Gravedigger's Tale
In the 90s, when the Union collapsed, a bunch of research institutes closed. Researchers dispersed in all directions. Some moved into shuttles, began to carry consumer goods from China, others simply drank themselves, others radically changed their profile of work. My friend Oleg Petrovich Dementyev joined the cemetery. Digging graves. I must say, not the worst profession for that time. It was he who told me this strange mystical story. I just processed it literary. Here is his story. For many months, the little quiet woman shuddered at every ring at the door of her apartment. Carefully asked: "Who is there?" and with bated breath she waited for a short answer: "Police!" And only then, opening the lock to the voice of a neighbor or acquaintance, she could not come to her senses for a long time. I drank valerian and corvalol. But they were of little help. It was especially difficult on sleepless nights. Memories came running, and it seemed that her terrible secret would certainly be revealed. Then they will come for her. Tamara Petrovna committed her rare crime because of him, Sergei.
If suddenly trouble came
Only now, fifteen years after her desperate act, she finally calmed down. It's too old. All that was left of him was a heavy and even a sick heart. Tamara Petrovna had a chance to lose loved ones since childhood: in 1935, right before her eyes, two younger brothers died of starvation, then her parents died, and even later, her husband. Children were the only joy in her life.
She devoted all her free time to her daughter and son, which, unfortunately, was never enough. Conductor is a traveling profession. Today is here, tomorrow is there.
When her daughter Svetlana got married and left with her husband, a young scientist, for Novosibirsk, Tamara Petrovna took it for granted: her daughter is a cut piece. Yes, and the youngest Seryozha, a merry fellow and a guitarist, remained nearby. Her favorite, her support and hope in the coming old age. But everything turned out differently ...
Sergei Volsky went to jail in his youth, out of stupidity. The Sortirovochny microdistrict, which is located right next to the railway, is a restless, noisy place, people often fight here in the evenings, drink and inject.
The guy got into a bad company, he messed up. In a brutal fight with passing truckers, the big-faced guys almost to death kicked two half-asleep drivers, taking their money and little things with them. Although Sergei did not participate in the fight, he was in the company of rioters, and so he thundered along with the “activists” for hooliganism and robbery.
The article is serious. At first he served his sentence in a prison in Nizhny Novgorod, then he was transferred to one of the colonies in the south of the region. According to Tamara Petrovna, he himself asked for it there. The mother was terribly worried. Apparently, some kind of sixth sense guessed unkind.
But after some time, Sergei sent a letter from the zone. He wrote that he was happy. He is about to be transferred for good behavior and conscientious work to the duty company. Then you can visit him often.
Tamara Petrovna calmed down and even rejoiced. Until the next letter, she counted the days. But the son remained silent. This . To disperse the melancholy, the mother pondered what kind of gifts to buy Serezha in Moscow, imagined a warm meeting with her son after a long separation.
How to bring back a dead son...
Instead of the long-awaited envelope, inscribed in native handwriting, the postman brought an urgent telegram. It reported that the prisoner Volsky died suddenly.
Blackened and lost, Tamara Petrovna rushed to her friends. Thank you, they supported me, advised me to somehow pull myself together, told the bad news to relatives. Volskaya's sister and daughter Svetlana urgently flew to Nizhny Novgorod.
Together they went to this cursed zone. Then Tamara Petrovna said: “If he hangs himself, I won’t come!”
For some reason, it seemed that the son laid hands on himself, without even thinking about his mother. Sergei Volsky was killed in his sleep with two blows to the head with a stool. In the course of a short investigation, it turned out that the cellmates considered that he was a “snitch”, he got out too quickly on duty. For this he paid with his life.
At the trial, eleven witnesses did not want to give any details. Who "fell asleep", who "forgot". And the killer turned out to be a particularly dangerous criminal, a recidivist. He was sentenced to eight years for murder. But that didn't make it any easier for the mother. You won't get your son back.
Then she wanted only one thing: to bury Sergei in the cemetery in Nizhny Novgorod. The thought that her boy had been buried somewhere as a vagabond without lineage, without tribe, was unbearable.
