by Willow Rose
“Thank you,” she wheezed feebly.
I looked at Afrim. “Your turn,” I said.
“What about Buster?” he asked.
I sighed and put the spoon back in the bowl.
“The dog isn’t eating our food,” Mrs. Sigumfeldt said. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but we all need to survive here. There is no way we’re feeding the dog.”
Two others murmured in the back. “I’m with the lady,” the man named Kurt yelled. “You’re not feeding the dog with our food or our water.”
“Please,” Afrim pleaded. “He hasn’t had any food or anything to drink for days. He’ll die.”
My heart pounded. I felt bad for the boy. It was terrible.
Suddenly, Benjamin spoke up. “Let him have something to eat like the rest of us,” he said. “It’s the kid’s best friend. He’s a family member. Haven’t you ever had a dog?”
I looked surprised at the young guy who had hardly spoken a word all the time we had spent down there.
“No way,” yelled Kurt back. He got up to his feet. He was a big guy. “If you give any food or water to the dog…then…I’ll…” He lifted his fist in anger.
David came up behind me. He had his hand on the knife. He was about the same size as Kurt. “You’ll what?” David asked.
Kurt grumbled, then spotted the knife in David’s hand and backed down. He murmured some more.
“Give the dog my portion,” Benjamin said.
“No, Benjamin,” his mother, Irene, said.
“Yes. This is what I want. Give him the water and the food I was supposed to have. I can wait another day.”
42
AFTER EATING, THERE really wasn’t much else to do besides take a nap. It had become the routine for all of us in the cave and it was, in fact, Malene’s favorite time of day. Dozing off with food in your stomach, even if it was just a little bit, was the best part of the day…today more than any other day, since there had been so many murmurs and complaints among people in the cave. Malene hadn’t taken part in the discussion, nor had she uttered her opinion about the boy and his dog, whether it should be allowed to drink the water and eat the food or not. She knew she felt sorry for the boy, and she didn’t want the dog to die, but she didn’t want people to get angry with her as well, so she kept it to herself. Mainly because she was a coward and didn’t dare to speak up. It had made her so happy when Benjamin spoke up. She had looked at him admiringly, and she did that again now that she put her head down in the dirt. Right before she closed her eyes, she glanced in Benjamin’s direction and her eyes met his. Then she smiled. He smiled back, right before he closed his eyes. Malene closed hers as well, and soon she dozed off.
She had a nightmare. She was dreaming about the night she had spent in Thomas Soe’s room while he was staring at the blank screen. Malene was tossing and turning, groaning in her sleep, crying for help, trying to run, but he grabbed her leg and hit her again and again.
Malene woke with a gasp, just in time to look into the eyes of Thomas Soe. He put a piece of dirty clothing on her mouth and signaled her to be quiet. Malene felt like she was choking. She had the taste of dirt in her mouth again, just like when she had been inside the ground.
Malene tried to scream. Thomas slapped her across the face. She whimpered and fought to get loose. Thomas held her tightly.
“Sh, my pretty girl,” he whispered, close to her ear. “Don’t make a sound. Or I’ll break your neck. It’s up to you.”
He lifted her up from the ground. Malene looked desperately at the others in the cave, hoping and praying that someone would see or hear her.
Help me. Someone, please help me!
Thomas shushed her again, then giggled, and carried her out of the cave. Malene tried to kick and scream, but no one heard anything, and Thomas was way too strong for her.
He carried her through one of the tunnels, the one where she had followed that Michael West guy and later found him dead.
Had Thomas killed him? Of course he had, she thought to herself. He was a sick monster. She regretted not speaking up about him when she had first seen him, or when they had accused him. She should have said something. Why didn’t she?
