The weather is disgusting. Slushy. Dirty snow slush has been underfoot for a week now. It’s as if whoever is in charge of the weather up there got tired and decided to take a nap. And this fog is nasty. Pale yellow, like a stubborn stain on a white coat. It descends, creeping in from everywhere, from every alleyway.
An old UAZ jeep, its wheels spinning, turned into the courtyards. Ambulance doctor Kharitonov wrapped himself more tightly in his jacket with a broken zipper and turned away from the window. His tired gaze slid over the familiar interior of the minibus, trying to find something that wasn’t completely joyless. Opposite him, intern Vedunov sat with his nose buried in his phone, glued to some game. At the wheel was driver Kolya Ryzhkin, a man of about forty with his head bandaged. After scraping the side of the minibus against the dry branches of some unkempt bushes, he sighed wistfully, “Eh-heh,” stopped the car at the entrance, and turned to the passengers. “Yeah. Right?” As if to say, I brought you where you needed to go.
“We’re here, Kolya. Yes. Wait for us,” Kharitonov nodded, took the bag, and hurried the intern along: “Come on, hurry up.” The latter jumped out, his sneakers immediately sinking into the snow. The doctor followed, slamming the door of the van and glancing at the driver once more through the dirty glass.
If it weren’t for the clear mark of Soviet education on his face, Ryzhkin would have looked exactly like Sharikov with his appearance and interjections. A match for the car. Who knows what graveyard they pulled it from. But what can you do… It’s a sin to complain. For once, the team is traveling with a full complement.
Trying to drive away their gloomy thoughts and ignore the surrounding disorder, the medics quickly entered the front hall.
The door on the second floor was already open. They were expected.
“Hurry up. Over there. In the back room.” “Mom’s not feeling well,” said a young woman, embarrassed, pulling her housecoat tighter around herself. Without taking off their shoes, both medics went where they were directed.
“Well, no…” said the doctor thoughtfully, leaning over an old sofa and an even older pensioner, “she’s fine now.”
The efficient Vedunov checked her pulse and breathing and began to perform CPR as he had been taught, but Kharitonov had already seen everything. A pale face, pockmarked with deep wrinkles, framed by dry strands of gray hair. There was something about it. Something relaxed, calm, almost blissful. The doctor touched his assistant on the shoulder.
“Enough. It’s over.”
“She…?” The young woman faltered, ready to cry.
“Yes. She died,” Kharitonov turned around. “Well, what do you expect? Well, she died… What can you do…”
“Are we following the Zeta protocol?” the intern asked, and, receiving an approving nod from the doctor, set to work. The owner of the apartment, who had not yet had time to cry properly, watched in surprise as the young man took a roll of wide tape out of his sports backpack and began to tie up the dead body with quick, practiced movements.
“You’re going to… take her away, aren’t you?”
“Why?” the doctor asked, turning to his assistant with an inquiring look. “Vedunov. Explain the procedure.”
“In the absence of traumatic brain injury and other serious bodily harm, the execution of the zeta protocol does not require hospitalization and can be carried out at home,” he finished tying up the deceased and looked at her daughter. “Was your mother conscious?”
The woman nodded affirmatively.
“Was she violent? Was she in pain? Will she scream?”
“No…”
“Good, then there’s no need to tape her mouth shut. You’ll be able to talk soon.”
“Talk?”
“Yes. Talk to her. It’s good for them. They come to their senses faster. But I don’t recommend unwrapping her before the third day.” Just in case… Something involuntary happens.
Vedunov walked over to the window and opened it wide.
“Keep your mother cool. She’ll cool down faster and there will be less smell…” The intern took out his cell phone and checked the time. “There won’t be any more surges today, and she should be magnetized by the day after tomorrow.”
“How so?”
“It’s just how we say it,” Vedunov smiled. “No thermodynamics or superpositions involved… It’ll get back to normal, basically. You’ll see. At the first sign of movement, change the temperature. Close the window. Move it closer to the heaters. You can put a heater there.”
“Wrap it up?” asked the young woman, finally calming down.
