The Voices Beyond: (Oland Quartet Series 4)

by Johan Theorin

  ‘You’ll have a nice quiet night here, Granddad,’ Vincent said, lighting a paraffin lamp in the window.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Gerlof said.

  When Vincent had gone, he left the door open. He looked around at the beds, the fishing nets and the little table. He and John had spent many a night in here, when they had laid their nets out in the Sound and were waiting for them to fill up. Back in those days, Gerlof had often woken at sunrise, but tomorrow morning he intended to lie in, at least until seven o’clock.

  He stepped outside for a little while to enjoy the cool evening air. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, listening to the summer silence.

  Peace at last.

  It was so quiet, with just the faintest breeze.

  But he could hear a distant noise to the south. A dull rumbling; he could only just make it out. Gerlof stood very still and realized that it was a powerful engine idling away, further down the coast.

  A big ship? If so, it was hidden by one of the points, because there wasn’t a single vessel in sight out in the Sound.

  He went back inside and locked the door. There was an old radio in the boathouse, and the last thing he did before going to bed was to switch it on and listen to the weather forecast for Öland and Gotland. Cloudy with virtually no wind overnight, but with the risk of localized showers early in the morning. Tuesday would be sunny once more.

  Gerlof put on his pyjamas and removed his hearing aid. Another little gadget to think about, but he’d actually started to like it.

  Before he pulled down the blind he looked out across the darkening Sound and saw a strip of deep red below the curtain of cloud on the horizon.

  As dark as blood, he thought, but without any misgivings. He had seen that same strip many times before; it was nothing more than the last glow of the sun, lingering on the horizon like a glowing ember.

  He left a couple of tea lights burning on the windowsill. They were in glass holders, and would go out during the night; it was perfectly safe.

  Slowly, Gerlof lay down on the camp bed and closed his eyes, feeling contented. This was a bit like settling down in his cabin after dropping anchor in some natural harbour on a still summer’s evening. The same narrow bed, the same proximity to creation, the same sense of peace. If the wind got up it would no doubt wake him; that was a relic from all those years at sea.

  Darkness fell over the shore, and there wasn’t a sound.

  Gerlof was soon fast asleep, dreaming that he had gone down to the sea and pushed a brand-new wooden gig, smelling of oil, into the water, straight out into the stillness.

  Right in the middle of the dream, he woke up with a start. But it wasn’t the weather that had disturbed him; someone was hammering on the door of the boathouse.

  Jonas

  Floating across the depths, drifting along in the sunset.

  Jonas was lying on his back in the rubber dinghy, which felt like a water bed. No, it was a water bed, because he was floating out by the gill nets, his feet dangling over the side as he gazed up at the sky above the Sound. The vault of the heavens was slowly darkening, and stars had begun to glimmer on the horizon.

  Out here, he was free of everything. Alone on the sea, just like someone who had been shipwrecked.

  His brother’s secret plan for the evening had worked. Just after six o’clock, Jonas had got into the car with Mats and their cousins. The adults had assumed that all four boys were on their way to the cinema in Kalmar, but as soon as they reached the campsite at Stenvik – out of sight of Villa Kloss – Mats had handed Jonas the money from Dad for his cinema ticket, then turfed him out of the car.

  ‘Have fun, bro! We certainly will!’

  The cousins smiled and nodded at him, and the car headed off towards the main road.

  Jonas had watched the car until it disappeared, then he had gone down to the jetty. It was busy with people taking an evening dip, and he had sat down on a rock to watch them for a while, particularly a girl of his own age, with long, almost pure-white hair. She was sitting on a blanket with two girlfriends, chatting and laughing, and she never even glanced at him. Not once. He might as well have been invisible.

  So he had got up and made his way south across the banks of pebbles on the shore until he reached the point below Villa Kloss. The area was deserted at this time of the evening, and it was a good hiding place. He just had to find a way of keeping busy, getting through the evening.

