SWEET DREAMS
Karel Doležal
Mr. Jarušek fell backwards on the bed. He couldn’t feel his arms, he couldn’t feel his legs and his head was throbbing. That he wouldn’t give up this life! In the morning, he pours coffee into himself and goes to Semtín to juggle with explosives. Hýsek and Křížek have been sick for a week now, so he’s doing the job of three men, not to mention that explosion in the building next door today. His ears were still ringing, and he was also hauled over the coals because the evacuation took ten seconds longer than regulations were demanding.
Yeah, the pay was good, but he’d be better off as a garbage man in Pardubice or Bohdaneč. He’s been dead tired for the last month, squeezed like a lemon. Everything hurt, and he got some rash from work. He scratched his chest, but he felt that it only made the itching worse. He’ll try to ignore it.
His eyes were closing relentlessly. He will brush his teeth in the morning; he doesn’t want to get up. He would just switch off the lamp.
He barely peeled his eyelids apart and then immediately jerked. What was that? Something was moving to his left . . .
Oh.
All the more reason to turn it off. A mura—a nocturnal butterfly—was flying around the lamp on the nightstand, performing a shadow show.
Click.
Fly wherever you want, mura.
Mr. Jarušek closed his eyes again. Sleep, that blissful state. Those moments when he could be whoever he wished to be. The big boss who would yell at Hýsek for coming in late and then tell Křížek that if he wanted a raise, he shouldn’t be slacking off.
Sleep has crept into the fantasy of a successful manager’s life and slowly turned it into a dream. A beautiful dream. Jarušek, an engineer dressed in an expensive suit, was sprawled in a comfortable office chair, watching what was going on in the factory on a monitor. Whenever someone was slacking off, he could just touch a button, turn on the microphone and shout at them.
A pleasant scent tickled his nose. Coffee. But proper coffee, not like that instant slop he would normally drink every morning. The door creaked open and he fixed his gaze on his secretary carrying a steaming cup. He couldn’t even remember her name. After all, he didn’t care. The important thing were her perfect curves, the wavy blonde hair reaching her mid-back and the face of a Barbie doll.
He greeted her with a smile, which she returned. When she set the coffee on the table, he didn’t even have the time to say thank you. She straddled him immediately. The expensive chair worked and tilted back. The engineer Jarušek, trapped on one side by the padding and on the other by the girl’s hot body, didn’t protest. After all, he’s the big boss, this comes with it.
A hot kiss on his neck made him shiver. The assistant slid her mouth a little lower. Her golden mane was right in front of his eyes and he sniffed it like a gourmet.
Ugh.
Something wasn’t right. He expected fragrant shampoo, but instead his nose was assaulted by an iron smell he remembered well from his childhood, when he helped his grandfather butcher during a pig slaughter. The smell of blood.
He tried to rise in his chair, but couldn’t. The secretary with a wasp waist must have weighed over a ton. The moment he opened his mouth to ask her for some space, he couldn’t catch his breath. As she lay on top of him, she squeezed the last of the air out of his lungs and the pressure made it impossible for him to breathe again.
However, the foul smell of blood remained in his nose and seemed to grow stronger. Where was it coming from?
Mr. Jarušek woke up from his sleep with a gasp. He wanted to take a breath, but he still felt heaviness in his chest. Heaviness and stabbing pain. And cold. His blanket was on the floor, but he didn’t have the strength to pick it up.
He turned his gaze to his chest.
Two embers rose from the darkness, staring straight into his face.
* * *
“Really?” I said, shaking my head in disapproval. “Does anyone have any solid evidence? How do I know you’re not sending me on some wild goose chase?”
Alexandra, who had clearly pulled the shortest straw today, sighed. Years ago, she’d sent me on a hunt that had turned out to be simple mass hysteria, not a monster. But explain something like that to a hundred villagers while you stand with a smoking rifle over a dying mare that, despite the claims of a dozen people, has its head firmly planted on its neck, and also belongs to a successful Prague manager who comes here on the weekends to ride it.
I hope that’s enough to make you understand that unless I have at least a picture of the monster, I don’t really want to go on a job.
“Listen, I know it’s quite unusual for Czechia, but our informant reports so many cases that it can’t be a coincidence anymore,” our beloved business director explained patiently, as always very excited to personally talk to people instead of being holed up in an office somewhere and only sending emails.
“How many people live there? Four hundred? And there are about thirty cases? Christ, an epidemic, something in the local water supply, allergies! It’s all chemical factories near Pardubice, did you take that into consideration? As far as I know, there’s a leak at least once a year. Sudden weakness and exhaustion aren’t necessarily caused by blood loss, no matter what that doctor says. A vampire in such small village sounds like the least likely option at the moment.”
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a vampire. Blood tests for vampirism came back negative.”
“Then what?” I threw my hands up in a desperate gesture. “You’re saying it sucks blood, right? But so do mosquitoes! They pay us for the monsters we catch. How are we supposed to equip ourselves and decide how many people to send if we don’t even know what’s going on?”
“We have a strigoi as a working theory. Some might think that a strigoi and a vampire are one and the same, but a strigoi is a more primitive creature from earlier times. A restless and cursed soul rising from the dead. It also thirsts for blood, but it doesn’t spread its curse by biting.”
“Aren’t they supposed to be from Romania?” I interjected. “And as far as I know, they’re so decimated by us that they’d rather not stick their noses out of the Southern Carpathians.”
“That’s not so far from us, don’t you think? It would only take one Romanian witch who moved to Czechia and cursed someone. It may sound unlikely, but from the evidence gathered so far, a strigoi seems to be the most likely option.”
I grumbled something in protest and took a breath to make another point.
“Consider your mission field reconnaissance, yes?” Alexandra cut me off and stood up. “This has happened to you before too, hasn’t it? You were searching for an imp and ended up with three dead gnomes.”
I was about to answer when she placed two folders in front of me.
“I think these two will make good teammates for the task at hand.”
Not a single syllable came out of me. The photo of the woman on the first folder didn’t mean anything to me. However, at the sight of the round face with a genuine smile grinning at me from the second, I had to snort softly. Man, I haven’t seen you in a while. All right, I’ll do it, if only for you.
“Okay, you convinced me.”
* * *
The team will meet on site, with accommodation provided by a local man who has converted an old brick barn into “rustic housing.”
When I heard these details, I was terrified of what was in store for me. In the end, it wasn’t such a horror. Two small rooms separated by a narrow hallway, plus a bathroom. Flushable toilet, lights, even two electric sockets by each bed. Luxurious. And the smell of manure that occasionally wafted from the nearby pigsties gave it proper countryside atmosphere. What else could you want from a village called Dolany, halfway between Pardubice and Hradec Králové.
I stood on the doorstep and wondered what to do now, when Láďa’s round face appeared above the fence.
“Hey, dude!” he called and rushed to the gate.
“Howdy,” I smiled back at him and let my palm get crushed by his gorilla paw.
“So, shall we do Volary again?”
“Sure, but this time without naked occultist hiding under my bed, please.”
Láďa started laughing, which caught the attention of our landlord, Mr. Osička, who started peeking curiously out the door. Damn, I guess we shouldn’t yell like that.
The best thing about our job is that if we take a tape recorder and a camera and declare ourselves ghost hunters, most people will buy it. Check any collection of local folk tales. We’re overflowing with ghosts.
Then they think we’re harmless fools wandering around the graveyard. Even so, there’s little in our work that we can talk about out loud in the public.
We sat down on a bench and moved on to more neutral topics. How are you, what are you doing, all wrapped up in euphemisms, of course. I commented on Láďa’s elephant-smuggling-sized suitcase, saying that he had traveled light.
