32

Staropramenná 2, Prague, Czech Republic

November 29

Eva and Pyotr walked down the final stretch of road, the stately old building off to their left casting a weak shadow over the snow. There were tire tracks in the street, but no other hint of life for as far as they could see. The lights in the building were all off, the pale facade ominous in the dim wintry afternoon.

They stopped in front, looking up.

“You sure about this?” Pyotr asked, weary.

“We’re close,” Eva said, shivering but calm. “I can feel it.”

They climbed the four steps up to the entrance, a simple set of doors framed in weathered ochre paint. They were covered by heavy planks, hammered in tight. A series of warning stickers were plastered across black paint, announcing the facility was closed until further notice. Another paper, half-ripped away, warned the premises was quarantined due to an outbreak of Battinger’s.

“This way,” Pyotr called from the right of the doors, where one of the tall windows had been smashed in, giving them access.

Inside, it was as if the foyer had been spun upside-down somehow. Large, heavy desks were upturned, chunks of plaster and rock were smashed on the coarse wood floor. The walls were thick with black mould; most of the old yellow paint was chipped or simply dissolved. A window somewhere at the back was letting in sunlight, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The air had the texture of rotting vegetables, even through their masks.

“You know where his office was?” Pyotr asked.

“No,” admitted Eva. “I didn’t see a building directory either. How should we look?”

Pyotr pulled open a door off to the right, nudging some debris out of the way.

“Door by door?” he offered, then lead the way in.

The room was empty. What furniture had been there was stacked in a messy pile in the far corner, away from the windows. The floor was spotless, despite the dusty atmosphere, but for that pile. Eva could make out a faintness in the wood floor around it, like an entire layer of finish had been worn off by something.

“Look at this,” Pyotr said, rubbing a gloved finger down the wall. It was stripped down to a thin layer of plaster, ripped apart by raw streaks, like thick claws had worked it away. It was only up near the ceiling that the thickness returned, and with it, the black mould.

“Somebody hates mould,” Eva said quietly, adjusting her mask. “Let’s keep moving.”

Down a quiet hallway, past a bulletin board that still had notices about flats for rent in town, they found a large auditorium, its modern desks ripped and beaten from their bases, up and to the back of the room. To their right, a drinking fountain lay on the ceramic floor, a small trickle of water pouring into a neat pool. Again, no sign of life.

“This is going to take a while,” said Pyotr, surveying the wreckage.

Just then, a shuffle, and some wood fell over, far at the back of the room. Pyotr moved closer to Eva, shielding her.

“Who’s there?” he called.

Eva’s heart beat loudly in her ears. She reached down to her left, grabbed up the arm of a destroyed overhead projector, felt its weight. Her sprained wrist screamed out at her, but she grit her teeth and kept a careful eye on the room.

“Hello?” Pyotr yelled, stood ready.

Then, near the middle of the room, up and away from them, came a waifish girl, no more than twenty, her eyes dark with exhaustion, hair in filthy streaks down her face. Her bare arms looked almost blue in the frigid air, and she hugged herself, twitching.

“Are you okay?” Eva asked, starting forward before Pyotr caught her.

The girl didn’t seem to see them, started climbing and sliding down and across desks. She ducked her head underneath one, then reached her arms under, lowered herself down, out of sight. They heard shifting debris, broken glass.

“What’s going on?” Pyotr called, moving himself and Eva further away from where the girl had disappeared. “Are you the only one here?”

The girl reached a hand up on top of the desk, put her head half-above the wood, shifted her gaze left and right, never looking at them. Her lower lip was chewed on and scabbed, sharp teeth marks red and trickling.

“I can’t find it. Can’t find it,” she said, though not to them. “Can’t find it anywhere.”

“Can’t find what?” Eva asked, looking around.

“My eraser. I had an eraser. I brought it to class. I can’t find it. I swear I brought it, I know I did!”

Eva and Pyotr exchanged wary glances. Pyotr held a pausing finger up to Eva, then reached down and began pushing bits of broken wood around as if searching. Eva gave him a warning look.

“Don’t…” Eva whispered.

“She might talk to us if we’re nice to her…”

“I don’t think—”

“Hey!” interrupted Pyotr with a loud call, “I think I see an eraser here!”

The girl’s eyes shot at them, wide and delirious. Her mouth snarled open, showing browned and bloody teeth.

“Mine!” she screamed, and leapt, animal-like, down the desks, straight at the scrambling Pyotr. She threw him against the wall, grabbed at his wrist and started slamming it against the stonework savagely.

“Let it go! Let it go!” she howled, pushing his other hand away from her, snapping at it with her wretched mouth. He grunted in pain, trying to force her off, but she was too wild to stop.

“Hey!” Eva called from behind. “I’ve got your eraser right here!”

The girl turned viciously, throwing Pyotr’s battered hand away. She crept around, hunched like an animal, trying to circle Eva, who held the projector arm loose by her side. The girl wiped her mouth with her bare arm, leaving a trail of red to her elbow.

“Give me the eraser,” the girl said. “I lost it. It’s mine.”

Eva nodded slowly.

“I’ll give it to you. I will. Just tell me… where is Dr Krejci? Dr Stepan Krejci.”

The girl’s eyes opened wide, then narrowed quickly. She started looking left and right again, like the prey and not the hunter. She seemed to see Eva again for the first time, shot through emotions from happy to scared to angry in a second.

“Have you seen my eraser?” she asked, tensing her hands back and forth and back and forth.

Eva re-gripped the projector arm.

“I’ve got it—” she began, and the girl leapt at her. She was ready: she stepped to the side, swung the metal underhanded, catching the girl in the stomach. She collapsed to the ground, coughing wildly, grasping at herself, her chest, wheezing.

“I need to find Dr Krejci,” Eva repeated, colder this time.

The girl looked up at her, eyes narrow and insane.

“I want my eraser!”

She spun around, trying to attack, but Eva hit her across the side of the head, sending her sliding into the first row of desks. Blood trickled out of her temple as her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Eva…” Pyotr gasped, running to her side.

“It’s always the same,” Eva growled, throwing the projector arm against the wall. “Wherever you go, they chip away at your soul, bit by bit. I can’t stand it, Pyotr. I can’t take it any more…”

Pyotr rubbed her back gently, then picked the discarded metal off the ground. Eva shook her head at the girl, turned and left the room. Pyotr followed close behind, checking ahead nervously now.

They came to another room, large and cold, its windows all broken, a thin layer of snow spread halfway across the floor. All around, atop desks and thrown across chairs, were the pieces of bodies of five terrorized souls. Their faces were scraped with deep gashes, their eyes merely bloodied sockets. Arms torn from torsos, some seeming to have died trying to crawl away as their legs were shredded behind them.

Eva choked back vomit, turned to Pyotr, who braced himself against the wall.

“Jesus…” he gasped. “Do you think… she did this?”

Eva couldn’t look back, just shook her head.

“I don’t know. I can’t look. Can you see… is my… my mother in there?”

Pyotr tensed, looked left, right.

“No,” he said. “The two women are too young.”

Eva took a deep breath of processed air.

“Good. Then let’s get out of here. This was a bad mistake. We’ve got to go.”

They were just past the threshold when the banging started: furious, mad pounding. They paused, half-turned back, and heard it, faintly:

“Hey! Don’t go! Please, you have to help me! Please!”