The Leather Bag

Bullets, shells, grenades, and cold.

New Year's passed in a rush: the tree wouldn't fit in the trench, so
they shot its top off. There was barely anything to eat for dinner, so
our only festive indulgences were dry chatter with relatives and coffee
that tasted strange. Tears and snot caught in the throats of the people
on the other end of the phone, dampening my ear. I'd grown tired of
listening to all that, so I left the stuffy dugout before the others.

The sun was sinking toward the horizon, making one last leap over muddy
puddles while the north wind caressed my burned face. A shiver ran right
through me, sinking deeper. I walked without thinking; my heart dragged
me somewhere far away. Step forward, left, right, left, right; climb,
clamber over, crawl. I don't think I'd ever seen this whole field
before. I wonder why.

"Click."

A tiny firefly streaked through me. Suddenly, a beautiful evening sky
appeared before me.

"Mom, Mommy..." I fell asleep.

White walls and pretty girls in white. They were transporting me
somewhere-apparently, I'd been written off. A helicopter woke me with
its whine. Though someone else was whistling too, somewhere to my right,
right above my ear, as if I weren't even there. A long cigar that looked
like a penis, and cold, dark eyes beneath a ridiculous green hat.

"You shouldn't be waking up yet, mister. We'll be there soon," he said.
His breath stank of something foul. My eyes were sticking shut. God, I
wanted to sleep.

The sound of a train had soothed my nerves since childhood, but not
today. Strangely, after so many days asleep, I couldn't bear to stay in
bed. My limbs felt like leaden jelly, and yellow bandages wrapped my
body from head to toe, but I needed to move-anywhere, it didn't
matter. Step by step, barely moving my uncooperative limbs, I stumbled
into the vestibule. The train seemed deserted: only the carriages'
steady sway and the wheels clattering over old rails proved that at
least one living soul was in the driver's cab. So that was where my path
led.

Outside the window lay impenetrable darkness. It seemed I'd slept until
the middle of the night. The empty carriages felt unsettling; it was as
if darkness was enveloping the cars behind me. Whenever I crossed from
one carriage to the next, the lights began to flicker or went out
altogether. Funny.

After covering quite a distance, I passed the sleeping cars and entered
a luxurious dining car. Opulence poured from every detail of the
interior. As far as the eye could see, marble enveloped gold, and gold
enveloped marble. Porcelain goblets trimmed with platinum surrounded
lavish dishes. Everything was hot, as though I'd startled all the
guests. That was rude of me.

The roast suckling pig with apples looked delicious-and almost seemed
to be staring at me defiantly. I was ravenously hungry, and when I
lunged at it, I knocked everything onto the floor. The piglet was coated
in delicate caramel, so it disappeared into my mouth twice as fast. Only
near the end of the meal did my bloodshot eyes catch sight of some kind
of brand. Half its backside was already gone, but I could still make
out: "Vic..."

"Hmm. Guess I interrupted someone's victory dinner. Still, I didn't kick
anyone out." Thoroughly stuffed, I was about to return to bed, but the
itch for adventure seized me again, so I had to keep moving.

The noise grew louder, and with every carriage I passed, the boilers
seemed to work harder. The train appeared to be speeding up, trying to
escape-but it couldn't hide from me, not when I was already inside.

The train's technical section seemed to lie ahead. The heat scorched my
eyes, and every bandage was soaked through with sticky sweat. The noise
made me so dizzy I had to crawl. The floor grew warmer with every yard,
turning the place into an oven. A door. I could almost make it. Door,
door, door.

"WHISTLE!"

My eardrums burst, and my bones creaked under the unbelievable roar.

Everything inside me clenched, curled in on itself, and swallowed me
too. I blacked out.

"Wake up, mister. How long are you going to keep sleeping?" A weak blow
landed in my side, trying to pass itself off as a strong one.
"Misteeeer!"

My eyelids were glued shut. I was desperately thirsty.

"W-water..."

"Get up and you'll have your water. You're almost well, so quit
sleeping!" With a powerful yank, they peeled me off the wet sheet.

A tall, sturdy nurse with short, fiery-red hair stood before me.

"That's more like it. A cutie like you shouldn't pretend to be dead.
Here, take this, read it, and sign here and here."

"B-but... water?"

"Oh, stop fussing, little lamb. I'll bring some now."

When she slipped out through the door, it felt as though another lamp
had gone out in the room. I'd been given a reprieve. Awkwardly lowering
myself onto a creaking chair, I glanced over the document. Consent,
surgery, peritonitis, laparostomy... Some of the words were familiar;
others remained a mystery.

The door flew open. Time-out was over.

"You've signed it yet? Hey, what are you dragging your feet for?
Scribble your name and get to rehab! We've already spent longer on you
than usual. They've been fighting to save you, hauling you back from the
other side again and again, and you're still hesitating?!"

Under that kind of pressure, I couldn't put it off any longer.

"That's better! Girls prefer assertive men. Now, time for recovery."
With a quick shove, she put me back in bed and sat on top of me, leaning
close to my face in an instant. I blacked out.

The alarm rang.

