Baby ease don't go
Baby please don't go
Baby please don't go down to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Baby please don't go
When the man done gone
When the man done
gone down the county farm
He got the shackles on
Baby please don't go
Don't leave me
Baby please don't go
Baby please don't go...
ACDC “Baby please don't go”
Prologue
“The Sound of Breaking Glass”
The sun was shining nervously outside the window. A light breeze gently caressed the laundry hanging over the balcony, blew into the house through the open window, cooling it pleasantly.
The first day of summer.
They were playing “Hearts of Glass” on the radio. An old rock song from the 1980s, forgotten by everyone, sung by the forgotten “Blondie” by everyone. Too bad. They played nice.
-They play nice.
He sat at the table, with that nasty, vaguely bland, yet tendentious smile of his, in his ever-present black suit and reddish tie, puffing on a cigarette.
"They're really fucking good."
I grimaced involuntarily, never stopping to observe the surroundings outside the window. An old man with a dog, five children playing football, fresh air...
Not what was inside. A brunette with a crew cut with his feet on the table, the stench of cigarettes...
And those four corpses on the floor. Necessity. Necessity that haunts me every time, ever since that damn day I finally decided to grab God by the feet...
The radio stopped playing. I heard his voice again from behind me, but this time it held more hatred and undirected anger than ever before.
Had the temperature dropped a few degrees, or was it just my imagination?
"What the hell are you thinking?" he asked. The scrape of a chair, quiet footsteps on the tiled floor. Cold, unnatural breath on my shoulder.
"What the hell are you thinking about?"
I turned.
A punch to the face knocked me to the floor and slammed me against the wall.
"What the hell are you thinking about?!
I shook my head in disbelief. The nervous taste of blood in my mouth, a buzzing in my head, a pain in my ears, a nervous, pounding pulse... A blur in my eyes...
Don't faint, don't faint, damn it.
The sound of a chair being thrown and glass breaking.
I fainted, damn it.
* * * "
Get up."
Colorful sheets before my eyes, a nervous pain around my ribs, the touch of cotton and silk. A bloody scab around the corner of my mouth. Elvis, wailing softly from the radio, from the windowsill. "
You wanted to talk."
I opened my eyes. He was sitting against the wall, opposite the bed. Had he wet his hair? Had he styled it differently? God, for a moment I thought...
No. He really looked like Elvis... "
You wanted to talk."
I nodded nervously.
"So?" The impatience in my voice? Damn, what if he hits me again... What if... He does something even worse? After everything we'd done together, after all those dead bodies, you could have expected anything...
"It was necessary."
Right. He's reading my mind again. He'd been checking them constantly, ever since those fourteen days, ever since... Never mind.
"Questions, my dear?" He rose from his chair. God, what if he does it again? If he just goes out into the street again and starts spreading death, what if? "
Ask, for fuck's sake?!
A nervous swallow.
"Who the hell are you?"
He smiled like an idiot.
Volume I
"The Long Way Home" "
Well, Asia, you can tear up your card. "
"But, but..."
"You can tear it up. Best now, immediately. You should have avoided messing with that ghost.
" "But you always let us..." "
No more leniency. Tear up this card. Miss Mary Wate, or Wade, is gone without a trace.
" "But..."
Around "Born to be wild." Four lit halogen lights, a green pouffe, green blinds, a green chair, lots of stuffed animals, the Game Master, the Ogre, Dana, and all the rest.
A candle dying in the middle of the room, a broken glass on the windowsill.
"Tear up the character card, if you please." The Game Master smiled broadly. For a moment, the halogen light reflected so brightly on his glasses that it seemed he had only two burning, whitish dots where eyes should be. "She won't be of any use to you anymore anyway.
But... But... that was Mary Wade, after all." The actress with the curly smile and regular beauty, the complete lack of talent, of which there was plenty everywhere, who... "
You tried to impose conditions on a ghost once too many times," Master Ogre echoed. He slowly drained his drink. A martini, with a touch of orange juice and loads of ice. To think that two years ago, only mint Tymbark drinks were enough for him and the Master. And now... How things have changed...
