"Chci to pryč" she said plainly. The very old woman had my heart in her tear filled eyes. I had never seen her cry about Nazinsky before, but when I asked her what could anyone do now about the past, she made it clear the past was still alive. It needed to be killed.

I called her great grandson, Emil. He is my age and also second generation American. I explained we were gonna do it and soon. I could visualize his reaction from the silence. He was in his garage and looking at the tools we would need. All I had was a couple of beanies I was cutting eye holes into.

"I will bring dad's Milageto." he said. He was chewing on something. It wasn't food, he just picked things up and chewed on them when he was stressed and nervous. But this had to be done and soon. The anniversary of Granny's escape was in a few days.

That night my sister drove the pickup and we rode in the back. We arrived just before midnight at the corner of Evanston and Thirty-sixth. There it stood, a memorial to atrocities so blatantly evil that many people simply didn't believe those things had ever happened. It stood proud and glorious, proclaiming that those evils lived on in celebration, even. Seven tons of bronze Bolshevik.

I heard a click and looked at Emil.

"What is that for?" I asked him. He had a gun as well as the tools we had brought.

"Evil doesn't die easy." he muttered.

"We need acetylene, not lead." I complained.

He rolled his eyes at how naive I sounded to him and put on his mask. Sis kept the truck running with the license plates on the seat next to her. There were people walking around, even at this hour. We had to do it anyway, there was no going back from our agreement. This was a matter of honor.

A battle of good and evil.

A homeless guy walked up to us with our ski masks as we unloaded our equipment.

"Can I help?" he asked. I looked at him.

I have the ability to see who people really are inside, just a glimpse usually. When someone is really being themselves though, I know who I am dealing with. This man wasn't just some drunk grimy bum. He was a hero, he had risked his life before and made sacrifices. He had great courage locked inside. I knew this about him. Here he was, waiting to do his part. But there was no time to deal with him so I said:

"Keep a lookout and run interference if we need more time." I said to him.

"Yes, dík." he had an odd smile. He was also a crazy person, but it takes one to know one, I suppose.

I put the ladder up to the larger-than life Lenin and held it while Emil climbed up. He put on some goggles and started up the cutting torch. This was gonna take awhile.

"Look, look what they are doing!" I heard some girl tell her friends as they walked from a bar.

Suddenly our new friend jumped out at them and scared the crap out of them. The one who already had her phone out had it swatted from her hand to the ground. I cringed but realized he had just bought us more time.

Then my heart froze like I was gonna die. Sweat burst out and I couldn't breathe as I spotted a patrol car come around the corner. Two cops were in the car that I saw looking right at us under the street light. Then they looked away and kept on going. I couldn't believe it, they had ignored us. They had to have seen us!

"Were those cops?" Emil's voice was shaking.

"I'd say vnuky." I exhaled and my heart resumed. I felt light-headed.

"They will come back when a call comes in." Emil decided.

"Then we need to hurry up." I grimaced.

"We are almost through the neck." Emil was heating the other side now.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Maybe it is time to get the hammer." I tried to remain calm. I was sweating profusely. The cops rolling by was a warning and had me seriously rattled. They had our number now and it was just a matter of time before they came back and arrested us.

I picked up the sledgehammer we had brought as Emil collected our stuff and retreated took it to the pickup. Our friend came over and helped hold the ladder for me.

"Heads up!" I grunted and swung with everything I had. The bronze face took the impact with a moan and I swung a second time. Now the head was hanging by slag. I swung downward to snap it off and it impacted on the concrete below with a tremendous thud.

Then, for reasons I cannot explain, I looked inside. The streetlight was aimed into the darkness and I saw what no human eyes should ever see. It was in the statue! It was crawling out from the depths of the darkness, trying to avoid the light that was shining into it.

I fell backwards screaming in terror. No such thing should exist, human wickedness was enough. Yet I had seen that something far worse hungers for the evil we all know and love. Its eyes had peered from the eternal night inside its bronze prison. We had released it. We had cut the head from the statue and opened the door to its everlasting cell. Somehow they had imprisoned it, but we had set it free.

I was stunned, laying on my back on the hard ground. I'd hit my head pretty hard in the fall.

"Its in there, its coming out!" I was screaming.

"Jesus, Frank, your hair, your eyes!" Emil was backing away from me and then he looked up and his own eyes became like mine, eyes that had beheld inhuman evil for the first time. It was emerging from the open neck. I saw his hair standing straight up and draining of color. It was devouring our fear, the appetizers to our souls.

I knew this was happening, could feel its strength, its presence. Then Emil had his gun in his hands. He discharged the entire clip in thundering appraisal of the horror we were seeing. It indeed felt the defiance and the few seconds of resistance. But the bullets had no effect.

Then a steady moaning seemed to rise from the ground itself. It spread wings of pure darkness to obfuscate the light. In shape it was like some kind of demonic being, except no illustration I had ever seen captured the magnitude of its ominous visage. Its claws were for gripping prey that no animal talons ever caught. Its teeth were for biting into things that no living thing could eat. Its eyes saw into a spectrum that we can only imagine when we hear a sermon on Sundays.

I gasped and gagged on the noxious cloud around it. Like something fetid and rotten and sweet like sulfur. Our homeless friend threw a bottle at it and the glass shattered on its arm. It ignored this attack, it was already at its full strength. With a shriek that aged us all a decade of our lives it exhaled its second breath and then it thrust its wings into a downdraft that knocked us all flat to the ground. Skybound into the night it soared to desolate heights and was gone.

The next few moments I cannot recall very well. I was functioning in shock and awful post-nightmare haziness. We left the severed head on the ground and climbed like old men with arthritis into the back of the vehicle and left. I remember hearing sirens.

A few days later our Granny departed this world. The owners of the statue had it repaired and posted a reward for the capture and conviction of its vandals. Emil and I never spoke of it to each other afterward.

I believe that the evils we commit are sustenance for somethings that are far worse.