Genesis. Volume 1.

June 14, 1985. Saturday. 7:00 a.m. The Walker house. Arthur woke two hours before they'd agreed to meet. He lay in the dark and listened to the birds chirping outside the window—ordinary, alive, with no concern for clowns or sealed houses. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the sky had already turned gray, flooded with milk. The curtains were half-drawn, a thin strip of light seeping through the gap—cold as steel. He hadn't slept. It had been many nights—he'd lost count after the tenth. Sleep came in fits, leaving a heavy head and a sticky taste in his mouth. Arthur turned on his side, looked at the empty cot—Max had gone home last night. The house was quiet. His mother asleep, his father asleep. Only the clock in the kitchen ticking—measured, relentless. Arthur sat up, swung his legs onto the cold floor. Pulled on socks, jeans, a sweater that was inside out. He turned it right. His jacket—an old denim one with a torn pocket. He checked the pockets: no knife, he'd left it in the garage last time. He decided not to take one. Outside, dawn was breaking. He went downstairs. A nightlight burned in the kitchen—dim, yellow, picking out the edge of the table, a forgotten cup, a plate with dried crumbs. He poured a glass of water, drank it in one gulp. Cold, with a hint of chlorine. His mother had left a note on the fridge: "Omelet in the pot. Don't fry anything." Arthur didn't eat. He put the kettle on, brewed black tea with two spoonfuls of sugar, took a sip—burned his tongue. Lisa came down ten minutes later. Already dressed—jeans, a turtleneck sweater, hair in a ponytail. Her face pale, dark circles under her eyes. "You didn't sleep?" "No. You?" "Same." "Tea?" "Yeah." He poured her a cup. Lisa took it in both hands, pressed it to her chest, warming her fingers. She didn't drink—she stared at the dark surface, where the ceiling was reflected. "Are you scared?" "No. You?" "No." She lied. He knew it. She knew he knew. But there was no point in talking about it. They sat in the kitchen in total silence. The clock showed half past seven. June 14, 1985. Saturday. 8:30 a.m. Jenny's house. Jenny hadn't slept all night. She sat on the windowsill, knees tucked up, staring at the street. Across the way, a single streetlamp burned—the last working one in the area. Beneath it, an empty bench. In her hands she clutched a ring. Old, with faded turquoise and a faded letter "B." Her mother's? Her grandmother's? She didn't know. She'd found it in a jewelry box after Emma went home and had held it in her fist all night. The blood on her cheek had dried—the blood that had flowed from her eye in her dream. Jenny hadn't washed it off. She didn't want to. Let it stay. Outside, dawn was breaking. She stood up, put on jeans, a sweater, a jacket. Sneakers—old, broken-in. She went downstairs. The kitchen light was on—her mother was already clattering pots. "You're up so early?" her mother asked without turning around. "Yeah. We're going out." "With Emma?" "With Emma." Her mother didn't ask anything else. She just sighed heavily, in that adult way, and went back to stirring the oatmeal. Jenny went out. The morning was damp, cold. A dewdrop lay on the porch railing—she ran her finger across it, wiped it away. She walked to the gate. Emma was waiting around the corner, by the old acacia tree. She wasn't smoking. She stood leaning against the trunk, staring at the sky. When she saw Jenny, she nodded silently. "You ready?" "No. But I'm going." They walked toward the Walker house. June 14, 1985. Saturday. 9:00 a.m. Outside the Walker house. Arthur, Lisa, and Max were waiting at the gate. Max looked the worst of all—pale, red-eyed, dried blood on his lip: he'd been biting it when nervous. "Everyone here?" "Everyone." Emma looked them over—the five of them. Jack wasn't there. Jack would never be there. "Let's go." They moved toward the mansion. The road was long—across the whole city, past the old pharmacy, past the barbershop, past the park where they'd played as children. The city was waking up: shops opening, smoke rising from chimneys, people walking dogs. Normal people. Normal life. They walked in silence. The Genesis mansion appeared around the bend half an hour later. It stood on the hill, black, silent. Its windows—dark hollows. The door was slightly ajar. Arthur stopped at the gate. "Are you sure he'll want to see us?" Emma asked. She wasn't smoking—she'd quit three days ago, after waking up with black water in her throat. But her fingers trembled, and she kept reaching for her empty pocket. "Not us." Arthur looked at Jenny. "Her." Jenny stood apart, pale, red-eyed. A dried black tear on her cheek. Her hair was disheveled, her lips chapped. She looked like she hadn't slept in a week—and she probably hadn't. "Why me?" "Because he came to you. In your dream. He spoke to you. That means he wants to speak again." "What if he doesn't?" "He will," a voice said. It came from nowhere—from the air, from the wind, from the ground beneath their feet. Quiet, with an echo, as if the speaker stood in an empty room and the words traveled through thick water. Everyone turned. Jack stood at the second-floor window—behind the dusty glass, where a moment ago there had been no one. His face was gray, almost transparent, like the boy in the basement. One eye green, the other red. He looked without expression. "You came out," Arthur's voice faltered. "I didn't come out. I'm always here. You just look." "We came to take you," Max said. "You can't. I'm part of this place. Like the walls. Like the floor. Like the smell." "We'll find a way," Lisa gripped her notebook so hard her knuckles went white. "Don't look. If you free me—you free him too. He'll get out. And then others will die." "What if you die?" Emma asked. "I can't die. I'm bound to him. We'll be like this forever." "Then we'll search forever," Arthur said. Jack looked at him. The red eye glinted dully, oily, like a drop of blood on glass. "You don't understand. Every time you come, he grows stronger. Your fear is his food. Your hope is his fuel." "Then we'll stop being afraid." "You can't. You're afraid for me. And that's the strongest fear." He vanished—didn't fade, didn't dissolve, simply ceased to be. As if he'd never been there. Jenny stepped forward. "I'm going in." "No." "He spoke to me. Showed me dreams. Maybe I can reach him." "What if you can't?" "Then I'll stay there. Like Jack." "No," Lisa moved toward her. "We can't lose another one." "You won't. I'll come back." Jenny looked at Emma. "Look after them." Emma wanted to say something sharp, cutting, as she always did. But she didn't. She just nodded—short, once. Her fingers dug into her jacket sleeve. Jenny approached the gate and pushed it. The gate opened without a sound—the hinges didn't creak, the panel didn't shudder. As if someone had oiled them a minute before her arrival. "Jenny," Arthur called. "Be careful." "I will." She stepped onto the grounds. June 15, 1985. Saturday. 