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- Not who they seem: in "Izvestia" — a fragment from the new horror by Svetlana Tyulbasheva
Not who they seem: in "Izvestia" — a fragment from the new horror by Svetlana Tyulbasheva
What secrets does the ancient dilapidated manor house keep? And what happens if you build a glamping next to it? These questions were asked by the characters of Svetlana Tyulbasheva's new book "The Cursed Earth". Her debut horror novel, Les, became a bestseller in 2024, and its film adaptation starring Nikita Kologrivy will be released very soon. In the writer's new book, the action takes place not in Karelia, but in the Tver region, where a young family comes to engage in the tourism business. The Cursed Earth is published online in Yandex Books, and the paper version was published by the House of Stories publishing house. Izvestia publishes an exclusive fragment.
Svetlana Tyulbasheva "The Cursed Land" (fragment)
They both didn't sleep that night: Lyosha was trying to code, she was reading about the Astafiev family and was looking for photos of their children. It was stupid, of course, her husband said that she had been played, because someone from the local area was probably the same girl that both he and Lev had seen. Still, it's worth talking to her parents, not making a fuss, just talking, saying that children don't need to play in a crumbling estate. He almost managed to convince her, but as soon as she closed her eyes, she saw herself running to the last room on the third floor, looking at the wall, at the branches of trees that had made their way into the gap, and at the last moment she stopped, hovering over the gap, miraculously keeping her balance.
"We should have gone to the manor together,— said Lyosha. — Damn, I should have done it a long time ago. So that you can at least imagine how it works and in what condition. Why didn't you call me right away? I would say that the Lion is with me.
Anya closed her eyes, heard the soft laughter of children, saw rusty, wobbly brackets instead of stairs. She opened her eyes. I continued to look at the photos.
In the only photograph with children in Countess Astafieva's arms, there is a baby, next to her sits a girl, she is no more than two years old, and three sons. The Countess has an attentive look, her lips are parted, it seems that she is about to speak. There should be other pictures of older daughters, but Anya couldn't find them. She didn't think about whether she believed in ghosts, she just knew that the manor had been watching her while jogging, and then decided to lure her in.
She closed her eyes, remembered running up the stairs, and opened them. A car passed quickly outside the window, but it didn't stop at their house.
"They're crazy,— she said. — I was scared there during the day, they go at night. They'll fall off somewhere else. If you don't have enough adrenaline, you can come up with something smarter, no?
"Like what?" Should I open glamping?
Anya laughed nervously. Lyosha got up, went to the bedroom, opened the door a crack and made sure that his son was asleep. He returned, sat down next to her, and looked at the screen.
— You shouldn't be reading about the Astafievs, I've read too much and I regret it. It's interesting in the process, and then you start thinking about all this and almost physically feel like the roof is going off. Nightmares start to occur. You're asleep, but your brain isn't, it's still looking for an answer.
"What happened to them?" Anya whispered, looking at the photograph of the Countess with the children.
— That's it, that's where it all starts. A dangerous path.
Lyosha turned on the kettle, immediately turned it off. I got a glass of water from the tap. He listened intently to something outside the window. Anya listened too, but heard nothing.
— Tomorrow the cameras will be delivered — can you go to Tver for them? I want to install it around the house. Then we'll find a security company, so that we have an alarm button, we need to add security to the glamping budget.
He sat down next to me. I looked at the screen. Anya was looking at a photograph signed "the Yakovlev family," but the woman in the picture looked like Countess Astafieva. Is she or is she not? No, it doesn't add up, the Countess has the youngest daughters, the older sons, and these have the youngest son and six children in total.
—Do you want me to tell you what happened to the Astafievs?" — Lyosha said in an ominous whisper.
Anya looked at her husband.
"They're dead." Every single one of them. Do you know what the scariest thing is? We're going to die too. But I hope not today, although if I don't start sleeping, then by the end of the week for sure. If anything, I'm in favor of cremation, and I want my ashes scattered from a ship in the middle of the ocean to a song from Titanic. In honor of my childhood dream of becoming a captain. Just scatter it from the stern, it will fly into your face from the bow.
