Nine beads of horror. The dead doctor

The morning started with trouble. I was sleeping soundly and calmly when there was a terrible noise in the kitchen, and I woke up from the clink of dishes. Bursting into the kitchen, I saw that all the dishes were rattling and jumping, and my grandfather's favorite tea set was lying on the floor, smashed to smithereens. The wind moved freely back and forth through the broken window. I stood in the middle of the kitchen and wondered at myself. There was such a monstrous incident, and I am still calm and not crying. The fact is that the windows of my house, like the other three houses, go only inside the courtyard. This is the peculiarity of almost all households that are located in hutongs. So, only one of the neighbors could break the window. This made me so indignant that I was about to go and deal with the offender or offenders when an obvious thought suddenly made me stop. A neighbor could break a window, but the service was deep enough. It was pushed into the tea cupboard and hidden in several boxes like the smallest matryoshka. So great was the value of this service. Whoever threw the stone through the window had to somehow get into the kitchen, despite the fact that, even in a broken state, the kitchen window could not accommodate a small child, not to mention an adult. I rushed to the front door, but there was everything as I left, closing for the night. However, in our hutong, the latches on the doors of houses have always been a purely symbolic matter. We are not used to hiding from neighbors. The latches served rather as a talisman against evil night spirits.
Returning to the kitchen with a dustpan and a broom, I leaned over the fragments and was dumbfounded. There were small homemade lanterns everywhere. I didn't notice them right away because they were about the same color as the shards from the service. Opening the flashlight, I was horrified to find a note hidden inside. Here is what was written in the note: “Drive this man away from you. I am always on the alert and will come to you if he does not leave. Cups are a warning. Your head will shatter into the same pieces if you don't do what I say."
Looking closer, I saw that the lanterns covered the entire floor of the kitchen like a carpet. When I left for the broom, there were no flashlights, otherwise I would have noticed them. Sitting on the floor, I sobbed, and then howled out loud. From the elevated romantic mood, of course, there was no trace left. I realized that my nightmares were becoming more and more visible. Of course, none of the neighbors could do this to me. In their mass they were very nice people who felt sorry for me and sympathized with my grief. At six in the morning, as always, I left the gates of Sichuan. As I was getting on my bike, I saw a man hurrying towards me. My heart sank - it was Zhang Li. He was out of breath, afraid of being late, although we had not agreed to meet. Zhang Li came to take me to the factory. Having given him grandfather's bike, we joined the stream of people rushing to work. I was silent, and so was he. I used to be silent, but for him, apparently, silence was unbearable
Lin, what happened? You have puffy eyes!
I wanted to laugh it off, but, of course, I could not resist, and told everything. I'm surprised I haven't cried yet. I would be good! From the outside, it might seem that my story did not touch Lee at all, but since yesterday, I have clarified one small detail of the character of this person. The more difficult the question was, the calmer and more detached Zhang Li became. Otherwise, he was a very emotional and witty man. Already approaching the factory, I heard the cry of a child in my head. I was seized with melancholy, the promise of the hated pursuer was being realized. With Zhang Li I agreed to meet in the evening. The next morning, he planned to go home, so I had to give a gift to my second cousin aunt and brother today, and I can do this only after work. The area in front of the factory was empty, and Zhang Li still hesitated, not letting go of my hand. Finally, smiling awkwardly, he squeezed out
You know, I probably won't go anywhere tomorrow. I can stay until Monday. Tomorrow is Saturday and you and I will go to the appointment ... to the doctor. You need to drink tranquilizers. Do you have doctors on Saturdays?
I was late for my shift. It happened for the first time in my life. I was so offended by Zhang Li that I began to suffocate due to lack of air. The lump that formed in the throat did not allow air to pass freely. Zhang Li rushed to me and tried to help. But he did it so awkwardly that I pushed him away. As a result, the air still entered my burning lungs, but Zhang Li ended up on the ground and broke his eyebrow. We started apologizing to each other at the same time. Zhang Li explained himself for a long time and felt sorry for me, then I felt sorry for him. As a result, as I said, there was a delay. Zhang Li left, promising to meet me in the evening, and I went inside. For the first time, the workshop administration limited itself to a reprimand, but all day long I caught the dissatisfied glances of senior managers and the curious glances of my neighbors in the workshop.