“You know, we’re just supposed to scout the terrain,” he shrugged. “I only packed the essentials.” He squinted towards the door of the landlord’s house and added quietly: “And sharpened spikes can be made anywhere.”
I rolled my eyes.
“So you believe it?”
“In our work? Look, nothing surprises me anymore. By the way, what about that woman, Jiřina? You know her?”
Jiřina Dostálová, the prototype of a skinny math teacher with greasy blonde hair in a ponytail and her grandfather’s framed glasses. That kind of girl next door who gets a makeover from a more attractive friend halfway through the movie and ends up named the cheerleading captain. Or she gets hacked to death with a machete at the 30th minute. I prefer the latter kind of movies.
“I took a look at her file. Apparently, she’s not exactly a Hunter, more like a researcher.”
So she’s got a chance to survive right up to the moment when she wants to give the audience a key piece of information about the monster. That’s when said monster breaks through the wall and bites her head off.
“So if it gets rough, we’ll throw her as far away as possible from us and we will do Volary again,” Láďa grumbles.
He looked into the distance at an approaching car. The wind blew a chicken feather from somewhere and it caught on his cheek. He didn’t bat an eyelash. That was a remnant from his army days. He said he’d been in ops where you had to wait motionless for an order and nobody cared that you were standing in an anthill. I’d have blown that down a long time ago, but I don’t have the same level of discipline as Láďa. Just like I miss the few dozen pounds of muscle that wrap around his massive frame.
The car, a shiny black Audi Q8, began to slow down. Was it her? Sure enough, there must have been a checkered flag stuck on the rock ahead, according to the GPS, because the driver gracefully turned through the open gate into the yard. The owner peered curiously out of the door. Jiřina Dostálová got out of the car.
“I think I just fell in love,” Láďa breathed out tenderly.
“I don’t know, a bit too ordinary for me,” I grumbled.
“With that car, dude.”
Yeah, that made sense.
Our teammate ostentatiously ignored us and went straight to the landlord, with whom she exchanged a few words. He just nodded obligingly at every word she said and grinned like an idiot, which she returned with a professional fake smile. Could this woman reel even an elephant in on boiled spaghetti? We’ve paid for our stay, but maybe she’ll arrange a discount?
When she was done with that yokel, she headed straight for us.
“Šubert and Beránek, right?” she began with a question. “Jiřina Dostálová, nice to meet you. Please come to the car. The situation has changed.”
I hadn’t even had time to speak when the driver’s side door slammed behind her.
“Nice to meet you too, babe,” Láďa mumbled and went to sit in the back.
* * *
No sooner had I got on than the smell of petrol hit my nose. Of course, her company car and fuel are paid for, so she carries a “just in case” canister in the trunk which usually means she pours it into her own car at home. Judging by the intensity, though, I’d expect that if she didn’t spill it outright, she’s got a leaking cap at least.
“I read your files,” Jiřina spoke first. “Ctibor Šubert, Ladislav Beránek, both of you have a nice row of notches on your belts. It will be an honor to work with you.”
I grumbled something vague, preferring not to imagine the look on Láďa’s face. So she read our files, fine. She might also know that I was the group leader. So later, I’m getting an explanation as to why I had to take a bus while she got a company car.
“Nice to meet you,” I squeezed out when Láďa nudged me through the seat with his knee. “I’ve read about you having quite a bit of experience with research and such and . . . ”
I almost turned and grunted when I felt the knee in my back again.
Yeah, yeah, I got it.
“Where are we headed, anyway?” I went straight to the point for a change. Meanwhile, the landscape with meadows, forests and ponds, all colored in autumn yellows and browns, had been replaced by the first houses of the town of Lázně Bohdaneč.
“To see our informant. He called me an hour ago.”
“Any good news?” Láďa finally spoke from behind.
“Sort of,” Jiřina shrugged. “We finally have something to work with. The first dead victim.”
Oh shit.
* * *
When it comes to informants, usually former Hunters, the best profession for them is one in which they come into contact with as many people as possible. The waiter who listens to the regulars in a pub, the hairdresser to whom every old lady confides that the neighbors are haunted. Or, in our case, the local doctor, Kabelka M.D., an elderly gentleman with remnants of grey hair around his ears and glasses resembling the bottoms of beer mugs.
“I bent a few rules for this,” he said as he led us to the morgue. “The coroner and police chief are our people, so we delayed the usual procedures so you could examine the body.”
“Did you find anything new?” I asked.
The doctor threw up his hands in a futile gesture and began fishing a key from his pocket.
“Nothing that would make me any wiser. Basically the same thing I reported at the beginning and what locals came to me with. Like something was sucking his blood. I’ve sent a blood sample to the SRS, just in case, but I expect a negative result for vampirism again. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself.”
The key clicked in the lock and the door opened. There was a chill and the fluorescent lights flickered. We stared at the table and the bare feet peeking out from under a sheet.
“Martin Jarušek, thirty-eight years old, production operator at Explosia Inc.”
“So a worker,” Láďa translated the doctor’s statement into human language.
“Exactly,” nodded the doctor. “He’d been my patient for over ten years. I’ve prescribed antibiotics for him twice, and I couldn’t find anything more interesting in his chart. That guy was as healthy as a turnip.”
And big as a mountain, I thought as I pulled the sheet off the dead man. All muscle, six-pack abs. Yeah, he had a manual job and probably worked out in his spare time.
I immediately looked at his neck.
“You won’t find any bites,” the doctor told me. “I’d report that, don’t worry. I’ve examined him completely.”
“And what’s that?” pointed Jiřina at the dead man’s chest. Although the body had already turned deathly pale, we could clearly see a reddened swollen spot around the left nipple.
“Inflammation,” explained doctor Kabelka. “It is possible that he had an epidermoid cyst there and by an unprofessional attempt to remove it, he had carried infection there.”
I glanced at our researcher, Jiřina. She met my eyes with the same questioning look.
“He squeezed out a pimple in a wrong way,” Láďa translated.
“In layman’s terms, but to the point,” the doctor agreed. “Anyway, the place does show signs of injury, but the likely reason for that is that he scratched it. The cause of death is undoubtedly blood loss. The inflammation may have been unpleasant, but it doesn’t look like anything life-threatening.”
Jiřina took notes while I examined the body once more. Láďa was nervously stretching the index finger of his right hand. He was clearly not enjoying this and would rather shoot something.
* * *
“No bite doesn’t mean anything yet. A strigoi can also be modern and draw blood through a syringe,” I speculated.
“For someone to die from blood loss, it’d have to draw it out pretty quickly,” countered Jiřina. “We have to take into account the number of people with the same symptoms. Does it suck blood out of them every night? Where is it sucking it from? After a few nights, people would notice they have punctures in their elbow sockets, right?”
“Or it scratches the victim’s nipple and nurses blood,” Láďa echoed from the back seat, but somehow I didn’t have the energy to answer him. Holy shit, what gave him that idea?
“But more people would have the same problem, wouldn’t they? They would have noticed it,” Jiřina was more active than me.
“Oh right, so all we have to do is go around the village, banging on doors and saying ‘hello, may I see your tits?’”
“Láďa, stop,” I groaned, shaking my head. On the other hand, maybe people noticed it, but they didn’t think it was anything serious.
* * *
“This one is luxurious!” Láďa assessed the Dolany cemetery. “For a modern bloodsucker, it’s perfect. Away from the village, a proper wall, even a parking lot in front of the gate!”
His words were accompanied by a constant snip-snip as he was sharpening a wooden stake with his knife. Yeah, apparently certain methods work on multiple kinds of bloodsuckers. Jiřina sat a bit away from him, poking a stick into the fire we had lighted behind the chapel. The smell of the smoke, along with the red setting sun and the whipping November wind, reminded me of some poem about shepherds roasting potatoes. I wondered if they were also watching thick mist slowly approaching them from a pond beyond the field. That kind of mist where a monster hides like it’s nothing.
