by Stefan Spjut
‘All we have to do is give them the GPS coordinates,’ he went on. ‘They’ll be here immediately. It’s murder! He’s been murdered!’
‘What, you think a human has done this?’ she said, nodding towards the tree. ‘Ripped off his head and climbed up into a tree with it?’
Torbjörn stared intently at her, and even the squirrel had come out onto a swaying branch.
‘We’ve got to phone.’
‘Then we’ll never get them. And you know it.’
She started walking. The squirrel was already ten metres ahead of her.
*
They made their way down a slope and crossed a small lake. The bear’s tracks had divided the frozen surface in two. Susso slipped a few times and dropped the revolver in the snow. She brushed some of it off with her glove, blowing the rest away. She asked Torbjörn if he thought the mechanism had frozen, but he did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the GPS, which is why he almost collided with Susso when she stopped.
‘Can you smell it?’
‘What?’ he said, pulling his hat straight.
‘I can smell smoke.’
He sniffed and then nodded.
‘Yes. And that’s some fire.’
They raised their eyes and soon saw the smoke drifting over the treetops in thick black billowing clouds. They walked faster, almost running. They were on a hill and down below, between the trees, they saw the fire.
The whole place was going up in flames.
Susso noticed the squirrel had huddled down and its whiskers were trembling. Its head was jerking up and down repeatedly and it was hard to tell whether it was afraid or excited. Torbjörn had phoned Gudrun to tell her where they were, and for a moment they stood there staring at the fire filling the sky with driving clouds that looked as if they were illuminated from within.
*
They walked closer and soon a facade of fibre cement slabs appeared between the trees. It was covered in black scorch marks. There was the sound of explosions and crackling, tongues of fire shot up and Susso heard a window shatter into pieces. Flakes of soot floated down, dotting the snowdrifts with black.
Then suddenly the squirrel, which had been riding on Susso’s shoulder, leapt down. Susso did not want to lose sight of it, so she ran after the bushy tail as it wove through the trees. It was not easy to see it in the strange atmosphere created by the powerful, glowing flames unfurling in the smoky night-time darkness. Wading through the snow she broke through the trees, hearing Torbjörn behind her. He was yelling at her to stop.
The squirrel sat in the snow, and there was a fox too, watching her. Its ears were erect, its breast white. Her first thought was to scare it away in case it went for the squirrel. But then she realised it was not a normal fox. When she came closer it trotted off in a semicircle, and the squirrel moved in the opposite direction.
And then she heard it.
A sound like someone banging. Under the ground.
Confused, she looked at the snowdrift.
It was moving.
There was someone underneath.
Or something.
She took a step back and looked at Torbjörn, who had caught up with her. He had also heard the sound. His mouth was hidden below his collar and he gave her a dark look as he slowly shook his head.
Susso clutched the revolver indecisively.
He was right. It could be anything down there.
But surely the squirrel would not risk putting her in danger?
She cleared away the snow with her boot until a pair of iron handles appeared, wrapped with a glinting silver chain. A metal hatch cover. Right in the middle of the forest.
She took a step forwards and stamped on it.
She heard screaming from below. It was impossible to make out the words but there was no doubt that there were people down there screaming for their lives. Susso tugged at the handles and shouted that she would help them. Then she ripped off her glove and put the revolver to the chain, but the sudden fear of the bullet ricocheting off the metal made her turn away as she squeezed the trigger. She was unclear whether she had missed or whether the chain was too strong, but the shot had no effect apart from making the fox run off and the squirrel scurry up the nearest tree. Now she had only one cartridge left, and because she did not want to waste it she began kicking the padlock as hard as she could.
‘We’ve got to find something to break it with!’ Torbjörn said.
‘Run and find it then!’
She yelled at him to hurry but instead he stood rooted to the spot. She realised he was afraid.
‘Ring Mum!’ she called over her shoulder as she raced towards the house. ‘Tell her where we are and that it’s burning like hell! And there are people here!’