“No need. It just gets in the way of the heat. They don’t warm up from the inside. If it asks for tea or boiling water, give it as much as it wants,” the guy paused, exhaled, and looked at Kharitonov. “I think I’ve said everything.”
“Like in the textbook. Well done, Vedunov. Get in the car!” the doctor approved. “And you…” he looked appraisingly at the hostess, “aren’t you going to follow your mother?”
“Me? No. I’m staying for now…” She looked embarrassed.
“Well, well…” Call me if anything happens. You know — “03” or the single number.
After saying goodbye, Kharitonov left the apartment. There was absolutely nothing for him to do here.
* * *
Operative Lavrukhin looked sadly at the two corpses. The baggy body of the guard lay face down in the blood-stained snow, buried in someone’s snow-covered grave. His jacket was torn in several places and covered in blood, his fur hat had slipped to one side, and his bearded face was frozen in a look of agony. However, from a certain angle, it seemed as if he was even smiling at the cruel irony of fate that had caused him to meet his death right in the cemetery. Opposite him lay a thin man in an ill-fitting short black suit. He was wet and dirty. His head had been completely blown apart by a gunshot. His brains were spilled out. The weapon itself — a hunting double-barreled shotgun — lay nearby.
Lavrukhin grimaced and, taking the guard’s cap off his head, covered the bloody mess with it, then turned to the medical UAZ parked side by side with its police half-truck counterpart. The ambulance crew stood patiently in the snow, waiting for orders from the police officer.
“Eh-heh,” Kolya Ryzhkin sighed wistfully, exhaling clouds of acrid cigarette smoke.
“Well, I don’t know…” the detective spread his arms. “What do you have there? This-beta…”
“Zeta,” corrected intern Vedunov.
“It doesn’t matter! Load them up or something…”
“Yeah. Right?” The driver looked questioningly at the medics.
“No,” Kharitonov shook his head. “We’ll figure it out.”
“What’s there to figure out? Dead bodies? God will sort out his own…”
“Exactly. I am the Alpha and Omega here,“ the doctor snapped and nudged Vedunov forward. ”Go ahead, young talent!
The intern jumped over the snowdrifts in a couple of leaps, found himself next to Lavrukhin, glanced at the dead, looked around, then back at the corpses.
“Well, the picture is clear. Citizen Glushkovsky attacked the guard, took advantage of the confusion, bit through the carotid artery… And, judging by everything, the jugular vein. The guard, defending himself, fired a shot directly into the front of the skull, neutralizing the attacker. After that, he himself died from blood loss.
“How do you know it’s Glushkovsky?” Lavrukhin asked in surprise. “His face is a mess.”
“The traces… Look, if you look closely, behind the bushes… The grave is dug up,” the guy squinted. “Glushkovsky. Yes. That’s exactly what it says on the gravestone.”
“Keen eyes! And quick-witted!” praised the detective, looking cheerfully at Kharitonov. “Will you give up your intern? We need people like him in the department.”
“In the department…” For the authorities… We need them ourselves, the doctor said grimly, and then loudly reprimanded his assistant. “Vedunov, stop playing detective! Give us your conclusion.”
“Hey!” Lavrukhin protested. “Wait! If everything is so official, then tell me what to write in the report!” Unintentional murder? Excessive self-defense? Careless handling of a weapon?
“There’s a clear violation of the Zeta Protocol,” the intern noted knowledgeably.
“Excellent! And who should be charged with this?”
“The person who didn’t dig up that bastard.” What was he doing there anyway? When on the 31st of December, an order was issued to exhume all corpses buried no earlier than 1980!“ Kharitonov exclaimed indignantly and spat into the snow. ”That’s it! Wrap them up, Vedunov! Let’s go! I’m about to die here myself.”
The assistant nodded, took the backpack off his shoulder, took out some tape, and began to wrap the patients in it.
“And what does your protocol say about the dead?” Lavrukhin asked the young man in a low voice, seeing that he was, as they say, experienced.
“It’s not ours, it’s yours,” Vedunov replied awkwardly. “Appendix No. 2. ‘For the Ministry of Internal Affairs.’ Paragraph 4, clause ‘b’: ‘On the formal violation of free will.’ Haven’t you read it?”