"Asia, don't make trouble. It was just a character. It died. It was there, it's gone, a card to tear up, for fuck's sake, and goodbye, we're making a new one, we're playing, blah, blah, blah...
But it wasn't just a character. It was... Mary Wade, the Actress with the Curly..."
The candle went out, burned out after a night of sessions. The radio faltered, fell silent.
Probably just to better observe how the Master snatches the character card I'm clutching and tears it to shreds.
This was how Mary Wade was supposed to leave? With a candle burning out, a broken glass? With a malfunctioning radio, the Ogre's giggles, and the loud clatter of torn paper? This was how my little, sweet Mary Wade was supposed to leave?
Yes?
Their untimely demise.
"Your untimely demise!
" Nervous glances. A silly smile on the Game Master's face, the Ogre doubled over with laughter. Me. With my hands raised in an angry gesture, a berserk expression on my lips, jolted awake by my own chaotic thoughts...
"Asia." It was just a figure—the sweet, innocent voice of the most innocent Game Master in this galaxy.
I closed my eyes, just to keep from yelling at him again, this time with full intent. Sometimes I wondered what he was really like. A cold bastard, like an Ogre, a Metal Maniac, like Dana, an undiscovered romantic, a creator, like me, a die-hard workaholic, a Star Wars fan?
"She's gone.
This is too much, f—— Goddamn it!"
I jerked my head back nervously, my hand trembling as if I were about to punch him in the face with a force he couldn't even imagine, but I held back.
Only one, single, mercilessly furious tear rolled down my cheek.
"She's gone, so I'll go too," I said, clearly to the void, because it made no impression on them.
A turn on my heel, the turning of the doorknob, footsteps in the hallway, my shoes and purple sweater, goodbye to the Game Master's family, the lock, the knob.
The door slammed.
They wouldn't wait, damn it.
Mary, don't worry. I won't just let you go. This wasn't your last performance. You'll see, Game Master. You'll see. You'll
all see.
* * *
Everything went to hell.
The black candle crashed onto the curtains, fire engulfed everything, including that damned forgotten book that had caused it all. In that single second, my entire room and half the apartment went to hell.
The fire raged through the apartment, consuming everything in its path, in the blink of an eye, gnawing at every surface, consuming it mercilessly to the strains of Sinatra's "Luck Be a Lady."
And I, like a complete idiot, watched with amusement, standing in the middle of a pentagram drawn on the carpet.
What was happening? I should be sobbing and going crazy right now, running around the room, screaming for help, moving erratically, forgetting even to call the fire department, I should be so strange, so stupidly indecisive, and everything else that it would be a disaster...
But... I just stood there. Smiling, swaying to the rhythm. Damn this apartment. Damn life! Let the music play. Let the music play, damn it.
A flame has just swept through my bookshelf, burning Tolkien and Sapkowski into utter oblivion.
Let it burn! I've got it...
-What a transformation - a voice. From behind me, from behind the flames that now surrounded the entire room. A voice so colorless, so inhuman, so unfamiliar and alien...
Let it burn? Do I care?
-And let the music play. They'll be great, won't they? - A complement to my thoughts? No, surely... Or maybe?
A spin on my heel.
A man in a suit. In the very center of a raging fire.
An indecisive, undefined cold. Darkness.
Nothingness.
Fainting.
* * *
When I woke up, they were dead. All of them, the whole family. They lay, arranged evenly, under a burnt wall unit, face down, in a pool of blood. I should probably have a nervous breakdown by now, drift off into the void, and savor my own pain, hoping someone would see, but...
-Necessity.
It hung over me. God, it really...
-Waking up already? Perfect.
On the right.
He was sitting in a chair, miraculously demented by the fire. He sat me down and tied me up against the blackened wall, adjusted his suit, and lit a cigarette.
"No smoking here."
He slowly rose from the chair, approached me, knelt, and blew cigarette smoke directly into my face.
"And were you expecting Prince Charming? Tell me, little one, why did you even bother with that damned ritual? Are you crazy or what?