Other orphaned mothers, albeit a little, console themselves by caring for the grave. They talk to the photo on the monument, plant flowers in the tomb, light funeral candles on religious holidays. She didn't even get that.
Instead of the long-awaited envelope, inscribed in native handwriting, the postman brought an urgent telegram. It reported that the prisoner Volsky died suddenly
But, despite all the requests, pleas, demands to give her the remains of Sergei, police officials answered: “Not allowed!”. Some languidly referred to a possible exhumation if the case went to further investigation. But they obviously didn't want to pursue him.
Desperate, Tamara Petrovna reached the highest ranks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation. Then she still worked as a conductor on Moscow trains and, arriving in the capital, several times went to see big bosses. Who swore, who promised to consider the case. Meanwhile, six months have passed.
To one colonel from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Tamara Petrovna promised all her savings for decades of winding around the country in rattling cars. He said: "We will decide."
And then a friend turned up on the street. She listened to Tamara Petrovna's complaints, her story about ordeals, and advised Sergei ... to steal. Otherwise, they say, you will not wait for the resolution of your problem. Prisoners are never given a proper burial. Volskaya understood what she had to do.
Lord, give strength and patience
"Lord, give me strength!" - Asked Tamara Petrovna and on the day off she went to the caretaker of the cemetery at Sorting. He attentively listened to the woman turned gray with grief.
You can help, but it will be expensive ...
How many?
He named the amount.
Two times less than what she offered to the capital's officials!
The woman took administrative leave at the Passenger Service Directorate and began to prepare for the operation. The energetic daughter, after the death of her brother, once again visited the zone. There were people who, for a certain fee, indicated the exact place of burial. The daughter visited the outskirts of the rural churchyard.
Compassionate local old women laid out a brick cross on the nameless grave. Leaving for Novosibirsk, Svetlana drew a diagram for Tamara Petrovna, on which she marked the place where her brother was lying. Now a piece of paper with a drawing is very useful.
Despite all the requests, pleas, demands to give her the remains of Sergei, police officials answered: “Not allowed!”. Some languidly referred to a possible exhumation if the case went for further investigation.
How to reburial a person...
The cemetery caretaker turned out to be a man of his word. At the appointed hour, Tamara Petrovna and four hefty men (among whom was my friend) drove out of town in two cars.
It turned out that one of the drivers had once served in this zone, so he knew the way there well. Already after midnight they finally reached a small grove among the fields. Four of them illuminated simple fences, gaudy plastic flowers, monuments, and not far from them, a red mound with a brick cross, spread out from the rains.
Mother's heart sank painfully, she convulsively grabbed the pills. It took an unexpectedly long time to dig up the grave. Sticky clay stuck to the shovels. Tamara Petrovna volunteered to help. It was fearful that they would not be in time before dawn. The men sent her to the cars, away from them: “And if you feel bad, then what do you want to do”?
Finally, the spades thumped dully against the tree. The matter now remained for the small: to transfer the coffin to and throw in the pit. But hastily put together, lain in the ground for more than six months, the domino could fall apart. It was necessary to get it by tying the boards. The ropes were prudently taken with them. Suddenly, one of the conspirators became ill.
And then it seemed to shoot through me: what if it's not Sergei? - recalls Tamara Petrovna. - After all, prisoners, they say, are often placed in mass graves. She began to ask the peasants: "I'll give you another thousand rubles, just look: is he or not."
They hesitate, they are afraid. And time is running. Then we see, at the coffin the board moved away and I immediately recognized the face of my son along the scar and dimple on the cheek, along the chin. At dawn, the hole was dug up and bricks were laid so that no one would guess what was happening.
And then an old woman appeared at the cemetery. Either she came to visit her people early in the morning, or for some other reason ... Nerves rose again. What if he notices, guesses, informs? What then? And nothing good, because the case is something under jurisdiction. But the grandmother turned out to be weak-sighted, she did not figure out what was happening in the fog.