  First of all, he had gone for a long swim, then he had dried himself in the sun. He had done a bit of beachcombing, but had found nothing but a few empty German milk cartons.

  Then he had had another swim. By this time the sun was low on the horizon and the shallow water had cooled.

  When he was dry, he pulled on his shorts before dragging Casper’s rubber dinghy out of the boathouse. He slipped on a lifejacket and waded out into the water for an evening outing. Once the sun had set he would creep back up to his little chalet in the darkness and go to bed. In the morning he would tell the adults he had enjoyed the film.

  A good plan.

  Jonas stepped on to a rock, the dinghy in front of him, and looked around. The surface of the water was calm and shining. The Sound looked perfectly safe, but he knew that the seabed dropped away sharply just ahead of him, and that you could go under and drown just metres from the shore.

  The water turned pitch black when the sun disappeared, as if the Sound had suddenly become bottomless. A bit scary, but exciting.

  He stepped carefully into the dinghy and started to row along the shoreline; when he reached the gill nets he turned and headed away from the land, following the nets and feeling the pull of the black depths below him. The algae and the fish, the seaweed and the rocks. Another world …

  Eventually, he reached the middle of the nets and tied the little boat to one of the thick poles.

  The water out here was as deep and dark as a grave, but there wasn’t a breath of wind.

  Jonas settled down in the bottom of the dinghy and watched as the sky above him grew darker and darker. There were gaps in the cloud cover, and small pinpricks of light glimmered through.

  They’ll be in the cinema in Kalmar by now, he thought.

  While Mats and their cousins were watching the film, all Jonas could do was gaze at the stars above the island. But gradually the all-consuming envy faded away, leaving a kind of peace, a sense of floating weightlessly between sea and sky. There were no insects to disturb him this far out in the Sound, not even the mosquitoes.

  He closed his eyes. Everything was dark and quiet.

  But a faint sound made him open his eyes and raise his head. A dull throbbing that could be felt through the water as well as heard.

  It was the sound of a ship. A big ship that had started up its pounding diesel engines, somewhere in the darkness. The throbbing grew louder, then diminished.

  He blinked slowly, feeling drowsy. Had he fallen asleep? Jonas didn’t have a watch, but the sun had gone down and clouds covered the night sky. The stars had vanished.

  He looked to the south, but saw nothing. There were no lights approaching.

  The island was even darker than the sea. The two spits of land jutting out into the Sound on either side of the bay were pitch black, apart from the odd light in the windows of the summer cottages closest to the shore.

  He could hear the faint sound of voices and laughter; it was probably the party up at Villa Kloss. Dad and Aunt Veronica and Uncle Kent and their guests would be sitting on the veranda, eating and drinking.

  Jonas considered spending the whole night in the dinghy. Soon the summer night would be completely black, and perhaps then they would all stop drinking and laughing up at Villa Kloss, and when the car from Kalmar came back without him they would wonder where he was. They would be worried. Where’s Jonas? Has anyone seen Jonas? For once, he would be important to them.

  He would stay down here and row a bit further – out to the very end of the gill nets, further than he had ever b
een before.

  He rowed with even strokes, and through the thin rubber bottom of the dinghy he could feel the water quickly growing colder. He couldn’t see any rocks now, only blackness. If the boat got a puncture, he wasn’t sure he would be able to swim ashore, even with his lifejacket.

  The depth of the water made him feel dizzy.

  Finally, he reached the very last pole, tall and slender. He could see that it was held in place by long ropes and chains.

  Jonas stopped rowing. The dinghy drifted on and he reached out and grabbed the pole, clinging to the rough wood with both hands. The pole proved that at least there were other people in the world, people who had come out here at the beginning of summer and laid their nets, hoping to catch eels.

  He looked over the side but couldn’t make out the nets. Were there eels down there right now, trapped in the darkness? The Kloss family ate smoked eel occasionally, but Jonas didn’t really like the taste. It was too oily.

  Suddenly, he heard the throbbing again. Was it a motor boat? It should have had its lights on if it was out at sea at night, but there was no sign of anything.