11:00 a.m. The Genesis mansion. Inside. Inside it was dark. Her flashlight picked out the familiar walls—gray, stained with damp, with crumbling plaster. The staircase, whose steps remembered her great-grandfather's footsteps. The doors behind which people had once lived. Everything as before—and yet different. The air was heavier, as if pumped full of lead. The silence thick as cotton. Jenny held the flashlight in one hand, the ring with the letter "B" in the other. The metal was warm, alive, pulsing in time with her heart. "Jack?" Her voice came out muffled; the walls swallowed it. No one answered. She walked into the living room. The paintings on the walls stared with blind eyes—faded colors, cracked frames. The portrait of Jonathan Brooks, her great-grandfather, who had opened the door to the monster. Jenny looked at it for a long moment—at the mustache, the stern gaze, the expensive suit. "You were a fool. But I don't want to repeat your mistakes." The painting didn't answer. Jenny approached the stairs. "I know you're here. Come out." Silence. Then footsteps. From above. Slow, heavy, like a man carrying an unbearable burden. Jenny looked up. On the top step stood Crowley. Not in a clown costume—in a simple white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and dark trousers. A face without makeup. Tired, old, with deep wrinkles on his cheeks and forehead, circles under his eyes, deep as saucers. Beside him stood Jack. Gray, with a red eye, in the same clothes he'd worn when he entered the mansion. Only his sneakers were clean—no dirt, no dust. "You came. I knew you would." "Let him go." "I can't. He came himself. He chose himself." "He chose because he had no choice." "There's always a choice." Crowley spoke quietly, almost soundlessly, but each word fell like a stone into water. "You can choose too. Stay here. With him. Forever." "I won't stay." "Then why did you come?" "To tell him," she turned to Jack, "that we haven't forgotten. That we'll come back. That we'll find a way." "You won't find it. I searched for sixty years. I didn't find it." "You searched for a way out. We'll search for a way to free him." Crowley laughed—creakily, like unoiled swings. But there was no malice in the laugh. Only weariness. "Free him? He can't be freed. He's part of me. I'm part of him." "Then we'll find a way to separate you." "There is no such way." "There will be. We'll create it." Jenny looked Jack straight in the eye—the red eye, the gray face. "Can you hear me?" Jack nodded. Slowly, like a doll whose strings had been half cut. "We'll come back. I promise." She turned and walked toward the exit. "Jenny," Jack called. She stopped. "Thank you. For coming." "Don't mention it." She walked out. June 15, 1985. Saturday. 12:00 p.m. The Genesis mansion. Outside. Jenny came out through the gate. Her face was wet—not with tears. A gray sweat on her forehead and cheeks. The blood on her cheek had turned black—embedded in her skin, wouldn't wash off. "How are you?" Emma stood closest, two steps away, ready to catch her. "He said there's no way. That he can't be freed." "He lies," Arthur said. "He never lies. He only frightens. But he wasn't frightening now. He was telling the truth." "Then we'll find a way he doesn't know," Lisa said. "How?" "I don't know. But we will." She looked at the mansion. On the second floor, in the room that hadn't been there before, a gray light glowed—the same as in the well, as at the altar, as in Crowley's eyes without makeup. Weak, barely visible—like a candle in the distance. Jack stood in the window. He looked at them—the five of them huddled at the gate—and smiled. The smile was foreign, crooked, drawn on. "We'll come back," Arthur said. Jack raised his hand and waved. Slowly, unnaturally—like a doll whose strings had been cut, yet it still moved. Then the light went out. The mansion sank into darkness. June 15, 1985. Saturday. 12:30 p.m. Street in front of the mansion. They stood at the gate and stared at the closed door. No one spoke. The wind rustled in the treetops, somewhere in the distance a dog barked. Ordinary sounds. Normal. But everything around them felt unreal—like a stage set, like a dream they couldn't wake from. "He won't come out?" Jenny asked. Her voice was quiet, like a child afraid to hear the answer. "He won't come out. Jack said so. He sealed him in." "And Jack?" Arthur didn't answer. Lisa stood apart, arms wrapped around herself. Old dried blood on her face—the blood that had flowed from her nose in the basement. Max crouched, his face buried in his knees. His shoulders shook. Emma clutched an empty cigarette pack—crushed it, smoothed it, crushed it again. Jenny looked at her hands. At the ring with the letter "B." At the red thread pulsing in time with her heart. "What now?" Max rose. Arthur looked at the mansion. The windows were dark. Only on the second floor, in the room that hadn't been there before, the gray light flickered on again—weak, barely visible. Like a candle in the distance. Like a promise. Like a graveyard flame. "Now we search." He turned and walked away. The others followed. No one looked back. Somewhere on the hill, the Genesis mansion stood black and silent. No one burned in its windows. But they knew—Jack was there. Watching. Waiting.