Sergei Volsky was reburied the same day at the Sorting cemetery. Now Tamara Petrovna herself cannot believe that she decided to take such a desperate step.
But she simply could not do otherwise. If it was not possible to live together with a living son, then even if he is dead, he will be there.
Sadness, sadness... Sergei Volsky was reburied the same day at the Sorting cemetery. Now Tamara Petrovna herself cannot believe that she decided to take such a desperate step.
Now the cemetery watchmen often see this woman near the well-groomed grave, on the bench, which is near the monument behind the iron fence. She is talking about something slowly and quietly with her son for a long time.
Some of the rare visitors, looking at her, shake their heads and twirl their fingers at their temples, but the cemetery attendants know that the woman is completely normal, sensible and always gives them delicious homemade pies, sweets, and gives money for vodka.
And most importantly, she found some kind of solace when visiting her “native mound”, where it always seems to her that the soul of her son is near, that he hears everything, that one day she will be near the closest soul in the world.
And she stopped being afraid of the police a long time ago. A mother's heart is truly omnipotent and fearless.
Supernatural: a call from the other world
On one of these visits, she was met by the same grave digger, my friend Oleg Petrovich Dementiev. This is how he remembers this meeting.
The woman was sitting on a bench near the grave, turning the key in her hands, and was very pale. You feel bad? I asked. She looked at me with a strange look, then she recognized me, smiled shyly and handed me the key.
What is this? I asked in surprise.
I see he's from your apartment?
The woman nodded.
I found it under the bench.
Call from there... And then she told how it happened:
I lost it a week ago. Searched everything in the house. There was no key. Good thing there was a spare. But I decided to order another one. Even though the money is small, it's still a pity. You can't buy an extra carton of milk. In the evening she went to bed. She could not sleep for a long time, she kept thinking about something, some petty worries oppressed her, then she dozed off. Woke up to a phone call. The time was past midnight. For a long time I could not figure out where I was, what kind of call, then picked up the phone. The voice was masculine and terribly familiar.
I stood and was silent, there were no thoughts in my head. There was no fear, no surprise. Then again:
Who is this?
But I already knew who. It didn't even occur to me that this could be someone's evil prank.
Can you hear me?
Listen, Seryozha...
You lost the key on my grave. It's under the bench. So don't order a new one. And yet ... He hesitated, sighed, it was heard through the receiver - thank you and goodbye.
Short beeps. I woke up when it was dawn outside the window, and the birds were already singing with might and main. The receiver was in my hand, and short beeps squeezed tediously out of it. I came here half an hour ago and...
She handed me the key again. It was old, from English locks that slam shut when you leave the apartment. Now these are no longer installed.
I picked it up, turned it around, then handed it back to her. He kissed his gray, shampoo-smelling hair, turned and went to his thirtieth precinct. By 12.00 it was necessary to dig another grave.
Now the cemetery watchmen often see this woman near the well-groomed grave, on the bench, which is near the monument behind the iron fence. She is talking about something for a long time slowly and quietly with her son.
VIDEO: 7 mystical phenomena at the cemetery caught on camera
History from life.
I moved to another city, got a job. The job was the most "fun" - a night watchman at the cemetery. You won't believe how many freaks come at night, dig up graves and take away everything of any value. I resolutely stopped such encroachments and I did not care where the bullet from the rifle hit - in the arm, leg, heart or head. I buried the dead robbers under a cliff on the eastern edge of the cemetery - it was always cold, gloomy, scary and creepy there.
But I will not continue to describe to you the delights of the life of a cemetery watchman, but will tell you about the events that happened on the night of July 11-12. Then the weather was calm, the wind was noisy, and in the sky, illuminating the surroundings with a silver light, the full moon shone. I was sitting in the gatehouse, watching Seventeen Moments of Spring and quietly sipping cheap red wine, when a strange sound came from the street. On the alert, I removed the rifle from the brackets, jerked the bolt and, quietly opening the door, went outside.
