The Rustling*

***

What is the most terrifying thing for you? Pain? Darkness? Demons and ghosts?

For me, the most terrifying thing is being cornered. With no hope of rescue—not even in the form of merciful death. When something so vile approaches that the best option seems to be a window on the ninth floor. A window you cannot reach.

Lately, whenever I enter an unfamiliar room, I always check for emergency exits I could use to escape. Even when I sit down for a snack in a café, I try to choose a table as close as possible to the exit or the windows. Why? That’s what I’m about to tell you.

You may take me for a psychopath—please do. I truly resemble a mentally unstable person now, because any enclosed space fills me with horror. Panic grips my bones and squeezes my brain with icy claws, leaving in my head a single thought thrashing like a fish in a net: “Run! Run! Run!”

The worst part is that I don’t know why what happened to me happened. Nothing foretold disaster: I didn’t summon demons, didn’t wander through abandoned cemeteries, didn’t try to see my evil double by flicking a lighter in front of a mirror in the dark. No-thing. I simply lived as an ordinary person lives: work, home, simple hobbies.

That evening I was sitting at my computer, finishing an important report. When the work was finally done, I sent the necessary documents to print and, cracking my stiff spine, headed to the bathroom—a cramped little two-by-two-meter room. As usual, I slid the bolt shut behind me. It was a kind of habit left over from the days when I lived in a communal apartment. After washing up, I was already reaching for the bolt to unlock the door when the handle began to turn slowly with a quiet creak.

I should mention that I live alone. Well, almost alone—my old dog, Rych, keeps me company. But turning a door handle like that was clearly beyond a dog’s ability. The damned handle was turning slowly—down, then just as unhurriedly up, then down again, as if someone wasn’t so much trying to open the door as savoring my fear.

I froze, drenched in sweat. The thing is, my front door squeaks horribly and loudly; I’ve long promised myself I’d oil it but never did, always buried in work. Needless to say, from inside the bathroom I heard no squeak capable of waking the dead. That meant no one had entered the apartment. No one!

In truth, I thought about that much later. Standing there in the bathroom, frozen with my hand outstretched toward the door, I watched the damned handle with quiet horror. I don’t know why it frightened me so much—it felt as though the fear rose from somewhere deep inside. Ancient, instinctive, irrational, yet paralyzing every cell of my body.

Suddenly, from somewhere deep in the apartment, came the pounding of dog paws, and I heard Rych throw himself at something behind the door, barking. It, however, made no sound at all. That was perhaps the most terrifying part—everything was happening in silence, except for the dog’s barking and the faint creaking of the handle, which never stopped moving.

Then I smelled it. From behind the door came an intoxicating scent of freshly cut forest grass. And then I heard my dog’s scream—full of pain. A short, dying cry of a creature writhing in agony. And then silence again.

That… thing behind the door had killed my dog! Rych was a Caucasian Shepherd more than half a meter at the shoulder. And that bitch hadn’t made a single sound while killing him. Somehow I didn’t doubt that my dog was dead. The pain ringing in his cry had been too strong.

I tried to scream, but my throat was dry and my lungs refused to breathe. Suddenly the door shuddered under a powerful удар, threatening to burst from its frame. Whimpering soundlessly in fear, I finally shook off the paralysis gripping my body and grabbed the shaking handle with both hands.

I clutched it with whitening fingers like a drowning man grasping a straw—when the light in the bathroom went out. That was when I truly felt cornered. There wasn’t even the smallest window in the bathroom, only a ventilation opening covered by a grate—and not even a child could squeeze through it. I had no escape. I was trapped, forced to wait for whatever was behind the door to break through the fragile wood and come inside.

The smell of grass grew stronger—it felt as though I were standing in the middle of a forest clearing. And then, in the absolute darkness, I heard the sound. A sound that, I think, made me cry and babble like a madman.

I heard a soft rustling, like tall grass whispering in the wind. But perhaps it wasn’t even the sound itself that terrified me—it was the fact that it came simultaneously from behind the door and from behind me, from that very ventilation opening.

Suddenly the rustling stopped, and I heard something quietly scratching against the ventilation grate. And then silence again…

After that I remember almost nothing—only sitting there, clutching the handle, crying without tears and repeating to myself: “Stop! Stop! Please, stop!” I fell into some half-delirious state, pressing my forehead against the rough surface of the door, breathing in the scent of freshly cut grass and listening to the silence. At some point I simply didn’t care anymore—I wanted to die, just for the nightmare to end. To die… but not like that. Not like that. I didn’t know what was behind the door, but I did not want to die in the claws of something that had made my dog scream like that.

I don’t know how much time passed before I realized the handle was no longer twitching beneath my numb fingers. I don’t know how long I persuaded myself to open the damned door. Hunger and thirst tormented me, but fear was stronger.

Finally, taking a breath as if for the last time, I unlocked the door. No one. On trembling legs I walked through the apartment; nothing in it reminded me of the night’s horror. My dog had vanished without a trace. Only later did I find several blades of grass caught beneath the bathroom door, resembling arrowhead.

That is where my story ends. I won’t bore you with tales of how I tried to recover, how I underwent treatment for claustrophobia and paranoia. That doesn’t matter.

Since then I have been deathly afraid of enclosed spaces and of land overgrown with grass. Soon after, I sold the apartment and moved to the city center, far from parks and wooded areas. But today, as I walked down a dirty street of the metropolis reeking of exhaust fumes, the scent of freshly cut forest grass struck my nostrils…

“…And I saw the grasses storm the field,

and I threw them a lamb—and the lamb

wept in the teeth of the arrowhead.

Ruffling feathers and fragments of shell,

within a suspended drop

whirled the dust of a torn dove.

And, without changing color,

the flocks lazily watched

the duel of stone and dawn…”