Дмитрий Леонтьев – Don't trust anyone (страница 14)

“It’s been several hours already and Max hasn’t returned,” Kevin said sadly.

“I suppose Max’ll be back real soon,” Linda wanted to calm down her son.

“I want to find him right now,” Kevin sat up in bed.

“It is too late, honey,” Linda uttered, “Daddy is going to do that tomorrow.”

“I had a nightmare,” Kevin recalled suddenly.

“I know, I remember,” Linda said.

“I saw Max. It was standing in front of me with devilish horrendous eyes and blood on his muzzle. It looked really scary. I was absolutely terrified,” Kevin began to narrate his dream. “I shouted to him, “Max! What have you done?” But it only stood there staring at me and it seemed that it was about to dash and rip me with its claws and fangs,” he recounted.

“Oh,” was all Linda could utter. “It is..,” she wanted to continue but could not.

Kevin stood up from the bed and silently came up to the window. He removed the curtain and stared through the glass.

With pity in her eyes, Linda came up to her son. They both peered into the street.

Right in front of them was their neighbor Joseph, who was walking his dog.

Kevin buried his head in his hands. “Sorry, Max! Where are you, my friend,” he began to cry.

* * * * * *

“Keep calm, honey,” Linda said at last leaving Kevin’s room, “try to fall asleep. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

“I won’t sleep,” Kevin said.

“Don’t torment yourself like that,” Linda uttered. “Good night,” she added and closed the door.

Kevin was lying in bed sleepless when at 11 pm he got a message in the social network.

“What else?” he muttered and took the mobile in his hands.

The message was from Stephen.

“Get lost, jerk! I lost my Max because of your stupid ride,” he said out loud and threw the phone down on the bed to his feet.

The mobile buzzed again with a newly received message.

At that moment Kevin remembered that Stephen promised to send him the video.

Reluctantly, he again fumbled for the mobile.

He had two notifications from his classmate. He wiped his forehead.

“Sorry for sending it so late,” he read with his lips.

Then Kevin noticed the attached video. Without much thinking he pressed the button and played the video on the screen to watch.

At first, the video recording showed Stephen’s feet walking through the cemetery grass. He remembered that as Stephen had already demonstrate it to him before the battery went dead.

The scene went on for a minute. “Stephen is walking so deep in the cemetery, much farther from the place where we had met,” Kevin thought.

Then Kevin heard the noise of the rustling grass stop and Stephen’s voice say, “It is here.”

Instantly Kevin pricked up his ears.

On the screen of his phone, he saw tall bushes. With his left hand, Stephen removed some branches and moved further. Deep breath accompanied his movement.

“Where are you going?” Kevin commented.

At last Kevin saw something which made him curse, “What the…?”

CHAPTER 9

“I can’t sleep,” Linda declared to her husband.

“Don’t take it so much to heart,” Fred responded. “Max is a dog, it’ll definitely come back,” he added looking Linda in the eye.

Linda sat up and turned on the lamp on the bedside table.

“How…how do you know?” she asked curiously. “How can you be so sure?”

“Well, all dogs are like that. Our pit bull is no exception,” he began to explain. “When I was a child like Kevin, my dog also once ran away and was gone for three days. I was so worried, couldn’t sleep normally and do homework.”

“And?” Linda asked impatiently.

“Nothing strange. It came back so dirty and stinky as if it had slept in a garbage dump,” Fred chuckled. “But I didn’t care, only kissed and cuddled with it. Dogs are animals and sometimes they just need to break free from people, but they are also smart pets and soon they come back home because no one will feed them outside,” he explained.

After a short pause, he added, “I talked to our neighbor, Joseph. You know, he is as a policeman with big experience. He told me that 90 percent of lost pets return home on their own within several days.”

“But 10 percent remains,” Linda remarked.

“The police accept reports about lost pets after a week of absence,” he declared.

Linda put her head on the pillow. “I hope Max will be home soon,” she added, turned away from Fred and switched off the light.

* * * * * *

Kevin was glued to the screen and couldn’t turn away. At one moment he jumped up from his bed and rapidly tiptoed to his laptop on the desk. He opened it and pressed the power button to switch it on.

“Will be better to watch it on a bigger screen,” he whispered waiting for the laptop to load.

Finally Kevin opened his social networking site and again opened the attached video. He touched the mouse with his right palm and fast forwarded the first several seconds of the movie.

He lowered the volume, adjusting the sound.

“It is here,” he heard Stephen’s voice. Then he saw the tall bushes again. Stephen removed the branches with his hand and went inside.

Behind the dense and dark bushes there was an ancient cemetery. It definitely looked much older than their town. There was a long narrow path stretching far ahead.

The path was lined with a number of odd-looking ancient monuments and gravestones. Some crosses were bent and some of them had already fallen down on the ground. From that video Kevin felt a breeze of death on his cheeks. On some graves there were carved human and animal sculls, further in the distance he could not discern anything because of white fog. Kevin put on his headphones and immediately turned up the volume. He thought that he heard someone groaning from pain and someone else whispering something. It was darker than outside. It seemed that deep night had wrapped this place like a blanket. Stephen made several steps ahead.

“Go further,” Kevin whispered continuing to stare at the screen. He noticed that Stephen was afraid to go ahead.

Between the trees he saw several gravestones with carved headless female bodies. It looked as if they were holding something in their hands. From time to time Kevin pressed the button to stop the video and better examine the scene.

“Where is this path leading to?” Kevin asked.

It was a terrible picture to see before sleep.

At last Stephen decided to go back.

“No, no, no!” Kevin begged him.

Stephen turned around and Kevin saw the bushes again.

He rewound to the middle and started watching that strange cemetery again.

At one moment he yelled, “Stop!” and pressed the pause button.

Between two monuments with headless figures Kevin detected a faint white shade. At first Kevin thought that it was just a reflection of something, but then he decided to zoom in on it.

While zooming Kevin felt fear creeping in. He could not say why but his heart began to beat faster and harder.

Finally he swallowed and dried his forehead with a pajama sleeve. In front of him on the screen was sitting a silhouette of a white ghost. It was a sitting girl holding her head with her hands. From her position Kevin could understand that she was weeping.