Author: VoodooCannonball
Spoilers: None
Synopsis: The Little Odessa neighborhood of Cleveland is home to many things, most of them Russian in origin. However, someone or something, is killing off local Russian men, freezing them solid in their own apartments. At a loss the local police department calls in Mulder and Scully to investigate. Set during March of season three (soon after the leap year), this is my attempt to write an X-Files story as true to the original format as possible.
Rating: A high PG-13. This may be close to R, but I'll put it to you this way: it's no more violent than anything they would have allowed on TV back in the day. When you consider episodes like "Hell Money," "Roland," and "Die Hand Die Verletzt," so on, this doesn't seem so bad.
Disclaimer: Christ Carter and 1013 productions own the X-Files universe and Mulder and Scully. If you don't recognize it, it's probably mine. And with that, Salud!
Unmerciful
1223 Pushkin St. Little Odessa, Cleveland
2:28 a.m. March 17th, 1996
March had always been a cold month in Cleveland. While much of the rest of the country was spending that middle of the month tentatively poking its head out of its burrow and sniffing the rapidly thawing air, such niceties would have to wait until April or May in Northern Ohio. Although snow was less common now than it had been say three or four weeks earlier the weather forecasters refused to disappoint and instead cheerfully replaced their forecasts of slush and sleet with that of fog and cold rain (coupled with the usual icy blast of Canadian air fresh from the North Pole). Yet such things did not usually bother the denizens of the "Little Odessa" neighborhood of Cleveland, who were used to far worse. Although in terms of weather alone Cleveland ranked up there with say Vladivostok or Moscow, it was a far cry from the icy mornings of northern Siberia, complete with the villages' lack of central heating or running water. In any case those who did not come directly from Russia or had immigrated as young children had spent most of their lives in Cleveland and as such knew better than to complain to their elders about the difficulties of winter in America. There were far worse fates.
Regardless of the weather outside Piotyr, along with the fifty or so other patrons of 1223 Pushkin Street, was in a jolly mood. The gas was turned up and the sweat and body heat of all the other people crowded around the basement provided all the necessary warmth. That, coupled with the Vodka which ran freely around the bar and the blood which splattered about the 15 by 15 foot arena was more than enough to get the adrenaline pumping. Just another fight night at Yuri's Pub and Grill.
The bell rang and once more the two tired boxers retreated to their coaches at the opposite ends of the makeshift ring, spitting blood and saliva into the outstretched buckets of their handlers. It was a good night for Piotyr. The first two fights had gone exactly the way he had suspected they would and all in all he had raked in a tidy sum. Regardless of the way this third fight went he was going to be going home with a profit, so he had decided to splurge a little.
The bell rang again, signaling the beginning of round thirteen. Piotyr looked up from his glass just in time to see the fighter with the red shorts deliver a wicked undercut to his opponent, a sinewy man sporting a Christ and Theotokos icon tattoo on his left bicep. Theotokos-boy went sprawling back, falling up against the ropes as he shielded his face from the rain of follow-up punches red shorts was throwing at him. The bell rang several times in a half-hearted attempt to restore order and a veneer of sportsmanship to the match, but it was quickly drowned out by the roar of cheers, jeers, and obscenities from the crowd. Before anyone could intervene, red shorts delivered a solid blow to the side of Theotokos' head, knocking him sprawling to the ground. As one, the crowd rose and shouted, pumping their fists in the air jubilantly or shouting themselves hoarse, goading Theotokos back into consciousness. Money was exchanged in a hundred different places and the crowd slowly began to expand as it surged towards the bar, restrooms, and door.
Piotyr briefly thought about staying for the fourth fight, but quickly decided against it. It was getting late and he had lost interest in the fights. Theotokos had done all right, even if he ended up losing. At least Piotyr wouldn't be loosing too much money off of him. Slapping a twenty-dollar bill down on the bar, Piotyr swallowed the rest of his drink, adjusted his coat, and made for the door.
The cold winter air hit Piotyr with all the force of an oncoming train. He had been born and raised in America and as such had no experience with the depths of a Russian winter, but just the same felt that it couldn't have been much worse in the old country. Personally, he thought the old folks who kept bitching about the cold and how hard times were over there were full of it. After all, most of them had been in the US so long they had long forgotten what it was actually like to be trapped in a log cabin on the tundra, hearing the wolves howling in the distance. Besides, it was the fate of every generation to berate its successors, and Russians had nothing if not a long memory and a primordial fear of their children "growing soft."
A light fog had settled in, turning the dim light of the streetlamps into little more than yellow sodium phosphorescent halos in the gray-black night sky. Visibility was still decent and in any case, he didn't have far to go; his apartment was only a few blocks away. However, with each step Piotyr took further away from the bar, the less comfortable he felt. It was a dark night and while it was too cold for any but the most desperate junkie or homeless person to be out, he still quickened his pace.
It wasn't anything tangible per se which bothered Piotyr, but just a general sense of unease. Looking back behind him he could make nothing out in the fog except for the few dim streetlights and trash cans lying on the side of the street. There was something else...a general feeling that something was watching him as he made his way through the damp haze of a Cleveland night. It might have been the liquor, but Piotyr had only had two drinks all night long and was far from drunk. A little buzzed perhaps, but not drunk.
