Four

I felt very competent, as I made my way across the long, dark hallway with impossibly-high ceilings. Past the scary, round, cast-iron ash cleanout door on the wall, its large, rusty handle taunting me to turn it and release the horror inside. Hugging the far wall to keep away from it, I put it behind me, without waking up the scary abandoned-furnace-demon, fear dripping down my back.

My destination: my neighbor's room at the end of the hallway. I considered Unkle Kostya a friend -- he had talked to me on several occasions, and I really liked his looks (a mustachioed old-timey circus strongman from one of my books, but obese, and really, really old, maybe 50 or 76).

The door was closed, but swung noiselessly at the slightest push, and I crept in holding my breath. The room was silently square, with a window on the far wall. In the center stood a huge sarcophagus of a drawer chest, deep and as tall as I was, covered by a tablecloth that dangled halfway down. Atop that was a small mattress -- or maybe a bunch of folded blankets, crowned with a fully-dressed Unkle Kostya, flat on his back, pillowless, mouth half-open. The top of his voluminous belly formed the apex of this strange pyramid.

I stood against the doorframe, in total silence, wondering if he had died in his sleep, like my grandpa.

Above him was a dim bare lightbulb, dangling from the ceiling on a long, dirty, cloth-insulated wire. I knew there was no switch, because on a previous occasion I had observed him unscrewing it half a turn, with his bare fingers, to turn it off. I remembered because I tried doing it at home, and my fingers still hurt, and everyone was angry with me. 'When I grow up', I resolved, 'I will turn lightbulbs with my bare hands all the time!'

Unkle Kostya, unexpectedly, emitted a terrible, inhuman groan, breaking the silence.

I ran away as fast as I could, and never told anyone -- still not trusting grownups after the lightbulb incident. For a while, I was sure the monster had gotten Unkle Kostya, but then I turned 50, or 76, and forgot all about it. Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing Unkle Kostya ever again...

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