I’m afraid to close my eyes. I take out a slice of bread from under my jacket that's rolled up as a pillow and crumble it to small bits and eat it. My nerves are taut. The clock ticks off minutes after midnight. Darkness suffocates me but I don’t want to switch on the light. Shakalov told me, “You’re not an actress, you’re a sweeper. Know your place, understand? You wait, I’ll give you double-payment for this, dura.” I’ve been listening for hours now. Nothing.

The empty theater is cold and quiet. 

Is he coming?

Howling. There is howling in the corridor, a long drawn out wail. A patter of feet. I jump up, dizzy with fear. The hall beyond the door fills with the echo of yowls and snarls. 

Damn you.

I grab the prop knife I found in one of the boxes. It’s dull but it’s something. The wailing is louder now as if the darkness itself is coming alive, thick with spite. I panic, drop the knife, stumble on the boxes and overturn them, and bump into the vanity table. Something tips and crashes to the floor with a bright clash. Glass shards spray in all directions. I touch the wall, feel around for the switch and can’t find it.

The howling stops. 

The jackal is sniffing at the door. I can hear its heavy breathing. I grope for my jacket and my backpack and that’s when the keys jingle and the lock rasps and the door opens—

. . .

The mouse darts between the jackal’s legs into a tunnel dug out of packed dirt. Roots trip it. Grit and grime blind its eyes. Behind it the jackal pants, gaining distance. The mouse squeaks, desperate. It knows that if it falters it will be dead. It scampers up, passes by the turtle’s hollow, and bursts free into the street under the star-flecked sky.

The mouse can’t pause, can’t stop to catch its breath. Its tiny heart throbs with terror. It squirrels along the asphalt road close to the building walls and pelts into a narrow alley. Trash bins, acacia shrubs, parked cars in the labyrinth of inner courts and archways and yards. The mouse finds a crack in the wall behind a drainpipe, burrows inside and lies still.

. . .

I lean on a rough concrete wall of an apartment block, shivering from sitting for so long on the wet ground. 

I should’ve seen it coming. Where will I go now? 

In front of me is a square courtyard, desolate and damp after the rain. An empty sandbox, a broken swing, and a couple of benches. Most windows in the building across the way are dark, a few aglow. One window on the first floor is open and through the lacy curtains wafts out the smell of fried onions. A hunched figure under a naked light bulb is cooking something in the middle of the night.

My stomach grumbles.

I stand up in the murky circle of streetlight. I’m somewhere deep in the bowels of old Moscow. A drunk couple wanders by, swaying and singing. I thumb up my backpack and steal after them in hopes of sneaking into the warmth of the entranceway. They stop by the heavy metal door, punch in the code, and disappear. I run up too late. It shuts with a resounding bang.

Bright lights splash over me. A car rolls along the sidewalk and vanishes behind a utility shack at the end of the yard. 

Maybe I can catch the driver entering.

I follow, skirt a cluster or chokeberry bushes, and come upon a dead end. It’s milling with figures and glowing streaks of smoldering cigarettes and hushed talking. 

I hide behind the bushes and watch through the gaps. 

Car lights flash, tear out silhouettes from the night. About ten girls in heels and minis and cheap fur jackets smoke and step from foot to foot like tousled chickens. A stocky man climbs out of the car and saunters up to them. He talks to one, and not a minute later, they drive off. Another car rolls up. I’m rooted to the ground. 

This is my future. Pick-a-hooker drive-though. Better this, better someone nameless. In, out, done. Never to see again. 

I pick a chokeberry. It’s juicy and astringent.

A militia model 6 Lada parks and a couple militants file out on unsteady legs, their caps askew. They fetch a pair of giggling girls. I gape after them until the red taillights wink out in the darkness. 

Fucking slime bags. 

I want to leave but the forbidden and the dirty holds me with an unhealthy attraction.

. . .

The last girl is gone. I have eaten so many berries that my stomach aches and I shiver from cold and exhaustion. I decide to stay awake and wait for the early risers to begin leaving the building for work so that I can slip inside one of the entranceways and curl up and nap on the warm top landing.

A hand falls on my shoulder.

My heart plummets. I wheel around and see five guys in their twenties, dark beanies pulled down to their brows. Smug faces, brutish eyes, beer and smoke breath, and randy sneers. 

“Hey, beautiful. Looking for a job?”

My blood stills. 

Hostile buzzing sniggers. 

Horseflies. 

I back up and I smash into the bramble.

They draw closer, interested and excited. Size me up.

“Why are you so quiet?”

