Let the right one in (28 page)

It hardly hurt at all anymore, just felt like a tingling, an electric current through her fingers and toes as they thinned out, took on a new shape. The bones crackled in her hands as they stretched out, shot out through the melting skin of the fingertips and made long, curved claws. Same thing with her toes.

Eli jumped a couple of meters up onto the trunk of the tree, dug in her claws, and climbed up to a thick branch that hung out over the path. Curled the claws on her feet around the branch and sat without moving. A shooting sensation in her teeth as Eli thought them sharp. The enamel bulged out, was sharpened by an invisible file, became sharp. Eli carefully bit herself in her lower lip, a crescent-shaped row of needles that almost punctured the skin. Now only the wait.

+

It was close to ten and the temperature in the room was approaching the unbearable. Two bottles of vodka had already been consumed, a new one had been taken out, and everyone agreed that Gosta was one hell of a guy and his kindness wouldn't count for nothing.

Only Virginia had been taking it easy, since she had to get up and work the next day. She also seemed to be the only one who was affected by the air in the room. The already damp smell of cat piss and stale air was now mixed with smoke, alcohol fumes, and the perspiration of six bodies.

Lacke and Gosta were still sitting on either side of her on the couch, now only half conscious. Gosta was petting a cat on his lap, a cat who was wall-eyed, something which had caused Morgan to have such fits of laughter that he had hit his head on the table and then had a shot of pure alcohol in order to dull the pain.

Lacke wasn't saying much. He mostly sat staring straight ahead, his eyes glazed over with haziness, then mist and fog. His lips moved soundlessly from time to time as if he were conversing with a ghost.

Virginia got up and walked over to the window. "Is it OK if I open this?"

Gosta shook his head.

"The cats . . . can .. . jump out."

"But I'll stand here and keep watch."

Gosta kept shaking his head mechanically and Virginia opened the window. Air! She greedily took a couple of lungfuls of fresh air and immediately felt better. Lacke, who had been starting to slip sideways in the couch since Virginia's support was no longer available, straightened up and said out loud:

"A friend! A real. .. friend!"

A mumble of agreement from around the room. Everyone knew he was talking about Jocke. Lacke stared into the empty glass in his hand and continued:

"You have one friend . . . who never lets you down. And that is worth
everything.
Do you hear that?
Everything.
And you have to get that me and Jocke were . . . like this!"

He made his hand into a tight fist, shook it in front of his face.

"And nothing can replace that. Nothing! You're all sitting here yammering about 'what a damn good guy' and all that but you .. . you're all empty. Hollow. I have nothing now that Jocke ... is gone. Nothing. So don't talk about loss with me, don't talk about..."

Virginia stood next to the window, listening. She walked up to Lacke in order to remind him of her existence. Crouched down next to his knee and tried to catch his eye and said: "Lacke."

"No! Don't come here and ... 'Lacke, Lacke'... this is just the way it is. You don't get it. You're ... cold. You go downtown and pick up some damn truck driver or whatever, take him home, and let him screw you when you get down. That's what you do. Damn . .. trucking caravan is what you have going on. But a friend ... a friend . .."

Virginia stood up with tears in her eyes, slapped Lacke, and ran out of the apartment. Lacke lost his balance in the couch and hit Gosta in the shoulder. Gosta mumbled: "The window ... the window." Morgan closed it and said: "Well done, Lacke. That was a good one. You probably won't see any more of her."

Lacke stood up and walked with unsteady legs over to Morgan, who cast an eye out the window. "What the hell, I didn't mean to ..."

"No, of course not. Go tell her instead."

Morgan nodded down at the ground where Virginia had just come out of the front door of the building, and was walking rapidly with a lowered gaze toward the park. Lacke heard what he had said. His last words to her stuck inside his head like an echo. Did I say that? He turned on his heel and hurried to the door.

"I just have to ..."

Morgan nodded. "Hurry up. And give her my regards." Lacke threw himself down the stairs as fast as his trembling legs could carry him. The speckle-patterned stairs were nothing but a shimmer before his eyes and the banister slid so quickly through his hand it started to sting from the heat of the friction. He tripped on a landing, fell, and hit his elbow hard. The arm filled with heat and became sort of paralyzed. He got up and stumbled on down the stairs. He was rushing to help save a life. His own.