Time to get up?!

"Damn, did I oversleep? Come on, one-two, and... huh? What exactly did I
oversleep?"

This time, the surroundings hadn't changed: the same hospital room, the
same cold light. Only something new could be felt beneath my hospital
gown.

"Is that a zipper? Am I wearing a jacket under this hospital gown?"

I approached a mirror cracked at one corner, narrowed my eyes, and
slowly lifted the robe. A zipper, like on a sweatshirt, ran from my
breastbone to my pubic area. A blue zipper.

"What... what the hell is this?!" Losing my balance and falling onto my
back, I felt my insides collide with the closed zipper, as if it were
the only thing keeping them inside me.

"Damn it, how is this even possible?" Everything inside me churned,
rocking the fastener like waves.

"I have to... I have to get out." I took an awkward step, and the slider
suddenly slipped down.

"NO! Damn it!" I immediately pulled it back up, but I couldn't leave
things like this.

White, identical dressers stood around the room.

"Company L" was printed on the side. All of them were empty except the
last one. Luckily, there was a roll of tape inside. Taking a steadying
breath, I taped the slider to the zipper tape-and to my skin.

"That should be safer."

No more time to waste.

The door gave way only with difficulty. "How did she open it so easily?"
I wondered. The cold corridor greeted me with gloomy silence. My bare
feet were freezing, but finding shoes could wait. Everything had been
wrecked, as if a hurricane had passed through. Overturned beds and
stretchers lay everywhere; the lights were smashed, with only a few
islands of light remaining here and there. Scarlet patterns on the floor
pointed the way forward.

"Crack"-damn it, I'd stepped on shards of glass.

A crash suddenly came from around the far bend in the corridor, followed
by a quiet hiss.

I ran. I didn't know what it was, and I didn't want to know. The zipper
on my stomach proved that the creatures roaming this place were hostile,
and I had no desire to chat with them.

There was hardly any light, so I followed the markings on the floor.
Right, left... A door? The way ahead ended in a dead end. I couldn't get
the steel door open, but a flickering lamp let me make out a body lying
in the corner.

Its face had been sliced off, but the robe was still on it, and there
was a key card in the robe. Excellent. Could it finally be my lucky day?

I pressed the card against the beeping panel and was about to leave this
place when my way was suddenly blocked. A nameless monstrosity stood in
the open doorway. Its pus-and-blood-covered head, twisted into a spiral,
stared at me with eight little eyes-I'd have called the look mocking,
if there'd been even a trace of intelligence in them. Its body, pieced
together from chairs and human remains, oozed some kind of foam.

It screamed. The head-like thing opened up, revealing a mouth full of
teeth, and I vanished that very second. Corridors and offices flashed
past one after another. Fear had numbed me; I rammed into examination
couches and wheelchairs, trying to disappear as fast as possible.

The monster charged after me. I turned toward the emergency exit and
caught the fresh breeze of freedom, but something that only vaguely
resembled a living thing burst through the concrete wall on that side
too.

I'm surrounded.

Forward. All I can do is run forward.

They were catching up; their stench had already enveloped everything
around me.

"Ventilation!" I burst inside. "It's too cramped in here... I'm safe.
I'm definitely safe."

The crashing stopped. It seemed they'd fallen behind.

My coughing nearly tore my lungs out, a cramp seized my legs, and blood
from the cut on my foot began flowing more freely.

"Buzzing"... What the hell is that?

Swarm after swarm of flies covered my body, crawling into my ears and
nostrils.

"AAAAAAAAAA!"

The zipper, the zipper...

"MY ZIPPER'S COMING APART!"

The crackling and buzzing merged into one. They got inside. Squeezing my
eyes shut, I zipped it up as best I could and escaped the ventilation
shaft. The buzzing didn't stop, and neither did the hunt. My scream must
have drawn them straight here. I ran again: doors, doors, stairs. I
plunged down as fast as my body would allow.

The stairs led to only one place. Dampness and eye-searing
darkness-the usual features.

"Fucking basement."

The crash behind me drove me inside. Feeling my way around, I think I
found a table and squeezed underneath it. All I could do now was pray.

Silence, and dripping nearby. For some reason, the sound of the falling
drops seemed to draw closer, until a warm drop fell on me too.

A guttural growl. The light revealed hundreds of monsters, delighting in
my nightmare. Huge paws grabbed and tore at me from every side, until
one ginger stump reached for the zipper slider.

"Oh, God, no!"

Ziiiiip! But inside there was only my empty abdominal cavity; nothing
remained. Apparently, the Fly King had beaten all the other slow-witted
creatures to it. I burst out laughing. Stupid monsters.

A sharp blow severed my laughing head.

A megalopolis is the largest form of settlement, formed when several
urban agglomerations merge. The streets are always full of clerks
hurrying to start their careers, and first impressions are extremely
important in that line of work.

"What the hell happened to your bag? It's covered in scratches, and
there's a cut here, too. Did you get it in a fight at the market or
something? Don't you dare show up in front of the director with this
piece of junk. She knows style, believe me."

"Uh... sure, whatever you say."