Because she was afraid. How she loathed herself for being such a coward. She had wanted so badly to speak up when they had asked him if he had killed Michael West, when they had asked him about the blood on his shoes, but as she had opened her mouth to speak, he had sent her a look. Her eyes had met his, and in his smile, she could tell she would be next if she didn’t keep quiet. She knew he would kill her if she spoke up. Malene thought it was smart of her to not say anything. She thought that was what kept her alive, kept him from coming after her.
But she was wrong. He had come, after all, and now he had taken her away from the others. Where was he taking her? Back to the other men?
He put her over his shoulder as he hurried through the tunnels. They ended in a cave, before he stormed into another tunnel, which ended in yet another cave. Malene cried and wondered if he even knew where he was going, or if he was just running till they got lost? But, somehow, it seemed like he knew exactly what he was doing. He seemed like he knew exactly where he was taking her. He had a light, it seemed. Was it a flashlight? She couldn’t tell from where she was hanging, but she thought it was.
How did he get ahold of a flashlight? How did he find his way through the tunnels and caves so easily?
Malene cried hard, thinking this had to be the end of everything for her. She had cheated death a lot of times in the last few days. It was, after all, only cats that had nine lives.
43
HE HAD SEEN him in the bar of the hotel every night since the collapse, but never talked to him until this night after dinner. The skinny guy with the green Mohawk, leather band with spikes around his neck, and black make-up on his eyes had stood out in the crowd from day one. He had showed up on the first day, around three hours after the sinkhole had swallowed the neighborhood. He had a couple of kids with him, Martin had noticed. He seemed like a nice guy, despite his appearance, which Martin didn’t care much for.
“Do you mind if I sit?” Martin asked, and pulled out a barstool.
The guy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Behind the bartender, the TV showed pictures of the site with the text rolling underneath stating: Day 4 after the collapse. Doctor’s say survivors are no longer a possibility.
There was no sound on the TV, and Martin was glad there wasn’t. After yet another entire day of waiting behind the police blockage for news about his brother, the last thing Martin needed was another journalist trying to tell him there was no longer hope of finding anyone alive.
They had accommodated all of the relatives and those who had lost their homes in a local hotel in downtown Viborg. Who paid for it, Martin didn’t know. Probably the county. He didn’t care. All he thought about was his poor brother.
“So, I take it you have relatives who disappeared in the collapse as well?” Martin asked.
The guy had a beer in front of him. He had hardly been drinking it. He kept picking up a beer nut between his fingers and letting it drop to the counter again, then repeating the motion, again and again.
He nodded. “My girlfriend.”
“Ouch. That sucks,” Martin said. “I’m Martin, by the way.” He reached out his hand.
The guy took it. Martin had noticed he was missing two fingers on his right hand.
“Sune.”
“I have a brother who sunk into the ground. I tried to save him, but couldn’t. I swear, I could still hear him hollering for me, even when I couldn’t see him anymore. The sound haunts me at night. I’ve barely slept since it happened.”
“Me either.”
“How many children do you have?” Martin asked.
“Three. Only one with Rebekka. She has a daughter from a previous marriage, and I have a son. They all miss her. I have no idea how they’re supposed to go on living without her.”
“Do you think she mi
ght still be alive?” Martin glanced at the text on the TV screen once again. He hated how they just blurted it out, like it meant nothing to them. In the beginning, he had watched all the shows, all the experts, and listened to what they had to say, but by now he knew it only spread more fear in his heart. They didn’t know any better than he did. They just speculated. Any fool could do that.
“I know it’s impossible. They tell me it is, but…” Sune paused and looked up at the TV screen as well. “I just feel in my heart that she’s still alive. It’s hard to explain. Maybe I’m just not ready to let go yet.”
Silence broke out between them. Martin ordered a beer. He thought about telling Sune that he felt the same way, but hesitated. He drank the beer while watching TV. They had been digging for four days now. At first, they had drilled a hole and lowered a camera, but they saw nothing but debris from houses and cars. With big cranes, they had started removing the dirt, while firefighters tried to dig out carefully with their hands whatever showed when dirt was removed. It took forever, and Martin found the wait to be devastating.