+

Virginia walked away from the building, down to the park, and did not turn around.

Her body was wracked with sobs, half-running as if to outrun the tears. But they followed her, forced themselves into her eyes, and fell in big drops down her cheeks. Her heels cut through the snow, clicking against the asphalt of the path, and she wound her arms around herself, hugging herself.

There was no one to be seen so she gave in freely to her sobs as she made her way home, pressed her arms against her stomach; the pain lodged in there like an ill-tempered fetus.

Let a person in and he hurts you.

There was a reason why she kept her relationships brief. Don't let them in. Once they're inside they have more potential to hurt you. Comfort yourself. You can live with the anguish as long as it only involves yourself. As long as there is no hope.

But with Lacke she had held out hope. That something would slowly grow up between them. And in the end. One day.
What?
He accepted her food and her warmth but in reality she meant nothing to him.

She walked huddled-up along the path, doubled over with sorrow. Her back was stooped and it was as if a demon sat there whispering terrible things in her ear.

Never again. Nothing.

Just as she was starting to imagine what this demon looked like, it landed on top of her.

A heavy weight struck her in the back and she fell helplessly to the side. Her cheek met snow and the film of tears was transformed into ice. The weight remained.

For one second she really believed it was the sorrow-demon who had taken a physical form and thrown itself on top of her. Then she felt the searing pain in her throat as sharp teeth penetrated the skin. She managed to get back on her feet, spinning around and trying to get rid of the thing that was on top of her.

There was something chewing on her neck, her throat; a stream of blood ran down between her breasts. She screamed at the top of her lungs and tried to shake off the creature on her back, kept screaming as she fell again onto the snow.

Until something hard was laid over her mouth. A hand.

Against her cheek there were claws digging into the soft flesh ... all the way in until they reached the cheekbone.

The teeth stopped chewing and she heard a sound like the one you make with a straw as you suck up the dregs in the glass. Liquid flowed over one eye and she didn't know if it was tears or blood.

+

When Lacke came out of the apartment building Virginia was nothing more than a dark shape moving down the path toward Arvid Mornes. His chest was hurting from sprinting down the stairs and his elbow sent waves of pain toward the shoulder. In spite of all this, he ran. He ran as fast as he could. His head was starting to clear in the cool air, and fear of losing her drove him on.

When he reached the bend in the path where "Jocke's path"—as he had started to call it—met "Virginia's path" he stopped, drew as much air into his lungs as he could in order to shout out her name. She was walking up ahead only fifty meters away. Just as he was about to call out her name he saw a shadow fall from a tree above Virginia, land on her, and knock her to the ground. His scream turned into a hiss, and he sped up. He wanted to shout something but there was not enough air to both run and shout.

He ran.

In front of him Virginia got to her feet with a large lump on her back, spun around like a crazed hunchback, and fell down again.

He had no plan, no thoughts. Nothing except this: to get to Virginia and get rid of whatever that was on her back. She lay in the snow next to the path with that black mass crawling on her.

When he reached her he directed all of his force into a kick at the black thing. His foot made contact with something hard and he heard a sharp crack, as when ice breaks up. The black thing was thrown from Virginia's back and landed in the snow next to her. Virginia lay completely still; there were dark stains on the white ground. The black thing sat up.

A child.

Lacke stood there staring into the prettiest little child's face imaginable, framed by a veil of black hair. A pair of enormous dark eyes met his. The child got up on all fours, cat-like, preparing to lunge. The face changed as the child drew back its lips and Lacke could see the rows of sharp teeth glow in the dark.

They remained like this for a few panting breaths, the child on all fours, and Lacke could now see that its fingers were claws, sharply defined against the snow.

Then a grimace of pain contorted the child's face, she got up on two legs and ran off in the direction of the school with long rapid steps. A few seconds later she reached the shadows and was gone.

Lacke stood where he was and blinked away the sweat running into his eyes. Then he threw himself down next to Virginia. He saw the wound. Her whole throat was ripped up. Dark strands of blood ran all the way up into her hair, down her back. He stripped off his jacket, pulled off the sweater he was wearing underneath, bunched it up into a ball, and pressed it against the wound.

