Little Star

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Ronja explained her behaviour by saying that she had completely forgotten she was supposed to scream; it had never occurred to her. As soon as the coffin reached the bottom she had accepted that she was dead, and that there was nothing more to be done. The others nodded in recognition despite the fact that, unlike Ronja, they had managed to hang on to some small instinct for self-preservation.

  Teresa stretched out in the bottom of the coffin. They had rinsed it out after Caroline threw up, but there was still a sour smell lurking not far from Teresa’s nose. She folded her arms over her chest and made an effort to shut down her senses as Linn and Melinda closed the lid, but the blows of the hammer still echoed through her head like thunderclaps, amplified in the enclosed space.

  She opened her eyes and saw a tiny amount of light coming through a crack near her feet. Then she could feel in her stomach that the coffin was being lifted. And lowered. After an unfeasibly long time, bumps along her back told her that she was now at the bottom of the hole. She heard the first thud as earth hit the lid; she closed her eyes, her breathing slow and shallow.

  She could hear the spades being driven into the pile of earth, then immediately afterwards a couple of thuds. Spades in, thud, thud. Spades in, thud, thud. There was a rhythm to it, and she counted the blows. When she got to thirty she noticed that she could no longer hear the spades, and that the thuds were growing fainter. She managed to count another thirty, then there was silence. Complete silence. She didn’t know how much earth there was left to shovel in, but inside her chest she could feel the weight already lying on top of her.

  The space between her chest and the lid was no more than six centimetres. There was no way she would be able to get out, however much she might want to. If she tried to force out the nails, the weight of the earth would make it impossible. She had been deserted. She had been given up. She kept her breathing slow and shallow.

  No light through the crack, no voices, no spades, no thuds of earth. Nothing. She had already lost all concept of time. She knew she hadn’t been lying there for half an hour. But she had no idea whether it was three minutes or ten, because there were no reference points.

  She started to count inside her head. When she got to a hundred, she gave up. She was usually good at counting in seconds, but even the concept ‘second’ had lost its meaning. Perhaps she had been counting far too slowly; or far too quickly, she didn’t know.

  So she let go. Although she hadn’t been aware of it, her whole body had been tense; she only realised this when she relaxed. She let go and gave herself up to the darkness and the silence and the absence of everything that she was.

  Another incalculable period of time passed. Her breathing was slow and shallow. Something moved. A faint noise. At first she thought it was an insect or worm that had ended up in the coffin with her, and she tried to pinpoint the sound. Her hands moved over the sides of the coffin. A rough, mute nothingness.

  But the sound. The movement.

  The space just about allowed her to roll over onto her side. Her shoulder pressed against the lid as she turned her back on the direction she thought the sound was coming from. She put her hands over her ears. She could still hear it. Something was moving through the earth. Digging. Getting closer.

  Her heart began to beat faster, and she was no longer able to control her breathing. The air was forced out of her in panting, jerky breaths as the thing that was moving through the earth slid along the side of the coffin. She could hear it, she could feel it right through her body.

  It was getting warmer. Sweat broke out along her hairline, and the air had ceased to contain what she needed. She twitched as if she had been given an electric shock, twitched again, and panic wasn’t far away. She was surrounded by earth on all sides, lying in complete darkness, had no air, and something had dug its way through to her and was working its way in. She was going to scream. Despite the fact that she hadn’t reached that point, she was going to scream.

  She drew thin air into her lungs and at the same time the other thing pushed its way in, crept in behind her back and lay behind her, spooning.

  Urd.

  She exhaled without screaming. She felt herself being embraced by the soft, forgiving, no-longer-frightening darkness. Urd was lying beside her. Urd was her. Urd did not scream.

  Teresa?

  Not there anymore. Never had been.

  Out of the darkness pictures emerged, her life.

  She saw herself being buried in the ground, but the coffin was empty. She saw her computer, saw herself sitting at the computer, keys pressed down like a self-playing piano. No one was there. A hammer struck, blood spurted over a cement floor, vomit spewed over another cement floor, but the fluids came out of the empty air and the film speeded up.

  Theres sitting alone on the subway, talking to someone who didn’t exist, Göran waving off a train with no passengers on it, a bicycle without a rider moving along a gravel track, Johannes playing Tekken by himself, being kissed by an invisible ghost, dry leaves whirling around in the cave between the rocks where no one had ever been. Clothes collapsing in heaps in the garden, in rooms, on the streets. Collapsing as the person who had worn them disappeared.

  It stopped at a yellow bead. A child’s fingers holding a little yellow bead. If I didn’t exist, then nobody would be holding this bead. The yellow bead was there, half a metre above the surface of the table. Then the fingers holding it disappeared and the bead dropped through the air, bounced a couple of times and lay still.

  The only thing that remained of all of this was that single yellow point. No. The only thing that remained was that single yellow point and the eyes that saw it. Then the eyes disappeared, the bead disappeared and everything went white. Chalk white. Searing, burning phosphorus-white. A whiteness so dazzling and painful that it was an ear-splitting scream.

  They stood together on the jetty in the dawn light, fourteen girls. It was five o’clock in the morning, but the sun was already high in the sky, pouring its light down upon them. The morning mist had dispersed, and the lake was dead calm.