“So, what do you think is worse,” he asked Sune, “waiting at the site while they dig, or the nights when you wait for them to start again, thinking, wondering if this night is the time when your loved one will take their last breath?”
Sune exhaled, then drank from his beer. “All of it,” he said.
“I keep fearing that they’ll hurt someone with the crane when they let it dig into the dirt. I hate when they lower that thing into the ground.”
Up until now, it had mostly been cars and bricks they had dug out. But there had been a body too. The man steering the crane hadn’t seen it and dug the claw into the dirt, then pulled out a leg. The spectators had all screamed. The firefighters managed to save the remains of the body of Mrs. Frandsen from number ten, but the terror in the spectators’ eyes couldn’t be removed. It was burned into their memories, and every time the claw was lowered into the ground, they feared it would be someone they knew this time.
“I can’t help thinking there should be another way, you know?” Martin said.
For the first time since Martin sat down next to him, Sune looked directly at him. “I know,” he said. “There really should be.”
44
“WHERE IS MALENE?”
I had just woken up. David was still half asleep when I shook his shoulder. The rest of the people in the cave were all awake. It was Benjamin who told me they couldn’t find Malene, that she was gone when he opened his eyes. He was standing in front of me looking upset. I woke up David.
“They can’t find Malene,” I said, once his weary eyes looked back at me.
“What do you mean they can’t find her?” he asked.
“I’ve looked everywhere,” Benjamin said. “She was here when we went to sleep after our meal. I looked in the tunnels and called her name, but she wasn’t there either.”
“What about Mr. Bjerrehus?” I asked. “Has he come back?”
I had saved his meal for him, thinking he would be back later, once he realized running off didn’t get him anywhere.
Benjamin shook his head. “No. He’s gone too.”
“They’ve probably just run off, thinking they’ll find a way out,” Kenneth said. “Probably got themselves lost.”
“Better for us,” Kurt said. “Less mouths to feed, if you know what I mean.”
I overheard his comment. I didn’t care much for it. “Should we form a search team to go find them?” I asked David.
“If they want to run into those tunnels and get lost and die from thirst and hunger, I say we let them,” Mrs. Sigumfeldt said. “I’m with Kurt on this. The less mouths to feed the better.”
“We can’t just leave them to die, “Benjamin’s mother, Irene, said. “What if they hurt themselves somehow or got stuck. Wouldn’t you want us to look for you if it was you?”
Kurt grumbled, then backed down. “I’m just saying it increases our chances of surviving. If you want to go out there and get lost as well, be my guest.”
“I’m staying here,” Mrs. Sigumfeldt said. “It’s no use anyway. I can only focus on me and my boy now.”
I looked at David. He shrugged. “I say we go look for them…it’s the least we can do.”
Benjamin nodded. “Yeah. What’s wrong with you people anyway? They’re your neighbors and you can’t even help them?”
“I don’t even know the girl,” Mrs. Sigumfeldt said. “Do any of you?”
“Mr. Bjerrehus has been your neighbor for many years,” Irene said. “We all know him.”
“But none of us ever liked him,” Kurt said. His wife Annette pulled on his arm. “Stop saying things like that, Kurt.”
“Why, when it’s the truth?” he said. “I didn’t like the guy. Why should I risk my life for someone I really didn’t care about? There, I said it. It’s just the way I feel.”
“Just because of that old thing…” Annette mumbled.
“Well, it was a big deal for me,” Kurt snapped at her.
Annette shook her head. “Sigurd and Kurt weren’t exactly the best of friends,” she said, trying to justify her husband. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Why?” Kurt exclaimed. “Why should we leave it at that? Why shouldn’t we tell it the way it is?”
“Kurt…don’t. Stop it.”