" "Mary... Mary Wade," I nodded. God, what was he doing here? Who was he, what was he planning, where did he come from, what was he doing to me while I was unconscious. God, what could he have..." "
Don't flatter yourself, little one. People like us don't do things like that to people like... you.
Excuse me? Like what? Like I'm worse than anyone else, useless, indifferent, cold, silent? You bastard, you bastard." "
Shut your mouth."
A blow to the head sent me plummeting into the abyss of nothingness in a second.
Again.
* * *
Mary Wade. The actress with the curly smile and regular beauty, the utter talentlessness that was everywhere, who...
She was supposed to be here, it was for her that I'd reached for that musty, dusty book from the curio shop. For her, it was the pentagram, the candle, the incantation, the fire, and death. For her, not for him.
But he had other plans.
The sounds of a shower came from the burned-out bathroom.
I jerked. Damn, he'd tied me tight. It wouldn't work...
A shard of glass on the floor.
A roll onto my side. I snuggled up to the shard of a porcelain jug, turned around, and like a book or movie heroine, I tried to cut the bonds.
But, alas, I wasn't a movie heroine.
The sound of a shower. Wait a moment.
He stopped.
Silence.
All around. He wasn't in the bathroom anymore, so where could he be...
A hand gripped my back, something pulled me up. Cigarette smoke, furiously stinging my nostrils. Only now did I dare look up.
It was him. The same close-cropped brunette in sunglasses and a black suit, with a reddish tie.
"I have a feeling," he said, without removing the cigarette from his mouth. "This time it's going to be hard work..."
I smiled sweetly and batted my eyelashes.
He threw me against the wall.
* * *
On the fourth day, he finally untied me.
The house, besides the wailing of Louis Armstrong and his magnificent "What a Wonderful World," was filled with the smell of burning and rotting flesh. They lay there, still, filled with that glassy gaze, rotten, stiff, in a pool of green, stinking blood: Dad, Mom, my two beloved brothers...
"Necessity," he reminded mercilessly.
I pulled a piece of juicy steak from my mouth and set it on my plate. For a moment, I felt like everything was about to fall out of me, straight into a fresh and delicious dinner, but...
Something had changed.
Nothing was the same anymore. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
A burned-out apartment, a dead family, four days in the dark, painful flushes on my lips, face, stomach, and ribs. He beat me, every day.
Out of necessity, of course.
"Today," he chewed a hearty piece of meat, "I'll show you why I really came here, little one. You'll see how summer starts this year...
Summer... yes. In just eight days, the first day of summer. I wonder what the weather was like..." He closed the curtains on the very first day, immediately after the fire, or rather, after the moment I lost consciousness. That first time, he locked the doors and windows, isolated the entire apartment from the rest of the world.
Even on Rock Radio, only music, no voice, no commentary, no conversation, no interview. It was as if other people had vanished, and I was forced to eat steaks for the rest of my life in the company of a conveniently dressed brute from the afterlife.
Who the hell are you?
"Today," he reached for a bit of salad with his fork, "I'll show you what kind of shit you've brought into this world..."
It hit me at that moment, ruthlessly, with sheer force, with inhuman effort and force.
Maybe I was home, maybe I was sitting next to the corpses of my former family, different, more washed out, bland, grayish, and deaf, maybe I was sitting in the middle of my own living room, but... "
You still have a long way home, little one... "
Volume II
"I'm not crazy!"
The injection hurt like never before. The doctor, probably terrified herself, pressed the plunger all the way down, and in a moment, the entire yellowish substance was pouring straight into my veins.
I felt blissful and peaceful.
I stared at the whitish, unevenly plastered ceiling, my thoughts drifting for a moment, to the days before, that fateful first day of summer, the flowers in the flowerbed, Reksio and the Smurfs, smiling Arcik...
The doctor slammed the door. Three, maybe four steps, then a moment later, a tango of more, both sets of uneven footsteps meeting near the door, two voices.
A male, a female.
"So?" the man asked. "
Serious personality disorders, manic schizophrenia, suicidal and masochistic tendencies... Honestly, it would be shorter if I told you what she doesn't have...
Schizophrenia? Masochism? What the hell is going on?"