Anya closed her eyes and thought that it was really time to sleep. She lay down alone and instantly passed out, but several times she woke up to her husband's footsteps above the ceiling. She thought briefly that she should go up to him and ask what he was looking for, but she was so tired that she couldn't get up.
25.
"Paranormal Russia"
From the comments
Marina: Once my friend and I broke into the manor. In the evening, we climbed in, walked around, sat in one of the rooms, chatted, and gradually it got dark. We spent a couple of hours there, we were already tired, but there was some kind of accident on the road, a traffic jam, there was no hurry, we were sitting, finishing our beer.
We talked about work, I mean, it wasn't about anything creepy, we didn't screw each other up. And they weren't drunk, I drank a bottle and a half, my friend was driving, she had alcohol-free.
It got very cold, but we didn't pay attention, I thought it was just a night. We continue to chat, and suddenly we hear a soft scratching sound in the next room, like a pebble skidding across the floor. We fall silent, a friend asks in a whisper: "Is anyone there?", and in response, the sound is so rhythmic, like someone tapping a shoe. The rooms are passable, it's impossible to get past us into the last one, and no one was there half an hour ago.
We looked at each other, jumped up and ran. They were breaking so hard that I thought we were either going to fall down the stairs or die of a heart attack. And someone was following us and kicking a pebble along the way, as if he were playing football. You know, sometimes we imagine that someone is nearby, but we weren't imagining it, we both heard and felt it. Someone appeared in the manor after sunset. We ran out onto the street and dashed across the field, but he stayed in the doorway and watched us go. Either he couldn't leave the house, or he didn't want to.
26.
The supermarket was full of people, and yesterday's fears seemed like a bad dream. Music was playing in her headphones, and Anya was pushing a cart down a long aisle, throwing groceries at it, and trying to get through to the piles. They were supposed to arrive yesterday, but they did not arrive, and now Dmitry, their personal manager, the main competitive advantage of the Svayny Mir company, according to the copywriter, did not answer the phone. The music stopped for beeps. No, I still haven't answered.
She decided that she would buy coffee in a small corner on the corner of the mall and sit outside for a while. Provincial Tver seemed to be the center of civilization: there were so many people, things, and lights, goods were being picked up at the checkout, carts were rustling, and an employee was dragging pallets of milk to the rack — the world did not freeze, as in Astashovo, it was moving and sounding.
Anya punched through the groceries with some regret, took the bags to the car, put them in the trunk next to a large box with video cameras, returned and got coffee. She was sitting on a bench, looking at passersby and people. I saw a very beautiful Labrador and remembered how I dreamed of getting a dog. Well, what kind of dog, who's going to keep an eye on her now. Maybe, closer to autumn, she will take a puppy, and when he grows up, she will run with him through the forest. The Labrador decided to approach, as if reading her thoughts, Anya reached out to stroke, the owner pulled on the leash.
I called the piles again, couldn't get through, threw the cup away, got in the car and drove home. I was dizzy from lack of sleep. She decided that she was no longer running along the estate, she was not discovering "Paranormal Russia". Lyosha is right, if you think about it for a long time, the roof starts to go off. What happened to the Astafiev family? They're dead, and it's not clear why she should care. She should be worried about the piles who have taken an advance payment and are not picking up the phone.
She stopped at the Honey and Pies house, hesitated at the gate, did not find the bell, went into the courtyard and knocked on the door. Clouds hung over Astashovo, and a deserted road led into the forest. How they live, what they do. Probably, everyone goes to Tver for work. Palna didn't open it, even though her car was parked in the yard. Again, there was no smell of pies — maybe she had gone somewhere. If she's still selling honey, there's probably an apiary nearby. Anya shrugged her shoulders and went back, which means she'll buy pies another time. He'll go running in the morning and run in, he won't have to forget the money.
She was already getting into the car when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something flash in the house opposite. I turned my head and for a second I saw the same girl in the window. She shuddered and staggered back, pressing her back against the red-hot door. This house looked uninhabited, with a sprawling front garden climbing wooden steps onto the porch and creeping up to the windows. Anya took a few steps towards the abandoned house, felt her anxiety grow, and her heart began to pound.
— Anechka, hello! Did you want something?