“I didn’t have time, well… What does it say?”
“The rights of a citizen are considered violated… Or something like that. I don’t remember the exact wording. In general… In the event of violent, forced, and… Sudden death not due to natural causes. Yeah. Right.
“So maybe he… Voluntarily. He asked to be bitten himself,” suggested the detective.
“Do you really believe that?” Kharitonov sneered.
“No, of course not… It’s obvious,” Lavrukhin waved his hand dismissively, continuing his reasoning. “They didn’t dig up the deceased in time, he stirred in his coffin, climbed out himself, and, apparently, got angry. Then…” Who is responsible for timely exhumations? The cemetery director. We need to find him… Maybe he’s already dead himself. We’ll have to dig up the archives.
“Oh dear…” Kolya Ryzhkin sighed again, watching blankly as the intern carefully gathered pieces of the broken skull from the snow into a bag, placed it on Glushkovsky’s bloodied head, and secured it with the same tape.
“Why do you need to dig up the archives? This bearded guy will get up, and you can ask him about the voluntary nature of the donation and about the director.
“That’s true!” the policeman brightened up. “Call me when it’s okay to come over.
“Ha!” the doctor sneered. “You think I’m going to take him? We’ll only take the one who’s been torn apart. We’ll finish off the old man now and hand him over to you.”
“Where am I supposed to take him?!”
“And where am I supposed to take him? My entire reception room is full. I’m already putting the dead next to the living! There are all kinds of people there. Some without heads. Some without their lower bodies. But this Voroshilov shooter is intact! Find his relatives and dump him on them. Or take him to the station, lean him against the radiator, and wait for him to regenerate. Then you can interrogate him right away. No problem!”
“All right…” Lavrukhin reluctantly agreed. “Let’s load him up then.”
Realizing that it was time, Kolya took the stretcher out of the car with a loud clang. With the help of the detective, they hoisted the bagged Glushkovsky onto it. They put it in the back. Then they put the cap back on the bitten guard’s head. Without the stretcher, the three of them grabbed him like a log and loaded him into the police van.
“For safety’s sake,” Lavrukhin explained, closing the barred door. “Once he thaws out, I think he’ll tell me everything. We’ll press charges against his boss with all the severity of revolutionary law. At the very least, I’ll slap him with the full administrative penalty for negligence. Dead or alive.
“That’s for sure,” the doctor chimed in. “You even have a gun…”
But the policeman either didn’t notice the sarcasm or simply decided to play along.
“Where are you going now? On another call?”
“Yes. We’ll take the patient and make a couple more stops. We’ll just give Kolya some coffee, he’s looking a bit pale. I’m afraid he’ll catch a cold,” replied Kharitonov, glancing at Ryzhkin, who was finishing his cigarette by the “loaf.”
“Well, let’s go!” The detective extended his hand in farewell, then suddenly added, “By the way, maybe you’ll stop by our cafeteria after your shift? We recently renovated it. It’s cozy there. Today they’re serving meatballs with mashed potatoes. You can warm up at the same time.”
The doctor wanted to ignore both the handshake and the invitation. The detective was clearly trying to establish a relationship, and Kharitonov didn’t like it. But then the lively intern intervened.
“Can I come too?”
“Of course,” Lavrukhin smiled. “Everyone come.”
Vedunov shook his hand firmly. Kharitonov snorted contemptuously and looked at the driver again.
“Nikolai, stop smoking! It’s bad for you! Start the engine!”
“What difference does it make?” asked Lavrukhin. “He’s already dead.”
“Anyway…” The doctor thought for a moment, then repeated decisively. “It doesn’t matter! It’s harmful,” he said, shoving his cold hands into his pockets and silently walking to the car. Vedunov followed him, nodding good-naturedly in farewell. Ryzhkin looked at the cigarette butt, squinted as if deciding something for himself, threw it into the snow, and got behind the wheel.
* * *
The Great November Thermodynamic Revolution has come to pass. It swept through cities and towns like a snowy quantum cloud. It covered everything in an electromagnetic blizzard. It mixed everything up. It turned back the hands of time. It disrupted entropic processes. It changed everyone’s places. Or maybe it was the other way around? It put everything back in its place. Scientists are still arguing about it.