I leaned nervously on my elbows, clenched my fists on the snow-white duvet, and pulled myself up. I pricked up my ears, taking a moment to look around.
A hospital, just like a hospital. A ward, just like a ward. White, sterile walls, a slight leak under the whitish ceiling, a bare lamp without a shade, two metal cabinets that couldn't even fit anything, an old wooden table and a chair barely hanging together.
A radio on the windowsill, strangely rickety and silent, a broken television looming on a cabinet suspended from the ceiling.
A glass door to the hallway, currently covered by a whitish blind, a feisty, fat cop, and a sweet, idiotic little doctor chatting behind the door. "
Serious injuries to her neck and face, glass cuts around her chest, a broken right arm... She should be kept under observation. At least another week..." the doctor continued. "
A week? Are you sure about that? Don't forget, she killed at least seven people and blew up her own apartment, she could be dangerous, and I think we could even provide her with adequate medical care in prison...
Medical care? Who killed those seven people? What?" What the hell is going on? It wasn't me. He hit me, he cut me, and he threw me through—"
Even we can't provide her with proper medical care. She's... mentally ill. I would recommend locking her up in a proper... facility.
A facility? What? A facility? Like, for fuck's sake, me? What the hell, is that—" "
Ridiculous."
He sat in a chair, tapping out "When a Man Loves a Woman" by Percy Sledge. A really nice tune. Seriously, damn it—" "
Can you hear me, little one?"
I nervously nodded my aching head. Voices behind the wall muttered unevenly, finally fading to the echo of retreating footsteps. We were alone.
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket.
"You can't—" I stopped mid-sentence. To him, there was no such thing as "you can't." And when he got the hang of it—he liked to hit.
There was nothing he couldn't do.
A moment later, cigarette smoke drifted straight up to the white ceiling. He glanced slowly around the room, his gaze settling on the radio, which a moment later crackled unevenly, and the sound of the melody he'd just tapped out filled the room. "
When a man loves a woman...
" "Don't let those steroids fool you," he finally said, breaking the tense silence. "They want to force you to be crazy. Don't. You have to run. Don't let them stifle your screams and lock you up. You're not crazy, after all. You're not crazy... yet."
An ironic smile, the crackle of the radio, footsteps behind the wall.
"I'm not crazy!" a scream at the top of his lungs.
A shout, the sound of a door opening, a fat policeman and a female doctor. A syringe with yellow liquid, a prick, a sudden, unnatural calm coursing through his veins.
"Lie still, little one. Lie still," a soothing voice from the blurred surroundings said.
The radio fell silent.
And with it, I too departed for the land of silence...
* * *
-Everything okay?
-Yeah... Yes. Definitely. Everything... Okay.
-That's good. Time for the pill. Say aaaah.
-Aaaah.
-Perfect. Here you go.
A bitter pill melting on the tongue, a flickering lamp, the doctor's sweetly impersonal and completely unconcerned voice. Another pill to suck on, still melting in the mouth, without swallowing. No wonder. People like me weren't given coated ones, because they could only pretend to swallow, hide the pill under their tongue, then spit it out and chop up half the staff...
-Show me your mouth.
-Aaaah.
She stroked my hair.
And kissed me on the lips.
-Nice, little one - an indifferent and false smile, the scraping of a cabinet, another entry in the health record, footsteps, the slamming of a door.
Uncoated tablets...
Fortunately, there were remedies for such cases.
I cleared my throat hard, hard enough to feel the bitter taste of the tablet returning with the saliva I'd recently swallowed, gathered it all on my tongue, and spat on the ground.
One thing was behind me.
"Time for another."
He was sitting next to the bed, cleaning his sunglasses.
Stripes on his cut wrists and feet.
A missing clip in his hair.
I jerked my head, once, twice, pressing the clip against my shoulder, hard enough that when I jerked my head the other way, it stayed there, along with a few hairs. The clip from my shoulder into my teeth, tossed it between my lips, and fiddled with the first strip. The rest was just a matter of time.
The second one was behind me.
Frank Sinatra on the radio, with his unforgettable "I've Got the World on a String."