As I expected, over a lonely grave, located a little further from everyone, three people fussed. Two dexterously brandished shovels, the third shone a flashlight at them. I was overcome with such anger that I was afraid myself.
Why the hell are you desecrating a grave, you bastards?!
A rifle shot broke the silence. However, none of the diggers even stirred. It turned out that at the moment of the shot one of them managed to turn the shovel upside down with the bayonet and the bullet hit him, ricocheting into the tree. Three turned in my direction with such mugs that I understood without a word - they would kill.
There was no time to reload the rifle. I tossed it aside and pulled out an army knife from the top of my boot. “Maybe I won’t kill,” I thought, “but I’ll definitely cut it badly.”
The two with shovels rushed towards me. I dodged a sharply sharpened bayonet and slashed the attacker in the chest, but immediately received a blow flat on the head with a shovel. My eyes darkened, I sank to the ground. One digger grabbed my hair and threw back his head, the second, rubbing his chest - blood remained on his palm - picked up my knife and grinned.
Now you, bitch, will suffer, and then you will die like a lousy dog. - the blade rested on my trachea. And this is where I noticed it...
The three scum didn't even know who killed them. A black shadow darted, one of the trio squealed like a pig in a slaughterhouse - he did not have both arms to the elbow - and immediately shut up, irrigating the ground with blood from the stumps and a cut on his throat. The second one threw a knife on the ground and ran away, but he did not run far: at the very gates, a shadow overtook him and the villain fell to the ground next to his head, which fell off a second earlier. The third, releasing me, was spinning around, panic horror seethed in his eyes, and when the creature appeared in front of him, there was a desperate terrible cry of a man who did not want to die. Slowly turning around, I saw a dismembered corpse… and the one who was standing over it…
Black medium length hair, pale skin, dark brown eyes, black trousers, black boots, black blouse, black leather coat - I did not like the person immediately. A strange-looking dagger was clamped in his hand - there was no handle, the blade seemed to grow out of his hand. And then, looking closer, I realized with a shudder that I was not mistaken - the blade really looked out of his palm.
The stranger turned to me and his thin lips twisted into a smile:
I never ran so fast in my life and stopped only near the station, taking a breath. After weighing everything and thinking it over, I decided to return home, but a surprise awaited me near the apartment: the words “STILL DATE” were carved on the front door.
My parents and their parents are all from Vorkuta. And I didn’t see this city until I was fifteen, because they didn’t take me there and in every possible way dissuaded me from visiting the old people - my grandmother and grandfather - who lived there until my death.
"Why do you hate your city so much?" I asked my mom in surprise. And she said that next to the mine, where almost all the men from the district worked, there was an old cemetery, which terrified the local inhabitants. Allegedly, they saw the dead there, leaving their graves right in front of those who came to visit the deceased relatives of the Vorkuta residents.
My grandfather, my mother's father, who in the 1930s as a boy lived next door to this cemetery, swore that he himself saw "immigrants from the other world." Once, literally the day before Epiphany, on a frosty January night, the rebellious deceased marched in a column through the miners' village - so he claimed. And the cadaverous smell was on the street all day.
Of course, I did not believe these stories, believing that my grandfather had lost his mind, and that a little girl - her mother was ten years old when he told her this nonsense - was easy to scare. However, my mother insisted that all this was true. And she claimed that her own brother also witnessed a terrible incident. Once, with the guys from the neighboring house, they were walking in the evening near the fence of the cemetery, and at that time a man came out of the gate - a strange, even scary, bearded, in tatters: he walked past them, shuffling some tattered cast-offs resembling felt boots, turned behind corner.
The children rushed after him - they began to tease, fools. And he looked around, threatened them with a stick and simply disappeared into the air, disappeared. At the same moment, the children felt a terrible gust of wind, as if a hurricane had begun ... They were swept away along the road, one boy seriously injured his leg, another cut off a tree branch scratched his face, and the girls rolled on the ground like peas, and squealed from fear.
