About 15 years ago, a rather serious magazine "Daily World News" published the stories of people who allegedly witnessed an unusual parade that began in the village cemetery near the city of Bruck an der Mur (Austria). According to eyewitnesses, the dead suddenly left their graves at the same time and, in front of the frightened inhabitants, marched in a column through the neighboring village. The procession consisted mostly of yellowed skeletons (how they could move if the muscles connecting the bones had long ago decayed is incomprehensible), but among them there were several still fresh, unbearably fetid corpses. The otherworldly walkers indifferent to everything, as if obeying a certain call, approached the lake and one by one plunged into its waters. On the next tribute, people who came to the cemetery found that all the graves were empty. Curiously, many saw a bright light in the sky that night,and some argued that a meteorite fell into the lake.
Whether such a "false resurrection" is possible as a result of some anomaly or not, scientists have to guess. However, much earlier, in the 1980s, a similar story happened in our region, in the village of Supino, and, according to his relatives, the German teacher Karl Bogdanovich Sivokha, who was my flatmate thirty years ago, told about it. He decided to give this story to me for my wedding anniversary (July 2), in memory of the former communal life. Now he is about eighty, but he assures that he is still fresh and cheerful.
Village sorcerer
“My relatives were ordinary peasants who could never have been suspected of intending to attract attention to themselves with their lies,” Karl Bogdanovich writes in a letter. - They lived modestly and were simply not capable of invention. Therefore, I completely believe them. And then this is what happened. Next to them (husband, wife and two children) lived the Sumarokov family, consisting of the owner Varlaam, his son Makar and his daughter-in-law. Varlaam's wife died in the 60s and under strange circumstances: the day before she walked healthy and vigorous, and at night the neighbors heard her heartbreaking cries. By the morning she passed away, and the villagers said that it was her elderly husband who exchanged death with her. In the early 80s he was already over eighty, and in the village he was revered as a sorcerer. He was a tall, very thin old man. He always walked leaning on a stick,but he still kept his former military self-control. At one time he served in the army, fought, and after leaving it in the reserve with the rank of a doctor-lieutenant colonel, he took up the economy. However, not only. If someone fell ill in the village, they immediately ran to him, and in a session, for a maximum of three, he raised the most seriously ill patients to their feet. He whispers a spell, utters a conspiracy, moves his hands, gives herbal infusion - and the ailment vanishes like a hand. True, he did not accept everyone, but only, as he said, if he was allowed from above. If a person was destined to die, nothing helped, and he did not enter into disputes with providence. He could do something else: for example, make it rain or help find lost cattle. She will look into the boiling broth, say some abstruse words - and indicate exactly the place where to find her. And I have never been wrong. Although sometimes they were late with the capture,and a cow or calf was found already dead, but still exactly in the place to which he pointed.
And so he died. It happened in April, just after Easter. His death was natural and very light - in a dream. Relatives and friends came from the city, including myself, who at that time had just exchanged the fortieth day. We were friends with the Sumarokovs, and we always took their grief as our own. But what is curious is that the telegram, as it turned out, was given to them by the grandfather himself, three days before his death - did he know when he would definitely die, although he did not feel any obvious symptoms?
They buried him according to all the rules, however, without a priest. There was a problem with that in those years. But, most importantly, they were afraid that the father would refuse to serve the sorcerer's funeral service.
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First arrival
“Several days have passed since the funeral,” Karl Bogdanovich continued. - I went back to the city, and my relatives stayed with the Sumarokovs to settle some business. I will pass on the rest from the words of Uncle Gavryusha.
“On the ninth night, we were about to go to bed, scattered to our rooms, some even managed to fall asleep when we heard someone knocking loudly at the front door. My room was closest to the exit, but I didn't even have time to go to the door when it suddenly flung open itself. No, at first the lock clicked, then the bolt with which we closed the door from the inside came off, and then the door opened abruptly, as if it had been kicked out. I looked up - and in the doorway I saw Varlaam, whom we buried nine days ago. I saw him very clearly, since the full moon was shining in the sky, and its light fell into the opening. And he saw not in the form of a disembodied ghost, but in the flesh, dressed in the clothes in which they put him in the coffin. What distinguished him from the living was a kind of wooden loose gait, a blind gaze of wide open eyes, as if illuminated from within,and a bluish yellow waxy face that had time to be overgrown with stubble.
Unable to restrain myself, I let out a wild cry, and after me the other tenants who went out into the hallway screamed.