"Get up, little one," he smiled. God, I've never seen him smile like that before. A genuine, wide smile, one of joy, not irony or hatred, a smile that could be etched in my memory forever.
And it probably would remain there...
* * *
I clung like a ghost to the snow-white wall separating my room from the hallway. On the radio, "All the things she said." Simple Minds. Does anyone remember that band? Well, what?
Footsteps in the hallway. Two pairs, perfectly matching the fat policeman and his tall, pimply partner. This could have been really interesting...
I pressed my ear to the glass door.
"You know..." The footsteps paused for a moment, probably at the same moment, the pimply man grabbed the fat man's arm and looked at him with an uncertain expression...
* * *
The pimply man grabbed the fat man's arm and looked at him with an uncertain expression.
"You know..." he looked around, searching for the fire alarm. After a moment, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, bit one between his teeth, and searched his pockets for a lighter. "I'm not sure it's such a good idea, Buck, to leave her at the hospital. You saw what she did to that Kubiska, or whatever his name was..."
Buck scratched his bald head. Amazing. He wasn't even forty yet, and a small, hairless ring already gleamed on the top of his head. Was it in his genes? Probably. Father Mike and Grandpa Karl, too, were pretty quick...
"Buck, are you alive, or did you pass away?
" "Yes, I am," he nodded nervously. "As for her, I wouldn't worry. You heard the doctor's opinion—she's a masochistic lunatic, not a professional killer. Besides, to free herself, she'd probably have to bite her hands off..."
"Miracles like that didn't happen." A puff of smoke drifted toward the ceiling. "Who knows what it's like with those crazy people... God only knows what they're capable of..." "
Don't worry so much, Marek. Don't worry. Don't worry..." A chuckle. A friendly pat on the shoulder from his partner.
A faint smile on Marek's face.
"I'd like to..."
Buck grinned broadly, slamming his open palm into his partner's back with all his might. "Well, that's settled. Now come get some coffee...
" * * *
Retreating footsteps.
"It's time, kid." He paused for a moment in flipping through the channels on the hospital TV. Amazing. Just a moment ago, I thought it was broken... "We have to get going, they don't even have cable in this dump..."
The cold touch of a steel doorknob, the quiet click of a lock being unlocked, and the door opening.
A corridor, reeking of cigarette smoke, sterile white, six barred windows spaced at various intervals, neon lights on the ceiling, an elevator to the left, a stairwell to the right. Five other rooms, a fire extinguisher, a green floor.
Psychiatric ward.
The sound of the elevator descending.
So we're going right.
I scurried toward the stairs, stopping at each door, pressing my ear, listening. I don't know what would have happened if a doctor had been in one of the rooms for a routine checkup...
Luckily for me, nothing like that happened.
"Hurry, kid," he said, looking out the corridor window.
Hurry. Jogging, running.
Staircase. Sliding down the wooden railing, a few quick leaps from second to first. A sprint to the ground floor.
Ground floor.
A long corridor, a few rooms, a doctor's office, a reception desk, metal detectors, a door from the armored ward. Two teddy bears with walkie-talkies, a silly, busty blonde behind the counter.
Platitudes.
I quietly slid open the double doors separating the stairwell from the ground-floor corridor, reached the bend in the wall in four strides, and hid from a passing security guard.
I lean out, still fifty meters from freedom. On the other hand... In this hospital gown? In a blue, revealing shirt? For the men in the main square to stare at my ass with excitement? No. I won't give you that satisfaction...
Room, room, who knows who I'll meet, and whether they'll be the right size, reception, room... doctor's room.
Bingo.
* * *
"But little one? What are you doing, darling..."
I gave the doctor a hard time. There was no one else inside. The woman had terrible taste, but at least the clothes would fit. I locked the door to the room and closed the blinds.
Just to be sure, I gave her one more slap.
We take off the apron, that awful blue blouse, and the blackish, ripped jeans. Red leather shoes with two-inch heels, bought at the first store we came across.
Red thong and bra...
We take them off.
I dress her in my hospital gown and lay her against the wall.
A cabinet.
