Time is reversed

He sits covered in bruises in the corner, under the school stairs, and quietly cries in pain. The glasses are broken and lying somewhere in the corridor, hot tears obscure the boy’s blue eyes, his knees and stomach are bruised, his winter jacket and nose are bloody. A second-grader in October, Valerka Lagunov, somehow escaped from the main bullies of his class: the big guy Pashka Epikhin and his company. Eight-year-old Lagunov was a small and thin quiet excellent student, a punching bag for 2 “A”, who was offended by everyone and everything. “Hey, bespectacled guy, why did you run away?” Yepikhin, who found him, shouted. “He doesn’t want to let me copy off my homework,” Pashka neighed and sang along, fair-haired and sleek Dimka Marfa “So now we’ll take it ourselves,” the third of the group of bullies, Volodya Ukropov, grinned, and, snatching the briefcase from Valerka, he began to shake it, tearing the straps and spilling out Lagunov’s textbooks and notebooks. Valera started to jerk, but they roughly pushed him away and grabbed him, hitting him in the bleeding nose. Dimka kicked him in the stomach, and the boy fell to the floor, doubled over in pain, and the fighters continued to beat and kick Valerka. The boy had already lost consciousness until he heard his native, saving, stern voice: “What’s going on here?” It was Denis Lagunov, headman of 9 “A” and the entire school, Valerka’s older brother. With him were his friends Igor Korzukhin and Dimon Malosolov. The bullies sharply backed away towards the wall, and Valerka, quickly standing up, darted like a bullet behind his brother’s back. - Uh…we’re okay. Just wanted to ask about the lesson. “We are all leaving,” said the chickened-out Epikhin, seeing the elders and also the head boy of the school. — They wanted to ask, but so your classmate has blood and a torn down jacket? — the ninth-grader began sarcastically, “I’m only talking to you only because you are juniors, if you were older, I would hit you in the head myself and take you to the headmistress.” For now I’m just warning you. Now let’s get out of here at a trot,” Denis said angrily. Epikhin and Co. ran away, and the elder Lagunov turned to his little brother and, taking off his jacket, handed it to Valerka with the words: “Take off mine, Valer, and let’s go home.” “Thank you, Deniska,” the October boy said, crying, taking off his brother’s jacket and collecting his fallen things. - Nothing. And remember: I will always be with you,” the elder smiled kindly, hugging his little brother who was clinging to him and wiping his nose with his handkerchief.

***

The young stratilate woke up abruptly. “This dream again,” he muttered, putting on glasses and sneakers and going out onto the veranda. This was one of the bright memories of his older brother that had not come in Valerka’s dreams for a long time. - YOU PROMISED THAT YOU WOULD ALWAYS BE WITH ME, AND YOU ARE NOT!!! And all because of the “Petrel” and the Sickle,” the pioneer shouted, looking with tear-stained eyes at the stars and turning sharply, with all his anger, he hit the trunk of a tree growing next to the veranda of the fourth building. The tree, from the blow of the young evil stratilate, flew into the distance, deep into the forest park on the territory of the camp. But this did not help, the vampire wanted blood, and Lagunov rushed into the forest for prey. Running through the forest in search of some animal, the young king of the immortals noticed a deer. Having approached, Valera bared his teeth and rushed at his prey. Having thrown its prey to the ground, the predator grabbed the animal’s neck with its fangs, greedily drinking its blood. Although animal blood does not satiate as well as human blood, it helps to satisfy hunger. He understood this in the fall of three years ago, when he first encountered the full moon and his new nature. Having drunk and calmed down, Lagunov wandered back to camp. The next day a disco was announced. The pioneers could not spend the day calmly, waiting for the evening. At 19:00 the guys poured into the camp club, music started playing and the pioneers, along with the counselors and camp staff, rushed to dance. Valera and Leva did not take part in this because they felt that something was wrong. And so it happened. The street suddenly became quiet, even the birds could not be heard. There was such dead silence. Suddenly, staggering figures appeared from behind the forest. When they came out into the light from the moon, the boys saw animated corpses. These were zombie leeches from the local abandoned old cemetery. Valera and Leva, baring their teeth, stood in a fighting pose, protecting the inhabitants of the camp who were having fun at the disco. There were about ten dead people, but this was a serious force against two boys, even though they were vampires. “One for five,” asked Valerka “One for five,” Leva agreed. And the young stratilates, the king and the prince, the sworn brothers, rushed into battle, rushing between the zombies, tearing their necks and twisting their heads. The battle lasted about fifteen minutes, until ten headless bodies and the same number of heads, not far from them, remained lying on the ground. “Well, Serp made his first move,” said Valera “And we showed him that we’re not bad at it.” — Leva answered, — we should get rid of the corpses. “They carried it into the forest,” Valerka suggested. It took the named brothers about an hour to get rid of the corpses and finally go have fun with the rest of the guys