“I’m tired of pretending it never happened,” he continued. “Why not tell everyone how you and him…how you and he…”
“It’s been so many years, Kurt. Don’t start…”
“I’ll damn well start whatever I feel like. I’m sick of pretending like it never happened, like you never…like you and him never slept with each other on the night of the Christmas Banquet. Everybody saw you, Annette. Everybody watched you and him as you were at it on the dance floor. Do you have any idea how humiliating it was for me? No, I haven’t spoken about it. No one has, but everybody knew it. Everybody looked at your growing stomach in the months after, wondering if the child even belonged to me, or if it belonged to him.”
Annette turned her head away. “It’s been twenty years, Kurt. We were drunk. You know it didn’t mean anything. Will you never let it go?”
“No, dammit. I won’t. I have pretended for years that it didn’t happen, that we’re all past it. I’ve pretended like he’s my son, like I don’t constantly wonder if Mark is really mine. But I’m constantly dragging this horse around, all these questions; I can’t keep it in the past, Annette. I can’t. Is he even mine?”
Kurt was standing up now and yelling at his wife. “Is he, Annette? Is he my son? Answer me!”
Annette didn’t say anything. Her pause was painful.
“That’s what I thought. You know what? I’ve had it. I’ve had it with you, with this entire neighborhood and all its secrets.”
Kurt took one last look at all of us, then stormed into one of the tunnels. I looked after him, wondering if we would ever see him again.
45
THOMAS STROKED THE girl on the cheek while humming a lullaby his mother used to sing to him as a child. Just like he used to do to Rikke when she was asleep. The girl was whimpering in her sleep, tossing and turning.
“Hush, my little baby,” he whispered. “Everything is going to be alright. I’ll take care of you.”
She had fought him for hours while he held her down. It wasn’t until she calmed completely down and fell asleep that he let go of her.
“I’m gonna take such good care of you, Rikke,” he whispered, and held her in his arms while rocking her back and forth. “This time, I’m gonna do it right. It’s for your own good. I can’t have you telling on me to all the neighbors, can I? What will they think of me? I can’t have that. So, now you stay with me, you hear?”
Thomas had found a cave that no one else had been in. He wasn’t much of a sleeper, so every time the two others fell asleep, he roamed the tunnels and explored every one of the ones nearby. He had mapped it all down on his paper that was supposed to be f
or good ideas, and now he found his way around easily. Back when that David guy, the handsome one, and that small skinny journalist-girl had found the remains of a house in the tunnel, Thomas had been watching them. He had followed them through the tunnels, and after they had ripped the area for food and what else they could find, Thomas had gone through everything as well. He had found lots more food that he had kept to himself and eaten, then he had found a flashlight that he didn’t tell anyone about, and some other stuff, like a butcher’s knife. Afterwards, he had walked through the tunnels, destroying every mark that David had made, making new ones so they wouldn’t find their way back again. He wanted to keep the place to himself. And, so far, he had succeeded. Now he had the girl too, so everything was complete.
He felt complete. And he wasn’t going to go back to the others…to Brian and Lars. He didn’t need them anymore. He had found a barrel in the remains from the house, and every day, he had stolen water from Brian’s tank, filling up bottles from the house and carrying them to his secret place. Now the barrel was full, and Brian’s tank was close to empty. It wouldn’t be long before he found out, and Thomas wasn’t going to be there when he did. He wanted to be here with his beloved, and never ever let go of her again.
“As long as you’re here with me, Rikke, I won’t feel so alone. Boy, how I’ve missed you. I missed you so much it HURT! Do you have any idea how bad I have hurt, Rikke, huh?”
Thomas took in a deep breath and hugged the sleeping girl. He saw blood on her face and wiped it off. More blood ran across her face, and Thomas felt anxiety. Had he killed her? Had he killed her and didn’t know it? Thomas blinked his eyes a few times and the blood disappeared. He felt relieved. He really wanted to do it differently this time. He didn’t want to happen what had happened to Rikke. He had lost it, blackened out, and when he got back to being himself, it was too late. She was gone.