I pulled out a small glass, poured some whiskey from the cabinet, poured some into my mouth, shook it, and finally smashed it against the wall, spilling it mercilessly onto the floor.
Well, typical of Polish surroundings – a doctor drinks heavily, strips naked, then dresses in her patients' clothes, frolics on the table, and ends up unconscious against the wall.
Brilliant.
An unbarred window.
Seriously, why would I even bother leaving through the door?
The crash of a chair being thrown through the glass could probably be heard throughout the hospital... Around the
corner ,
I could have slowed down.
There was a crowd in the square, and they didn't even know what I was wearing.
They wouldn't find me, no way.
I turn into a narrow alley, heading towards the grocery store. I'm craving a hearty breakfast. Of all the lies in movies, there's one that holds the truth.
Hospital food is the worst in the world...
Cigarette smoke.
I stop.
It's somewhere here, somewhere nearby.
But where? "
You made it, little one." Congratulations – a woman's voice. Wait... It wasn't him. It was... HER. Mary Wade. The actress with the curly smile and regular beauty, the complete lack of talent, of which there was plenty everywhere, who... stood behind me.
Smiling, ecstatic, cheerful, serene, patient, calm, understanding, feisty, and joyfully sad.
Mary.
My sweet Mary...
"You...
" "I'm alive." The cigarette drifted to the ground. She stamped it out with her airy, light shoe.
Mary .
My sweet Mary...
She's alive..."
She exhaled the last stream of smoke from her lips. For a moment, it seemed as if the sky had been cut through by the Flirts' "Passion." Good old rock.
Mary.
My sweet Mary...
"Let's get lost," a melodic voice torn from the depths of hell. They didn't believe me when I said you were alive. The master even told me to tear you to shreds. But don't worry. He's already paid. He's paid with interest. He's paid in the end... "
Let's get lost," I agreed. Breakfast didn't even matter anymore. I was with my Mary. My sweet Mary.
I grabbed her hand. And we marched, wild, free, and joyfully sad, right into the middle of the crowd...
Schizophrenia?
Idiots.
I'm not crazy!
Volume III
"Ding, dong"
Ding, dong.
Ding, dong.
"I'm coming, fuck... There's no fire," came from behind the door of an apartment situated on the third floor of a building in the beautiful Wiślany housing estate. A wooden door made of gerda, dark mahogany, a silver nineteenth, and a nameplate. The
stairwell walls were white and yellow with brown stripes. The floor was made of old stone slabs, a new doorbell...
It's dark in here. The windows are covered with plastic panels, which is a shame; the interior could use some sun on the last day of spring...
Ding, dong.
"Fire? I'm coming!" Wait—yes. It was his voice. Neither one nor the other. The voice of the Game Master. No one else.
He stood two steps behind me. The smell of smoke wafted through the entire area. I would have to remind him that smoking is not allowed in public places, that it harms those around him, but...
I didn't want to lose consciousness again.
Why him, not Mary?
"Hit him, baby," he whispered in my ear.
And just so you know, I'm going to hit him.
The click of the lock on the gerda door. One turn, two, pressing the handle... Mahogany doors opening my way to the Game Master's house.
The Master stands there, blissfully sleepy, with a look as if he'd been drugged unconscious only twenty minutes ago.
"Asia?" he rubbed his sleepy eyes. Damn. He seriously couldn't see his square bodies without it. "Asia? Is that you? Why did you come?
I kicked him in the balls. I was an expert at kicking calves, but that kick was top-notch too.
"What the fuck..."
He grabbed his crotch, contorting his face into an unforgiving grimace. He bent over nervously, slid to the floor, curling into the fetal position. He looked at me in disbelief.
"What happened, Asia," he croaked miserably.
"Hit him," I asked.
He did.
With a screwdriver in the eye.
* * *
He jerked back in the green chair.
His untimely arrival. I tied it tight.
Like hell.
"Asia..." The empty socket of his left eye would probably blink now, in time with the pleading wink of the other, but oh well... He couldn't help it anymore. "What are you doing? Asia... What are you doing..."
I smiled like a sweet idiot. He liked that smile. He liked it very much. It was a shame he only saw it with one eye...