I found some work gloves in our landlord’s shed, and I’d just dragged a dog rose bush I’d cut in front of the graveyard onto Jiřina’s campfire.
“Do you really think this will work?” I asked Jiřina doubtfully.
“It’s already burning properly. It’ll catch on fire.”
“I’m not talking about that. Is the smoke from a thorny flower really going to drift right down to an undead’s grave?”
“There’s a lot of bullshit about them, but I’ve tested this one.”
“How about not being able to cross running water? We crossed a stream on the way.”
“Yeah, that’s why they built the Opatovice Canal,” Láďa interjected, waving his knife towards the cemetery gate, which was the direction he suspected it flowed. “The water for the ponds was just a cover.”
Jiřina shrugged and raked the burning wood.
“Bridges are probably fine. And a bat will fly over anything. Throw it in, Ctibor.”
I happily threw a load of thorns into the flames, feeling them puncture my gloves in a few places.
“There was a dry one, wouldn’t that be better?” I offered, looking at the still green tendrils of the dog rose.
“We need the smoke, wet branches will be better,” Jiřina replied, trying to poke as much of the natural barbed wire as she could in the center of the fire.
Snip-snip, Láďa continued his work. He stood up holding one of the finished stakes, gave it a try and hit the first O in IN LOVING MEMORY on a wreath five yards away.
“Good one,” I commented.
“Hardly,” Láďa waved his hand at that. “I was aiming for the angel’s gloriola,” he pointed to a nearby grave.
“Let me try it,” I prompted, and he threw me another stake.
Okay, straddle, aim, and throw!
The tip of the stake lodged between the marble head and the iron halo.
“I prefer guns,” Láďa growled, tucking the knife into a holster at his waist. Then he turned his attention to Jiřina and her fully biological bloodsucker smoke detector.
There was plenty of smoke rising skyward. It snuggled nicely against the small tower on the chapel and then dissipated. Which was exactly what we didn’t want.
I glanced at Jiřina, ready to ask a question, but noticing her grim expression, I preferred to keep my mouth shut. It really wasn’t working out the way she wanted.
“Does a strigoi know someone is walking on their grave?” I suggested instead. “Like they’d rather pretend they’re not home and not go out?”
“Even if they do, I hope they won’t know who we are,” she murmured in reply. “But they can’t ward off the smoke. It really ought to find them!”
“Is there another method?” I wondered.
“Do you have a seven-year-old boy in white clothes sitting on a white horse? They say that at high noon, that horse is guaranteed to recognize the right grave.”
“Well, a campfire sounds easier.”
The sun had set by then. Láďa shivered with cold and looked around. It was clear that if he didn’t see a strigoi in three minutes, he was going somewhere warm.
“I said it from the beginning,” I shrugged. “A strigoi in such village? Unlikely.”
“How about we put it out and go home?” echoed Láďa, fishing his gloves out of his pocket. “Let’s sleep on it.”
Without a word, Jiřina pulled a watering can from behind a nearby grave and tossed it to him.
“You noticed the pump by the gate, didn’t you?”
* * *
The attitude of Czechs towards monsters is clear. Check out any fairy tale. Everyone makes fun of the devils, the will-o’-wisps are depressed that everyone thinks they’re just rotten stumps, and the rusalkas supposedly joined the ballet.
Besides, this isn’t America with a lot of empty space where a pagan cult can easily hide. Even Volary, which Láďa and I reminisced about, was a rather fun experience. The case of occultists hanging around the primordial nature of Durandel the Wood Sprite has gone down in history. I still vividly remember Láďa shooting down cultists fleeing down the hillside with short bursts, while I was luring their half-tree, half-animal pet right into a small minefield.
Once it was on its back, it was easy to get to its brain with an axe. I wasn’t surprised it looked like a walnut.
But that was a notorious beast. People knew it from fairy tales and old stories about local glassmakers. This one? Well, who knows.
“Maybe someone brought a chupacabra from Mexico?” Láďa suggested.
“I saw a goat at the neighbors’ place and it looked fine,” I shook my head dismissively while looking over Jiřina’s shoulder at my laptop. “And don’t you dare tell some joke about sucking boobs.”
“That’s what you get for picking up a little Spanish,” my teammate chuckled.
Jiřina was going through the company database, but after a moment she sighed, and I nearly sputtered when she moved on to Wikipedia.
“You’re kidding, right? If the teacher finds out where you downloaded your essay from, you will get an F!” I lectured her in the best nerd voice I could muster.
“It’s possible we’re dealing with something we’ve never fought before,” Jiřina retorted. “I’ve always liked mythology, but Slavic and especially Czech mythology is terribly fragmented. Every region has a different version of the same monster. And our Slavic myths are mixed with Germanic ones.”
“Also, don’t forget that it may be something no one has ever seen! A new species,” Láďa remarked from his bed as he inspected the AR-15 assault rifle he had pulled from his suitcase.
“I feel so much better now,” muttered Jiřina, then looked up at me as I put on my jacket. “Where are you going?”
“Field work. If there’s something flying around at night, there’s good chance I’ll see it. You search the net, Láďa gets his arsenal ready.”
The door slammed behind me and the November night frost bit into me. First of all, I needed some peace to think, and that’s impossible with Láďa’s remarks in background.
* * *
Compared to the rush of a big city, I would call the nighttime atmosphere of a small village like Dolany peaceful. Quiet and calm, a dog barked here and there, but even they preferred to crawl into their kennels in this cold.
A fire tank, a chapel, the municipal office, a memorial to the victims of the First World War, the church, a pub, a general store, all this was drowned in the darkness and quiet of the night. I decided to go left at the next junction so as not to unnecessarily return to the cemetery.
The sidewalk was empty. If I were just a few miles further, in Lázně Bohdaneč, I would probably meet someone, but here? If any old ladies suffer from insomnia, I’ll be the subject of gossip tomorrow. A vandal, or maybe a robber. And it was definitely the one who killed Mr. Jarušek!
I shuddered. A thicker fog rolled into the village, rising from the nearby ponds. Soon it would engulf the whole village and it would be like wading through milk. Even worse than the cold is a cold and wet weather at the same time; it was the kind of weather in which even a monster’s ass would freeze.
I thought I’d turn around soon. Not only I was cold, but I wouldn’t be able to see more than two yards.
Just as I had that thought, an outline of a human figure emerged from the fog on the other sidewalk, walking in the opposite direction. Hey, I’m not alone. But if I turn around now, it’ll look bad. Like I’m stalking them.
I kept walking for a while, but the freeze made me change my mind. Damn it, I’ll turn around, they might not even see me in this fog.
Yeah, fog in front of me, fog behind me. But after just a few steps back towards our lodgings, something came out of it right in front of me. Another human outline. Damn it, there’s traffic!
She was bundled up in a thick winter jacket and had her hood pulled up over her head. I could barely get any closer before I could see the features of her unhealthily pale face. I also noticed the pregnant belly she was holding on to.
“Good evening,” I blurted out. I wanted to look like a good guy.
We stood facing each other and she just stared at me with her dark eyes. The circles around them made them look even bigger. A large freckle on her chin formed a triumvirate with them.
She nodded silently in greeting. Well, hallelujah, I was afraid she’d dissolve into more fog without another word.
I smiled and continued on my way. I met a pregnant young woman on the street at night. Unusual, but maybe she was just going home. And she was shy. Nothing suspicious.
After a few steps, I realized she was following me like a shadow. I stopped, so did she.
“Do you need anything? Maybe a ride somewhere?” I asked, but again she just stared at me and didn’t say anything. Okay, this wasn’t normal anymore.
“Are you alright?” I kept trying.
She nodded. At least some reaction.