She screamed and turned around. Palna was standing on the porch, still in the same flowered robe and headscarf. Seeing the girl's fright, she gasped:
— Have you lost your son again?
"My God," Anya thought, "the neighbors consider us marginals who don't keep track of the child, lose him all the time, maybe drink, and then run around the village with bulging eyes. I wonder what else they think about us here."
— No, no, everything is fine, Lev is with Dad. Excuse me, but who lives in this house? She pointed at the abandoned house.
— The Goncharovs used to live, but they moved to the city. Did you want something, did you knock? Sorry, I didn't open it right away, I was busy.
— I wanted to buy pies, but I already felt that there was no smell.
— Oh, I didn't bake today, I would have known that you would come in, I did. Would you like to bake it tomorrow?
"You probably don't need it for me alone, but if you're going to bake, I'd buy it." Anya looked at the abandoned house, which remained dark and lifeless. —Okay,— she said. — Thanks, I'll go. — She got into the car under the attentive gaze of Palna and drove home.
27.
The ice cream briquette has melted, and the products are covered with sticky milk. Anya poured them into the sink, brought a box of video cameras from the trunk, and put them on the table. The men and Lev were working outside, apparently not noticing her long absence. She didn't go to say hello, she wanted to be alone. She stood at the sink and washed the ice cream off the coffee, rice, and pasta, wiped the wet packets with a towel, and carefully put them in the locker. In general, supplies should be in the pantry, but first it needs to be disassembled and put in order.
Suddenly it dawned on her — geotags. If someone saw a strange girl in the manor or in the village, she could appear in the photographs. Anya threw in the towel, sat down on the sofa and began to look for photos from Astashovo. Most of them had a manor, some had fields. Something caught her attention, and she rewound it. The picture showed the corner of their house, even before the purchase. The familiar curtains, the old stove they tore down. She opened an account.
Watercolor drawings, landscapes of the village, sketches of the estate, their house, it's definitely their house before the renovation, everything is so recognizable, but at the same time completely different. The red-haired girl. "Kat, when are you coming to St. Petersburg?" She flipped through photo after photo, the girl wrote almost nothing, just added tags. She opened the last one with a candle: "Farewell to Katerina will take place..."
View from the bedroom window. Through a wooden frame with peeling pieces of white paint, you can see a field and a piece of river. One of the few signed photos. "Moving to Astashovo is the best decision of my life." I looked at the date—ten days before the funeral. I scrolled up to the photo with the candle. There were footsteps on the porch, and she ran into the bathroom. Everyone seems to have entered the house.
"An, are you here?"
"I'm in the bathroom,— she shouted. — It's okay!
— Oh, cameras, class.
She began to look through all the photos in a row — nothing, nothing special, just light watercolor drawings.
— Are we going to make a movie? Or is it to calculate who is working more? Bob, when I turn away, you're not working, don't think I don't notice.
— Yes, it's for security, I want to hang it around the house. But, by the way, it's a good idea about the movie, let's hang one camera over the field, then I'll edit a video of how glamping was built.
— We will become famous, we will become famous all over the Internet.
— Because we don't have enough fame. Lech, have you found out if it's possible to demolish this forum so that idiots don't enter the manor anymore?
Anya opened the profile of Katya's friend, who wrote to clarify where the wake would be. The same young, beautiful girl, but she hasn't written much in recent months. "I invite everyone to the exhibition of the latest works by the amazing artist Katerina Ignatenko. It cost us so much effort..."
— The cameras are so-so, the angle seems to be small. Lech, you won't have enough of this for the entire perimeter.
The comments ask what happened to Katya. "She committed suicide," the friend replies. "I'm not ready to discuss this, I'm sorry."
— I bought it temporarily, then we will connect normal security. By the way, do you know a good agency that works in this area?
— No, there's nothing to steal from us, they weren't interested. But we can ask around.
The sound of a car, someone rumbling up to the house. It sounded like a truck.
— An, you won't believe who came to us! Piles! We have piles! Hooray, guys!
A gallery with examples of works from the exhibition. Anya started flipping through the pages. A little girl in an antique dress at the end of the hallway of the manor. A little girl on the riverbank. A little girl stands in the bedroom and looks at a sleeping red-haired girl.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