Kharitonov slowly stirred sugar into his tea with a spoon. By evening, the weather outside had improved. It was getting cold. The nasty fog had dissipated. The warm setting sun peeked out from behind the clouds. In its rays, the table tea in the doctor’s glass looked amber-red. Someone upstairs must have woken up in a good mood and decided to get down to business. The man in the iron tower. Does he care about anyone? Of course he does. You don’t get involved in such matters without feeling something. Or without being completely insensitive.
Kharitonov looked around the empty dining room. Of all the tables, only theirs and a couple of others were occupied. Mostly by employees: some in uniform, but most in plain clothes. Operatives. And possibly experts. So the “hasty” company hardly stood out. Kolya Ryzhkin sat with his back unnaturally straight, staring detachedly at the sunset and the city beyond the wide square windows. Having methodically downed six glasses of hot tea, he now seemed completely happy. Vedunov leaned over his plate and ate his cutlet with gusto. In general, the atmosphere, as Lavrukhin had advertised, was indeed pleasant. It was practically a cafe. Even the girl from the counter walked around the room like a waitress, collecting dishes from the tables on a tray. When she decided to take care of the empty Ryzhkin glasses, Vedunov was distracted from eating his cutlets and, without a second thought, stopped her by the arm.
“Excuse me, do you have any cabbage pies? Can you bring me one?”
“Go to the display case and look. Pay for it and take it. This isn’t a restaurant!” the girl snapped and jerked her hand away.
“She’s so cold…” the intern muttered in surprise.
But Kharitonov noticed something and suddenly turned around.
“Hello, Sasha. Why are you so angry? How are you feeling?”
The cafeteria worker’s eyes widened. She dropped the tray of glasses from her hands with a crash. They clinked melodiously on the floor, but strangely did not break.
“Charon… What are you doing here?”
“We were invited,” the doctor nodded contentedly at the slightly puzzled Lavrukhin.
“You have no business here and no right to ask about my health. Is that clear? You want to know how am I feel? Then, look! And here! Do you see that?!”
The girl sharply rolled up the sleeves of her turtleneck one after the other, and everyone saw that long cuts covered with tape stretched from her wrists to her elbows on both arms.
“Oh-ho-ho…” Ryzhkin reacted.
“Didn’t work again?” Kharitonov smiled contemptuously.
“Go away!” the girl hissed, quickly gathered the glasses from the floor, and disappeared from the puzzled glances of the few visitors somewhere in the kitchen.
“She was in love… She was unhappy,” Lavrukhin explained to the doctor, as if apologizing. “I just didn’t think it was you who pumped her out.”
“Yes, it happened… But we’re not particularly interested in personal circumstances.”
“Yeah. The Zeta Protocol must be followed, and the rest is the patient’s personal business,” Vedunov confirmed, but catching his boss’s disapproving glance, he immediately fell silent and returned to his cutlets.
“What did she call me?” Kharitonov asked the detective again.
“Charon. Well, it’s ours… Internal,” the policeman said, embarrassed. “You’re our ferryman to the realm of the dead. Like in the myths of Ancient Greece. And your surname sounds similar…”
“I see.”
“That’s nothing!” Lavrukhin continued, laughing. “When our colonel read Pasternak, he called you ‘Doctor Dead Man.’”
“Well, at least someone read Pasternak…” Kharitonov grumbled. “So you’re into books here, huh?”
“What’s wrong with that?” the detective was taken aback. “What else is there to do? Well, we play cards sometimes, chess, dominoes…”
“What’s wrong with that? Wine, movies, and dominoes. And love, I suppose… Yes…” the doctor muttered quietly, lost in his own thoughts, then glanced sharply at his interlocutor. “We had another call today after the cemetery. There was a man there. He was returning from work at his office, and then suddenly got out of his car, wandered into a field, lay down in the snow, and froze there. Something came over him.
“Did you pump his stomach?”