"That's for Mary," I replied in a tone that made you think I was retarded. "That's for my little, sweet, sweet Mary."
"But, for fuck's sake, that was just a figure... And that was my eye. What the hell did you do to me?
Me? Absolutely not.
" The smell of cigarettes filled the entire room. He was leafing through the Game Master's rather impressive collection of books, clearly interested in Lumley's "Necroscope." After a moment, he turned, giving the Game Master a fox-like look, walked over to the tower, and pressed a button.
Captain Sensible's "Wot" poured out. There was more hip-hop than rock in it, but I have to say I actually liked it.
"Asia, are you fucking crazy or what?"
He looked at him with a wild rage. He walked up to the Master, grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his face into the green radiator four times.
"Asia...
Shut up. This is for Mary. Take him. Take him, take him!
Ass."
And again.
A little red liquid sprayed everywhere as his momentum slammed his head into the green wall. I smiled, despite my old self. Because this wasn't the same me as before.
Not today.
Die, you son of a bitch.
I looked around.
Stuffed animals – completely useless. Stereo system, TV, cluttered wardrobes, cabinets, cupboards... Computer, printer, monitor...
Yes...
"Aaaah... Assia..."
He rammed the monitor into his head. Or maybe it was the other way around? Never mind. Who would pay attention to detail?
He squawked something indistinct, but I ignored it. What else...
A green, double-bladed Corsican knife on the nightstand.
Four slashes to the chest. A stab to the leg, a loud scream, or maybe a groan, another kick to the testicles, and a solid knife blow to the neck.
It flowed all the way to the ceiling.
Yum.
He paused for a moment to take a long drag on his cigarette. He blew the smoke directly into the Master's face.
"Finish him.
" "And how.
" "Hrhrfs... As... ia..."
A chair to his hand, a turn of the black-suited figure, a powerful swing.
A clang.
A scream. A groan, a dull thud.
So this is what it's like to fall from the third floor while tied to a chair?
Yummy.
* * *
The first day of summer.
The sun was shining nervously outside. A light breeze gently caressed the laundry hanging over the balcony, blew into the house through the open window, cooling it pleasantly.
Gary Low's "You Are a Danger" was on the radio.
They're playing well.
Colorful sheets before my eyes, a nervous ache in my ribs, the touch of cotton and silk.
"Who the hell are you?"
He smiled like an idiot.
A bedroom. A burned-out apartment, four dying corpses in the next room. Shortness of breath, a throbbing pain in my temple. Elvis sitting across from me.
"So you don't know yet?"
I shook my head. Yes. He'd destroyed the Game Master for me, slaughtered my family for the sake of it. But who was he? He was a mind reader; he couldn't be human, at least not an ordinary one.
So wh...
I bit my tongue.
So who?
He rose from the chair, walked over to me, sat on the edge of the bed, leaned over me, and nuzzled my ear.
"Your most beautiful dream." His breath reeked of cigarettes.
A punch to the face. A hard swipe. I limply flew towards the nearby wall.
With a single gesture, he reduced the bed to ash.
Magic?
Two steps forward. Slightly hunched, but still tactful, still perfectly matched to the suit, hairstyle, glasses.
His voice was furious, full of hatred, contempt, evil, demonism, and everything else that could be labeled negative. "
OR YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!!!
* * *
I woke up with my face in the refrigerator.
I jerked wildly and clearly, fell backward, took a nervous breath, settled lightly on the heated floor, and gasped.
And then I felt it. Then, lying in the middle of the half-burnt kitchen, its decor reduced to nothing but a broken refrigerator and charred cabinets. Then, I went mad, disoriented, terrified by his voice, his furious blows. Then, when for the first time in two weeks he wasn't by my side. He disappeared. But where.
Where were you, demon?!
Again. A searing pain in my wrists. Pulsating, tearing life out onto the heated floor. Silent, yet screaming.
The pain of severed veins.
What the hell have you done to me?!
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?
I rose from the ground, nervously, unsteadily left the kitchen, and made my way through the ruined hallway to the apartment door.
God, am I going to die?!