The dead man, not paying any attention to our op, walked forward and froze, fixing his fixed gaze at some point in front of him. He stood there for half a minute, then turned woodenly and walked back to the door, which slammed shut behind him with a loud bang. The lock clicked, the bolt went into the metal bracket on the jamb, and everything was quiet. We - me, my wife Varya, two of our children, the son of the sorcerer Makar and his wife Vera - stood tetanus for another half hour."
Night visits
“The next day we were vigorously discussing what we had experienced,” Uncle Gavryusha continued. - And they came to the conclusion that the sorcerer came to say goodbye to his house. But how wrong we were! The next night passed calmly, but on the third the picture repeated itself. At midnight a knock was heard, the door opened abruptly, and the dead sorcerer with a senseless, aloof gaze again crossed the threshold of his former home.
None of us slept. Trembling with horror, we climbed under a large dining table, and for some reason no one had the idea to simply turn around and run away. We were as if enchanted - apparently (we thought about this the next day), the dead man or the forces that controlled him needed us to stay at home. Maybe it was powered by human energy.
And the late Varlaam this time, as luck would have it, stayed in the house much longer. He no longer stood in one place, but began to wander around the room non-stop and at first glance completely aimlessly. He did not see us, nor did he hear the crying of the children and my and Makar's endless incantations to him, which we shouted from under the table: “Varlaam, what are you doing here? Go back to the graveyard. Varlaam, go away, leave us. My wife read Our Father, but prayer did not help either.
It was amazed that, although he could not see anything with his empty eye sockets, he never stumbled upon anything, as if he was led by some kind of internal memory. I walked around the table, chairs, wardrobe, boxes with things against the wall. In a word, he was perfectly oriented in space.
It was still dark when we finally heard the cry of the first roosters, and there was nothing sweeter than these sounds for us at that moment. At these sounds, the deceased, wandering around the room for several hours, froze in place, as if a factory was turned off inside him. And then, clearly typing a step, he walked to the door to the courtyard, which again opened by itself. I stepped through the threshold, the door slammed shut, and the house plunged into sweet silence."
Rite of exorcism
“Barely recovering from our nightly experiences, we realized that the only salvation is to consecrate the house and read cleansing prayers. Makar and his wife immediately went on a regular bus to the neighboring village for the priest, since there was no church in our working church. However, in the evening, alas, they returned without him. As Makar explained, the priest, after hearing the story of the walking dead man, flatly refused to go to his house, read prayers and carry out the rite of exorcism (expulsion of the dark forces). He did not explain the true reason for his fear, but only referred to extreme employment and poor health. However, he still gave Makar a bottle of holy water, which should be sprinkled on all corners, windows and doors, and gave a prayer book, indicating which prayers should be read. “Maybe it will help,” he reassured at parting.
When they returned, the couple did everything as Father said. And, having gathered in one room, we began to wait with horror for midnight, again forgetting that we can simply run away."
Third night
“This time, we barricaded the front door with a wardrobe, and in the living room, on the advice of the old grandmother, we drew a magic circle on the floor, around the perimeter of which we placed lighted candles. And then came the third night. Exactly at midnight, the lock clicked, but the door did not open - either the wardrobe interfered, or the desires of the deceased changed. We saw him standing in the yard in front of one of the windows, to which he leaned with a yellow-wax face. After standing this way for some time, he suddenly drew back from the window, turned around and headed towards the barn, from which he soon led the mare. It was evident that she was not afraid of him and obediently allowed herself to be led around the yard, stroking her hips and ruffling her withers. The sorcerer whispered something in her ears, and the mare whinnied with joy. This strange promenade continued until dawn. Hearing the crowing of roosters, the dead sorcerer shuddered all over,bounced off the mare and rushed out of the yard. He never came again. Either the ritual of exorcism, albeit not complete, still worked, or it had already completed its tasks here. After those dressing-ups with the dead, Makar sold the horse - God knows what the sorcerer whispered in her ears."
Epilogue
“That is how that strange story ended, which was talked about for a long time in the village,” Karl Bogdanovich concludes his letter. - Makar, by the way, was summoned to the village council more than once after that, accusing him of spreading fables and religious propaganda. However, the result of such calls was unexpected for everyone: his family was suddenly allocated a new house, and the doors and windows of the old one were boarded up with boards. This is how it stands to this day, overgrown with weeds to the very roof. The villagers assumed that in order to refute the rumors, the collective farm chairman and his deputy once went to the sorcerer's hut for the night. What they saw there remained a secret, but this very night, according to residents, influenced the decision of the authorities to move the relatives of the deceased magician to a new home.