"So what? I shrugged my shoulders in response to my mother's attempts to impress me. - Just think, a strong wind! This happens. And a man in rags is not necessarily a dead man. And what disappeared, so you, tomboys, were frightened, hid. But, according to the mother, there was something terrible in that figure and in its disappearance - a person cannot simply melt into thin air. “Yes, and many of us saw these walks of the dead. You don’t believe me, whoever you want to ask!” Mom didn't want to give up. “Why are you bringing me all some eyewitnesses? And you yourself? I pissed her off on purpose. “No, I didn’t, thank God! - Mom was baptized in fear. But I know many people whom I trust and who have faced this evil spirit. And one boy from our yard went crazy with horror - forever! And then he didn’t recover ... Such a dead man was on the lookout for him and attacked him ...
And here is an interesting coincidence, on the very night when the dead man attacked him, I noticed an unusual bright light in the sky - something like the northern lights, but not quite the lights. Wonderful! It never existed in our area. After all, we don't live at the North Pole... And strange things happened at our school: at night someone's shuffling steps were heard in the noisy corridors, indistinct muttering and plaintive groans were heard. It was the watchman Baba Manya who told us.”
“The drunkard, I suppose, was this your woman Manya!” I teased my mom. “Come on ... She fought in the Night Witches squadron! The order has. What a drunkard she is!” It is not surprising that when my mother married my father, she immediately left the “bad” village in Vorkuta forever. I never thought to visit my parents. Grandma and grandpa often came to us, but my mother didn’t come to them. And they didn’t let me go on holidays to the old people.
I was terribly jealous of my fellow classmates: well, everything is like summer - they go to the grandmothers in the village. Their stories fascinated me: there were adventures, fights and camping trips with an overnight stay, swimming and complete freedom! In a word, freedom! And I, like a damned one, sat in the city all summer, at best they took me to the sea, and then only for a couple of weeks ...
When I turned fifteen, I made a terrible scandal and demanded that they let me go to the old people. Parents resisted for a long time (more precisely, mother resisted), but in the end they gave in. Somewhere in the middle of June, I was sent by train from Kirov to Vorkuta. I enjoyed the journey for a day, then ended up at the central station of Vorkuta. Small, old, provincial, but quite clean. From the city center I went by minibus to the village of Severny to the old people. I found Vorkuta a dull, gloomy city. There is no need for a cemetery with zombies crawling out of the ground - without that, the landscape is apocalyptic.
My grandparents greeted me joyfully - after all, the only grandson! I was also very happy with the old people, however, when they took me to a neglected two-story house, surrounded by some kind of rickety sheds and rusty garages, I was a little sour: I didn’t know that people still live like this in our time - well, I didn’t see barracks! This city, it must be said, is surrounded by a whole system of suburbs - mostly settlements near the mines. There used to be a dozen of them, and at the moment when I arrived in Vorkuta, there were only five left, the rest of the villages looked like gloomy ghosts among the bare tundra ...
To be honest, I was not happy that I came. What can you do here? How to rest? How can you live at all? At least write to your parents: “Take me away!” The next day, however, I found a company - a couple of guys my age, and the prospect of spending two weeks here ceased to seem so gloomy. Moreover, I confess to you, I dreamed of getting to the cemetery, about which I had heard so many “terrible” things.
I was dying to go there and most importantly - to take pictures! Suddenly I'm lucky, I thought, and someone from the other world will appear to me! These pictures will make me famous! A fool, of course, but I was only fifteen years old. I wanted thrills, like any boy. I asked my new friends to arrange a tour of the cemetery for me: they say, I have heard about all sorts of miracles! They shrugged their shoulders: it was three kilometers to drag on. Don't be lazy, let's go...
And so we came to the same Lithuanian cemetery. Actually, it is not only Lithuanian, although its most conspicuous grave is a monument to some prince with an inscription in Lithuanian: “Mother Lithuania is crying for you.” Yes, there were many of them in the local "Vorkutlag" - sons for whom Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Western Ukraine cried ...
