25
Staropramenná 2, Prague, Czech Republic
November 29
“I said quiet!” shouted the man in a deranged voice. He reached between the bars and grabbed Pyotr’s jacket, pulling him into the chipped wood banister with a jerk.
“They’ve found me!” hissed the man, let Pyotr loose a bit, and then slammed him back into the columns, and then again, and again. Eva tried to get a hold on the man’s fists, but he was moving too much … Pyotr started twisting, trying to get free.
“You can’t have me!” shouted the man. “The lions can’t have me anymore!” And he suddenly bared his teeth and lunged at Eva’s neck. She flinched, but the railings were too close together. The man hit his forehead and grabbed his face in pain, cursing loud, uneven words to himself. Pyotr stumbled backwards against the wall and put his arms up, ready to defend himself.
“Pyotr, let’s go!” Eva implored, backing towards the door.
Pyotr watched the man, his face cocky and sure.
“If your mum’s here, we can’t leave her,” Pyotr said, not taking his eyes off the man. “I think we should fight for it.”
The man peered from between his fingers, blood dripping down his forehead where he seemed to be clawing himself raw. He stared at Pyotr for a moment, as if something connected, as if he remembered…
“Fight?” he said, his voice quiet. “Fight...”
“Pyotr!” Eva whispered, edging away. “This is a bad idea.”
Pyotr waved her off, started sliding around the stairs, his fists out, ready for anything. When he got around the side of the steps, the bleeding man turned savagely, shuddering. They stared at each other, neither moving, like a showdown between hopeless fools.
“Get out now,” Pyotr growled to the man, his face so solid and imposing.
Eva was just about to say something when the man leapt off the stairs and slammed Pyotr into the wall, both of them landing on the ground with a crunch. Eva stumbled back and fell too, the world still not steady enough through the painkillers.
Pyotr held onto the man’s wrists with steady grips, but the beast was too determined … three long gashes of red along Pyotr’s cheek made Eva cringe. She yelped for him, but he didn’t react. He swung the beast away, then slammed his head into the wall.
The man screamed out in pain, rolled on his back, scratched at his own face again. Pyotr quickly got to his knees, tried to stand, but the man grabbed his leg and pulled, knocked him down onto the steps, starting clawing up him ferociously. Pyotr was reduced to smacking the advance away with his fists, grunting as he was scraped along the belly.
Eva pulled herself up the wall, stumbling forward down the hall toward them. She had the determination, but her body wasn’t playing along: her elbow landed weakly on his spine, and he quickly changed his gaze to her instead. She skidded back, narrowly avoided a red hand swinging out at her.
The movement gave Pyotr his chance: he planted a hand on the man’s neck and crushed his head into the bannister so viciously it creaked. Then, not taking any chances, he grabbed the tattered shirt with both hands and threw him sideways into the far wall, and the man crumpled to the ground in a murmuring mess.
Eva pulled herself off the ground and came to Pyotr’s side, gripped his arms tightly and pulled him to his feet. She put her hands in his shoulders and caught her own breath a moment.
“That was stupid,” she said, her mind clearing faster after the adrenaline rush.
He nodded weakly, closed his eyes and winced at the cuts to his cheek.
“It’ll be worth it,” he said quietly. “If she’s here.”
The motion was so fast, Eva didn’t have time to react. The bloody man slammed a gnarled elbow into Pyotr’s neck, and he collapsed down instantly onto the floor, and Eva found herself face-to-face with a dripping red nightmare.
“Eva…” Pytor murmured from below, “Run for it. Run…”
The man snickered at her, at her being cornered. She glanced left, saw the door they’d come through. The man was daring her to do it, to run, to give him some sport. She returned her gaze to him, defeated. Sighed.
And punched him so hard in the face his nose broke.
As he stumbled back in pain, Eva made a run for it. She skidded down the hallway and around the corner, back into the far room, where she lost her footing briefly and bounced into a wall. She grabbed hold on the door frame and pulled herself into the outer room, and slammed the door, pushing against it for a second before it shuddered violently as the madman threw himself at it. Her bandaged arm seared with pain, but she couldn’t let up.
