I Am Behind You

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  The thin, claw-like hand scrapes across the metal; the creature’s hip catches the wing mirror and bends it inwards as it reaches for the door handle.

  Two buttons. One with an open padlock, one with a closed padlock. Peter presses the closed padlock and hears a reassuring clunk from all four doors in unison. The creature tugs at the door, but to no avail.

  Peter has been so preoccupied with what has been going on in front of him and inside his head that he has forgotten a pretty vital fact: he is sitting in a car. A car that can be started up. A car that can be driven. Away from the creatures who are now surrounding him, trying to find a way in.

  And yet he doesn’t move. Now that the immediate danger has passed and the wave of panic in his belly has receded, he can see that even though the creatures look terrifying, they are not strong. Their dried-up, burnt fingers scrabble at the car or clench into fists, banging feebly at the windows as they scream and scream.

  Are they…people?

  One of them clambers up onto the bonnet and leans towards Peter, who instinctively recoils. They look at one another.

  The creature has no more individuality than a skull. Everything that would confer personality has been burnt away. The ears and nose are no more than charred remains, and the parchment-like skin is stretched over the cheekbones. It looks at Peter. And screams.

  When it opens its mouth Peter can see that one single muscle is more or less intact: the tongue, obscenely pink among the black and brown as the creature leans closer and screams. Most people go through life without ever hearing such a scream, fortunately, but in its expression of bottomless pain it is nonetheless human.

  ‘What do you want?’ Peter shouts. ‘What do you want?’

  It is obvious what they want. They want to get into the car. Peter has no intention of allowing that to happen, but he has to say something, something that will establish…human contact. He doesn’t get an answer, but suddenly the creature stiffens and looks over its shoulder. The banging and scraping noises stop.

  It quickly grows dark as the cloud comes closer, and through the windscreen Peter can see that the black wall in front of him has become diffuse and hazy. Twenty metres ahead of the car the grass seems to be moving in his direction. The creature jumps down from the bonnet and its screams change character, from pain to fear. Through the rear-view mirror Peter sees all four figures running away from the car.

  Only when the movement in the grass has reached the car and the haze has become a fog does Peter realise what it is. Rain. A heavy shower of rain is falling from the black cloud, which now covers the sky so that it is as dark as night. A second later the drops begin to spatter on the bodywork of the car.

  The screams grow fainter, and Peter runs his fingers through his hair, scratches his head. Rain. At least that explains how the grass can grow, but why are those creatures so afraid of it? Surely it would bring welcome relief, cool them down?

  It is pitch black now, and Peter starts the engine so that he can switch on the headlights, but the water pouring down the windscreen still makes it difficult to see anything. He switches on the wipers, and now he can make out something that the flat light from the sky had not revealed. There is a track. A track running from the wall of darkness out across the field, following the route that the creatures took when they ran away.

  Steam rises from the windscreen as some kind of sticky substance appears to vaporise. The next sweep of the wiper blades brings more goo; there is a terrible smell coming through the air conditioning, and now the wipers begin to make a screeching noise as they sweep back and forth.

  There is something in the rain. What is it?

  Peter lowers his window and sticks his hand out in the darkness, palm upwards. Warm raindrops land on his skin and he withdraws his hand, flicks on the interior light.

  Ouch! Fuck! Ouch!

  His palm feels hot. Then it begins to burn. There is no sign of fire, but it is as painful as if he had held his hand over a naked flame. The drops of rain have penetrated his skin, and he can smell burning flesh. He wipes his hand on the seat, rubbing it against the fabric, but the pain does not diminish.

  A few drops catch the bottom of the window frame, splashing Peter’s face, and seconds later his cheek feels as if it is on fire. He gasps and closes the window.

  The wiper blades are still screeching, and now he realises why. There are no wiper blades. The rubber has disintegrated and been eaten away. It isn’t difficult to understand why the creatures ran away.

