“Mom,” he croaks, almost beginning to cry again. “I’m sorry, Mom … I messed it up …”
“Don’t start crying again,” Silas warns him from behind. “I can’t take any more of that. Just get in there.”
Dennis walks to Mom and embraces her clumsily. She holds him and places a kiss on his temple.
“It’s okay, Dennis. Say, why are you wet?”
“I … I, uhm …”
“He pissed himself,” Silas says from the doorway. “Some brave boy you raised, lady.”
Dennis looks back at Silas, who’s scowling at them from the doorway. Then he notices Mom’s face. Her expression is like ice, as she says in a low tone: “He’s done things you can’t even imagine.”
“Oh, really? Like what? Tie his own shoelaces? No, that’s probably too difficult for him.”
Mom doesn’t answer; she just strokes Dennis’s hair. Dennis looks at Silas, waiting for what comes next. To his relief, it looks like he’s lost interest in the conversation, and for a second, he actually seems about to slam the door.
Then it’s like he notices something with Mom. He squints. “The fuck are you doing? Are you knitting a doll?”
Dennis notices the knitted doll lying next to Mom on the bed. There’s a ball of yarn, too, and the knitting needles are still attached to the almost-finished legs.
Mom doesn’t reply, just looks at Silas.
“What’s that you’re wearing, anyway?” Silas goes on. “A nightgown? Who the fuck wears a nightgown nowadays? Whaddya think this is, the eighteen hundreds?”
Silas snorts a brief laughter. Mom still doesn’t answer.
“You know,” Silas goes on, eyeing Mom intently now. “It actually suits you. Makes you look almost attractive, some might say.”
Still, Mom doesn’t say anything.
Dennis is puzzled at the weird change in Silas’s demeanor. He’s trying hard to figure out why he’s suddenly talking like that.
Then Silas does something which for some reason terrifies Dennis to his core: he licks his lips.
“You know, Dennis,” he says, waving the rifle again. “I think I’d like a moment alone with your mom. We need to hash something out between us. You know, boring grown-up stuff.”
“No,” Dennis says, shaking his head. “No, I don’t want to leave.”
“It wasn’t really a request,” Silas says, aiming the barrel at his face. “Get out of here. Now. It’ll only be a couple minutes.”
Dennis shakes his head again, embracing Mom tightly, squeezing her. For some reason, he’s scared out of his mind to let Silas alone with Mom.
“It’s okay, Dennis,” Mom says, her voice still surprisingly calm.
“No, Mom! He’ll just hurt you!”
“Nah, I wouldn’t hurt a pretty lady like your mom,” Silas says, sounding almost playful now, which only scares Dennis even more. “Now, get the fuck out of here, Dennis, before I hurt you instead.”
“No!” Dennis cries out, shaking his head again.
“It’s okay, Dennis,” Mom says again, freeing herself of his grip and catching his eye. “Look at me, Dennis. It’s perfectly fine. I’ll be just fine. We’re just going to talk, like Silas says.”
“Yeah, just talk,” Silas repeats. There’s something slurry in his voice now, like he’s got too much saliva.
“I don’t want to leave you, Mom,” Dennis says, the tears spilling over again. “I don’t want you to be alone with him.” Then, before Mom can say anything, it just spills right out of him in a sobbing whisper: “I had it, Mom. I had the hair. But I lost it again. I’m so sorry. I messed it up. I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“Ssssh,” Mom says, placing a finger on his chin, gently closing his mouth. And when she speaks again, her voice is as warm as Dennis has ever heard it be. “Trust me now, Dennis. It’ll be fine.”
And she smiles at him.
And Dennis almost believes her.
“Last time, Dennis,” Silas says. “Get out of here. And stop crying, that’s such a fucking turn-off.”
Dennis hardly hears him; he keeps looking into Mom’s eyes as he gets up and backs out of the bathroom. Mom keeps smiling at him, even when Silas grabs Dennis by the shoulder and shoves him aside, stepping into the bathroom instead.
And just before Silas slams the door, Dennis gets one last glimpse of Mom, and she’s still smiling at him.
Then, she’s gone.
And Silas locks the door from the inside.
And Dennis is alone in the bunker.
He walks around restlessly for what feels like most of the night. In reality, though, only six minutes pass; he can tell so from the digital clock on the wall.
He listens for sounds from the bathroom, but he hears none.
Then, finally, the door is unlocked and swings open.