Where are you, demon?!
With the last of my strength, I turned the key in the lock, pressed the doorknob, and stepped out onto the staircase.
Help.
Help...
I fell down the stairs
. The door from the staircase.
Fuck... Shit. I pulled myself up on the handle, braced myself, and finally stood up. I opened the door and stepped out onto the street.
A green lawn, a four-story apartment building opposite, a small tree, a blue Skoda, so familiar, on the right, an intersection with a main road, a small shop with a sign that said "ENTER."
Four steps that are hard to call steps.
God, I don't want to die.
What have you done to me, demon?
A voice. Familiar, kind, friendly, "loved."
Quickly. I break into a deadly jog. I feel myself shrinking with each passing moment, melting with each second, pouring out of myself with each drop.
I tumble out of the alley and fall facedown onto the asphalt of the main street.
A voice. Closer and closer. Come here, faster, help me.
Arcik, smiling Arcik, arm in arm with his Dagmara.
"Arcik..." – a slight sigh, more to myself than to him. "Arcik...
Help me. Please. Help.
Help.
I don't want to go to the dark.
I don't.
I want to live...
It's cold today, like the first day of summer. And terribly dark... I close my tired eyes, disappointed.
A scream.
Asia, what's wrong with you? Asia, are you alive? Asia! Asia!
Little, beloved Arcik.
It's going to be alright. Asia, Asia! Don't go, don't die here! Asia!
It'll be alright. A hand touches my head.
It's getting darker.
And colder.
Until I faint.
Ding, dong, to the song "Roxette"...
Epilogue I
"The Last Goodbye"
Stairs. One, two, three...
The lower ground floor.
This isn't here yet. One level up.
I lean on Mary's shoulder, my sweet little Mary, and we go up. It's dingy in here, I remember Ogre's words: "Go on the left. They're shitting on the right." Indeed. It stinks of feces and unwashed hedgehogs, as my ex-friend would put it. The plaster is peeling from the walls, and on every square meter of the wall, some insult is scrawled in marker.
We go up.
The ground floor is higher.
We stand before the door leading to Ogre's house. I give one last look to Mary. My sweet little Mary.
A sharp knife in my hand.
Soon, you son of a bitch. You'll pay too...
It's a shame he can't see this. He hasn't shown up since I escaped from the hospital. But Mary is with me. My sweet little Mary... "
I hated him," I say, thinking of him.
I feel Mary's lips on my left ear.
"I know, darling, I know. Now... Let's settle what we have to settle."
I nod.
Come here, you son of a bitch.
You have to pay. That Mary Wade is dead?
Your untimely arrival.
Ding, dong.
"She drives me crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals in my ears. I love that melody.
Ding, dong.
Epilogue II
"Those eight days..."
Those eight days.
They always come back.
In a wave. A rush, a force, a thought, a sigh, a desire, a chaos, a voice, a blow, fire, ash, sin, and a miracle.
I remember how he broke that first one's neck.
I remember how he gouged out the eyes of another and cut out the tongue of a third.
"Today I'll show you what kind of shit you've brought into this world..."
He showed.
All too well.
He killed them, killed them all...
HE TOLD ME TO LOOK!
GO AWAY, FORGET, DON'T LET ME SEE YOU!
The cold railing of a balcony in a Warsaw apartment building.
Mary's kiss on the right cheek, an embrace around the waist.
A new life with my sweet little Mary.
He's gone. He won't come back.
The bodies have passed, the blood has passed.
I didn't kill them.
IT WAS HIM!
I AM NOT A MURDERER!
The blood of these three, my beloved, forgotten family, the Master, the Ogre... Not on my hands. I didn't hold the knife, the screwdriver, I didn't hit.
It was him.
Because if I don't...
Am I?...
No. I'm not a would-be suicide driven by masochistic tendencies and manic schizophrenia. That's impossible.
"What are you thinking about, my dear?" – the melodic voice of my beloved actress.
It had to be him.
Because if it wasn't, then she's not here.
And she is.
"Nothing, my sweet.
A kiss, innocent, light, airy.
Those eight days.
Today.
Forever...
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