  Peter examines his hand; the acute pain has lessened, and in two places the skin has turned white around a dark red wound that has the faint smell of acetone. It still smarts, but the process seems to have stopped.

  What would have happened if I had held my hand out for longer?

  It’s not hard to guess. He only has to look at the windscreen wipers.

  He turns to look out of the back window, but in the darkness he can no longer make out the burnt creatures. Perhaps they weren’t attacking him after all? Perhaps they were just seeking sanctuary inside the car?

  The rain is hammering down, but it seems as if the grass is unaffected by whatever is falling from the sky. It bends and trembles just as it would in a normal shower, but it is not being eaten away.

  Because it belongs here.

  Peter doesn’t have time to examine that thought more closely, because he has just noticed something about the car bonnet. He screws up his eyes and pulls down the sun visor to shade his eyes from the interior light and to reflect it forwards. He was right.

  ‘Fucking hell!’

  The bonnet is shimmering and shining like oil on water. The diamond-hard lacquer has begun to dissolve and is running across the metal in bubbling streams; the glow of the headlights grows fainter as they are covered with liquid lacquer.

  ‘Fuck!’

  If the rain has the ability to dissolve lacquer, then it is not unreasonable to assume that it can also eat through metal. For the moment Peter is sitting here inside the car, nice and cosy, but in five minutes or five seconds he could be sitting in a fucking colander with acid trickling all over his body until…

  Until I become like one of them.

  He’s not about to analyse that thought either. He turns the key, and at the same time feels a burning sensation on the back of his neck. The rain has come through the plexiglas sunroof.

  As he puts the car in gear and jolts forward

  The tyres. Are the tyres okay?

  he leans to the side, twisting his body away from the leak. He swings the car around while looking for something he can use to block up the hole. He can’t see anything, so he opens the glove compartment and takes out the thick manual.

  A couple of drops land on his shoulder, and he screams as they burn through his shirt and his skin. He changes up to second gear and floors the accelerator, following the track that leads away from the darkness, one hand pressing the manual against the sunroof, which buckles alarmingly under the pressure, as if it is much thinner now and on the point of breaking.

  He doesn’t know where he is going, and right now it doesn’t matter. All he can do is keep his eyes on the track leading away from the darkness, and pray to God that the tyres and the headlights will hold out for as long as necessary.

  But he has forgotten something. There is no God here.

  All he can do is keep his eyes on the track. Keep his eyes on the track.

  *

  Stefan has never liked being the boss. He likes doing his own thing, but he has never enjoyed being in charge of other people. During the summer months he and Carina sometimes have five employees in the store, including a couple of teenagers. Stefan has no problem organising and allocating duties, but having to tell off the kids if they’re spending too much time hanging out in the stockroom is just the pits. Bossing people around. To be honest, he usually leaves that kind of thing to Carina.

  However, it seems as if he is going to have to take charge now. Majvor’s discovery of the gold items h
as created confusion and a lack of focus. There is a great deal of vague chat, and the only concrete suggestion comes from Carina, who thinks they ought to dig a latrine so that they won’t use up all their water flushing the toilets. Unfortunately this doesn’t lead to direct action, because no one seems keen to tackle long-term issues, so Stefan takes the responsibility and puts into words what everyone already knows.

  ‘Okay,’ he shouts, clapping his hands. ‘We have no idea how long we’re going to be here, and…’ Emil is standing beside him, so he changes we might die here to: ‘…it could be quite some time. We need to act on that basis.’

  Stefan starts doing what he does best: organising the troops. Lennart and Olof will expand their vegetable patch and lend a spade to Emil and Carina, who will dig a latrine. Stefan himself will carry on building his tower so that they can make phone calls.

  ‘And Majvor…’

  He had intended to ask her to sit with Isabelle, but when he sees her eyes sparking with anticipation, he says: ‘Check on Isabelle, then perhaps you could search around and see if you can find anything else? That’s obviously one of your talents!’