"Virginia! Virginia! My darling, beloved . .."

At last he was able to get the words out.

SATURDAY 7 NOVEMBER

On his way to Dad's house. Every bend in the road familiar; he had taken this route . . . how many times? Alone, maybe only ten or twelve, with his mom maybe another thirty, at least. His mom and dad had divorced when he was four, but Oskar and his mom had kept coming out on weekends and holidays.

The last three years he had been allowed to take the bus by himself. This time his mom hadn't even come with him to the Tekniska Hogskolan stop where the buses left. He was a big boy now, had his own book of prepaid tickets to the subway in his wallet.

Actually the main reason he had the wallet was to have a place to keep the prepaid tickets but now there was also twenty kronor to buy sweets and such, as well as the notes from Eli.

Oskar fiddled with the Band-Aid on his palm. He didn't want to see her anymore. She was scary. What happened in the basement was—

She showed her true face.

—there was something in her, something that was . . . Pure Horror. Everything you were supposed to watch out for. Heights, fire, shards of glass, snakes. Everything that his mom tried so hard to keep him safe from.

Maybe that was why he hadn't wanted Eli and his mom to meet. His mom would have recognized it, forbidden him to get near it. Near Eli. The bus exited the freeway and turned down toward Spillersboda. This was the only bus that went to Radmanso Island. That was why it had to wind its way up and down all the roads—in order to drive through as many settlements as possible. The bus drove past the mountainous landscape of piled timber at the Spillersboda Sawmill, made a sharp turn and almost slid on its back down toward the pier.

He had not waited for Eli Friday evening.

Instead he had taken the Snow Racer and gone by himself to Ghost Hill. His mom had protested since he had stayed home from school that day with a cold, but he said he felt better.

He walked through China Park with the Snow Racer on his back. The sledding hill started a hundred meters past the last park lights, a hundred meters of dark forest. The snow crunched under his feet. There was a soft soughing from the forest, like breathing. The moonlight filtered through the trees and the ground between them turned into a woven tapestry of shadows where figures without faces waited, swaying to and fro.

He reached the place where the path started to bear down strongly toward Kvarnviken Bay, and climbed onto his Snow Racer. The Ghost House was a black wall next to the hill, a reprimand:
You are not
allowed to be here in the dark. This is our place now. If you want to play
here, you'll have to play with us.

At the bottom of the hill he could see the occasional light shining from the Kvarnviken boat club. Oskar inched himself forward a few centimeters, the incline took over, and the Snow Racer started to glide. He squeezed the steering wheel, wanted to close his eyes but didn't dare to because then he could veer off the road and down the steep slope toward the Ghost House.

He shot down the hill, a projectile of nerves and tensed muscles. Faster, faster. Formless, snow-covered arms stretched out from the Ghost House, grabbing for his hat, brushing against his cheek.

Maybe it was only a sudden gust of wind but at the very bottom of the hill he drove into a viscous, transparent, filmy barrier stretched out over the path that tried to stop him. But his speed was too great. The Snow Racer drove into the filmy barrier and it glued itself onto his face and body, was stretched until it burst, and then he was through. The lights were glittering over Kvarnviken Bay. He sat on his Snow Racer and stared out over the spot where he had knocked down Jonny yesterday morning. Turned around. The Ghost House was an ugly shack of sheet metal.

He pulled the Snow Racer up the hill again. Slid down. Up again. Down again. Couldn't stop. And he went on. Went on until his face was a mask of ice.

Then he walked home.

+

He had only slept four or five hours, afraid that Eli was going to come. Of what he would be forced to say, to do if she did that. Push her away. Therefore he fell asleep on the bus to Norrtalje and didn't wake up until they were there. On the Radmanso bus he had kept himself awake, made a game out of trying to remember as much as possible along the way.
Soon there will be a yellow house with a windmill on the lawn.
A yellow house with a snowy windmill on the lawn passed by outside the window. And so on. In Spillersboda a girl got on the bus. Oskar gripped the back of the seat in front of him. She looked a little like Eli. Of course it wasn't her. The girl sat down a few seats in front of him. He looked at her neck.