She was racing towards the blinding heat of the fire, with the squirrel running in front of her. She had dropped her glove, so she drew the hand holding the revolver back inside her jacket sleeve. She had very little energy left and soon slowed down to walking pace. That was probably sensible because she did not have a clue what to expect. Was the bear here?
The trees thinned out.
Apart from the building they had seen from the forest there was a two-storey house that was in flames and a large barn spewing out smoke through its doors. In the yard stood an all-terrain vehicle, but there was no sign of any people. The squirrel climbed up onto her shoulder. The fire roared and crackled around them and the smoke surged in dense clouds. Susso blinked. A stinging feeling penetrated deep behind her eyes. She persevered onwards and then the squirrel jumped down.
‘Come on,’ she said.
But it refused. It sat in the snow, panting.
Inside the dog compound lay a few grey furry bodies. They were still. Susso saw the white underside of a curled tail and stayed where she was, her hands resting on her knees. Had they died from the heat? Or the smoke? She squeezed her eyes shut and spat, then carried on towards the barn, bent double in the heat.
The smoke had intensified in the tunnel and now their eyes were stinging so badly they could hardly keep them open. They coughed violently and helplessly, and Seved had to keep his mouth open. All he could do was try to bury his face in the crook of his sleeve, which had become soaking wet with his saliva. He could not understand why the fire had spread so fast in the hide; after all, it was mostly made of concrete. Had Lennart and Börje prepared the room in some way?
Amina had been banging constantly on the hatch, and when they realised there was someone on the other side Seved rose up and joined in. He banged as hard as he could with his fist and yelled and shoved and tugged at the handle.
He thought it had to be Börje. That he had kept himself hidden until Lennart and Jola had set off and now he had come to let them out.
But it was a woman shouting hoarsely through the gap into the smoke-filled darkness, and Seved, confused, thought it must be Kicki Hedman from Storsjö, their nearest neighbour, or someone from over Bergnäs way. Naturally, the flames would be seen from a distance.
They did not have much time left, he knew that. The fumes would poison them and they would probably not even be aware of it. Their lungs would burn. It would not take many breaths.
‘Hurry!’ he and Amina screamed together.
Then Seved shouted in a cracked voice:
‘I’ve got the key!’
He leaned his shoulder heavily against one half of the hatch, while Amina wedged her fingertips under the metal rim and pulled the other half inwards as Seved tried to push the key out through the gap. It did not work. The gap was too narrow. If only he had a piece of wire!
‘The mouse!’ he yelled. ‘Where’s the mouseshifter?’
They searched about clumsily in the light from the head torch and called the little being. Amina found it and Seved felt her cold hands pressed to his as she gave him the squirming little body.
‘Here,’ he said, holding the key towards the little mouseshifter. ‘Take this key. You can get out. And then you can give it to the woman outside.’
The key was big for the shifter. It held it like a shining guitar and it was impossible to tell if it had understood the instructions. Its mouth hung open. Seved shouted that they were going to try and get the key out. Then he thrust himself towards the hatch and pressed his fingers into the gap to widen it.
‘You’ve got to get out through there,’ he said.
‘It’s too narrow,’ Amina said. ‘He can’t.’
‘He has to!’ bellowed Seved, ripping off the head torch and giving it to Amina so that she could direct it at the gap and show the creature the way out. But the little thing did not seem to understand.
‘I think he’s afraid.’
‘What the hell has he got to be afraid of? We’ve got to get out, for God’s sake!’
‘He is afraid,’ she said, coughing. ‘He’s afraid of dropping the key.’
She was exhausted and leaned against the wall, breathing with short, sharp breaths. Under her filthy jacket her chest heaved constantly. They did not have much time left.
Seved crawled into the tunnel in the direction of the ventilation pipe.
‘Come here!’ he called. ‘You can get out this way!’