  The jetty was small, and the girls stood close together like a flock of birds, sharing each other’s warmth, allowing a new kind of energy to flow between their bodies. Their eyes were empty, their senses wide open.

  Teresa’s throat was still hurting from the scream she hadn’t even known she’d let out, but like the other girls she was still, drinking in the soft light of the morning, the smell of mud, reeds and water coming from the lake, the long sustained explosion of birdsong in the trees, the closeness she felt with the other girls, and the space all around her.

  Teresa moved away from the group and went to stand at the very edge of the jetty. She picked up a rusty nail, looked at it and threw it in the water, following it with her eyes as it sank. Then she turned to the group and said, ‘We were the dead. We need life.’

  Things had changed for the better for Max Hansen following the success of Tesla. He had even begun to rethink his plan to burn all his bridges and head for the tropics.

  The incident he had arranged outside Skansen had produced the desired result. The boys had reported back that Tora now said yes, and the following day he had received an email confirmation. Perhaps it no longer made good business sense to make her infamous with all those revelations. Time would tell if it was enough just to make her famous. That would allow him to remain in the country.

  Because the country, or rather the city, had begun to show him its most friendly face; it was almost like the ’80s all over again. People wanted to talk to him, discuss future projects or offer their services. Max Hansen—last chance—had rapidly and amusingly become a player again.

  He wasn’t a fool. He knew that popularity like this was temporary and could vanish overnight, but as long as it lasted he was enjoying being back in the warmth, lapping up the strained smiles and good wishes, relishing every dutiful pat on the back.

  He had started going out again. Café Opera, Riche, Spy Bar. Many of the musician
s had been replaced by the suits who called the shots, or young men in scooped T-shirts who called themselves producers just because they could handle Autotune. It wasn’t like the good old days, but there were still plenty of people who wanted to hang out with the powerful, and Max Hansen was once again someone who counted.

  This particular Saturday he had started at Café Opera. Two girls who called themselves Divinity and played electroclash were throwing a release party for their new album in one of the side rooms, and Max had been invited. He thought the music was close to unbearable, so after knocking back a couple of free mojitos, he discreetly slipped back into the main room.

  It was no more than half full, which would have been unthinkable on a Saturday night twenty years ago. Max said hello to a producer with EMI, an art director with Sony, and a session guitarist who was a little too eager to chat to him, so he excused himself and went over to the bar, where he ordered a glass of white wine. He stood there with his back to the counter, the ice-cold glass in his hand, enjoying the satisfying feeling of being, if not king, then at least a little prince in this particular kingdom. He’d missed it.

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  A young girl had appeared beside him. Max raised his glass and gave a casual shrug. ‘Just white wine. The night is young.’

  ‘I prefer bubbly,’ said the girl.

  Max Hansen looked at her more carefully. She was in her twenties; probably a bit young to have even got in. Not exactly stunning but reasonably pretty, and dressed in a tracksuit top that could be regarded as hip hop at a push. Straight, medium-length hair and a narrow face. She reminded him a little of Tora Larsson, in fact, but without the baggage. So Max Hansen beamed at her and said, ‘Well, I’m sure we can do something about that. What’s your name?’

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘As in Wonderland?’

  ‘Yes. As in Wonderland. That’s where I come from.’

  There was something dangerous in Alice’s eyes that Max Hansen liked. She was probably not one of those girls who lay motionless on their backs staring at the ceiling like they were sending up a prayer to God and their mother. She looked like the kind of girl who might be up for all kinds of things.

  Max Hansen ordered a bottle of sparkling wine and as the girl sipped at her glass and looked at him through half-closed eyes, he suddenly felt suspicious. This was going a little too well. He was under no illusions about his own attractiveness, so how come this girl was so obviously flirting with him?

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Alice. ‘You’re Max Hansen. Tesla’s manager. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes. Do we know each other?’

  ‘No. But I’m a singer too. Among other things.’

  OK. So now they knew where they stood. It was that glint in her eye that had made him misjudge the situation. Alice was simply one of those girls. They had started to circle again recently.

  When Alice asked, ‘Have you got any tips on how to make it as a singer?’ he no longer had any doubts. This was where they started, almost without exception. So Max Hansen poured himself another glass of bubbly and launched his usual routine.

  It took Alice quarter of an hour to empty her glass, and when Max Hansen made a move to pour her the last of the wine, she placed her hand over the top and said, ‘No thanks. I’m driving.’

  ‘And where is it you’re driving to?’

  ‘Home.’ Her gaze swept up and down his body in a way that made his balls tingle. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

  The Ford Fiesta parked behind the national theatre was one of the scruffiest cars he had ever seen, and certainly the scruffiest he had ever sat in. When Alice turned the key in the ignition, it sounded like an entire Formula One starting grid, and there was a faint whiff of petrol fumes, as if there might be a hole somewhere.

  Alice drove along Birger Jarlsgatan towards Roslagstull, and as they passed Stureplan Max bent down and pretended to adjust his shoelaces. His taste for young girls was no secret, but a young girl in a roaring heap of metal like this was a step too far, and he didn’t want to be seen. Only when Alice turned onto Roslagsvägen did he relax, leaning back as best he could on the hard seat.

