl. She stared at what was happening beyond the front door in horror.

— Ri-ta! Ri-ta! — the dwarf passed the stairwell, went past her apartment, and continued down to the floor below…

The girl stood, barely breathing. In a fraction of a second, he turned back and instantly appeared at her peephole.

The girl screamed in shock. How could this be? He was a dwarf! He seemed to hover in the air…

She saw his eyes… They were completely white, without irises or pupils. The dwarf’s gaze locked on the peephole, and she instantly drowned in the sclera of his eyes, falling into a white, enveloping, sticky pit that swallowed her from head to toe.

She felt her mind fog, slip away, and lost consciousness.

She awoke to the smell of something burning. The cabbage on the stove had burned.

The girl threw all the darkness along with the frying pan into the trash can and wearily sank into a chair. Her head hurt.

She picked up her phone. Three missed calls from Denis.

— Hi. Yes. No, I just didn’t see it. Sorry. Don’t come over today. No. My head hurts… No, don’t. I’ll call later, kisses…

She knew he was coming again. That deafening crash, as if something huge and metallic fell from a great height… That crash always preceded his appearance on the stairs.

She pressed herself to the front door, staring through the peephole, waiting.

Here he comes.

The dwarf shuffled down the stairwell, his whole body jerking unnaturally.

— Ri-ta! Ri-ta! Ri-ta! — he repeated like a broken record.

At that moment, a neighbor from upstairs appeared. He was returning from a walk with his Caucasian Shepherd dog.

The dog stopped in front of the descending dwarf and growled.

— Jack! — the man pulled on the leash.

The dog stood its ground and growled menacingly.

— Jack, home! — shouted the man, pulling harder.

The dog moved… and they passed right through the dwarf as if he weren’t there. The girl shuddered in astonishment. Saints preserve us—what is happening?!

— Ri-ta! Ri-ta! — the dwarf shuffled past her apartment, then, in an instant, returned to the peephole outside.

Only the door separated them.

— U-uh! U-uh! U-uh! — suddenly a strange creature squealed.

The girl recoiled from the door and ran into the room.

She threw herself onto the couch, wrapped herself in a blanket, shivering violently.

What was happening to her? Why was she seeing this? What was it at all? And why was she, as if pulled by a magnet, drawn to watch it again and again, repeating with inexplicable regularity?

She closed her eyes, not understanding anything around her.

Once again, she slept for an unknown number of hours. Her slumber was disturbed again by the phone ringing. Denis.

— Hello.

— Hi, love.

— Hi.

— How are you?

— Fine.

— Something happened?

— No. Why do you ask?

— You don’t answer calls. You don’t call. You don’t come over, — he said, — And finally Lena, your friend, called me… You’re not going to work. What’s wrong? Are you sick?

The gossip already told Denis she’d been fired.

— I’m fine, don’t worry.

— How can I not worry? I came over several times, rang the intercom, nobody opens. Where are you?

— I… Denis, I want to be alone. I need…

— Explain what…

At that moment, a familiar crash came from the stairwell.

— Sorry, I can’t talk now, — she hung up and rushed to the hallway.

Now, now… He’s coming again. Now he will shuffle down the stairs, twitching, endlessly repeating “Ri-ta! Ri-ta!”

The girl stared through the peephole.

Soon, the dwarf appeared. He jerked step by step as he descended.

— Ri-ta! Ri-ta! Ri-ta! — she watched the inexplicable creature, unable to tear herself away from the peephole.

The dwarf passed by, descended further.

On the last step of the lower stairwell, he suddenly dissolved into thin air.

This time he didn’t turn back, didn’t approach her door, didn’t press his white eye to the peephole.

The girl felt a sharp pain in her chest. Heartache suddenly gripped her, and she slid down the wall to the floor.

She opened her eyes. The first thought that came to her mind was the striped shirt. Yes, in the laundry basket, there had to be Denis’s striped shirt. Somehow he had left it there after spilling greasy sauce during dinner.

The girl ran to the bathroom. Had she already forgotten and washed it? No—no! That couldn’t have happened!

She smiled, seeing the striped shirt among the dirty laundry. She took off her robe, put on the striped shirt. Looked at herself in the mirror, tousled her hair…

And hobbling from the bathroom into the room.

— Ri-ta! Ri-ta! Ri-ta! — she shuffled around the apartment, giggling.

She suddenly stopped, as if pondering something. After a few seconds, she approached the cabinet, opened a drawer with documents, took out her passport.

With a ballpoint pen, with some frenzy, she scratched out the place where her name was.

Then carefully wrote — “Rita.”

---