  In spite of the fact that his little speech was based on the assumption that they are going to have to stay here for a long time, the mood of the group has lifted as they disperse to tackle their assignments.

  The four white figures have become a part of the landscape, standing motionless in the middle of the camp, but still Stefan avoids looking at them as he heads towards his caravan. They remind him of a bomb that has been defused; it is still a bomb.

  He is about to go inside to fetch a screwdriver so that he can dismantle the wooden decking, but decides to check out the surrounding area first of all. Peter should have been back ages ago. Stefan clambers up onto the roof and hears a bark. The dog is trotting across the field, accompanied by a cat. Donald is a few metres behind them.

  The group is only a stone’s throw away, and there is no ambiguity about Donald’s mood. His face is red, his hands gripping the strap of his shotgun as he staggers along on stiff legs. Donald is furious, and as he gets closer to the camp he slips the gun off his shoulder. Stefan is about to climb down when he spots something beyond Donald.

  Black clouds have begun to pile up on the horizon. They grow in seconds, moving rapidly towards the camp. Stefan hurries down the ladder and glances in the opposite direction. Black clouds are gathering there too, racing across the sky towards the camp. Two gigantic arms, ready to embrace them.

  *

  Peter has driven out of the corrosive rain. The sky above him is clear and blue once again as he approaches the group of distorted creatures from behind. Only then does he realise that he is still pressing the car manual against the sunroof with his right hand, and steering with his left. When he slowly lowers the thick book, he sees that the rain has eaten virtually all the way through it.

  He tosses the manual on the passenger seat and slows down as he drives past the running remnants of humanity. They spot him and turn towards the car, hands outstretched. But it is a half-hearted gesture without conviction; it could just as easily be a plea as a threat.

  They really are a pitiful sight, like refugees from a nuclear explosion or the survivors of a fire. Even that does not do justice to their appearance. It is as if everything that is not essential to move forwards has been burnt away, and not even the remaining parts are intact.

  Thanks to his own sports injuries and his work as a personal trainer, Peter is reasonably familiar with the muscular structure of the human body. He has studied scans showing how tendons, sinews and ligaments are connected, and these creatures look like a display of those images, although they are incomplete and damaged beyond repair. Some of the muscles have been so badly burnt that the bone is visible behind them, and the powerful ligaments in the thighs have been reduced to scraps that should no longer be able to convey strength. It is hard to understand how they can move at all, let alone run.

  Are the hands outstretched because the creatures are hungry, or is this a plea for help? Whichever it might be, Peter has no intention of hanging around to find out. The clouds are growing in the rear-view mirror, and the need to get away overshadows everything else. Away from the corrosive, lethal rain.

  But where can he go?

  The field is endless.

  The thought that gave him consolation not so long ago now seems like a mockery. If the field is endless, then all he can do is drive and drive until he runs out of petrol, then sit and wait for the cloud to catch up with him.

  But the field is not endless. It ends where the darkness takes over. As Peter drives past the running creatures he scratches the back of his neck, wincing as his nails catch a sore. He moves his fingers a fraction and scratches again, examining the thought.

  If there is an end, then it means that the field is not endless, but if that is the case, then what shape is this place? There is a slight curve to the horizon, but is this a sphere or merely a…sloping disc?

  He concentrates on driving, because he has spotted something. The track which was so clearly visible in the beam of the headlights can also be seen beneath the blue sky, now that he knows it’s there. In the absence of an alternative course of action he decides to follow it, while actively avoiding any speculation about the actual composition of the field.

  He is leaning forward to switch on the radio when the horizon suddenly changes. Three long, narrow rectangles appear, and as he keeps going they grow taller, until they take the shape of three caravans. The track leads directly into the camp.

  *

  Majvor enters the caravan to find Isabelle propped up in bed with several pillows behind her back, her bandaged arms folded over her stomach. Molly is placing a laptop in front of her.

  ‘Are you looking after your mummy?’ Majvor says. ‘That’s a good girl. Mummies need looking after too, sometimes.’

