Fiction

Loud reports echoed off in the distance, startling Mikhail Popov. The old man’s muscles stiffened. His gloved left hand formed a tight claw over his left knee. Tingles of electricity pulsed through the bony, fragile body shrouded by a long thick brown overcoat and a fluffy gray ushanka. Dull, enlightened eyes flashed with suspicion as he sorted through the faces milling around the Red Square. His chest quaked. The brittle ribs neared dilapidation as his heart hammered relentlessly. The blood in his vein fizzled with…adrenaline? Fear? Panic? Confusion?

Lisette ran out not long after, crimson-faced, eyes bulging, lips wet with vomit. A mangled cry of terror escaped her lips. She looked shaken to the core. Out of breath. Her heart rampaged.

It’s the asylum, Ismail had thought. The crazy stories they tell about that place. But he had driven people there before and he knew these stories were myths fabricated by the public to drum up some pizzazz in an otherwise lackluster town.
“Fuck!” Ismail screamed suddenly and slammed his foot into the brakes. But he was too late.
Ismail ran through the girl in the middle of the road and his heart nearly exploded. In that split second, he was convinced he had murdered a little child. She seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and all he got was a flash of wet dark gleaming hair and a dirty dress that barely clung to her shoulders. But in that same split second, everything changed. The girl went right through the cab, like she was molded from smoke, and slammed into Ismail.