There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby Read Online Free PDF

blank and flickering. The next day the phone stopped working. Out on the street, people walked along with shopping bags and backpacks. Someone had sawed down a young tree and was dragging it home through the empty yard.
    It was time to figure out what to do with the cat, which hadn’t eaten in two days and was meowing terribly on the balcony.
    “We need to let her in and feed her,” said the grandfather. “Cats are a valuable source of fresh, vitamin-rich meat.”
    Nikolai let the cat in, and they fed it some soup—not very much, no need to overfeed it after its fast. The little girl wouldn’t leave the cat’s side; while it had been on the balcony, the girl kept throwing herself at the balcony door to try and touch her. Now she could feed the little creature to her heart’s content, though eventually even her mother couldn’t take it. “You’re feeding her what I tear out of my mouth to give to you!” she cried. There were now enough supplies for five days.

    Everyone waited for something to happen, some sort of mobilization to be announced. On the third night they heard the roar of motors outside. It was the army leaving town.
    “They’ll reach the outskirts and set up a quarantine,” said the grandfather. “No one gets in, no one gets out. The scariest part is that it all turned out to be true, what the young man said. We’ll have to go into town for food.”
    “If you give me your cologne, I’ll go,” said Nikolai. “I’m almost out.”
    “Everything will be yours soon enough,” the grandfather said meaningfully. He’d lost a lot of weight. “It’s a miracle the plumbing still works.”
    “Don’t jinx it!” snapped his wife.
    Nikolai left that night for the store. He took the shopping bags and the backpack, as well as a knife and a flashlight. He came back while it was still dark, undressed on the stairs, threw the clothes into the trash chute, and, naked, wiped himself down with the cologne. Wiping one foot, he stepped into the apartment; only then did he wipe the other foot. He crushed the cotton balls together and threw them out the door, then dipped the backpack in a pot of boiling water, and also the canvas shopping bags. He hadn’t gotten much: soap, matches, salt, some oatmeal, jelly, and decaffeinated coffee. The grandfather was extremely pleased, however—he was positively beaming. Nikolai held the knife over a burner on the stove.

    “Blood,” the grandfather noted approvingly before going to bed, “that’s the most infectious thing of all.”

    They had enough food now for ten days, according to their calculations, if they subsisted on jelly and oatmeal, and all ate very little.
    Nikolai started going out every night, and now there was the question of his clothing. He would fold it into a cellophane bag while he was still on the stairs, and each time he came in he would disinfect the knife over a burner. He still ate plenty, though without any remarks, now, from his father-in-law.
    The cat grew skinnier by the hour. Her fur was hanging loose on her, and meals were torturous, for the girl kept trying to throw bits of food onto the floor for the cat as Elena rapped the girl on the knuckles. They were all yelling, now, all the time. They’d throw the cat out of the kitchen and close the door, and then the cat would begin hurling itself against the door to get back in.
    Eventually this led to a horrifying scene. The grandparents were sitting in the kitchen when the girl appeared with the cat in her arms. Both their mouths were smeared with something.
    “That’s my girl,” said the girl to the cat—and kissed it, probably not for the first time, on its filthy mouth.
    “What are you doing?” the grandmother cried.
    “She caught a mouse,” said the girl. “She ate it.” And once again the girl kissed the cat on the mouth.

    “What mouse?” asked the grandfather. He and his wife sat still with shock.
    “A gray one.”
    “A puffy one? A fat one?”
    “Yes, it was fat