and closed the door. Lacke continued to scream; the air never seemed to give out. Sweat was starting to form on Larry’s brow.
What the hell should I⦠should Iâ¦
In his panic he did what he had seen in the movies. With an open hand he slapped Lacke’s cheek, was startled by the sharp slapping sound and regretted it in the same moment that he did it. But it worked.
Lacke stopped screaming, stared at Larry with wild eyes, and Larry thought he was going to get hit back. Then something softened in Lacke’s eyes, he opened and closed his mouth like he was trying to get some air, said: “Larry, I⦔
Larry put his arms around him. Lacke leaned his cheek against his shoulder and cried so hard he was shaking. After a while Larry’s legs started to feel weak. He tried to untangle himself from the embrace so he could sit down on the hall chair, but Lacke hung onto him and followed him down. Larry landed on the chair and Lacke’s legs buckled under him, his head sank down onto Larry’s lap.
Larry stroked his hair, didn’t know what to say. Just whispered:
“There, there⦠there, there⦔
Larry’s legs had fallen asleep when a change occurred. The crying had died down, and given way to a soft whimpering, when he felt Lacke’s jaws tense up against his thigh. Lacke lifted his head, wiped away the snot with his sleeve and said:
“I’m going to kill it.”
“What?”
Lacke lowered his gaze, stared right through Larry’s chest and nodded.
“I’m going to kill it. I’m not going to let it live.”
***
During the long recess at half past nine both Staffs and Johan came over to Oskar and said “great job” and “fucking awesome.” Staffe offered him chewy candy cars and Johan asked if Oskar wanted to come with them and collect empty bottles one day.
No one shoved him or held his nose when he walked past. Even Micke Siskov smiled, nodding encouragingly as if Oskar had told him a funny story when they met in the corridor outside the cafeteria.
As if everyone had been waiting for him to do exactly what he did, and now that it was done he was one of them.
The problem was that he couldn’t enjoy it. He noted it, but it didn’t affect him. Great not to be picked on anymore, yes. If someone tried to hit him, he would hit back. But he didn’t belong here anymore.
During math class he raised his head and looked at the classmates he had been with for six years. They sat with their heads bent over their work, chewing on pens, sending notes to each other, giggling. And he thought: But they’re just⦠kids.
And he was also a kid, butâ¦
He doodled a cross in his book, changed it to a kind of gallows with a noose.
I am a child, hutâ¦
He drew a train. A car. A boat.
A house. With an open door.
His anxiety grew. At the end of math class he couldn’t sit still, his feet banged on the floor, his hands drummed against his desk. The teacher asked him, with a surprised turn of her head, to be quiet. He tried, but soon the restlessness was there again, pulling in the marionette threads and his legs started to move on their own.
When it was time for the last class of the day, gym class, he couldn’t stand it any longer. In the corridor he said to Johan: “Tell Avila I’m sick, OK?”
“Are you taking off, or what?”
“Don’t have my gym clothes.”
This was actually true; he had forgotten to pack his gym clothes this morning, but that was not why he had to cut class. On the way to the subway he saw the class line up in straight rows. Tomas shouted “buuuuu!” at him.
Would probably tell on him. Didn’t matter. Not in the least.
***
The pigeons fluttered up in gray flocks as he hurried across Vallingby square. A woman with a stroller wrinkled up her nose in judgement at him; someone who doesn’t care about animals. But he was in a hurry, and all the things that lay between him and his goal were mere objects, were simply in the way.
He stopped outside the toy store. Smurfs were arranged in a sugary cute landscape. Too old for stuff like that. In a box at home he had a couple of Big Jim dolls that he had played with quite a bit when he was younger.
About a year or so ago.
An electronic doorbell sounded as he opened the door. He walked through a narrow aisle where plastic dolls, krixa-men, and boxes of building models filled the shelves. Closest to the register were the packages with molds for tin soldiers. You had to ask for the blocks of tin at the counter.