  He glanced over at Alice, whose gaze was fixed firmly on the road. Nice profile. Well-defined chin and jaw line, but the shape of her nose softened what could have been an angular look. He was attracted, no two ways about it.

  But there was a problem, of course. Just a couple of evenings ago he had brought home a lady he had known for quite some time for a couple of drinks. They had never got past the drinks. As soon as they sat down next to each other on the sofa Max realised nothing was going to happen, because his body made not the slightest response to her tight top and slit skirt. He had had to pretend that he’d never had anything else in mind, just a couple of drinks with an old friend.

  However, that woman had been almost twice as old as Alice. He was hoping things would go better now he was back on home territory, so to speak.

  To scope out the lie of the land, both hers and his own, he placed a hand on Alice’s thigh and squeezed tentatively. She let it happen—so far, so good. But what about Max? The engine screamed and the car rattled so much that it wasn’t easy to tell. He searched for the tingle in his crotch he had felt when she looked at him; he squeezed harder and checked again.

  Nothing. It wasn’t there.

  The car was clattering past the lights of Mörby Centrum as Max Hansen’s heart sank. This whole noisy, smelly, uncomfortable journey was pointless, and was about to end in embarrassment and a lonely taxi ride home.

  He felt a sudden pain in his forearm as Alice pinched him, and he removed his hand from her thigh. She reached out her hand and pinched him again, harder this time. Max laughed and said loudly, almost yelling to be heard over the engine, ‘Do you like that sort of game?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Alice. ‘That’s the best kind.’

  Max Hansen settled back in his seat. Maybe the evening wouldn’t end up so badly after all.

  He had expected Alice to live in a small apartment somewhere like Täby, but when they passed that turn-off as well, he asked her where they were heading.

  ‘To Wonderland,’ she said, and he had to be content with that. It was often the way with young girls. They liked to appear a little mysterious, and he had nothing against that; quite the reverse, in fact. Particularly if they played the role as well as Alice. It gave the whole thing the feeling of an adventure, of heading out into the unknown.

  When they turned off in Åkersberga and drove through an enormous housing estate, Max started to worry that it would be one of those occasions. Perhaps she lived with her parents, and he would have to sit and make conversation. If that was the case, he wasn’t setting foot through the door.

  But they left the houses and set off along a smaller road leading into the forest. Every time he thought they had arrived there was another bend, and the car’s feeble headlights would have struggled to show them the way through the tunnel of trees if there hadn’t still been light in the sky.

  But this was unknown territory, and no mistake. He hadn’t seen a house for several minutes, and was beginning to feel uncomfortable when Alice turned into a narrow driveway at long last, and switched off the engine.

  ‘Here we are!’ she said, clapping her hands.

  When he stepped out of the car, Max Hansen’s ears were still buzzing as if he’d just come out of a concert, and the petrol fumes had made him feel slightly nauseous. He just had time to think this had better be fucking worth it when he sensed a movement and a rustling sound behind him. The next moment a black plastic bag was slipped over his head, and his legs were kicked from underneath him. He went down, hitting the back of his head so hard on a stone that he was seeing stars as he was lifted by many hands.

  While Ronja was in Stockholm, the others got the garage ready. They had spread plastic sheeting over the floor, and the two carpentry benches stood side by side in the ce
ntre. It was fortunate that Beata’s father was so interested in woodwork, because it meant that a wide selection of tools was neatly displayed along the wall.

  Teresa chose from the awls, chisels and knives, and left aside the pliers and saws. After all, this wasn’t about torture. Not primarily. She cut thirteen pieces of paper from two sheets of A4, and wrote a name on each.

  At about ten o’clock those who were going to collect Max Hansen went and hid behind the woodshed. It was quarter to eleven before they heard the unmistakable sound of the car engine coming along the track. The members of the group waiting in the garage stood listening in the darkness; they heard the sound of the engine being switched off, a car door opening, then not much else. They had expected yelling and a struggle, perhaps even an attempt to escape, and had prepared for all these eventualities. But all they heard was a rustling sound, then silence.

  They had talked through the whole thing during the day. They had slept for a few hours, close together in their sleeping bags on the kitchen floor, and eaten some baby food, then Teresa told them about what had happened in the shop. What she had done and how she had felt afterwards.

  She didn’t even consider whether or not telling them was a risk. She was going to tell them now, and she told them. The whole story, from the moment when she and Theres were standing in the loading bay right up to the purchase of the red boots the following day, and how they had come in handy at school.

  Then she put forward her suggestion, which was no longer a suggestion but more an explanation of what they must do now. Theres supported her, and there was never any discussion as to whether they should do it, only how they should do it.

  Ideas were quietly put forward and rejected or accepted in the same simple way as they had planned the whole weekend. At an early stage Ronja had offered to act as bait, and once that was sorted out, the rest was largely a matter of technicalities. The woodshed, the plastic sheeting, the tools. Not even when the details were settled and the whole thing began to seem real did anyone react with revulsion or reluctance to take part. This was what they had to do, end of story.