This hell went through tens of thousands of people from the territories occupied in 1939, and then the Germans began to be sent here - no, not prisoners, but completely devoted to the USSR, only with the start of the war they all turned into enemies. Among my grandfather's friends, by the way, there was a Lithuanian named Edgar - his ancestors got to Vorkuta by stage, and after being freed, they stayed there to live. Edgar himself was born already in Vilnius, but every year he came to these harsh lands beyond the Arctic Circle to put flowers on his native graves.
There are hundreds, thousands of such stories in this city ... But these prisoners still had graves, and how many people were left simply abandoned to lie in the frozen ground under snow and reindeer moss! What is strange, if you think about it, that these souls do not know peace. And their ghosts walk around the dying city, and they are looking for their executioners... Or maybe those who remained from their relatives to remind themselves? At the cemetery, I saw a lot of Orthodox crosses next to the Catholic ones. And as an adult, I read so many tragic stories of ordinary Russian peasants, priests and teachers, workers and doctors, buried here!
At the same time, at the age of fifteen, I listened with rapture as one of my new acquaintances told about how the mine was expanded in the village of Yur-Shor. They just dug up the neighboring cemetery, crushing the skulls and bones of the unfortunate buried here with the bucket of an excavator. Here are the people! They don't care! They are ready to throw the dead in the trash! But there were not only political prisoners, but also civilians and locals - quite possibly relatives of those who crumbled these bones into dust with the wheels of trucks.
That's when the cemetery was disturbed, and the visions of the locals began. Or rather, the dead began to come out ... Presumably, in this way they demanded peace, or maybe justice. From time immemorial, there has been a tradition to bury the dead away from the dwelling and respect the graveyards. Our ancestors knew that the ruin of a cemetery could bring trouble. And we forgot. And therefore we must blame ourselves, and not the ghosts that frighten us.
In the late 40s of the last century, a local miner received a term for telling about the ghosts that came to him underground. He was immediately sent to jail for trying to sow panic and spread a hostile ideology. Although what kind of ideology do those ghosts have?! They definitely did not create a counter-revolutionary group, did not find out secret information about the tunnels of the mine and did not prepare terrorist attacks ...
The miner's name was Ivan Khrapov, he was the grandfather of one of the guys who told me this story. And he served until 1953, until the death of Stalin. And the last case of the appearance of the dead happened here in the early 60s of the last century, at a dance in a local club. When the watchman, after seeing all the youth home at about midnight, began to lock the doors, suddenly someone began to choke him.
The watchman was, despite his age, a healthy man. He dodged and seized the attacker himself: but immediately pulled his hands back. Yes, and the blow almost missed him! In front of the peasant stood a corpse, pale as a sheet - a corpse indeed! He had empty eye sockets and almost rotten skin on his cheeks. The dead man bared his empty mouth menacingly.
The poor old man took off running with a wild cry, and in the morning he quit his job and did not go to that club again - neither at night nor during the day. But the youth, having heard his story, began to be on duty there almost around the clock - daredevils! They will drink for courage and let's walk around the club with jokes and jokes. On the third, or something, night, one of these guys saw a translucent figure of a man, but the others did not have time to notice it, and therefore decided that he simply went over the port wine.
Why, after 1960, the dead do not come to frighten Vorkuta residents? I think, because around that time the former political prisoner Yur-Shor installed the first memorial sign in the cemetery, common to all the victims. My mother, in any case, said exactly that: “The guests from the other world stopped visiting us, calmed down, apparently, they liked this sign of respect.” By the way, I saw this simple wooden pole, reinforced at the base with a concrete pad, on which the numbers "1953" are squeezed out.
And later, in 1992, in my opinion, Vorkuta Memorial, together with former political prisoners from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, erected another wooden commemorative cross with a sign: “Eternal memory to those who died for freedom and human dignity” at the cemetery. Those who lie in the frozen land here certainly liked it: memory and dignity are exactly what they have been deprived of for so long.