She squeezed her round belly a little tighter and looked down at it. I had a feeling she’d whispered something silently.
“Excuse me?”
“Where do you live?” she said. Hey, she can talk. And even in Czech.
“At Mr. Osička’s pension,” I replied uncertainly. That’s a question. I wonder how many people provide housing here, huh?
Another nod.
“Do you need a place to stay? Do you have somewhere to go?”
She shook her head negatively at first, then affirmatively.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” I smiled nervously and took a step away from her. “Goodbye.”
She nodded. Then she propped her stomach up and ran away. How far along was she? Could she still be able to run like this? Damn it, I should have found out her name and asked Dr. Kabelka about her! Maybe she’s in his records.
I walked a few steps and looked back again. The wind was blowing, bringing a cloud of particularly thick fog from the fields. For a moment, I thought I saw someone inside it.
I sped up and checked if I could quickly draw my concealed knife and gun.
Stupid paranoia.
* * *
Just as I locked the door behind me, the sound of an approaching earthquake caught my attention. I’d almost forgotten how badly Láďa snores. Jiřina came out of the other room, using her cell phone as a flashlight. Judging by the direction she took, she was heading for the bathroom. She looked at me, obviously expecting a reaction.
“So how was the field work?” she muttered when none came.
“Nothing. I couldn’t see the tip of my nose in this fog. I met this weird woman, but she didn’t look like a strigoi. Could an undead be pregnant?”
“I doubt it. I guess it’s too much to ask to crack this in one evening, huh?” Jiřina yawned, continuing on her way. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
I opened the door to mine and Láďa’s room. My buddy was sleeping like a little kid. On his back, limbs in all directions and with the blanket kicked off.
A maternal feeling awoke in me and I went to cover him. In the process I almost tripped over his belt with a gun and a knife, which he had left lying on the floor with his trousers. He’s got a chair next to him, damn it! That’s what I get for my goodness . . .
I threw a blanket over him. Good night, buddy.
* * *
I felt quite nervous on the way to Alexandra’s office. I was tempted to turn around and flee because I wasn’t sure why she had called me. It all happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly. Plus, everyone was staring at me. I could feel their stares on my back, but whenever I turned around, they looked like nothing happened.
Why are there so many people here? Where did they come from?
I passed more and more faces. They all know who I am, they are all judging me. He’s the one who’s going to be hauled over the coals.
The dreaded door loomed in front of me. When I grasped the handle, I felt so weak I couldn’t even open it. Eventually, however, it gave way and I was able to enter the lion’s den.
Alexandra was smiling. I hadn’t expected that.
She motioned for me to sit down. The otherwise uncomfortable chair accepted me into its surprisingly soft embrace until I almost expected it to start stroking my ass.
“Have I ever told you, Ctibor, what an asset you are to us?” she began to speak in honeyed words. The chair beneath me was suddenly even more comfortable. I sank deeper into it. At the same time, however, I felt a sense of an outside force pushing me into it.
“You will receive an extraordinary reward for your accomplishments,” Alexandra announced, placing a briefcase on the table. The locks clicked and I saw green bills.
“What kind of bullshit is this?” I giggled. “A generic scene from an American movie? My money goes into my account, no such cliché.”
I looked in that briefcase. Sure enough, the numbers on the money were impossible to read properly, and even the portrait of the statesman seemed to refuse to steady before my gaze.
Realizing I was in a dream had happened more than once in my life. Lucid dreaming is fun, but unfortunately, I usually fall asleep harder or wake up sooner.
The pressure increased and I fell into the chair again. The cushioning inflated as if it wanted to absorb me. Oh no, nothing like that! This is my dream, I’m its master.
I reached to my side. My hand grasped the hilt of a bayonet. Unlike Láďa, I keep a blade in my bed.
With my thumb, I pushed the snap button and freed the blade. Steel glinted in the fluorescent light.
Wait, that’s not really necessary. It’s my dream! I thought to myself that the chair should cease its actions.
Nothing. The mysterious force pushed me in even more. You want it? You got it! Looks like I will need my knife after all.
I stuck it in the padding. If it doesn’t deflate, I’ll cut my way out of it.
Alexandra backed away from me with fear in her eyes. Why did I keep seeing her as standing behind a desk? It wasn’t until now that I realized my eyes were deceiving me. She had been standing in front of me the whole time, pressing against my chest.
The pressure stopped. She took a few steps back and began to walk around me. Oh, right, you want to get the door. Too bad it’s locked.
Because this is my dream, remember?
She grabbed the doorknob and yanked it in vain. She gave it a worried look, but immediately turned her attention back to me.
I got up from my chair. Damn, it was actually as uncomfortable as ever. I held out my hand with the bayonet and watched as Alexandra stared fearfully at its tip.
This was getting weird. Too long for a lucid dream. Knowing me, I should be waking up any minute now.
And it’s just a dream in the first place, so what the hell? What can a dream version of my boss do to me?
I’ll never know. She put her hand to the keyhole and it literally sucked her in. Alexandra turned into black slime and ran through the keyhole.
A clear sign to my mind that I should wake up.
* * *
I opened my eyes. The light of a street lamp glinted on the blade of the bayonet I was clutching in my hand. Yeah, I keep it with me for emergencies, but this truly was the first time I’ve ever drawn it in my dreams. Pretty dangerous.
I sat up in bed and put the blade on the nightstand. I had no idea what time it might be, but I didn’t feel the least bit tired after such a bizarre dream. I just felt need to pee.
On my way to the bathroom, I noticed a light coming from the opposite door. After I finished, I knocked on the door.
“Come in,” I heard Jiřina say.
I entered. My teammate was sitting at the coffee table, her hands tucked under her chin, reading something on her laptop.
“Can’t sleep?”
“It literally won’t let me sleep,” she replied, rubbing her eyes. “I decided to look directly for Dolany, but there is more than one village with that name. And I had to be skipping all those Dolan’s Cadillac references or bad paintings of Donald Duck. It didn’t lead anywhere. I do have one tip, though. A mura.”
“I’d expect more of a mosquito.”
“Not the insect. A mura as a mythological creature. But that’s the problem. It’s just a rumor, we don’t have any records of an actual mura. There are stories about them in Slavic and Germanic mythology, and each tale mentions them differently. Sometimes it is a cursed person, sometimes a monster, or a mischievous house imp. And there’s more; it is often supposed to be a soul leaving the body and masquerading as a white cat, straw or horse.”
“So anything around us can be a mura?”
Jiřina nodded.
“Exactly. And as soon as you’re not paying attention, it sits on you and sucks. But blood loss and an inflamed nipple are the only things that match one hundred percent so far. The ways to defend yourself are as chaotic as descriptions of the mura. Anoint your chest with pitch, draw a pentagram on the door, keep something sharp in bed . . . ”
“That doesn’t sound very safe.”
“Sort of. And I think if we start scribbling stars on people’s doors, we’ll be cast out as Satanists. But for now, the best part. Do you want to know how to kill her? Nail it to the wall or cut it in half.”
I smiled. Sounds trivial.
“Okay, so the identification is the hard part, then even a kid can handle the disposal.”
She nodded.
“I’d better go to bed or I won’t be able to get up tomorrow. I’ll summarize my research for the both of you then.”
“Sounds reasonable,” I nodded. “Good night, then. Again.”
* * *
In the morning we were greeted by fog again. I like autumn, but I hate mornings like this. You get the feeling from the start that the cold is going to completely overcome you within a minute. It’s disgusting.
I stood on the doorstep with a cup of coffee and watched the white wisps roll over. Judging by the sounds from inside, Jiřina must have gotten up, but Láďa was still cutting wood with a chainsaw.
A message dinged on my cell phone. Dr. Kabelka. Tests on the deceased Mr. Jarušek came back negative. As expected.