It was hard work for the mouseshifter to make its way while holding the key, so Amina picked it up and crept along the tunnel towards Seved. Seved held it up to the mouth of the pipe in the roof of the tunnel. But Amina told him to wait.
‘Take off your necklace,’ she said to him. ‘So we can tie the key to him.’
Out of habit he pushed his hand behind his hair, but then he ripped off the necklace. It consisted of a leather thong holding a medallion that Börje had given him. Amina gnawed at the thong and then pulled it in two. Seved crouched down to illuminate her hands and in between coughing told her to hurry.
After she had threaded the key onto the strip of leather and fastened it around the mouseshifter’s delicate neck she lifted the little thing up so it could get into the pipe. They heard its claws rapidly scrambling upwards. But it did not get far. There was a scraping sound and it came sliding back.
Amina had taken off her jacket and rolled up one of her sleeves. She took hold of the mouseshifter and pushed it up the pipe. Her arm was so skinny she could push it in all the way up to her shoulder.
‘Is it working?’ Seved asked, his mouth pressed to the sleeve of his jacket. His eyes were blinking frantically in the caustic smoke.
‘We’ll see,’ Amina answered, pulling a face.
Amid the smoke from the blaze Susso went through corridors that ballooned towards her and shrank back as she made her way forwards, but it was impossible for her to get close to the flames inside the barn. The heat was like a wall, and when she tried to break through it felt as if the skin on her face was scorching. So she turned and ran back to where the squirrel had left her. It was still sitting there, and when she came running out of the grey haze it ran up her arm and sat on her shoulder again.
After looking about she ran to the jeep and tried the door. It was unlocked, and after checking the seat to see if there was anything she could use to break the chain she ran round the vehicle and opened the tailgate. She foraged among the various items but there was nothing there either that she could use, so she ran back.
‘I couldn’t find a bloody thing,’ she panted as she came up to Torbjörn. He was kneeling deep in the snow beside the hatch as the roaring blaze in the building closest to them made the shadows of the trees dance around him.
‘They’ve got a key,’ he said. ‘They shouted that they’ve got a key and they’re trying to get it out. But the crack is too narrow so they can’t.’
A furious chattering made Susso look up, and then she bent down under the branches and switched on the torch. The squirrel was running in circles around a pipe that was protruding from the white ground. It was a steel pipe with a cone-shaped hat topped with snow. Susso squatted down and shone the torch onto the pipe.
Torbjörn walked up heavily behind her. He leaned forwards, his hands on his knees, and sniffed loudly. Susso knocked the torch against the pipe and heard shouting from below.
‘Wait! He’s coming up.’
‘What?’ Susso shouted. She could not work out what they meant.
‘He’s coming now!’
A few seconds later a small grey ball fell into the snow below the pipe, and when Susso shone the torch on it she saw it was a mouse. She was amazed and almost fell backwards because the mouse was standing upright. The head turned as the wrinkled face of a little old man shrank back from the powerful beam of the torch.
Around its neck was a leather strip with a key hanging from it, and as soon as Susso saw it she put the torch down in the snow, where it sank in an eerie ball of light. She reached out her hands to the little object, which stiffened as she gently worked the knot loose with her frozen fingers and took off the key.
When they had opened the padlock and unwound the chain from the handles the hatch doors flew up, and in the smoke that billowed out and turned Susso’s eyes into two watery slits someone came crawling out. It was a thin girl with black hair hanging down in frizzy strands. She crawled a few paces before collapsing. Susso helped her up because she was only wearing a sweatshirt and the snow was deep. For a moment the girl stood bending over and coughing violently, before staggering a few steps to one side and sinking down on all fours.
‘You’ve got to stand up,’ Susso said, tugging at her. ‘It’s better for you. You’ll get more air in that way.’
