leprozoria-part-first-1

Leprozoria, part one.

Hi all. I have already posted my stories in the literary blog, you can find them from these links:
Stopgame.ru/blogs/topic/37653
Stopgame.ru/blogs/topic/37622
Stopgame.Ru/Blogs/Topic/34245
Stopgame.Ru/Blogs/Topic/33406
Stopgame.Ru/Blogs/Topic/33343
Alas, I posted my last story for a long time, so it is unlikely that someone remembers me. But now I will rehabilitate and lay out the first part of the story “Leprosoria” on your court. Do not look for action here, the narrative will be quite calm and smooth. Pleasant reading. And yes, I am always glad to be adequate criticism.

Leprozoria
AND

The grave turned out to be shallow, only about a meter, but there was simply no strength left for the greater. He carefully lowered his wife’s fragile body into the pit and spent a minute on his knees, just looking at her. Karpova’s legend devastated this woman once full of life. Thick brown hair fell out, deep gray eyes became watery, dark purple bags appeared under them. Vladimir sighed and took the shovel again. He could not even attach a cross for the resulting earthen mound: the tree was now worth its weight in gold, it was not worth talking about welding. I had to limit myself to a flat stone on which he stabbed a photograph of Linda and covered it with polyethylene. This pebble has become the only symbol of the fact that here someone is buried here.

Having finished, Vladimir rose to his full height and looked around. The wasteland was entirely covered with the same graves, without crosses and monuments. Wives, husbands, children, friends were buried here … Previously, their bodies were burned, but with the approach of winter, the residents of the leprosoria decided not to spend fuel and now the crematorium stoves stood, lifting their mouths, and the fire no longer burned in their bowels, taking the exhausted bodies and freed the souls and freed the souls. However, a small wasteland on the edge of the leprosoria graves filled almost completely. Vladimir did not know where he would be buried, but was sure that not here. Most likely, his body will simply be thrown into some pit or left to lie in an unnecessary room.

In thought, he mechanically patted himself in his pockets, but remembered that he had not smoked cigarettes for several months, and the lighter – a small treasure – was stored in the cache along with other necessary trifles.

The September wind blew. Not yet cold, he has already brought dreary thoughts about wintering. Ask who is Vladimir, he would say that none of the current residents of Leoperia will survive and December, but many were seriously going to hold out until spring.

Vladimir cringed, cast a farewell look at Linda’s grave and headed for Elegant. There were no thoughts in my head, emptiness rang in the skull. And the faded city around was faded and blurred, drunk, drove like a paint from a wet canvas. Vladimir ran a palm in his face, wiping away tears. When Linda died, he did not cry, but now, when her fragile body rested a meter underground, it was impossible to restrain himself.

The streets of Leprozia were deserted, as always. Too few people for such a large area.When the first soldiers came from the front, on which a viral weapon was used, they created a leprosorius for them: they took a quiet place where the sanatorium was once located. There, the first patients slowly passed away without the opportunity to contact relatives. The disease was named the legend of Karpov or Lepradov Karpov, in honor of the scientist-biologist who created the original strain of the virus, who was already infinite many times mutating. The first symptom of the virus was the loss of absolutely all the hair on the body, from the head to the smallest hair on the fingers of the legs. After the patient, the muscle convulsions began, the bones became thinner and became fragile. Organs began to refuse in humans and kidneys to the heart and lungs, which was accompanied by terrible pain, internal hemorrhages and other consequences, depending on the damaged organ. Over time, the virus began to influence the central nervous system.

The sick leprosy was considered nonukcasinosites hopelessly sick, this virus was about ninety -three percent of this virus. The remaining seven of each hundred survived, but continued to carry the disease, so there was no left out of the leprosoria for them. Between people, the proceedings were distributed only with close contact, but this was enough, because the incubation period occupied from a week to six months and all this time a person could be a peddler, without realizing it himself.

The virus was slowly but surely leaking into the cities, and soon the sick people began not to fit in the sanatorium. Then the government decided to turn a whole area in the nearest town into a leopzoria. But this turned out to be few, and soon the whole city was blocked and fenced. The indigenous people were evacuated, despite loud protests, and patients were brought in their place. The city began to be called just a leopr. In fact, being in the rear, he, along with its inhabitants, was in a siege position. In wartime, there was neither the strength nor the opportunity to monitor the whole city of mortally ill people, so that the government only brought essential items, food and clothes to the leprosoria, without helping anymore. Anyone who tried to enter or exit the city without any authority intercepted by patrol detachments consisting of a penalty battalion soldiers, individual sections were completely mined and dug up. There were times when the patrols shot the fugitives in place, and the bodies were not removed: they were afraid to get infected. Those and rotting, turning into the ground.