“No. He came to on his own. He waited for the nearest wave surge. He remagnetized himself and came home. A perfect corpse. Not a single injury. He says his head even started working better. Now he’s sitting here reading books. But that was a long time ago. Last year.
“What was the call about then?” Lavrukhin looked at the doctor with interest.
“His wife… She came to see him. Well, what?” The doctor glanced at Kolya Ryzhkin. “They’re fine. They don’t age. They don’t get sick. They save a lot on food. Again, no worries, no stress, no neuroses… And in general, they’re in a kind of melancholic mood. Right, Kolya?
“Huh? Yeah… Right,” the driver replied absently.
“There you go! So, this woman wanted to be with him. Love, they say… She asked for an injection…”
“She has the right,” Vedunov interjected again with his mouth full. “The Zeta Protocol provides for the voluntary departure of citizens from biological life. Only witnesses are needed. Like during a search of your home, witnesses… Neighbors, for example. And a receipt must be signed in their presence using form No. 17.”
Lavrukhin stared at Kharitonov without blinking.
“And what did you do? Did you give him the injection?”
An awkward silence hung over the table. Having finished his meal, the intern got up from his seat.
“Well, thank you. The food is good here. Delicious!” he praised Lavrukhin, and then turned to Kharitonov. “I’m leaving… I still have to write a term paper today. Could Nikolai Palych give me a ride?”
“Yeah…” Kolya nodded without waiting for permission. “Yes.”
“Go ahead!” the doctor waved his hand, and when both colleagues had left and he was alone with Lavrukhin, he asked:
“What about you? Haven’t you made up your mind? To move on, so to speak, to a different way of life.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet,” the policeman frowned. “We already have a lot of people like that working for us: the duty officer, a woman in the archives, Sasha the cafeteria worker, and so on… I’m still thinking about it. But if it comes down to it, I’ll probably do it myself, officer-style… Gun to my temple, and goodbye.”
“What a fool,” Kharitonov responded coldly. “And then we’ll have to collect your brains in a bag. And you’ll be drooling for at least a month. You know how slowly nerve cells regenerate… Look at our Kolya! He was simply crushed by a log. A compressed skull injury, and then a bullet. Yeah? Really?” the emergency doctor mimicked for clarity.
“Yeah, I get it. I understand. I’ll keep that in mind,” the detective agreed. “But he’s probably just a coward, that’s why he’s still alive. Remember how it all started, when the dead started coming out of everywhere? Even before all your protocols… I saw a lot back then. Brrr… Everyone was screaming, eating, tearing each other apart. And those who died would rise again the next day, just the same. Who knew that they would become normal after two or three days? That only became clear later! And by that time, half of them were already… Colleagues, acquaintances, family…
“He saw a lot…” A malicious but somehow doomed smile played on Kharitonov’s lips. “I cut my own people into pieces with my own hands and packed them into bags so they wouldn’t move… And then I spent a day searching the trash for all those bags so I could sew everything back together.
“Yeah…” Lavrukhin drawled.
“But if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have gone to work for the ambulance service. You know my biography, who I treated and how. Of course, I had good money back then. But do I need it now? That’s the thing!“ The doctor paused for a moment. ”They say that after death, people only do what they really like. Because nothing stands in their way anymore. They are liberated. They find themselves, or something… And I think we are the same. Everyone has their own unfinished business.
Kharitonov glanced around the now completely empty hall, sighed, got up from his chair, and exchanged a brief handshake with the police officer.
“Okay… I don’t want to, but it’s time to go home.”
“Is everything okay with your family?”
“Yeah, nothing. We talk. They seem to love me. Only sometimes they fall silent, sit and stare… Condemningly. They remember everything. And there’s no getting rid of that…”
“But everything’s fine now,” the police officer said, trying to cheer the doctor up. “There are advantages.”
“Advantages? Maybe… Do you know why parents love dead children the most? They remain children forever.”
Kharitonov said nothing more. He just pulled his jacket tighter around himself and disappeared through the double front door onto the darkening evening street. Lavrukhin was left alone. For a while, he just stared into space, and then said sadly:
“Yes… Death is no more. How am I supposed to live now?” And he sadly downed the rest of his cold tea.