Every now and then, someone would walk by and everyone looked like someone was sucking their blood in the night. Of course, on a morning like this, I’d chalk it up to a natural reluctance to get up and go out.
But how many of them were really victims?
I walked closer to the fence to get a better view of the passers-by. It wasn’t the same hustle as in the city. I had plenty of time to focus on everyone and wonder if this young . . .
The coffee cup stopped halfway to my mouth. I recognize this woman! I saw her last night and she disappeared into the fog! You’d think you would notice a pregnant woman, but that was the problem. I clearly recognized her, but she had obviously forgotten her belly somewhere. She was wearing a hood and we met in the twilight, but I recognized those dark eyes with the circles and the freckle on her chin right away. What now? Run up to her and congratulate her on the kid? Or was it her sister?
She noticed me staring at her and returned my gaze. A very neutral look. I smiled and nodded in greeting. She looked away and minded her own business.
And I stood there like an idiot, staring at her back and sipping my coffee again. Maybe she had a dog under her jacket last night?
The door creaked open behind me. Láďa, the hard-ass, came out on the doorstep, wearing nothing but shorts and a T-shirt.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against the fence next to me. A granny on the opposite sidewalk, wrapped in coat like a mummy, looked offended that he was exposing himself to the deadly cold. Láďa scowled at her, scratched his chest, turned up his collar provocatively, and waved his other hand to expel the excess heat.
I just grunted something in greeting. My mind was processing that woman I met last night.
“Jiřina is calling you in. She wants to recap her research for us.”
I nodded silently and followed him. Our teammate was waiting for us, sitting behind her laptop. I sat down on the couch next to Láďa and didn’t listen to Jiřina too much as she started her lecture just like the night before.
A mura can change shape, I know that now. But who says I saw a mura? The girl might not be connected to the case at all. On the other hand, why would she ask me where we were staying at night and then pretend she didn’t know me in the morning? There’s something weird about this village. Maybe not a monster, but definitely a few freaks.
Láďa somehow couldn’t settle down and almost elbowed me a couple of times when he was tugging on his shirt. Again! For at least the third time.
“Ctibor here is the only such freak,” he suddenly interrupted Jiřina’s explanation, which brought me out of my reverie.
“What?” I blurted out, and it was obvious I hadn’t been listening.
“How to fight off a mura. You have to have something sharp in your bed. Only you sleep with a knife,” he almost taunted me.
“Compared to you, whose guns are thrown on the ground for me to trip over, huh?” I grinned in return.
He shrugged and scratched his stomach.
“May I continue?” Jiřina broke in between us. “A mura will start by causing you a pleasant dream. It will lull you to sleep. Then it’ll sit on you, you might even feel like it’s suffocating you. Then it starts sucking blood from your chest.”
My thoughts flew with lightning speed.
A pleasant dream. Like one about a lot of money. The weight pushing down. Rescue in the form of a sharp object.
Then all I had to do was look at Láďa rubbing his chest. The same Láďa who ants can crawl all over and he wouldn’t mind.
“Láďa, take off your shirt,” I said as calmly as I could, though I didn’t feel like it.
“What?”
“Take your shirt off, I’m afraid our operation is compromised.”
The silence was as thick as molasses. And I mentally cursed to myself that I had quite definitely told the mura where we were staying.
Láďa pulled off his shirt.
There was a bit dried blood around his left nipple.
* * *
Láďa bore it bravely. He lay on the sofa and let Jiřina look at the wound. Meanwhile, I was pacing back and forth in the corridor, because as soon as I started doing it in the room, she chased me out.
I’m such an idiot! This is just not possible!
“You can come in!” shouted Jiřina. I came back and sat down next to my friend who was getting dressed.
“So, is he going to turn into a mura?”
“Yeah,” Láďa chimed in, “turn off the light bulb or I’ll be flying around it.”
“He shouldn’t,” Jiřina corrected him. “But that wound is really strange. At first I thought it was capillary bleeding. As if the mura sucked it out with a vacuum. But then I noticed there are actually tiny punctures lined up in several circles.”
“I’ve seen that before,” I broke in, trying in vain to remember the case in question. Then it dawned on me. It wasn’t a case. It was a book about aquatic animals that I had as a child.
I looked at Jiřina with an extra skeptical eye.
“Lampreys?” I suggested.
She nodded.
“Exactly. It looks like a lamprey bite.”
“And a mura bite is supposed to look like what?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t read anything about that. Like I said, there are a million variations mentioned, but none of them mention this.”
“If we’ve never really encountered this mura and every description says it’s supposed to look different, we’ll have to go straight to the main source for information!”
“And what is that, Mr. Smart?” she retorted sarcastically.
“Maybe there’s a library in the town hall, no?”
* * *
Jiřina said she would try to pirate some book online. But although it may seem absurd to some nowadays, not everything is on the net. Consider me old-fashioned, but Google will never replace a librarian.
One might think that a tiny library in a local town hall would hardly be a sufficient source of information. But on the other hand, where else to look for local history and lore enthusiasts?
I knocked, opened the door, said hello . . . and froze.
The brown-haired lady behind the counter looked at me wearily with big dark eyes that, together with the freckle on her chin, formed a small constellation.
Shit. I hate these coincidences.
“Hello,” she greeted in return and smiled. “What do you need?”
I stared at her and remained silent. What now? In the face of a mura, even a harmless story about paranormal investigators is dangerous.
“Do you have any books about local lore, please?” I began neutrally. “I’m mapping Czech mythology and focusing more on regional folklore.”
The girl bit her lower lip. I expected her to leap over the counter and bite into me at any moment.
“Well, that’s not exactly something the local grandmothers read,” she replied after a moment’s thought. “To tell you the truth, I mostly have romance and mystery novels. But I know of a book you’d appreciate. I have it at home. You live in Osička’s house, don’t you? I saw you there this morning. The gossips here make you out to be a detective or a spy, by the way. Anyway, I have the book at home, and I live across from the playground. If you wander there around 6:30, I’ll lend it to you.”
I carried on a little more casual talk with her for a while. I waited for her to slip some information, but no luck. In fact, all I’ve learned was that her name was Marie.
Okay, I have a date at 6:30.
* * *
“When she comes out, do I have to sit on that swing and pretend I’m ten years old?” Láďa teased me as we walked to the meeting place.
“Do what you want, but watch my back. And the kids are past their bedtime!”
Láďa was grumbling all the way. He’d spent the day walking around the village, looking for anything suspicious. Considering his years of experience in detecting monsters, he declared that he had never seen a more ordinary village.
Jiřina spent the whole day reading. What do we have her for? Wouldn’t home office be enough? She’s got my phone number.
“I don’t like this. That girl looks like a shot in the dark to me. Everything you’re describing seems like a coincidence,” Láďa continued to play the skeptic.
“First of all, I’m going to borrow a book from her. She may have nothing to do with the case, but if she gives us information, that’s a good thing.”
We arrived at the place. Wisps of fog rolled into the village as they had yesterday, dimming the already meager light coming from the surrounding houses. This side street could only dream of street lights; only the main ones in Dolany got them. Still, I could see enough of Marie’s house. A two-story new building, obviously insulated, plastic windows, tiled roof. Nice house, where did she get the money for it?
In the end, Láďa just walked a short distance and disappeared into the fog. Just in time, the silhouette of Marie appeared in the opposite direction.
“Good evening, so here I am,” I smiled at her like friendliness itself, but in my mind I was crouched and ready to dodge an attack.
“Hello,” she nodded back and huddled a little more into her scarf. “I’ll get it for you right away.”
So what’s it going to be? Invite me in and try to kill me? Or will she throw her arms around my neck because I’m the hero she’s always wanted?