What he was looking for was stacked on the counter itself.
Yes, the imitations were stacked under the plastic dolls, but the originals, with the Rubik’s logo on the packaging, they were more careful with. They cost ninety-eight kronor apiece.
A short pudgy man stood behind the counter with a smile that Oskar would have described as “ingratiating” if he had known the word.
“Hello⦠are you looking for anything special today?”
Oskar had known the Cubes would be stacked on the counter, had his plan figured out.
“Yes. I was wondering⦠about the paints. For tin.”
“Yes?”
The man gestured to the tiny pots of enamel paint arranged behind him. Oskar leaned over, putting the fingers of one hand on the counter just in front of the Rubik’s Cubes while the other hand held his bag, hanging open underneath. He pretended to search among the colors.
“Gold. Do you have that?”
“Gold. Of course.”
When the man turned around Oskar took one of the Cubes, popped it into his bag, and had just managed to return his hand to the same place when the man came back with two pots of paint and placed them on the counter. Oskar’s heart was beating heat up into his cheeks, across his ears.
“Matte, or metallic?”
The man looked at Oskar, who felt how his whole face was a warning sign on which it was written, “Here is a thief.” In order not to draw attention to his red cheeks he bent over the tins, said: “Metallic⦠that one looks fine.”
He had twenty kronor. The paint cost nineteen. He got it in a little bag that he scrunched into his coat pocket in order not to have to open his school bag.
The kick came as usual when he was outside the store, but it was bigger than normal. He trotted away from the store like a newly freed slave, just released from his chains. Could not help but run to the parking lot and, with two cars shielding him, carefully open the packaging, take out the Cube.
It was much heavier than the imitation he owned. The sections slid smoothly, as if on ball bearings. Perhaps they were ball bearings? Well, he wasn’t planning to take it apart and examine it, risk destroying it.
The box was an ugly thing made of transparent plastic, now that the Cube was no longer in it, and on the way from the parking lot he threw it into a trash can. The Cube looked better without it. He put it in his coat pocket in order to be able to caress it, feel its weight in his hand. It was a good present, a great⦠goodbye present.
In the entrance to the subway station he stopped.
If Eli thinks⦠that Iâ¦
Yes. That he, by giving Eli a present, somehow accepted the fact that Eli was leaving. Give a goodbye present, over and done with. Goodbye, goodbye. But that wasn’t how it was. He absolutely didn’t wantâ¦
His gaze swept across the station, stopped at the kiosk. At the rack of newspapers. The Expressen paper. The whole first page was covered in a picture of the old guy who had lived with Eli.
Oskar walked over and flipped through the paper. Five pages were devoted to the search in Judarn forest⦠the Ritual Killer⦠background and then: yet another page where the photo was printed. Hakan Bengtsson⦠Karlstad⦠unknown whereabouts for eight months⦠police turning to the public⦠if anyone has observedâ¦
Anxiety dug its claws into Oskar.
Someone else who might have seen him, known where he livedâ¦
/> The kiosk lady leaned out through the kiosk window.
“Are you buying it or not?”
Oskar shook his head, tossed the paper back into its place. Then he ran. It was only once he was down on the platform that he remembered he hadn’t shown his ticket to the ticket collector. He stomped his feet on the ground, sucked on his knuckles, his eyes teared up. Come on, please, subway train, come onâ¦
***
Lacke half-lay on the sofa, squinting at the balcony where Morgan was trying to coax over a bird who was sitting on the railing-without result. The setting sun was exactly behind Morgan’s head, spread a halo of light around his hair.
“Come on⦠come, come. I won’t bite.”
Larry was sitting in an armchair, half-watching a public education course in Spanish. Stiff people in obviously rehearsed situations walked across the screen, said:
“Yo tengo un bolso.”
“Que hay en el bolso?”
Morgan bent his head, so Lacke got the sun in his eyes and closed them, while he heard Larry mutter:
“Ke haj en el balsa.”
The apartment reeked of stale cigarette smoke and dust. The seventy-five was empty, lying on the coffee table next to an overfull ashtray. Lacke stared at a couple of burn marks on the table left by carelessly extinguished cigarettes; they slid around before his eyes like meek beetles.
“Ona kamisa y pantalanes.”
Larry chuckled to himself.
“⦠pantalanes.”
***
They had not believed him. Or rather, yes, they had believed him but refused to interpret the events in the way that he did. “Spontaneous combustion,” Larry had said, and Morgan had asked him to spell it.
Except for the fact that the case for spontaneous combustion is just about as well-documented and scientifically proven as vampires. That is to say, not at all.
But of two equally implausible scenarios you probably choose to believe the one that demands the least amount of action on your part. They were not going to help him. Morgan had listened seriously to Lacke’s account of what happened at the hospital, but when he got to the part about destroying the cause of all this, he had said:
“So, like, you mean we should become⦠vampire killers. You and me and Larry. With stakes and crosses and⦠No, sorry, Lacke, but I’m having a little trouble seeing it, is all.”
Lacke’s immediate thought when he saw their disbelieving, dismissive faces had been:
Virginia would have believed me.
And the pain had sunk its claws into him again. He was the one who had not believed in Virginia and that was why⦠he would rather have spent a couple of years in jail for mercy killing than have to live with the image he had seared on his retina.
Her body writhing in the bed as her skin blackens, starts to smoke. The hospital gown that rides up over her stomach, revealing her genitals. The rattle of the metal bed frame as her hips move, heaving up and down in infernal copulation with an invisible being as flames appear on her thighs, she screams, she screams and the stench of singed hair fills the room, her terrified eyes on mine and one second later they whiten, start to boil⦠burstâ¦
Lacke had drunk more than half the contents of the bottle. Morgan and Larry had let him.
“⦠pantalanes.”
Lacke tried to get up out of the couch. The back of his head weighed as much as the rest of his body. He steadied himself against the table, heaved himself up. Larry stood up in order to give him a hand.
“Lacke, damn it⦠sleep a while.”
“No, I have to get home.”
“What do you have to do there?”
“I just have to⦠do something.”
“But it’s nothing to do with⦠the stuff we were talking about, is it?”
“No, no.”
Morgan came in from the balcony while Lacke was teetering out toward the hall.
“Hey you! Where do you think you’re going?”
“Home.”
“Then I’ll walk you there.”
Lacke turned around, making an effort to shore himself up, appear as sober as possible. Morgan walked over to him, his hands out in case Lacke fell. Lacke shook his head, patted Morgan on the shoulder.
“I want to be alone, OK. I want to be alone. That’s all.”
“Are you sure you can make it?”
“I’ll manage.”
Lacke nodded a few more times, got hung up on this movement, and had to consciously put an end to it so he wouldn’t be stuck standing there, then turned and walked out into the hall, pulling on his coat and shoes.
He knew he was very drunk, but he had experienced this state so many times that he knew how to unhook his movements from his brain, perform them mechanically. He would have been able to play pick-up-sticks without his hands trembling, at least for a short while.
He heard the others’ voices from inside the apartment.
“Shouldn’t we?⦔
“No. If that’s what he wants we should respect it.”
But they came out into the hall to see him off. Hugged him clumsily. Morgan took him by the arms and bent down to look him in the eyes, said: “You’re not going to do anything stupid now are you? You have us, you know that.”
“Yes, I know. Of course I won’t.”
***
Once he was outside the high-rise apartment building he came to a standstill, looked up at the sun resting in the top of a pine tree.
Will never again be able to⦠the sunâ¦
Virginia’s death, the way she had died, hung like a lead weight in his heart, in the place his heart had been, made him walk doubled over, compressed. The afternoon light in the streets was a mockery. The few people moving around in it⦠a mockery. Voices. Speaking about everyday things as if⦠all over, at any momentâ¦
It can happen to you, too.
Outside the kiosk a person had leaned up against the window, was
talking to the kiosk owner. Lacke saw a black lump fall from the sky, attach itself to the person’s back andâ¦
What the hellâ¦
He stopped in front of the rows of headlines, blinked, tried to focus properly on the photo that nearly filled the available space. The Ritual Killer. Lacke snorted. He knew better. What this was actually about. Butâ¦
He recognized that face. It wasâ¦
At the Chinese restaurant. The man whoâ¦. bought him the whisky. Could itâ¦
He took a step forward, looked more closely at the picture. Yes. It was. The same closely-set eyes, the same⦠Lacke put his hand to his mouth, pressed his fingers to his lips. The images whirled around, attempted connections.
He had let him buy him drinks, the one who killed Jocke. Jocke’s killer had lived in the same building complex as him, only a few doors down. He had greeted him a couple of times, he hadâ¦
But he wasn’t the one who did it. That must have beenâ¦
A voice. Said something.
“Hi Lacke. Someone you know, or what?”
The owner of the kiosk and the man outside were both looking at him. He said:
“⦠Yes⦔ and started to walk again, toward his apartment. The world disappeared. In his mind’s eye he saw the doorway the man came out of. The covered windows of the apartment. He was going to get to the bottom of this. He was.
His pace quickened and his spine straightened out; the lead weight was a pendulum now that beat against his chest, making him tremble, his resolve thundering through his body.
Here I come. By Jove⦠here I come.
***
The subway train stopped at Racksta and Oskar chewed his lips, impatiently, with a touch of panic, thought the doors stayed open too long. When there was a click on the speaker system he thought the driver was about to announce a delay but-
“Step away from the doors. The doors are closing.”
â and the train pulled away from the station.
He had no plan beyond warning Eli; that anyone, at any time could call the police and say they had seen the old guy. In Blackeberg. In that building. In that stairwell. In that apartment.
What happens if the police⦠if they break down the door⦠the bathroom.
The train rattled across the bridge and Oskar looked out the window. Two men were standing down at the Lover’s newsstand and, half-covered by one of the men, Oskar could still discern the row of hateful front-page headlines blown up and printed on yellow fliers. The other man walked quickly away from the kiosk.
Anyone. Anyone can recognize him. He could know.
Oskar was already up and standing by the doors when the train started to slow down. He pushed his fingers through the rubber lips between the doors as if that would make them open faster, and leaned his forehead against the glass, cool against his hot skin. The brakes started to squeal and the driver must have been distracted because only now did he announce:
“Next stop. Blackeberg.”
Jonny was standing on the platform. And Tomas.
No. Nonono. Not them.
When the train, rocking, pulled to a halt, Oskar’s eyes met Jonny’s. They widened, and at the same time as the doors slid open with a hiss, Oskar saw Jonny say something to Tomas.
Oskar tensed, threw himself out through the doors, and started to run.
Tomas’ long leg flicked out, hooked his, and he fell headlong onto the platform, scraping the palms of his hands when he tried to break his fall. Jonny sat on his back. “In a hurry to get somewhere?”
“Let me go! Let me go!”
“Why should we?”
Oskar shut his eyes, balled his hands into fists. Took a couple of deep breaths, as deep as he could with Jonny’s weight on his chest, and said into the concrete:
“Do whatever you want. Then let me go.”
“Okie-dokie.”
They grabbed him by his arms and pulled him to his feet. Oskar caught a glimpse of the station clock. Ten past two. The second hand hacked its way around the face. He tensed the muscles in his face, in his stomach, tried to make himself like a rock, impervious to blows.
Just let it be over fast.
It was only when he saw what they were planning to do that he started to struggle. But as if by silent agreement both of them had twisted his arms around so that every movement made it feel as if his arms were going to break. They forced him toward the edge of the platform.
Let The Right One In aka Let Me In Page 44