I should’ve taken the prop knife.

A hand flicks on a lighter and holds it to my face. “Did you hear what Uncle Roma said? Answer, slut.” 

“Maybe she’s, you know...”

“Why don’t you ask her.”

“Hey, beautiful, are you retarded?”

“She’s scared. Don’t be scared, you can talk to Uncle Roma. I’ll be gentle. I won’t touch a single hair on your pretty head, only on your pussy.” 

They crack up, thrilled and nervous. 

My stomach fills with lead. 

“Talk, I said!” Roma’s eyes grow into compound spheres. Clear wings unfold from his back. “Say, ‘Hello, Uncle Roma. I want to suck your dick.’” He grabs my chin. 

I kick him in the groin.

He throttles me. I gasp for breath—

. . .

The horseflies chase the mouse out of the bushes and into a dank entrance with the broken code lock. Here they push it in the corner and fall on it and sting it one by one. Their hairy abdomens expand and gorge with blood and shake from excitement and aggression. The mouse twitches on the floor. They cover it, rise when it moves, settle and suck on its belly and by the tail between its hind legs and everywhere they can find exposed, vulnerable flesh. 

A dog barks behind a door. 

Slow and sluggish, the horseflies lift and hang over the mouse. It’s swollen from bites. 

The dog senses them and barks and barks and doesn’t stop. 

Spooked, the horseflies surge into the shadows and vanish.

. . .

I unglue my eyelids. I’m swaying lightly, lying on a hard bench, surrounded by the smell of disinfectant and the whoop of a siren. I’m in an ambulance. Everything below my waist is screaming. 

A woman’s face lowers over mine.

“Shhh. You’re fine. We’re ten minutes away.” 

Lulled by the movement, I pass out.

. . .

Arms heave me up and roll me off the cot onto a gurney, and wheel me between glass doors under bluish fluorescent lights.

Flat, tired voices call out. 

“Natasha, where do you want her?”

“What’s she got?”

“Vaginal bleeding.”

“Eighth floor. The rest are full.”

Vaginal bleeding. Great. I hope your brat is gone, Lyosha Kabansky. 

I’m trundled into a freight elevator. The cabin jitters upward, stops. The doors roll open. 

“Galina Viktorovna! Girls!”

“What?”

“I’ve got a bleeding one. Where do you want her?” 

Lights blind me. I squint and make out a nurse relaying something to a sleepy woman in a crumpled lab coat who looks like a mole. She screws her myopic eyes and waves off the nurse and pushes me into a shabby examination room. 

Greenish walls, a brown vinyl bench, a battered gynecological chair, and a desk with a clunky computer. She sits on a chair next to me and jots something down in a journal. 

I study her. No neck, weak eyes and ears, graying hair pulled into a bun, powerful arms. She sniffs the air. “Myshko, Irina Anatolievna?”

I nod. 

“What happened?” 

I don’t move.

“Can you hear me?”

Do you care?

“Answer, please. I haven’t got all night.”

I lift my arms then decide against it.

“Are you a deaf-mute?” She raises non-existent brows.

I gaze back, defiant.

“So, Irina. Either you answer me or I will have to call militia and have them talk to you.” She reaches for my backpack at the foot of the gurney.

I intercept her hand, mime writing. 

“That’s better.” She gives me a blank prescription sheet  and a pen and watches me write.

Red splotches crawl up her cheeks. “Attacked by horseflies? What’s this nonsense?”

It’s not nonsense, it’s the truth.

She stands up without a word, washes her big red hands in the tiny sink and dries them on a grubby towel before slapping on gloves. 

“Lie still.” 

She lifts my shirt and feels my stomach. 

I bite my lip to stifle a cry. 

Her fingers enter me. 

“Last period?”

I shrug.

She pokes her head in the door and yells. “Laskin! Quick!”

A young balding man shows up. A scrawny weasel. “You asked for me, Galina Viktorovna?” His eyes fix below my waist.

I yank up my panties.

“I need an ultrasound.”

“One minute.” He turns on the computer, pulls the gurney closer, squirts cool jelly on my stomach, and smears it with the probe. The screen is blue, then black, then there are rows of numbers and a shimmering slice of a circle, a grainy image composed of white lines. 

Laskin moves the probe around, presses in and holds it in one spot. A black oval hole appears, and inside it is a grainy blob with a head, a body, and two bumps. They move.

“About two months?” says Laskin.

And it suddenly hits me. 

It’s my baby, it’s alive. It’s waving at me. 

It doesn’t know that I want to kill it.