Eva knew her position was tenuous at best, and the pained screaming from the other side of the door made her push harder, keeping her safe, but also trapped in this horrible little room. At least Pyotr was safe while she was being chased.
Then, a pause, a break in all the noise.
No pressure on the door, no sound at all. Eva pushed her ear against the wood, trying to hear something on the other side.
It was quiet. Her own breathing was slow and shaky, and she tried to filter it out as she searched for some sign from the other side. She heard nothing but silence.
Then she heard a scuffle, a thump, and scuffle, and more nothingness. She exhaled, trembling now, and swallowed down some of the fear she’d been holding on to.
“Pyotr?” she called through the door.
Bang! the door shook, and the screaming returned, and Eva’s feet slid on the damp wood floor and she scrambled to regain her footing before the man charged the door again, pounding it violently.
She leaned into it with all her weight, turning to the side and shoving her shoulder against the side of the door, gripping the doorknob so tightly her fingers were numb. The man rammed the door again, again, and again, and then suddenly the hinges blew off and the door flew in, pinning Eva against the wall and letting the madman surge through.
She was so shocked by the door breaking that it took her a moment to get back up, to push the wrecked wood off herself. The man had collided with the far wall and was stumbling to his feet, too, but he was closer to the window, her only escape. Impossibly far away. The man slowly straightened up, blood pouring out of the scrapes in his forehead and his nose, and stared at Eva with irrational hatred.
“Lions!” he snarled, and lunged, shoving Eva back into the wall, fingers trying to claw and scrape at whatever they could. She was overwhelmed, but swung her knee up into the man’s groin with as much force as she could muster. It had little effect but to throw them both off-balance, so they fell back onto the floor, the man atop Eva, still trying to kill.
Behind her, Eva could feel the edge of the broken chair, and she tried to pull herself up enough to get hold on it. She succeeded, but at the cost of a deep gash to the side of her face. She inhaled at the pain, got a mouthful of the smell of the room again, and gagged.
Her fingers slipped off the chair leg and the man put his filthy red hand over her whole face, squeezed, and smacked her head back onto the ground, cackling, dripping all over her.
Eva’s thumb pushed the chair leg in a bit, and her hand wrapped around it. She swung it forward with such force it broke free from the rest of the chair. The wood hit the man in the side of the head, and he screamed out in pain. He rolled away from Eva, clutching his ear, snarling loudly and scuttling away into the corner.
Eva gasped for air, but her body didn’t like what it was getting. She felt light-headed, groggy, but intensely alive. She managed to get to her feet, started towards the door, back to see if Pyotr was alive. Just as she reached the door, she heard a noise from behind, and swung around with the chair leg, hitting the charging man in the side of the head; the wood and his skull cracked, and he flew sideways and onto the floor, skidding to a stop in a pile, blood pulsing out from so many places she didn’t know what she’d done.
He took a shallow breath, bubbling, and Eva dropped to the man’s side, tried to feel for a pulse. She was crying, her head aching, her cheek stinging, and blood everywhere.
“Eva,” came a voice from behind, and she jerked, looked round at Pyotr, hand on the back of his head, groggy. His eyes were narrow and pained.
“He… he wouldn’t stop…” Eva stammered, her arms wrapping round herself, tears still flowing.
“It’s okay, Eva,” Pyotr said, coming closer, offering her his arms. “You had to.”
From behind, the man exhaled a long breath, and then the bubbling stopped. Eva didn’t look back, pushed her face into Pyotr’s chest and cried.
“Come on,” Pyotr said, lifting her up. “Let’s see. Let’s see if she’s here.”
Eva nodded, got to her feet, and paced up the stairs to the second floor, slow and careful, watching her feet as she went. When they got to the landing, she hesitated, kept from looking up. Pyotr nudged her forward, then took off and checked the various rooms off the main area.
Eva looked around, saw the space, the half-normal living room that had been picked apart over the years. A table and chairs, a potted plant that had withered to nothing. A large painting of blotchy patterns on the wall. A simple rug, frayed at the edges and rippled so it fit into a smaller space than it should have. A long red jacket, black embroidered flowers at its base, was draped over a leather sofa at the far end of the room.
“She’s not here,” said Pyotr glumly, kicking around.
“No,” said Eva, her eyes locked on the jacket. “But she was.”