Then Torbjörn called out, and when Susso turned round she saw that he had climbed down into the smoke-filled opening. She hurried over and grabbed hold of a bearded man who Torbjörn was trying to get to stand up but who seemed barely conscious. His face was grey and his mouth gaped open. Together they pulled and pushed him up through the hatch. When they got him out they were not sure what to do with him, so they laid him down in the snow. Within seconds he came round and tried to stand up. With lumps of snow on his back and his neck, he bent over, slurring the same words over and over again, and they realised he was probably asking about the girl, who by now had picked up the strange mouse and was holding it to her hot cheek as she shivered in the cold.
‘She’s here,’ Susso said. ‘She’s okay.’
The squirrel sat at her feet and she picked it up. She started brushing away the snow that had gathered in its tail as she studied the man.
‘I have to ask,’ she said. ‘Are you Magnus?’
I had parked outside Randolf Hedman’s house in Sorsele, but Randolf seemed unwilling to get out of the car. He sat there, picking at the loose threads of his long johns and looking at me with tired eyes. He wanted to know more and more about our strange journey, and that was lucky really because when Torbjörn phoned telling us about the fire and that they were at a farm somewhere between the Råvojaure and Jumovaure rivers, Randolf said he thought the place was in the direction of Ammarnäs, so we headed that way. There was no trace of any smoke, but it had become overcast with heavy grey clouds and it wasn’t easy to tell if we were on the right road, but I trusted Randolf because he had lived in the area all his life.
We drove up into the forest on a narrow road. Just as the fire became visible as a golden-brown glow in the sky, we met a man stumbling along the roadside.
He tugged the rear door handle open hard and threw himself onto the back seat, shouting at me to reverse. Of course, I wanted to know why, but I soon found out.
Two bears came lumbering towards us along the road, looking grey in the darkness. It seemed the headlights were keeping them back because they stopped directly beyond the beams of light. Randolf pushed down the door lock on his side and I did the same. I suppose that’s the kind of thing you do in drastic, life-threatening situations – you react instinctively, so stupidly that it makes you embarrassed afterwards. We sat there for ages, staring at the huge animals wandering backwards and forwards in the dark. Occasionally we saw their small eyes like shiny buttons.
The man in the back seat panted and whimpered.
He wheezed as he breathed and it seemed he could not decide whether to lie down on the seat or sit up. Between gasps he said he had wounded one of the bears and they were dangerous.
‘Drive!’ he said. ‘Drive, for God’s sake!’
I expect the bears had worked out that the headlights were not as dangerous as they thought, and soon they were so close I could see their nostrils.
‘Perhaps you ought to reverse,’ Randolf said.
But I shook my head.
‘Susso is up there.’
‘There’s no one there!’ the man said. ‘I promise you, there’s no one there.’
Flashing the headlights at full beam was no good, so I tried hooting. That made one of the bears stop and tilt its head to one side. It annoyed the other and it ran towards the car, hitting a wing mirror with such force it snapped off. The man shouted from the back seat:
‘If you don’t back out of here, they’ll tip the car over!’
It looked as if he was right, so I put the car into reverse and rolled slowly backwards. The bears followed, of course. I increased speed but drove carefully because the road was winding and in the dark it wasn’t easy to see where the bends were. But soon I managed to put thirty metres between me and the bears.
‘Randolf,’ I said.
‘Yes?’
‘Hold on!’ I said, putting it into first.
I pressed the accelerator so hard that the tyres skidded. Randolf clutched the handle above the door, taking my advice literally. I hooted again and flashed the headlights.
The bears waited for a long time and I thought they were never going to move. But finally they did. They lurched off on opposite sides of the road. The one on my side of the car had his jaws wide open as I drove past.
After that I floored it because naturally they came after us, and this time they were running, so Randolf informed me.
A little further along the road was an upturned car, and as we passed it we saw flames shooting up behind the trees. It wasn’t until then that I remembered that Torbjörn had told me to phone the fire service. But at that moment all I could think about was Susso. And the bears, of course. I got out my phone and tried to ring Torbjörn, but the driving took all my concentration, so I threw the phone to Randolf.