Silas comes out, carrying the rifle in one hand and tucking his shirt into his pants with the other, as though he had just changed it. But it’s the same he wore when he got into the room, Dennis remembers.
What has changed is the demeanor on Silas’s face; he’s looking far less playful or mean. Rather, there’s something relaxed and almost tired over him. His hair is also different, and sweat is beading on his forehead. He avoids Dennis’s eyes as he waves the rifle.
“Right, you get in there now.”
Dennis doesn’t need a second invitation; he slips past Silas and into the bathroom. He notices the air in the room being hotter and moister than before. There’s also a salty smell.
Mom is sitting almost exactly like before, her hands folded across her lap. But her dress sits differently on her, and she somehow seems smaller. She doesn’t look at Dennis right away.
Dennis knows something bad has happened to Mom, that Silas did something very mean to her. He can sense it, even though he’s not sure what. She has no visible cuts or bruises, so he probably didn’t beat her up.
“Sleep tight,” Silas says, closing the door and locking it.
Dennis just stands there, staring at Mom. “What … what happened, Mom?”
“Nothing,” Mom says, still avoiding his eyes. Her gaze is distant, and so is her voice.
“Mom?” Dennis says, his voice beginning to shake again. “Please tell me what he did to you.”
Mom shakes her head slowly. At first, Dennis takes it to mean no, she’s not going to tell him, but then she finally meets his eyes, and Dennis is taken aback at how completely changed his mom’s eyes are. All the loving warmth is gone. Left is only icy rage.
“He did nothing to me compared to what I’m going to do to him,” she whispers, the words snaking out over her lips like snakes.
Then she seems to notice how scared Dennis looks, because she tries to smile. “It’s okay now. I’ve got it. You hear me? I got what I need.”
Dennis frowns. “What … what do you mean, Mom?”
She holds up her thumb and forefinger with the tips pinched together. Dennis sees the strand of brown hair glistening between Mom’s fingers.
Dennis stares at his mom as comprehension dawns on him. Mom must have plucked the hair from Silas while he was doing whatever he was doing to her—and he must have been too busy to even notice.
“We’re getting out of here, Dennis—tonight.”
Dennis shakes his head. “But how? I don’t … I don’t get it, Mom … how can a strand of hair get us out of here?”
Mom smiles, and the smile is even more scary than the one Dennis saw on Silas’s face, because it’s completely devoid of anything Dennis relates to his mother.
“Trust me, Dennis,” she says. “Just trust me.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Knut parks the car in the slot closest to the water. At this time of the evening, there are no other cars taking up the harbor, which is just perfect; it means no disturbances.
Knut whistles as he gets out and puts on his beanie, covering his bald head, the binoculars already hanging from around his neck.
Even at eighty-nine, Knut is very active, and bird watc
hing has recently become his biggest passion. Last night, walking along the harbor, he’s almost certain he spotted a ferruginous duck, which is very rare to this part of Sweden. He didn’t have his binoculars, so he couldn’t confirm it, which is why he’s come back, hoping to see it again.
He breathes in the chill summer night, taking in the smell of salt from the calm ocean in front of him and the hum of Göteborg behind him.
Amazing that the duck would come this close to a big city, but that will only make it that much more of a sensation if he sees it again; he might even make it to the local news.
The thought makes him pull up the binoculars and begin scanning the beach head, then the water. The lights from the city reflect in the low waves, creating a mesmerizing flowing pattern.
A few seagulls are circling around a fair distance out, and a couple of crows are rummaging through some garbage thrown on the beach. But no sign of the rare duck.
Knut is intent on spending most of the night here, if that’s what it takes to spot the shy duck. He’s about to walk farther down the harbor, when he suddenly sees it.
Bopping away calmly on the water only fifty feet from the shore is the ferruginous duck, beautiful with its brown colors.
“My, oh my,” Knut whispers, his breath almost fogging up the lenses. “Got you, buddy.”
He can’t believe his luck.
And there’s another one! It emerges from the water only a few yards farther out, probably after a dive for food.
“So, you brought a mate,” Knut smiles, focusing on the second duck. “Can’t wait to meet—”
He freezes as he catches the second duck in clear view—and realizes it’s not a duck at all. The first duck realizes the same and immediately takes flight.
“Oh, no,” Knut mutters. “Don’t scare it away!”
But it’s too late. He groans and focuses again on the newcomer. It’s a person’s head. A girl, judging from the hair clinging to her face.