  ‘I’m a good girl, I am,’ Molly says. ‘Aren’t I a good girl, Mummy?’

  Isabelle nods slowly, but there is nothing to suggest that she knows why she is nodding. Her eyes are as empty and cold as two frozen lakes, and if it hadn’t been for the movement of her head, Majvor would have thought she was dead.

  ‘How are you, sweetheart?’ Majvor asks, and Isabelle turns her head towards the sound of her voice. A cold shudder runs down Majvor’s spine when their eyes meet. There is not the faintest spark of life in the two glass orbs set into the damaged face.

  What has happened to her?

  When Majvor was trying to stop the bleeding, Isabelle had been dazed and confused, but at least you could see that in her eyes. Now there is nothing, and Majvor doesn’t know what to do. It is a relief when she hears Benny barking; it gives her an excuse to go outside and see what’s going on.

  Stefan jumps down from the ladder at the back of his caravan as Donald marches into the camp, followed by the dog and the cat, shotgun at the ready as if he is out hunting. The idea of taking him out into the field was to give him time to calm down; it looks as if he has spent the period of isolation doing the exact opposite.

  ‘Stop right there, you little bastard,’ Donald yells, pointing the gun at Stefan, who does as he is told and holds up his hands.

  ‘Get out here, the lot of you!’ Donald thunders; his voice is so loud that Benny and the cat slink away under the farmers’ caravan. ‘Out here so I can see you!’

  As Majvor walks towards Donald he fires a shot into the air, making the metallic walls of the caravans vibrate. She stops. However ridiculous his behaviour might be, there is no getting away from the fact that he is carrying a loaded gun. He shot at her before, and he could do it again.

  Lennart and Olof leave their gardening and Carina emerges from her caravan with a spade in her hand. She signals to Emil to stay inside.

  ‘So you thought you could dump me like a fucking scapegoat in the desert, did you?’ Donald says, waving the barrel of the gun at the assembled company. When he reaches Harvey and the three incarnations of James Stewart h
e stops, then smiles scornfully and mutters: ‘Oh no. You can’t fool me. No way.’

  ‘Donald,’ Stefan ventures, pointing to the left and right. ‘There are black clouds…’

  ‘That’s your problem,’ Donald interrupts. ‘You might just get wet. Because you’re going to bring back my caravan.’

  Stefan’s comment has broken the concentration of the group, and they all start looking around to check out the clouds, which makes Donald even more furious than he already is.

  ‘Did you hear me!’ he bellows. ‘You are going to bring back my caravan, and then you are going to fix it, and where’s that bastard Peter, by the way?’

  ‘He hasn’t come back,’ Stefan says, taking a step forward. ‘Donald…’

  Donald lowers the gun and fires a shot into the ground a metre in front of Stefan, which makes him jump back.

  ‘I’m serious!’ Donald yells. ‘Get going, right now! Otherwise, God help me, I’ll kill the lot of you, one by one.’

  Donald raises the gun to his shoulder and takes aim at Stefan, who hunches his shoulders and holds up his hands. Lennart clears his throat and says: ‘Calm down, Donald. Olof and I will go and fetch your caravan.’

  The clouds have grown bigger and moved closer in the short period since they first appeared.

  ‘You’re all going,’ Donald insists, gesturing towards the farmers’ Volvo. ‘Get out of here. And fix the caravan.’

  Over the years Majvor has developed a range of strategies for dealing with Donald’s mood swings, but she has no experience of the state he is in now. The final resort usually involves telling him off in a sharp tone of voice, but she doesn’t think that would help at the moment, so she troops over to the battered Volvo with the rest of them. The only person who doesn’t move is Carina.

  ‘I’m not leaving my son,’ she says.

  ‘Oh yes you are,’ Donald says. ‘Otherwise I’ll shoot you.’

  Carina’s lips tremble as she lowers her arms. ‘Go on then. Because I’m not leaving him.’