As he rounded the corner of Pushkin Street and turned onto Singer Avenue, Piotyr stopped dead in his tracks. He cocked his ears and listened. Nothing. Perhaps it had just been another trick of haze: sounds behaved strangely in fog. He turned back to his path and took another five steps and then stopped again just as suddenly. Yes, there definitely was something there. His footsteps sounded tinny and hollow, not solid and rubbery the way they should have as his feet hit the sidewalk.
He took another step. Nothing. Another. Still nothing. He was about to dismiss it out of hand again and rush back to his apartment (whose window he could now see in the distance) when he heard it again. The footsteps. However, he was not walking this time. They were slowly growing louder and advancing on him from up the alley.
Piotyr turned around. There was nothing behind him that he could discern. A few of the silhouettes familiar to every city dweller: a parked car, a dumpster, the last few steps of a fire escape ladder, but nothing in the street. A cold, sharp breeze stirred into life, sending a newspaper blowing aimlessly across the road. And then, almost before he could register it as an animate object, stood a human figure.
It was hard to make out any of the details. The figure was small, hunched over. Judging by the headscarf it wore wrapped around its head it was almost undoubtedly female. It appeared to have a cane it its right hand. It stood there motionless in the fog, backlit ever so slightly against the swirling gray by one of the few streetlights at the end of the alley.
How long they stood there staring at each other, he couldn't say. Piotyr licked his lips. "Can I help you?" he began haltingly in his strong Midwestern accent, a product of 11 years of American public education. If the woman heard him, she gave no sign. "Look lady," he began again, no longer sure she even understood English, "this is a pretty bad neighborhood. I wouldn't be out this late if I was you." Once again, no response.
It may have just been a trick of the lighting, but to Piotyr the fog seemed to thicken, grow darker. Although not easily frightened or nervous by nature, Piotyr never felt completely at ease around the older denizens of his neighborhood. Many of them came from the sinister backwoods of old Soviet Russia and although he wasn't superstitious, Piotyr's mother had frightened him more than once with tales of the evil witch Baba Yaga and her house made of human bones. One way or another it was never good to directly deal with the old people (who usually didn't understand you anyway). You never knew what they were capable of or what exactly you could find yourself getting into. And this deep in an immigrant community, every wall had ears.
"Ya ne panimayu Russki," he tried again, summoning up what few Russian phrases he could remember hearing around the house as a child. "I don't speak Russian lady, so you're out of luck." Piotyr then turned around and resumed his walk towards his building, trying to appear nonchalant and uncaring, but in fact deeply troubled. After taking a few steps, he could again hear the hollow, tinny sound of the woman following him. Looking over his shoulder, he was unsurprised (if frightened) to see the woman following. Quickening his pace, he once again heard the woman's footsteps increase, effortlessly matching his.
Piotyr broke into a dead run, mindless of the wet pavement and the possible embarrassment this would bring him in the morning if his friends ever found out. Poor little Piotyr running away like a scared kid from some old babushka. Whatcha matter, P? You scared of the dark or sumptin? He could hear them laughing already. However, he was there, and they were not. And Piotyr had the feeling that if they were with him, they'd be running to.
The door to his building loomed in the blackness, slowly growing larger with each step he took. Panting and wheezing, Piotyr reached his hands forward. In the distance he could still hear the maddening pace of the old woman coming closer and closer. His hot, sweaty palms slammed against the glass and, fumbling for his keycard he looked back over his shoulder, half expecting to see the old lady right on top of him, sinking her fangs into his flesh.
What he saw was so comforting he almost burst out laughing right then and there. Where not five seconds before Piotyr could have sworn the old lady was about to rip him to shreds, there was nothing to be seen, except the writhing and swirling mist. Double checking his path he assured himself that, no indeed, there was nothing in fact there. Merciful silence filled his ears. Not only was there nothing to be seen, but there was nothing to be heard either. If there ever had been a woman there (a possibility which was now rapidly gaining credibility in his frazzled mind), she was long gone. "Probably fell and busted her hip or something," Piotyr chuckled, sliding the key card and walking in through the armor-glass door and up the main stairway.
Despite the fact that he was now home and safe and in the warmth, Piotyr made sure to lock his door upon arriving at his place. Turning on the foyer light, he dumped his coat on the sofa and headed directly to kitchen, fully intending to pour himself a nice, stiff drink, stopping only to switch on the TV. Straight vodka. Or hell, maybe even a screwdriver. Man, after that episode downstairs, he sure could use one. And why not? He had done all right tonight at the fight. He deserved a little celebration.
If Piotyr had been paying more attention he might have noticed the particular way the ice he dropped into his glass tinkled, or the way the glass itself seemed even cooler to the touch than usual. And if Piotyr had been especially astute instead of merely relaxing in the safety of his own home, he might have noticed a peculiar reflection in his bottle as he poured himself a drink: that of a tall, lean figure standing in the corner of the room, dressed all in black with a flowing white beard. By the time Piotyr noticed these things, it was too late. And as the television announcers recited boring facts about the occupation of Haiti, the upcoming presidential primaries and the state of the Cleveland Indians, Piotyr lay on his cold kitchen floor, his life slowly fading away to nothing like a flower in an early autumn frost.