The war was very unsuccessful, so that the supply of the city soon turned from the already bad river into a barely living brook. Most of the patients lived starving, saved on everything that was only possible. At the end of the second summer of the existence of the leprosoria, there was almost no wooden furniture in it: it was smashed and began to stock up like firewood, water was taken from wells located in different parts of the city, clothes were removed from the dead. Electricity from gasoline generators was considered a luxury and was used only in the most extreme cases.

But due to a relatively small number of residents and their constant fluid, anyone could choose any place for living. It was possible to settle in the first empty apartment, and no one would object. But people preferred to gather in groups: the proximity of death raised. Loners were often found at home with cut veins, hanging or even under the windows – crashed to death.

Vladimir approached Elegant – a five -story hotel in which he lived with his wife and two other dozen people. The building was surprisingly well preserved, the local residents were even able to preserve wooden furniture in the large hall on the ground floor: a large oval table and a dozen chairs. And although everyone understood that with the onset of winter and they would have to be put into the fire, now everyone used these amenities to the maximum.

The discussion was just in the Great Hall when Vladimir entered there. Two argued: Mikhail Island-a sixty-five-year-old old man, once a former native of the city and completely refused to leave during the universal evacuation and Igor Kalenko is a man of about thirty, who had returned from the front of a soldier who had been traveling in Leprozia for about two months. Three more people listened to their skirmish: a sixteen -year -old fragile brown -eyed girl Anya, a young and beautiful, but infinitely sad woman named Olga and Theodore, strong, despite the leprosy, man.

– So what the hell are we still alive? – asked Mikhail, shaking his fists, his already wrinkled ugly face grimaced in a terrible mask. – Why didn’t we leave, like an OME, which I pulled out of the loop this morning? What keeps me here, you, them? – He pointed his hand to the listeners. – We are hopelessly sick, we still die in agony! I’ll tell you why: because we still believe! I thank God every morning for still alive! For the fact that I had children and grandchildren on the Great Earth, and I do not see them here, among us. I also believe that there is a medicine for this plague. I believe that the Lord did not leave us in this difficult moment. And each of the sitting in this room also believes! Let not in God and not in salvation, but in something that allows us to hold on. Many even hope to survive the winter!

“And for me, it’s all about cowardice,” Igor answered calmly. When he only arrived in the leprozoria, it was a mighty and strong guy, cheerful and good -natured, but in three months he was emaciated, became more serious – and I also plan to survive the winter. Just because it’s scary to die. Yes, I myself only thought for the first month, how to finish the Polov. And he even tried: he was climbing into the loop, and tried on the veins with glass, but I understood – I could not. Scary. A living dog is already better than a dead lion, I think so. And conversations with God, hope for recovery is just an excuse for one’s own fear. You, Misha, like me, are afraid to die. Only you are not afraid for yourself, but for your family. Want to live as long as possible to make sure you will not see them here. You have signed the death sentence when you stayed in the city, because you were afraid to live, but still survived. Now, afraid to die. For two years, the disease did not finish you, so you easier for you to talk about God and high matters. I, you know, was born six months ago, but I have never even seen him. My wife was told that I was leaked, which means already dead. And I really urinated in the morning in the morning. Now we are sitting with you, we reason, but my legs are taking off, I can’t get up, although you are standing, albeit twice as older than me. Well, what hope, what faith? It’s just scary to live, but it’s even worse to die.

Vladimir, who was standing in the doorway and listening to the conversation, suddenly coughed into a fist. Blood clots were visible in saliva. People in the hall fell silent and looked at Vladimir with sympathy.

– All? – asked Mikhail.

“That’s it,” Vladimir answered and sat down at the table.

He was given a tin mug with broth, and he nodded gratefully. Everyone around was sympathetically silent.

“You are talking about life and death here,” Vladimir said slowly, half the mug, “and I barely buried my wife. And daughter burned four months ago in the crematorium. So why do I live? And it’s not scary to die now, and no one to live.

“But it’s not for anyone, Vova,” said Anya, who came next to him, who came to the leprosorius half a year ago, “but we are like that? I also buried my parents here. Each of us has lost relatives or friends, but we are here too.

Vladimir nodded, but his gaze still remained blurred. He remembered Anya reassured while her parents were dead in the next room. She just met him on the street when she was looking for help and led him to the fifth floor of a house. Two, a man and a woman, lay in an embrace, as if warming each other on a simple iron bed. The leprosy took them at the same time or only with a small difference. Vladimir then took Anya to the “Elegant”, where the girl was accepted very cordially.

“You know, Vladimir, we all loved Linda,” Mikhail spoke again, “but she is not the first to die here, and far from the last. Every day someone dies. Do not lose heart. Live now for both of you.

Silence hung again.

Anya wanted to say something else, but steps were heard, and Lukash entered the hall, the local “Vestovaya”, as he was called. This man with cunning eyes always found out about everything first, and now he said loudly, not greeting: