Harbor

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  What am I going to do with her?

  There wasn’t much he could do. She had to reach her own decision. He would tell her that she could stay on for a few days if necessary, but after that she would need to find a different solution. He didn’t want anyone else living here, he wanted to be alone with his ghosts. And Kalle Sändare.

  Anders smiled. There had been another tape, where had that gone? ‘The Tales and Adventures of El Zou-Zou the Magician’. There was some story about a monkey who went in and out through the handles of a paper bag and fetched out different tools…

  With the monkey by his side he tumbled into dreams.

  He was woken by a cold draught and sat up blinking, trying to see the clock on the floor next to the bed. Half-past twelve. He had been asleep for maybe an hour.

  One night. Can I please be allowed to sleep for one whole night?

  The bedroom door was wide open, and the big bed was empty. Anders flopped back on his pillow and listened. There wasn’t a sound inside the house, but the outdoor noises sounded much too clearly, as if the outside door was open. He had forgotten to barricade the bedroom door, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

  Yawning, he pulled on his clothes and went into the kitchen. The outside door was indeed open to the night, and the house was bitterly cold. The thermometer outside the kitchen window was showing four degrees. Elin’s clothes had been neatly folded on the bedroom chair, so she must have gone out in her bra and pants.

  Gone home.

  That was where she had been heading the previous night, and that was presumably where she had gone now. Right across the island, perhaps two kilometres to Kattudden.

  Anders rubbed his face angrily with the palms of his hands.

  Shit! Shit shit shit!

  There was nothing else he could do. He found a warm sweater and a jacket, shoved Elin’s clothes into a carrier bag, pulled on a woolly hat and set off. If he was lucky she hadn’t been gone long, and he would catch up with her along the road.

  His head was buzzing with the intoxication that had been on its way towards a hangover, but had been stopped in its tracks. The dancing beam of the torch moving along the track made him feel slightly unwell. When he got to the point where the track divided, he had a stroke of genius and turned off for Simon’s house.

  Simon’s bike was propped up against the birch tree by the track. It wasn’t locked. It was an old army bike and not really worth stealing, even for the most desperate thief. Besides which, Simon had said he couldn’t use it any longer, and anyone who needed it was welcome to take it.

  Anders took it. He noticed something unusual: Simon’s house was in darkness, but there was a light on in Anna-Greta’s. Then he remembered.

  They’re probably sitting up making plans.

  The thought cheered him up, and the chilly night air had cleared his head. He hung the bag of clothes on the handlebars, got on the bike and pedalled off, using the torch to light his way, since the lamp on the front of the bike had been broken since time immemorial. There was a chance that someone else might have stopped Elin, but it wasn’t great. It was only in summer that people on Domarö were moving about at night.

  He passed the shop and the mission house without seeing any sign of the sleepwalker. By the time he got on to the track through the forest, he was puffing and sweating. There was a sour, smoky taste in his mouth, and as he swept the torch over the gloomy trees, despondency came over him once again and a line from ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ popped up in his head.

  The Smiths. It was many years since a line from one of their songs had come unbidden into his mind, and it made him follow a chain of thought back through the years as he pedalled through the forest. He came out into the opening leading towards Kattudden, continued for fifty metres or so, then caught sight of something that made him brake so sharply that the tyres skidded through the gravel.

  He tried to correct the bike, but couldn’t keep it upright. It slid sideways and he went down with a clatter and a ping from the bell. His right knee scraped along the gravel then the speed took him and rolled him over a couple of times before he was eventually stopped by a fence. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and tried to make sense of what his eyes were seeing.

  Henrik’s platform moped was parked under a lamppost. In the garden next door, Elin was walking with two other people. The sound of Anders crashing his bike made them turn around. It was Henrik and Björn. They both looked roughly the same age as when Anders had last seen them, eighteen years earlier.

  This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.

  Henrik and Björn were contemplating him calmly as he sat there like a dazed animal, caught in the glow of the lamp. Elin carried on along the side of the house. It wasn’t a house Anders was familiar with. Just one of many summer cottages. Elin was carrying something heavy. It was hard to see what it was, because the light didn’t reach that far.

  The taste of blood seeped into Anders’ mouth and he looked around for the torch. It was by his feet, and it was still shining. He pointed it at Henrik, who gave a start as the bright light hit him. Then he smiled.

  ‘Unfortunately it’s not that simple, Anders.’

  Something in Henrik’s hand reflected the light and dazzled Anders before the reflection vanished. A knife. The blade was so long it almost reached the ground as Henrik held the handle between his index and middle finger, letting the sharp edge swing to and fro. If it hadn’t been for the shape of the blade, it could have been a machete.

  Anders got to his feet. His trousers were ripped over his right knee, which was throbbing with pain. There was no point in questioning the evidence of his own eyes. Henrik and Björn were standing there. They looked the same as they had done all those years ago, Henrik’s voice was the same. Anders spat out a gob of saliva mixed with blood and asked, ‘What are you doing?’

  Henrik looked at Björn and Björn said, ‘Burning down the discotheque.’

  Henrik gave him the thumbs-up sign. Anders shone the torch towards the house. Elin really was wearing only her underclothes, and the narrow band of her bra glowed white against her back. She was carrying a can of petrol in her hands, and was just throwing the last of the petrol over the corner of the house.

  Why…

  The thoughts whirled around in Anders’ head, tinged with red and with no sense of order. The only thing he could manage to get out was that one simple question, ‘…why?’

  Henrik pursed his lips and frowned, as if Anders’ lack of knowledge annoyed him. He said, ‘I think you know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

  Henrik waved the knife around and said to Björn, ‘Now I’m fucking disappointed. Aren’t you disappointed?’

  The corners of Björn’s mouth turned down. ‘Truly disappointed.’

  They were playing some kind of game, and Anders didn’t want to join in. The fact that they were standing there in front of him, alive and talking and playing their game, was just too much to take in, so Anders clung to the reason he had come here. ‘What’s Elin got to do with all this?’

  Björn shook his head. ‘You really don’t understand anything, do you? Mind or body? Which rules the other? I dunno.’

  Henrik waved the knife in Elin’s direction and said, ‘Come on, old woman.’

  Elin went and stood between them. She was moving like a sleepwalker, just as she had done the previous night, and her eyes were empty. The cold had made her skin deathly pale, and it was difficult to tell where the skin ended and the fabric began. As Anders looked around for the bag containing Elin’s clothes, Henrik ran his hands over her breasts and stomach and said, ‘Have you earned it, baby? I don’t think so. Not yet.’

  The carrier bag was lying by the fence a couple of metres away from where Anders had landed after the crash. Whether Henrik and Björn were ghosts or crazy or both, this couldn’t go on. Elin would freeze to death.

&nb
sp; Anders pulled her sweater out of the bag and went over to the group. Despite the impossibility of Henrik and Björn’s presence, and despite the knife in Henrik’s hand, Anders was not afraid. In the same way as a school reunion tends to cast everyone in their former roles once again, he regarded Henrik and Björn as nothing more than the slightly ridiculous boys they had been in the old days; he had no respect for them. He held out the sweater to Elin. ‘Here. Put this on.’

  Elin didn’t move, and her gaze was turned in on herself. When Anders rolled the sweater up to put it on her, Henrik took a step forward and placed himself in the way. He looked Anders in the eye and said, ‘What’s changed? Nothing, I just love you less. Slightly less than I did, anyway.’

  As he uttered the last word he swept his hand in an arc over Anders’ legs. It felt as if he had been lashed with a whip, and when he looked down he saw that his jeans had been slashed across both thighs; there were two cuts the width of a hand in the fabric. For a second he could also see the pink flesh in the cuts. Then came the blood. It filled the gashes and dark stains spread over the fabric.

  Before Anders had time to think the thought: I’ve been cut, his chin was hit by the metal knob on the end of the knife’s handle. Everything went black and he staggered backwards for a couple of steps before he fell over and hit his shoulder on the platform of the moped. The adrenaline was running riot in his body, and he started shaking.

  Henrik pointed the knife at him and mused, ‘What do you think the knife wants?’ He grinned and made a slitting motion.

  Björn laughed as though he had heard an unusually funny joke. Without taking his eyes off Anders, Henrik extended the palm of his hand. Björn gave him five and said, ‘That was good.’

  Anders had drawn up his knees and warm blood was pouring down his thighs, tickling its way over his groin and gathering under his bottom. His head was reverberating with a sound like the lingering echo of a church bell, and he was too weak to get to his feet. Henrik continued lecturing him.

  ‘Elin here,’ said Henrik, placing an arm around her shoulders, ‘she was a great girl, wasn’t she? Looked after herself. If anyone came too close, she started screaming. Times have certainly changed.’

  Incapable of doing anything more than lifting one arm in an impotent attempt to put an end to all this, Anders leaned against the moped and watched as Henrik grabbed the blade of the knife and pushed the metal knob on the handle inside Elin’s pants. He glanced at Anders, nodded, then pushed the whole of the handle inside Elin’s vagina.

  She didn’t make a sound. The blade was sticking out of her pants like a metal penis. When Anders looked up at her face, he saw that she was smiling. A big, ugly smile. His stomach turned over and sour vomit spurted out between his lips, all over the gravel beside him.

  He wiped his mouth and took a deep breath. Through his burning throat he managed just one harsh word, ‘Elin!’

  Elin’s eyelids flickered and she looked at him. Her eyes came back to life, and when she looked down below her belly she screamed. Henrik snorted, grabbed the blade and pulled out the handle. Björn grabbed her from behind, locking her arms as Henrik caressed her skin with the blade. He turned to Anders.

  ‘You still haven’t answered the question,’ he said.

  A tiny amount of strength was beginning to return to Anders’ body. Soon he would be able to stand up, and he thought: A weapon, where can I find a weapon? as he said, ‘What question?’

  ‘The one about the disco,’ said Björn, adopting a pedagogical tone, as if he were addressing a particularly stupid pupil, ‘Why are we burning down the disco?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The fence post. The one that came loose.

  Elin was screaming wordlessly and writhing in Björn’s grip. Henrik put his arm around her neck with his hand over her mouth, then turned to Anders again, nodded briefly and slashed her stomach.

  A muffled scream escaped from beneath Henrik’s firmly clamped hand and Elin’s legs kicked out as she tried to free herself, while a trickle of blood spread horizontally along a crease in her stomach. Anders staggered to his feet and Henrik pointed the knife at him.

  ‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘Chill. That was worth a clue.’

  Anders wasn’t sure his body would obey him if he tried to rush over to the fence, so he stayed where he was and tried to gather his strength as Björn said, ‘For the same reason as we’re hanging the disc jockey.’

  Henrik nodded and loosened his grip on Elin’s mouth, dug his hand inside her bra and grabbed one nipple, pulled it out and rested the blade of the knife against it. Elin was now dangling helplessly in Björn’s grasp, too frightened even to scream.

  ‘Last chance,’ said Henrik. ‘Why are we going to hang the DJ and burn the disco?’ He made a couple of sawing movements with the knife a centimetre above Elin’s stretched, pink flesh, and said, ‘Come on Anders, you know this.’

  There was no possibility that he could reach the fence post before Henrik let the knife fall. Anders pressed his wrists against his temples. Hang the DJ, burn the discotheque.

  Something clicked. He switched the words around and then blurted out the name of the song that was so relevant to his present condition.

  ‘Panic!’ he cried. ‘Panic!’

  Henrik stiffened. Then he let go of Elin’s nipple and lowered the knife. He made a gesture not unlike applause. ‘There you go! That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’

  Anders ignored the question. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  Henrik considered for a couple of seconds. Then he shook his head and turned to Björn, who was still holding on to Elin. Björn said, ‘Mmm…because…we are human and we need love just like anyone?’

  ‘No,’ said Henrik. ‘Try again.’

  Björn frowned. Then he brightened up. ‘We’re clinging because we know it’s over, but we don’t know where else to go.’

  Henrik nodded. ‘Close enough,’ he said. ‘And so true.’

  The cuts in Anders’ thighs were not as deep as he had first thought. They had stopped bleeding, but his trousers were soaked and the cold was starting to get to his legs. ‘Can we stop this game now?’ he said. ‘Let Elin go.’

  Henrik looked surprised.

  ‘That’s not possible. We’re going to drown her.’

  Elin started screaming again as Henrik and Björn used their combined strength to drag her towards the water, her bare feet scoring a track in the gravel. Anders stumbled over to the fence and tugged at the loose post until it came out.

  When he turned around Elin had been dragged twenty metres down towards the sea, forty metres to go. He let the adrenaline take over, desensitising him to his physical problems. He ran to catch up with them. When he was a couple of metres away, he yelled, ‘Let her go!’

  Henrik turned, and Anders hit out at his head with the metre-long post. Henrik’s arm came up in defence, and the post struck his elbow. The sensation of two hard objects meeting should have carried on into Anders’ hands, but that wasn’t what happened. When the wooden post hit Henrik’s body it felt more like hitting a big sponge full of water. Henrik’s arm curved around the post and a shower of water hit Anders in the face.

  Henrik tore the post out of his hands and hurled it to the ground. ‘I don’t think it’s time for you to die. Yet. So pack it in.’

  Anders stood there with his arms dangling by his sides as they continued to drag Elin towards the water. Then he turned and ran up towards their moped as he fumbled in his pocket. Let me have, let me have…

  Yes. In his pocket he found both cigarettes and matches. He ran over to the moped, unscrewed the petrol cap and yelled to the group, who were now very close to the shore, ‘Listen! Let her go, or else…’ He lit a match and held it over the hole.

  They stopped. Anders shook the box of matches and discovered it was half-full. He had no plan, couldn’t work out what to do next. He had been forced to find a way to stop them, and so far it had succeeded. But what next? He could stand here stri
king matches until the box was empty, but then what?

  In any case, they must be able to see through him. He had no desire to be blown up along with their moped for Elin’s sake. He looked at the match, which had almost burned down.

  Besides which…

  Besides which it wouldn’t work, he now remembered. He couldn’t think who it was or in what context, but somebody had once dropped a lighted match into a petrol tank to impress the others. It had simply gone out. Petrol needs air in order to burn. It might even have been Henrik, that summer when they were kings with their new moped.

  Maybe it had been, because they were unimpressed by his threat and were still dragging Elin, who was now screaming at the top of her voice, down towards the shore.

  Air…

  Anders grabbed the edge of the platform and tipped the moped over. It rolled and came to rest on the handlebars as the petrol gurgled out of the tank. He looked up and saw that they were now down by the shoreline with Elin. There was no more time for threats. He moved back a couple of metres, just as far as the petrol had trickled down through the gravel, struck a fresh match and threw it, jumping backwards at the same time.

  The flames shot up from the ground like a blue and yellow wall, and Anders screamed, ‘Listen!’ as loud as he could. Through the fire, which was now licking at the wooden planks of the platform, he saw Henrik and Björn let go of Elin and come racing up towards him.

  He had done what he could and given Elin a chance to escape, now it was up to her. He ran to the bike and the denim was ripped agonisingly from his legs as he threw himself on to the saddle and pedalled towards the forest as hard and as fast as he possibly could. He didn’t even turn around to see if they were following him.

  The enemy of the water

  Anders’ legs pedalled as if they had been disconnected from his body and were being controlled by another will. The darkness around him was dense, but he didn’t give a thought to the fact that he could end up in the ditch at any moment, and perhaps that was why it didn’t happen. Instinct kept him on the right track, and he managed to drive himself on right through the forest without falling off.