Morning came suddenly and was accompanied by everyday noises.Thank God, no otherworldly devilry disturbed my sleep today.
Zhang Li was waiting for me at the exit of the hutong, and we went to the doctor who took me at home. Admission to him cost a lot of money, but there was no queue for him, and he received on weekends. However, despite all the advantages, Zhang Li was not allowed into the doctor's office with me. The stern secretary pointed Lee to the couch in the waiting room. I have never been to a doctor who treats nerves. As a child, when monstrous events happened to me, which you already know about, my mother tried several times to take me to children's specialists, but my grandfather and father unanimously forbade her to do this. I don’t remember what they motivated this ban, although, in my opinion, the doctor could hardly help me then, but at least I could speak out. Having explained the problem that tormented me through the stump, I lowered my head down. I was frightened and suddenly it seemed that now the doctor would shout at me in the voice of his father: “Liar, you invented everything! Go to your room and don't come out for a week!" There was such silence in the office that it seemed like it could be cut with scissors. Finally, I raised my head and met the doctor's attentive gaze.
“Yes, a strange story,” the doctor said looking into my eyes, “I would be grateful if you would repeat this story again, but not so quickly and emotionally. Don't worry. We have plenty of time. Let's start all over. You can tell from where you left off. Remember, all the details are important, but there may be less emotions. So…
But the more I talked, the more distracted the doctor became. It seemed that he was trying to remember at least something of what I was telling, but my words flew by, not lingering in his memory. On the fifth repetition, I stopped. Something was wrong. The room went dark. Looking out the window, I saw the pavement flooded with sun, and here, in the doctor's office, it was noticeably colder. Without looking at me, the doctor got up and turned on the light. But the light bulb could not disperse the darkness that had thickened in the room, and illuminated only the heels above the table. The doctor paced the room, pacing the room. I waited for his verdict with bated breath.
- I will not force you to tell the whole story again, although something still remains unclear to me, - the man sighed, - I will try to put you into a hypnotic sleep. Have you ever undergone such a procedure?
I answered the doctor, but it seems that he did not even hear me.
The couch was so soft that I just fell into it. Already going into hypnotic oblivion, I thought: “What an unpleasant couch, plunging into it, as if you were drowning. And how will I get out of her wet, leathery embrace when I wake up? I do not know how much time has passed, but I came to myself from a heart-rending female cry. As I found out later, it was the secretary who was shouting. Probably, the doctor did not have time to plunge me into the very depths of hypnotic sleep, otherwise I would hardly have come to my senses so easily. Later, Zhang Li said that about an hour and a half had passed when the secretary decided that the session was taking an unusually long time and carefully looked into the office. At first glance, it seemed to her that there was no one in the room. Surprised, she entered the room more boldly. She did not see me right away, I completely drowned in the depths of the couch. Having dealt with the client, she decided that it would be nice to figure out where the doctor had gone. But it would have been better if she hadn't asked herself that question. She found a doctor, she did not have to spend a lot of effort for this, but the result hardly inspired her, rather the opposite. I think what she saw was imprinted in her brain for a long time, if not all her life. Seeing the edge of a white robe sticking out of the closet door (oh my god, closet again), she casually pulled the door towards her. The Doctor was there. His face was distorted by a grimace of fear, his hands so convulsively squeezed the children's car that the police, who arrived five minutes later, could not take it out. The doctor was dead, and the cause of his death was probably me again.
The police have not yet come to any conclusion, but I knew the truth. I signed this man's death warrant the moment I walked through his door. I realized this when I received another SMS. After a grueling interrogation by the police, I barely crawled to bed and began to sink into the abyss of sleep, but less than ten minutes had passed before the SMS signal pulled me out of saving oblivion. "Never do this," read the text. The dream, as if taken away by hand, hours went by hours, and I sat on the bed, repeated the words sm-s over and over again and swayed to the beat of the ruthless words. Zhang Li was also interrogated, and although he could not say much, he was ordered not to leave Beijing until the end of the investigation. The interrogation was attended by the policeman whom I turned to a few days ago with a request to trace the maniac's sms. The coroner investigating the doctor's death wanted to know if my first police visit and the doctor's death were connected, but what could I say?
The next day, Zhang Li brought me a new phone and a SIM card.
http://proza.ru/2014/07/28/238