Someone decided to go for a late-night swim, Knut thinks with disappointment. Typical teenagers. She’s probably been out drinking, too.
He scans the beach again, expecting to find other young people fooling around, but finding nothing. The girl is apparently alone, which strikes him as odd.
He puts down the binoculars and looks out with his naked eye. Despite his age, Knut’s eyesight has remained fine, and he can tell the girl is making her way towards the beach—and that she’s wearing regular clothes instead of a bathing outfit.
What the heck?
She’s already close to the shore, most of her upper body showing now, and the way she walks makes Knut frown. What he at first took to be the uncertain waddling of a drunk person looks more like someone in distress.
Her right arm looks hurt.
“Goodness,” Knut mutters to himself. “Better make sure she’s okay …”
He leaves the parking lot and makes his way across the sand, his boots sinking in slightly as he jogs towards the girl.
“Hello!” he calls out and waves, as the girl apparently doesn’t see him—she’s headed at an angle away from him.
As he calls out, she hesitates, turns her head, looks in his direction, then changes her course.
“Are you okay?” Knut asks her. “What were you doing out there?”
The girl doesn’t answer, but she reaches out her arms and gives off a low moan, a gesture Knut interprets as a plea for help. And he instinctively responds by opening his own arms as they close the distance between them.
Just before they meet, Knut sees the girl’s wounded arm and realizes just how badly mauled it is; large chunks of flesh have been torn off and the bone is clearly showing.
His first thought is that something out at sea attacked her, even though sharks are a rare sight around here. Then, just as he embraces the girl, he gets a glimpse of her face, and a rapid train of thought flies through his mind, ending up at those horrible images he’s seen on television all day from Denmark.
The virus, Knut just has time to think before the girl bites down hard on his collarbone, sinking her teeth deep into his jacket.
He yelps and jerks back, the girl ripping part of his jacket clean off, spitting it out and lunging at him again.
Had he not been standing in sand, Knut might have been able to successfully move out of her way. But the soft ground under his boots allows him only to wobble backwards, almost losing his balance, arms flailing, as he tells the girl to get away, to get back, to not touch him.
She doesn’t listen, though, but just comes at him quicker than he’s seen her move before, and she manages to grab his wrist and pull his hand to her mouth.
“No!” Knut shouts, pulling back his arm hard enough to rip it free, but also hard enough to lose his balance.
He falls flat on his back, knocking the air from his lungs, and the girl wastes no time, throwing herself right on top of him.
Knut fights to get his breath back, fights to keep the girl’s snapping mouth from biting him and her hands from clawing him. It’s impossible, of course, and within half a minute, the girl has torn open his jacket and covered his chest and face in scratch and bite marks.
So this is how I go, Knut thinks with surprising clarity. He’s always imagined dying in his sleep or maybe one day finding a lump somewhere and getting a cancer diagnosis. Being torn apart on a beach at night never entered his imagination.
Then, just as he’s about to stop fighting, he finds some sort of hidden strength and throws the girl off with a strained groan, hard enough for her to roll around a couple of times. It buys him just enough time to get to his feet. He’s hurting all over, and his eyesight is fuzzy, and behind him he can hear the girl getting to her feet, too, and taking up pursuit.
But Knut locks in on his car, determined to not die just quite yet.
Impossibly, he actually makes it back to the Saab, opens the door and gets in with a wince of pain. Just as he slams the door, the girl reaches the car and squeezes up against the window, clawing at it, smearing it in blood, his blood.
“Not like this,” Knut mutters, barely realizing he’s talking, and turns the key.
He backs up, causing the girl to tumble forwards, then drives out of the parking lot and across the harbor, heading for the city.
“Not like this,” he repeats, his eyelids getting heavy as the lights of the city merge into a screen of floating colors.
Knut gives one last sigh and sinks up against the door, letting go of the wheel as his foot goes limp and pushes down the accelerator.
Just wanted to see the duck, is his last thought as he drifts off and the car rams into a storefront, sending glass flying everywhere, waking up everybody within three blocks.
Back down at the harbor lot, the thing that once was Mille Klitgaard has already forgotten all about Knut, who’s blood is still fresh on her lips. Her attention is instead on the thousands of living people all within walking distance, and she’s waddling slowly but determined towards Göteborg—Sweden’s second largest city.
* * *
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Dead Meat | Day 5 Page 25