As soon as we reached the door, she asked me to wait a moment and disappeared into the house. Sure, she wants to get ready. Sharpen her fangs, powder her nose . . .
She opened the door again and handed me a leather-bound book.
“Here you go. When do you think you could give it back?”
“Well, tomorrow, perhaps,” I stammered out, surprised by the unexpected turn of events.
“Then bring it to me at work, will you? I’m off to cook, I’m hungry as a wolf. Bye!”
“Bye . . . ”
The door slammed in my face.
“Dude, that was really anticlimactic,” Láďa claimed behind me, pretending to be a random passerby.
* * *
Jiřina glanced at the book. “Tales from Pardubice and Hradec region,” she read the title in golden letters and flipped through it. “Where did you leave Láďa?”
“He said he was going to bed right away.”
As if on cue, the sound of cutting wood came from his room.
“That was fast,” Jiřina assessed her teammate’s performance, then she stuck her finger in the book. “A mura! It’s here. So, where . . . Oh my God! At the end of a village called Dolany lived . . . The very first sentence!”
“You know who can, does.”
“It’s less than two pages.”
Jiřina read while I sank down on the couch. I’m curious to see what I’ll learn.
“A lamprey-like mouth would be mentioned here. Literally,” Jiřina spoke up a moment later. “However, the rest of the description makes me wonder what our ancestors smoked. A barrel-shaped body, glowing eyes, duck feet, cat claws . . . What are whynges?”
“Wings,” I pulled an obscure piece of knowledge from the depths of my brain. “That sounds like a real bizarro. I think a more likely image is a woman who . . . ”
I didn’t finish. I was sitting across from a window facing the street. The lamp there was fighting desperately with the fog, but it was still enough to illuminate the figure that had climbed over the fence and jumped into the garden.
Marie.
With a pregnant belly.
I flew off the couch and ran for the front door. I slammed the handle. Shit, Láďa locked it! Come on, here’s his jacket. Something’s jingling, but which pocket is it? Shit, the zipper’s stuck!
I tugged. The stitches holding the zipper weren’t as tight as the stuck teeth, so I got into the pocket. Unlock it, fast.
“What’s wrong?” I heard Jiřina behind my back.
“The librarian is here,” I replied, finally unlocking the door. A fog rolled in.
“Marie!” I shouted.
She was just hopping over the fence, this time toward the street.
The pregnant belly was gone.
I ran to the gate, but before I could unlock it, Marie disappeared into the fog. No, I’m not going after her alone. There’s gotta be more of us for that.
“Jiřina, get ready. We’ll take the car, I’ll just go get Láďa.”
He’ll be pissed that I’m waking him up.
* * *
“Láďa, emergency!” I yelled and turned on the light . . . and froze immediately.
My buddy had his shirt rolled up and something looking like a winged barrel was sitting on his bare chest. Like a little elephant with its trunk attached to his left nipple.
It was like a fucking joke.
The mura broke away. Unswallowed blood gushed from its trunk and splashed Láďa.
By that point, I had a bayonet in my hand. You can’t run, you bitch.
It tried to, but duck legs aren’t exactly made for running. When it tried to slip past me, I kicked it across the room. Then I slammed the door behind me and lunged at it.
Feathers rustled. The mura flapped its wings and jumped. The target? My chest.
I flinched and felt the leathery flesh brush against me. Its feet, with their floating membranes, slapped me, and the sharp pain in my arm showed that the rumor didn’t lie about the cat’s claws either.
Plus, the creature had torn my favorite shirt.
I took a swing at it. The tip of the blade struck the mura in the wing, disrupting its flight plan. With a thud, the fat creature crashed into the wall.
I got you!
One step, two steps, ready to slash . . .
If I didn’t see it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.
One moment a lifeless pile of misery buried its snout in the corner, sticking its butt out at me. The next, there was a hissing beast that shot its trunk towards me, full of circles of teeth.
The mura didn’t turn around. It just . . . changed. It crawled through itself to face me, its already glowing eyes now blazing with rage.
I jumped back, took a step to avoid the trunk . . . and tripped over Láďa’s pants, his belt festooned with weapons.
Oh, shit.
I slammed the table with my wrist and dropped the bayonet. In the fall, I rolled over and fell flat on my back. Immediately, I felt the mura land on my chest and sink its claws into me. It was heavier than it looked.
The trunk came into my field of vision. The leathery, sphincter-like membrane contracted several times, loosening around a black hole surrounded by needle-like teeth. Guessing its target, I instinctively covered my eyes.
A shot rang out. The mura wobbled, fell off me onto its side, and rolled under the table.
“You okay?” I heard Láďa’s voice.
“Just fine, Sleeping Beauty,” I replied, accepting a helping hand.
“I’m sorry, but that bitch is not only sucking on you, she’s like . . . hypnotizing you. I knew you were fighting, but I was still in a dream and couldn’t snap out of it.”
I looked at my teammate’s hand. He was clutching a small revolver. It almost disappeared in his huge paw.
He noticed my look and immediately explained, “You know, I’m not like you, sleeping with a knife in my bed. I prefer to have a real gun under my pillow.”
I didn’t comment on that and instead pushed the table away.
Nothing. There was just a bloodstain on the carpet under the table. Could it have rolled away?
The furthest tip curved and the mura popped out from under the completely flat carpet. There wasn’t even a bump! It immediately ran for the door, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.
I wasn’t playing the hero and got out of Láďa’s way.
Two shots rang out. The first missed, the second hit the mura in the leg. It staggered, but still bounced and made it to the door.
Suddenly, it turned into a shapeless dark blob, stretched into a string and jumped through the keyhole in a flash. I immediately remembered my dream in which Alexandra had done the same thing. Damn, I must have perceived more in my sleep then I thought!
There was a scream from outside the door. Láďa was the first to go, and I grabbed the dropped bayonet and followed.
Jiřina, seeing us, retreated into her room. We ran down the blood trail, but no sooner had we reached the doorstep than the chase was over.
The mura lay on its side next to the car, twitching.
“It bled to death, bitch,” Láďa chimed in. “It’s out of blood. My blood!”
With the blade outstretched in front of me, I bent down over the dead monster and poked it. Láďa immediately covered me with his body, for the shots had evidently awakened the landlord, who was looking fearfully out of the window.
The mura’s movements were slowing. I rolled it over on its other side.
“Láďa, you hit it in the torso the first time, didn’t you?”
“Oh yeah, the biggest target, I played it safe.”
“This wound on its leg is quite obvious, but can you see here and here?” I rolled the mura around on the grass. “The bullet went through, but instead of a gash I see a scar.”
“So it tore it up inside, right? Though, as we saw, it’s amorphous.”
“So that’s why Marie wore it under her jacket! It doesn’t like the cold! It’s like a lizard, it freezes in the cold!” I deduced.
“And we don’t even have to nail it to the wall or cut it.”
“But why should Marie help it?” I wondered.
“Because it told her to do it?” Láďa shrugged. “Hey, if that bitch can enter your dreams, it might as well brainwash you, right? I told you it was like hypnosis.”
Jiřina joined us, dressed appropriately for the cold outside.
“I think I’m going to go calm Mr. Osička down while you get your hardware ready for a visit at Miss Librarian’s.” she said. “I think she has a lot to explain.”
* * *
Some firecrackers in Laďa’s backpack accidentally blew up. He got hurt, he was bleeding, so we’re taking him to the hospital. But I think the moment Jiřina pulled out her wallet and a few bills changed hands, she could have easily claimed that a herd of elephants had raided the former barn, and the landlord wouldn’t have cared.
We arrived at Marie’s house. The lights were on, but all the windows were drawn with heavy curtains, so we couldn’t look inside.
I checked to make sure I had everything I needed. Under my jacket I hid a bayonet, a fully loaded Glock and two spare magazines. In my hands I held the borrowed book of local legends.