At the cemetery, the dead meet a newcomer. Gennady Ivanovich and Vitaly Nikolaevich were sitting on a bench, basking in the rays of the spring sun. They always did this when it was a fine day.
When bad weather ruled the street, they rested, although there were times when curiosity forced them to get out under the snow, rain and wind. Previously, such troubles happened occasionally, but recently they have fallen out more and more often.
Now it was one of those beautiful sunny days when they had smart conversations about the meaning of life, about life and death, about love and hate and other topics that can be discussed forever. Basically, they had plenty of time. Something, but it was enough.
In this "boarding house", as they used to call the place of their stay, peace and silence always reigned. True, there were incidents when some juvenile vandals climbed here to misbehave or make losses, but this happened infrequently. And outsiders were extremely rare here. Apart from the working staff, they didn't often see visitors.
It was boring here, but no one could help it.
Relatives rarely visited them. At first, when they settled in the “boarding house”, relatives, close ones, sometimes friends came to them, talked about their life, about painful things, recalled the past, cried and laughed. Each of those who lived here looked forward to these meetings with great impatience, because it was they who, in the main, adorned the monotony of their existence.
And another event was the arrival of another newcomer. From him one could learn a lot about life there, behind the fence, behind the gates that separated their small, quiet world from the big world, full of movement, events, and various interesting things.
Dear gentlemen, they were discussing one of their traditional topics, when Andrei Semenovich approached them, dressed in an old, but clean and ironed, military uniform. Like them, the former military commissar was an old-timer in this institution.
Greeted politely.
Comrades, another new recruit has arrived. Let's go meet him.
For him, everyone who showed up at the boarding house were recruits. They used to call them newbies. At the cemetery, the dead meet a newcomer.
Slowly walked towards the gate. Out of the corner of their eye, they noticed that other residents were also rushing to meet them. Still would! Boredom ate everyone here, and any new events that could satisfy her hunger led the surrounding people to the center of the event, like night butterflies to a campfire. True, insects often find their death there, but this did not threaten the locals.
So they saw the whole procession: relatives, a priest, gravediggers, relatives and friends, a traditional “lawn”. This is usually the case, with rare exceptions.
He was standing on the side.
Short, thin, in a black two-piece suit. He looked at his own, and at first did not pay attention to those who came to meet him. Finally I looked back and saw them. Understood who it is. But he didn't say a word, just nodded, greeting his new cohabitants.
The driver, Uncle Kolya, that's what the street kids he liked to ride on his “lawn” called him, lit a cigarette.
A figure flashed in the side mirror of the car. I looked - no one. Crossed himself.
He looked at the colleague who kept him company during the funeral.
- You know, people say that when they bury another dead man in a cemetery, the dead meet a newcomer - all the souls come out to meet him. More specifically, his soul. Do you believe in it?
- I do not even know what to say.
“I don’t know either, but I think that after death we have two paths: to heaven or to hell. No other is given. Who then can meet them? Really those who have not served their forty days on Earth?
- Who knows. You know, I think so myself that there may be cases when a person has committed so many sins in his life that he will definitely not be taken to heaven, but maybe he did good deeds, then he was ordered to go to hell. Those who are no longer needed by anyone can meet new souls in the cemetery.
— And what is this? Forever?
Why? I think their fate will be decided during the Last Judgment.
“Hm… Maybe so. You know, I don't like uncertainty. Either yes or no. I wouldn't want to be in their place.
Where we will be after death is up to us.
Uncle Kolya again thought he saw someone in the mirror. But, looking carefully into the reflection, once again he did not notice anyone. He held back the curse that wanted to come off his tongue. I started the engine and drove to the exit from the cemetery.
2015, . All rights reserved.
I lived in a big city, but after the birth of my son, our family was forced to return to live in the village where I come from. The son had a severe allergy to urban smog and further residence in the city threatened him with death. All our relatives who lived in the village were very happy about our return and often gathered together to while away the long winter evenings.
Chatted about different things, but after the "defeat" of several graves in the cemetery (drunk youth had fun), more and more often the conversation began with incidents related to the cemetery.
