Grandfather pulled the white sea.
– I think it was after the second or third night of the mess... they dug up a few of them a night, and the strange thing is, they picked the same grave every time."
"What do you mean?" What do you mean, same choice?
"Well, old ones like this were torn up two or three a night. And were they roughly near. And one fresh, with a woman – at the other end of the cemetery.
I got to thinking. There had to be some explanation, but nothing came to mind... Instead, he wanted to look around and see what was going on behind him. I remembered that I had this feeling when we went to shoot an interview with the owner of a gay club.
Valery turned off the flashlight (the batteries in the camera had long been time to change, enough of them for a while), and we went on.
Suddenly I heard another sound among the creaking of the trees.
- "Quiet... did you hear?"
- Grandfather shrugged, and Valery nodded.
- "Get the camera ready... but don't turn on the lights yet."
- We moved a little to one side and stood in the shade of a large tree.
- The noise from the wilds of the cemetery was approaching. It seemed to be the crunch of twigs mixed with heavy breathing. It grew louder and louder, until at last there was a flash of red among the trees, and a spot of light wavered about twenty yards away.
- Lights! Action!
- A naked boy of about fifteen ran into the clearing between the graves in the lamplight, a burning log in his hands. When he saw us, he yelled wildly, showing yellow crooked teeth and threw a log at the camera, but missed. Shouting again, he turned and ran back into the cemetery. His ass flashed among the graves, the sound of breaking branches mixed with the howl of the autumn wind. Finally, all was quiet. The colleague lowered the camera.
- Is he a necrophiliac?"
- Grandfather Ilya spat:
- - What, on get, a necrophiliac. This Vaska. As the expelled from potage, and drinks neperestavaya. Took fashion at night to scare people... That's coming on Saturday to the disco, I told him, asshole, balls Unscrew.
– Couldn't he have fucked dead women?" You never know – puberty, unformed pattern of sexual behavior ... with teenagers are strange. I heard a guy about that age raped an eighty-year-old grandmother. When asked why he fucked her,he explained that he wanted to get rid of the habit of Masturbation. Maybe Vasya too…
"No, I don't think so. It's not like he wants to get rid of this habit... Why would he? And it all began when he still lived in the district center. He was later expelled from school.
And here, by the way, came already. Remember how I told you that fifty years ago a doctor felts, felts someone else on here was killed? With this, all the hell in the cemetery and went. The grave had been excavated the first night... but strangely enough, there was no coffin or bones in it.
The colleague switched on the light again and pointed the camera at a small granite cross standing under a cracked tree. On it, in letters half-erased by time, was written: "Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich Rosenthal. 1826-1854.»
* * *
I liked the country. A colleague, however, with a hangover on the way back I almost hit a traffic COP, who estimated his moral damages of one hundred dollars. But to hell with him, let him choke. Worse, the questions in the Rosenthal case multiplied much faster than we found answers, and I was plagued by vague suspicions all the way home.
- "There's something wrong here – necrophiles in one village, old grave robbers, and a Ghost of some sort-it doesn't happen."
- – You think it's all a lie?"
- "No, I don't think... Something was really going on." But you see, since it was all in the same place, there must be some connection between the cases... It all kind of revolves around this Rosenthal guy.
- "What's there to understand?" He probably fucked women. What else is there to do in a cemetery? The morgue was empty now; his mistress had left him-he had no money - and he had probably found out about the cemetery at the end of the summer: he would have to ask around the village what kind of people had come to visit them.
- "Yes, you're probably right about the last one. Rosenthal might have had something to do with this cemetery. But other than that... Remember a couple of years ago when we started the necrophiliac story? Well, what you and I were doing about the brothel with the dead is a lot of nonsense. Perversion this very rare, on public house not the that in St. Petersburg – across the country customers not bold enough.
- But even without that, a lot of things don't seem very plausible... although, to hell with plausibility. I am ready to believe that the cemetery in Malakhovo wound necrophiliac. It would even be interesting... but the individual facts do not fit into the overall picture. She doesn't have a single style... which means there's something wrong.
- His colleague absently tapped the ash from his cigar:
- Okay, it's still early, we still know very little... But you know, I'm nothing particularly mysterious do not see here. Unless this story with a white spot which frightened dmitrich ... What to it could be imagined?
- "Anything... or maybe it was just my imagination." They love this nonsense about walking dead.
- He must have been Drunk." But where did the legend come from?
- "Yes, I suppose so." But I think... I think he did see something like that.
- – Without ceremony. Remember when we were chasing a Ghost in the Laurel? As fools week on a graveyard of spent the night, and it turned out, any fucking cultists nights spent corpses dog burned. There wasn't even anything to film... ugh, assholes.
- remember, I remember... but it's too primitive. I hope we have better luck here.
- – I think it would be interesting to know what kind of relative Rosenthal was buried there once?" No accident that brought him to this cemetery.
- - Yes. Remember, World told about some history, associated with his family? The Professor wanted to write a book about it... We should find this Professor, maybe he will clarify everything.
- "Well, I don't think so. Although why the grave was empty, could know... Well, okay. Where to begin?
- "Mmm... let's shake up this funeral home again." Should they know anything about their superiors?
- To know something they would know. Only get told.
- - Well, that depends on how you ask... Rosenthal has a Deputy. Pavlov, I think. We'll go see him tomorrow.
- – What are you going to tell him?" "Do you know if your boss is a necrophiliac by any chance?»
- "No... let's do this." Let's tell him the truth: we're journalists. The truth is usually not believed... He will think who we are. In the meantime, we'll ask you a few questions about the money at the office. He'll think we're here from the creditors to find out about the money. And he'll talk about anything but money. There's a chance?
- "I don't know.