“It’s ironic that it was the perpetrator who gave us the information about the creature,” Láďa was saying while he made the final check of an assault rifle. With a cursory glance, I couldn’t even tell how many weapons he had on his body, only hoping we won’t need the pair of grenades he’d slipped into the pocket of his tactical vest.
“I’d call her a victim. At least I hope so,” I replied, waiting for him to stand around the corner so Marie wouldn’t see him right away.
Jiřina was rummaging in the trunk of the car.
“Go ahead, I’m right on your heels,” we heard her say. Láďa finally admitted that he didn’t see any cameras and hid.
I rang the bell. Nothing. The second time, nothing. As I reached for the bell a third time, Láďa nudged me to move.
Fortunately, the door opened inward. When an army boot fell heavily on it, it was wise and stepped back.
“We’re here to stop a monster or save a victim, so it doesn’t matter which she is,” Láďa defended his course of action and started forward with his rifle pointed.
I put the borrowed book on the shoe rack. It had served its purpose.
The first thing that struck me was the heat in the house. Downright tropics, an unprecedented phenomenon at the current price of energy. Then the smell hit my nose; a mix of an elephant pavilion and a chemical warehouse. Not many people would voluntarily have this at home, so to me it was clear evidence that something was going on here.
Láďa peered into the living room. Well, we only suspected it was a living room, because now I’d call it more of a hatchery.
Hanging from the ceiling, covered in a mass of deep red tissue, were leathery bags the size of small backpacks on slimy stalks.
I pulled out my bayonet and opened one with a quick slash. A mucous black mass poured out and fell to the ground with a splash. Some parts looked more solid. White, not yet glowing eyeballs, a trunk with rings of teeth and hints of wings with tiny slimy feathers.
“Holy shit,” Láďa commented on the situation.
“Yeah,” I nodded and looked around. The house had one more floor and an attic. Maybe even a basement. I saw at least a dozen cocoons in this room alone.
With a pistol in my hand, I walked into the kitchen. I couldn’t identify what Marie was cooking in the large pot sitting on the stove, but I didn’t believe it was meant for human consumption. It wasn’t hard to tell that the chemical component of the smell came mostly from there.
I opened the fridge in anticipation of a store of chemicals. I didn’t open the PET bottles that peeked out at me, but I suspected the red content was not wine.
Five more cocoons hung above the dining table, with a thick pulsating blood vessel running between them, stuck to the ceiling like an arm.
“This house is alive,” I remarked, opening the window to let in the freezing fog. Láďa joined in. Open the windows, turn off the heat. We soon found out that the terrible heat was coming from electric heaters. Two in the living room, one more in the kitchen.
I peeked into the pantry and the bedroom. More cocoons, more pulsating blood vessels.
“When I first heard the word mura, I expected a fairy-tale creature. Someone who’s being helping Snow White or something,” Láďa said, while unplugging another electric heater. “But this? What the hell is that, anyway?”
I’d answer him if I knew. In the meantime, I carefully poked the bayonet into the blood vessel above me. It bent, but I’d have to try harder to pierce it.
The temperature in the house was dropping and we made our way up the stairs. Another scene with cocoons, but we found something new inside a bathroom. The bathtub was filled to the brim with a volatile-smelling liquid, part of which must have been the mix that Marie was cooking downstairs. The tap was a little open, keeping the water level, and beneath its murky surface I could sense something like a heart pumping the filth into the blood vessels that crawled out of the tub like tentacles and ran to all corners of the house. I turned off the tap, but to reach under the surface to pull out the stopper—that I didn’t dare.
Láďa opened the door of the next room. Here was Marie’s library. A beautiful, big one. I estimated that she must have had at least a thousand books on the white shelves along the walls.
There were considerably fewer canisters of chemicals, but still more than one would expect in a library.
Gasoline, acetone, ammonia. I didn’t read any further. When was the story of the mura supposed to take place? What kind of potions were they brewing back then? What were they using?
Láďa and I looked at each other in silence and went downstairs again. We still haven’t found what was most important—Marie.
Meanwhile, the temperature downstairs had dropped to forty degrees. The blood vessels on the ceiling pulsed in a slower rhythm, and they shook now and then. Could it be the cold? Outside it had begun to snow, and through the wide-open window the wind blew flakes into the bedroom, forming little drifts.
The strange thing was that there were none on the bed. There they melted immediately. Moreover, why hadn’t we noticed before that one particularly thick slimy tube ran directly underneath it? Accompanied by an electric cord. I bent down. Oh, yeah, there was a hole. And Marie was tiny; she could squeeze through it without moving the furniture.
I nodded to Láďa and together we pushed the bed away. The hole in the floor where the blood vessel disappeared was just enough for a person to squeeze through. Dim red light illuminated the roughly seven feet long ladder below. A fire, perhaps? It wasn’t a steady glow; it flickered.
“I’m going first,” I said, and climbed down the first rungs.
As I reached solid ground, something crunched softly under my boot. I looked in disgust at the completely desiccated dead rat. The light was enough to see that it wasn’t the only one. Surely they’d all been drained by muras. And the husks that remained were then dried to cinders by the heat.
I looked around the walls. Stone, bricks. It looked like an old cellar, which was definitely not fitting the modern house above it. The house was probably standing at the site of an older building.
Flickering light came from around the corner from a hole cut in the wall. Light, heat and smell.
Láďa was already standing behind me, rifle ready to fire. Together we peered into the passage.
Marie. She was lying on a large flexible membrane stretched between luminous fleshy stalactites, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, a mura perched on her chest. It wasn’t sucking blood, just gently stroking her cheek with its trunk. There was another electric heater plugged into the extension cord she had strung here.
I quietly leaned over to the plug and unplugged it. Not that it was likely to make a difference, as most of the heat must have come from the passages leading further into the ground that we could see behind Marie.
I gestured to Láďa that we should go back. Silent like mice, we climbed the ladder back to the bedroom. In her doorway, Jiřina was waiting for us.
“If this is behind the rumors of muras, Czech mythology is wilder than I thought,” she whispered, as if afraid that the cocoons would start hatching on command.
“Call for backup,” I said. “More people, full gear. There’s probably a bigger nest underground than what you see here. We know what’s here, so our job is done.”
“Yeah, the identification was successful,” Láďa added. “It’s a real mess.”
We left the house. If the muras decided to follow us, perhaps the cold weather would be our ally. Plus, the fog and snow were playing into our hands, hiding us from prying neighbors.
We stood with Láďa in the hallway and watched as Jiřina made a long phone call in the car.
“Do you think that girl is doing this willingly?” Láďa asked.
“Hmm? Well, I don’t know. Why would she give me the book that helped us? On the other hand . . . ”
“What are you doing here? And why is it so cold here? Is that a machine gun?!”
We turned around. Marie was standing behind us, looking quite scared.
“No, an assault rifle, people often confuse the two. Don’t worry, we’re here to protect you from that,” Láďa went straight to the point and pointed the barrel to the nearest cocoon.
Marie looked in that direction.
“From my chandelier?”
The cocoon was really hanging on the chandelier.
“Oh no, I mean that one!” my buddy pointed behind her.
She turned around.
And got a stunning blow.
“Was that necessary?”
“If she can’t see what the muras have done to her house, who knows what else is in her head,” Láďa defended himself, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I grabbed Marie under her arms and dragged her to the car. Jiřina opened the door for me and helped me slide her inside.
The smell of gasoline inside was stronger than before. What the hell was she doing here?
A gunshot snapped me out of my reverie. And another. A short burst.
I ran back into the house. Láďa was kneeling in the living room, aiming at the bedroom door, where a mura was currently rolling around in pain. The puddle next to it suggested that its companion had tried to liquefy, but the low ambient temperature no longer allowed it to flow away.