  Silence.

  He let go of the wooden pole and drifted away as the current drew the dinghy out into the sound. Bye bye, pole.

  He picked up the oars but didn’t start rowing, allowing the boat to drift instead.

  Out into the blackness. But only for a little longer. It was OK, because he was wearing his lifejacket, but he would turn back soon. He just wanted to see if he could catch a glimpse of the other vessel.

  He peered around. A faint haze had begun to rise from the water, a night mist that made it even more difficult to see.

  All at once, Jonas had the feeling that something huge and silent had appeared by the spit of land to the south – a grey shadow on the water, long and slender like a sea monster. A sea serpent, or a giant octopus lurking in the Sound …

  Was the shadow moving? He blinked, but it was gone.

  He started rowing. He wanted to get home now, but it was so dark and misty that he was no longer sure exactly where he was, or even how far he was from the shore. There was nothing to give him his bearings. Were those dots of light coming from the houses on the coast, or were they faint stars glimmering in the distance?

  He stopped rowing and let out a long breath. He listened.

  He could hear splashing. Small ripples lapped against the side of the dinghy, but this was louder. It sounded like rushing waves.

  Jonas looked up – and suddenly he could see. The full moon emerged through a gap in the clouds, and the Sound was bathed in light. The water around him turned into a glittering expanse of silver.

  And, in the middle of it all, he saw something large and black – a ship.

  It was gliding straight towards him, at speed. Making no attempt to slow down. In the moonlight, he could just make out a name in white letters on the prow: Elia.

  Jonas smelled the diesel and heard the throbbing of the engines.

  There was no collision; his dinghy was too small. It was simply sucked towards the bow by the swell and carried along with the ship.

  Jonas got on his knees, a cold feeling in his belly; the bow wave was beginning to compress his little boat. It was starting to sink.

  He was frightened now, and tried to stand up. His hands fumbled, but he managed to get hold of the end of a rope swinging from side to side. He looked up; it was the end of a nylon rope, dangling from the ship’s gunwale like a liana in the jungle.

  He clung on as tightly as he could and pulled himself up out of the dinghy, which suddenly freed itself from the swell and spun around like a yellow lifebuoy. Then it slipped away towards the stern, whirled around several times in the glittering waves and disappeared under water.

  Casper’s dinghy. Gone.

  Jonas wanted to save it, but if he let go of the rope he would be sucked down beneath the keel. He held on.

  But not for much longer.

  He gritted his teeth, swung his legs and managed to get his right foot on a rusty little ledge part way up the hull. Using the ledge for support, he hauled himself up towards the black steel rods that made up the gunwale, then clambered up as if they were the wall bars in a school gym.

  He couldn’t hear any sound of human activity from the vessel above him. No voices, no footsteps. The engines seemed to have died away, too; there was only the gentle lapping of the waves as the ship drifted on through the night under its own steam.

  Jonas gathered his strength, heaved himself over the gunwale and landed on a cold metal deck in his bare feet. He was frozen and shaking, but he was safe.

  He breathed out and looked around. Where was he?

  On board a large fishing boat, apparently. He couldn’t see any nets, but the stench of fish and diesel filled the air.

  He was standing next to a closed hatch with a small white structure on either side – a smaller one in the prow and a larger one towards the stern. There was a faint light in one of the windows of the latter; the rest of the ship was in darkness.

  Jonas blinked. Where had it come from? He had seen big ships out in the Sound in the summer, but never this close to the shore.

  He stood by the hatch, wondering what to do. Should he head for the prow, or the stern? Or just stand here and let the ship decide?

  Slowly, he began to make his way along the edge of the hatch, moving towards the stern. He felt it was better to go towards the light, however faint it might be.

  Nothing was moving.

  He kept on going, taking very small steps. The hatch came to an end, and beyond it he saw something round and dark. At first, he thought it was a ball.

  Then he realized it was a head. And a neck, and a pair of shoulders.