Scary Story #1
Someone got into the habit of stealing fences near the graves in the cemetery - my uncle began the story. Almost every night the fence disappeared from someone's grave. Looks like a strong man was, he removed some fences along with concrete pouring and took it away to no one knows where. They decided that he was stealing and selling somewhere in other villages, but they could not catch him, even the police were on duty and did not notice anything. As soon as we set up an ambush - the fences are intact, as there is no ambush - the next fence disappears. How could this vandal know when the ambush would be. And, most importantly, there were no traces of the car anywhere, it was visible on his shoulders, but no one knows where. The service dog did not follow the trail, only sniffing, then snorting and turning away. Rumors spread around the village that this unclean person was acting outrageously, and at night no one went on duty at the cemetery, they were afraid of the unclean person. Our father walked around the cemetery with a censer, read prayers, but it still didn’t help.
But one day, those who lived closer to the cemetery heard a strong and terrible cry from the cemetery at night. So strong that even in the house it was audible, some kind of inhuman scream. Naturally, they were afraid to go there at night, but they went in a whole mob already when the sun was high and saw that a man was kneeling near the grave of a recently buried local blacksmith. His head sticks out between the bars of the fence. and on the neck the bars are compressed. The blacksmith himself forged this fence when he was still alive and said that they would put it on his grave. A beautiful fence forged with love, there is not a single welded seam. Probably the blacksmith got angry and punished the thief, but the thief himself did not put his head into the fence, and even squeezed the bars around his neck. Since that time, theft in the cemetery has ceased.
Scary Story #2
You are correct Semyon (this is my uncle's name) - the next interlocutor continued the conversation. The dead can punish their offenders. Here is my girlfriend from a neighboring village was visiting me and talked about the death of a girl after graduation.
There they had a graduation at school and three graduate girls decided not to buy bouquets of beautiful flowers, to collect bouquets at the cemetery. Early in the morning we ran to the cemetery and took the bouquets from one of the graves of yesterday's funeral. With these bouquets and came to school. The girls presented bouquets to teachers, and Yana (that was the name of one of the girls) left one bouquet at home - she put the most beautiful one in a vase on the table, and gave the second to the teacher. So, two girls and three teachers who received a bouquet from the cemetery fell ill the next day and ended up in the hospital, and in the evening Yana rearranged the bouquet from the cemetery closer to her bed and went to bed. I didn't leave my bedroom in the morning. Mom went in, and the daughter is dead. She became suffocated. All relatives had an alibi for that night, no traces - the killer was not found. Doctors concluded that she died from a severe allergy to flowers.
Scary Story #3
Do you remember the incident the year before last, Aunt Klava spoke up. That's what we had. That case with Cyril, a local drunkard and rowdy. He also called himself a demon or a vampire, and people called him that and shunned him, none of the peasants wanted to be friends with him. He was healthy, and as soon as he drinks, he climbs into a fight, and even bites - he screams the blood out of you. No one could restrain him and teach him a lesson. Guys, about five people used to gather and try to teach him a lesson. They attack, beat him, but he doesn’t seem to feel pain, he will instruct the peasants with black eyes, and even break someone’s arm or leg.
But the scythe ran into a stone - he did not master the drunkard of the local moonshine, he got so drunk that he died, as people say - he burned out from vodka. Well, the whole village gathered as much as they could (the drunkard himself lived) and organized a funeral, a man all the same. They took the coffin to the cemetery, lowered it into the grave and the diggers began to dig in, everyone stood quietly, there was no one to cry, and suddenly there was a noise from the grave, the diggers froze to their feet. The coffin with the earth thrown over it began to go into the ground, there, down. He dropped three meters and stopped. they covered the grave with the remaining earth, and even had to bring it, almost one and a half cars climbed into the grave until they made a mound and put up a cross with an inscription. In the village they said for a long time that he could really be a vampire and seeks to go to his own kingdom of shadows, but no one knows what really is there. There have been no quarries and mines in this area for centuries.