The wounded mura soon stopped moving.
“We’ll have the police here in a few minutes,” I sighed, pulling my Glock from a holster as a screeching sound like two rocks grinding against each other came from the hole in the ground.
What the hell was going on?
We walked over to the hole and shone light into it. There were cracks in the walls of the cellar, and dust was pouring out of them. We heard snuffling and snorting, like a large animal wading through a river of slime.
Something told me that the idea was not far from the truth.
The floor cracked and fell somewhere into the dark depths. There was a rumble and then dozens of glowing pairs of eyes looked at us. Trunks wavered and muras, glued into a single van-sized organism similar to a giant millipede, began to claw their way to the surface.
Láďa immediately opened fire and I followed his example. Whether single shots or short bursts, all seemed futile. Blood and black liquid spurted in all directions, but the monster was only slowed by the fire. The eyes faded as the wounded muras seeped inward among the healthy ones that replaced them.
We began to retreat and change magazines. Great, even though help was probably on the way, it would be too late for us.
The magazine clicked into place and I fired into the largest cluster of eyes. The muras screeched, oozing a foul-smelling liquid at me, but they disappeared immediately. We have to lure them out into the cold and . . .
Then I realized. The heat! It was not only an adrenaline! It’s radiating right off these creatures!
Another shot, another retreat of the muras inside. But I noticed that it wasn’t just the ones that got hit that were going in. The muras were taking turns moving towards us. They’d stay on the surface for a while and then go warm up.
The tentacles reached for us; the claws slashed. Only bullets kept them out of reach. We were already in the garden. I was running low on ammunition. I know Láďa, he’s got more, but . . .
“Get out of the way,” Jiřina pushed us away and faced the monster rolling down the porch.
That’s why her car smelled of gas.
And why she took the time to get ready.
We immediately took a few steps away from Jiřina, who pulled the trigger of a flamethrower. The flammable mixture spewed out onto a bunch of monsters. Then my teammate switched on the flame, which immediately jumped along the stream.
You like heat, but fire, that’s different, isn’t it?
The burning muras fell off and mostly lay dead. The mura colony hesitated. They were more resilient together, but also slower.
Jiřina blew out the fire again. The muras made a hasty retreat back to the house. Interestingly, the colony did not allow the burning individuals to enter. As soon as a mura started burning, the others chased it away. They even slashed a few with their claws rather than let them in.
That gave me an idea. And we had to act fast, because the whole village had to know about us by now.
“Jiřina, go to the hole and burn anything that tries to come out. Láďa, you come with me!” I shouted, ran into the house and headed upstairs.
“They burn really good,” I heard Láďa say behind me.
“No surprise, when you see what they’re chomping on besides blood!” I said, gesturing to the bookcase full of canisters and bottles. “Take everything that burns!”
In the end we had to go three times.
* * *
We were staring into a hole. I threw a flashlight in it. The cone of light moved away for a while, then it bounced off something and flew off somewhere we couldn’t see it anymore.
“If they’re bothered by the fire, we can at least do something before reinforcements arrive,” I said to Jiřina as I opened the containers and lined them up.
“I still can’t believe something like this made it into local lore,” Jiřina shook her head. “How long has this place been around? Why are we only learning about it now?”
“Maybe the muras were sleeping underground, but the dwarves were greedy and dug too deep?” I laughed and opened a can of gasoline.
She shrugged.
Láďa, meanwhile, got into the car, ready to leave immediately in case of an emergency. We certainly didn’t have time to waste.
“Ready?” I asked Jiřina.
She put on her protective goggles and nodded.
“Yeah.”
I pushed on a row of canisters and bottles. They fell down like skittle pins.
“Now!”
Jiřina pulled the trigger and sent her own contribution after the regiment of flammables.
Then we ran to the car and didn’t look back.
The blue beacons were coming.
I could have sworn the ground shook, but I’m sure it was just my imagination.
* * *
When I went to Alexandra’s office, everyone was looking at me. Damn, déjà vu. Soon, a suitcase of money will land on the desk and the boss will trickle through the keyhole.
I knocked and entered when prompted. Alexandra was looking at something on her computer.
“Good afternoon,” I began cheerfully, but her look stopped me.
Then I was settled into her uncomfortable visitor’s chair by a gesture.
“You know,” she began, “you’ve done your job well. You had to identify the threat, which you did. You also did enough to eliminate it before the reinforcements arrived. It’s just that the consequences are somewhat greater than we expected.”
I swallowed dryly. What was she talking about? The most the witnesses have seen was arson, and Marie is locked up in a hospital with no contact with the outside world.
“As you told me yourself the other day, it’s all chemical factories around Pardubice. We can explain a lot of incidents by an explosion or a leak of dangerous substances. But this time it’s going to be a bit harder.”
“If it’s about the house burned down, or maybe others too, then . . . ,” I said, but Alexandra cut me off with a gesture.
“That house was a hatchery, and it’s a good thing it burned down. Fortunately the fire didn’t spread, thanks to the weather. The same fog and snow that are now our allies as they are covering the traces of the muras’ lair.”
“Covering how? It was underground.”
“And it was made of organic matter and probably alive itself,” Alexandra countered. “As soon as you set it on fire, it began to move. The locals reported something like a weak earthquake.”
Ah, crossed my mind, so I didn’t imagine it.
“There were landslides, trees uprooted, that sort of thing. Then the fog lifted for a while and we were able to take aerial photographs.”
She turned the monitor toward me, where a photo file was open. Mud was dripping down a low hill onto a road, revealing what looked like a huge tumor hidden underneath.
“Wow,” I gasped. “I really wouldn’t have expected this from the local lore.”
“No one would. And you know what the best part of this situation is?”
“No?”
“That you’re one of the world’s leading experts on these creatures at this point. I’ll email you the data, while you get ready to return to Dolany.”
I looked her squarely in the eye. Oh, crap. I wish she’d rather run through the keyhole.
KAREL DOLEŽAL (* 1988)
For some people, writing has become a way of life. One of those people is Karel, who started with this hobby not long after he became the master of letters in primary school. He then returned to his own works several times until the age of twenty-one, when he finally decided to take his writing to the market. 2011 was a turning point for him, because he was nominated three times in the Karel Čapek Award for his texts Cards don’t lie, Square and Recipient not reached, which earned him the enviable Skokan Award for promising new authors and spurred him on to further writing. He also began publishing in genre magazines, as well as in anthologies. His original short story Ashmender about a very creative necromancer was published in the anthology One Step Before Hell (Jeden krok před peklem, Epocha, 2018) from the world of Hammer of Wizards and his text Let’s end with Adam was published in the opulent anthology Legends: Praga Mater Urbium (Legendy: Praga Mater Urbium, Straky na vrbě, 2020).
The author’s first novel was Zombies, Chimeras and Rock’n’Roll (Zombie, chiméry a Rock’n’Roll, Straky na vrbě, 2019), an original and somewhat bizarre adventure full of senile undead, shapeshifters and rock bands. The same world is the setting for short stories He Takes After Grandpa! (Pevnost 5/2020), Zmej, the Thirteenth Draconian King, which was published in anthology Spawns of Darkness (Zplozenci temnoty, Straky na vrbě, 2021), and In the Depths Older Than Life (Pevnost 1/2022). And rock’n’roll is also one of the prominent themes of the loose sequel to the first novel, titled Cosmic Wraiths, Earthly Roars (Zjevy kosmické, řevy pozemské, Straky na vrbě, 2022).
Karel Doležal was invited to participate in the MHF project because of the short story He Takes After Grandpa!, a great urban fantasy about a blacksmith and demon hunter in one person living in Prague, and he has rewarded us with an excellent story.