  There was a man lying on the deck.

  Jonas stopped dead.

  The man was wearing dark overalls. His face was turned towards Jonas, and the lower half of his body was stuck in a square hole in the deck; it looked as if he had been trying to climb out of the hold.

  But he wasn’t moving now; he didn’t even appear to be breathing. He was just lying there.

  Jonas stared at him. He was just thinking about giving the man a little push with his foot when he heard the sound of moaning from down in the hold.

  There were more people in there, but their voices didn’t sound normal. They sounded muffled, and in terrible pain.

  He listened, frozen to the spot.

  The voices fell silent.

  Jonas heard a rattling noise on deck, right behind him. He turned around and saw a figure stumbling out of the darkness, from the prow. A tall, thin man with black hair. He was young, dressed in jeans and a white sweater – but he looked ill, with staring eyes, his head drooping. He staggered forward as if he were in a trance; he almost tripped over the hatch but slowly straightened up, his expression blank.

  The living dead. A zombie.

  He spotted Jonas; he raised his arms and made a kind of noise. It sounded like a foreign language, a hoarse wheezing.

  The zombie reached out; he was only two metres away now.

  One metre.

  Jonas backed away, turned around and fled along the gunwale. His feet jumped past the man lying on the deck as his eyes searched for a safe place.

  The sea was as black as ink. Öland was far away. Jonas ran blindly towards the stern and the wheelhouse, which had a narrow steel door.

  But the door was closed. Locked. And there was no handle. He pushed his fingers between the edge of the door and the frame, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Trapped.

  He could hear the wheezing behind him, coming closer and closer. He turned around, saw the outstretched hands. Moving towards him.

  Jonas closed his eyes and felt his pants fill with warmth. He had wet himself. At the same time, the steel door shook against his back. Someone on the other side was trying to open it.

  Another monster? Jonas shrank in his wet pants as he heard the door squeak.

  It was thrust open with s
uch force that he was pushed aside. Someone emerged – first of all a foot in a leather boot, then a denim-clad leg, then a pair of raised arms. Holding an axe.

  The man who stepped out on to the deck was also tall and thin; he had a shaven head, and he didn’t seem to have noticed Jonas. He took two steps past him and swung the axe.

  It had a long handle; the blade flashed and went straight into the zombie’s chest. The blow sent the body reeling backwards and it landed on the deck next to Jonas.

  The zombie kept on moving, waving its hands and trying to get up. The man with the axe shouted something and hit it again, twice, three times, four times – then the zombie fell back and lay still.

  Silence. The ship drifted on through the night.

  The man with the axe took a long breath; he sounded as if he was shivering. He turned and saw Jonas.

  Their eyes met in the moonlight. Jonas realized that he recognized this man, those blinking eyes, that tense expression. He had definitely seen him before.

  But the man’s eyes were cold. Cold and afraid. He bent over Jonas and gasped a question: ‘Who are you?’ He gripped Jonas by the shoulder. ‘Where’s Aron, the Swedish-American?’

  Jonas opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Every single word had disappeared from his brain, but the man kept on asking questions.

  ‘The old man – where’s he gone?’

  He raised the axe, which was dripping with blood.

  Jonas managed to make his body move, and rolled to the side. He had to get away, anywhere. He reached out, felt the cold metal of the gunwale and quickly got to his feet. He saw a white lifebelt; his hands grabbed it in passing and tossed it overboard as he clambered to the top of the gunwale.

  ‘Wait!’ the man shouted.

  But Jonas swung his leg over and glanced behind him one last time. He saw a new figure, someone standing at the window of the wheelhouse. An old man, with grey hair, a pale face …

  He had seen enough; he threw himself off the ship, straight out into the darkness of the sea.

  The water was bitterly cold; it took hold of him, dragged him down. He sank into a world of bubbles. The currents around the hull of the ship pulled at him as a dull rushing sound filled his ears, but his flailing hands carried him back up to the surface.