The old guy"s milk.
The refrigerator door was still open. The old guy"s food.
Revolting. Totally revolting.
Oskar slammed the door shut. What had that old guy been here for anyway? What had he and Eli... Oskar shivered.
She has killed him.
Yes. Eli must have kept the old guy around in order to be able to ... drink from him. To use him like a living blood bank. That"s what she did. But why had the old guy agreed to it? And //she had killed him, where was the body? Oskar glanced up at the high kitchen cabinets. And suddenly he didn"t want to be in the kitchen anymore. Didn"t want to stay in the apartment at all. He walked out of the kitchen, through the hall. The closed bathroom door.
She"s in there. there.
He hurried into the living room, collected his bag. The Walkman was on the table. He would have to buy new headphones, that was all. When he picked up the Walkman in order to put it into his bag he saw the note. It was lying on the coffee table, at the same height as his head had been resting.
Hi. Hope you"ve slept well. I"m also going to sleep now. I"m in the bath- room. Don"t try to go in there, please. I"m trusting you. I don"t know room. Don"t try to go in there, please. I"m trusting you. I don"t know what to write. I hope you can like me even though you know what I am. I what to write. I hope you can like me even though you know what I am. I like you. A lot. You"re lying here on the couch right now, snoring. like you. A lot. You"re lying here on the couch right now, snoring. Please. Don"t be afraid of me. Please. Don"t be afraid of me.
Please please please don"t be afraid of me. don"t be afraid of me.
Do you want to meet me tonight? Write so on this note if you do. If you write No I"ll move tonight. Probably have to do that soon anyway. If you write No I"ll move tonight. Probably have to do that soon anyway. But if you write Yes I"ll hang around for a while longer. I don"t know But if you write Yes I"ll hang around for a while longer. I don"t know what I should write. I"m alone. Probably more alone than you can what I should write. I"m alone. Probably more alone than you can imagine, I think. Or perhaps you can. imagine, I think. Or perhaps you can.
Sorry I broke your music machine. Take the money if you want. I have a lot. Don"t be afraid of me. There"s no reason for you to be. Maybe you lot. Don"t be afraid of me. There"s no reason for you to be. Maybe you know that. I hope you know that. I like you so very much. know that. I hope you know that. I like you so very much. Yours, Eli Yours, Eli P.S. Feel free to stay. But if you leave make sure the door locks behind you. you.
Oskar read the note several times. Then he picked up the pen next to it. He looked around the empty room, Eli"s life. The bills she had tried to give him were still lying on the table, scrunched up. He took one one thousand kronor bill, put it in his pocket. He looked for a long time at the s.p.a.ce on the page under Eli"s name. Then he lowered the pen and wrote in letters as tall as the s.p.a.ce YES. thousand kronor bill, put it in his pocket. He looked for a long time at the s.p.a.ce on the page under Eli"s name. Then he lowered the pen and wrote in letters as tall as the s.p.a.ce YES.
He put the pen down, got up, and slipped the Walkman into his bag. He turned around one last time and looked at the by-now upside-down letters.
YES.
Then he shook his head, dug the thousand kronor bill out of his pocket, and put it back on the table. When he was out in the stairwell he checked that the door had locked securely behind him. He pulled on it several times.
From the Daily Update, 16: The official search for the man who early Sunday morning escaped from Danderyd Hospital after having killed one person, has not yet yielded any results.
The police have searched all of Judarn forest in western Stockholm in the attempt to track down the man, who is a.s.sumed to be the so-called Ritual Killer. At the time of his escape the man was critically wounded and the police now suspect he had an accomplice.
Arnold Lehrman, of the Stockholm Police: "Yes, that"s the only logical explanation. There is no physical possibility that he would have been able to keep himself hidden this long in his... condition. We have had thirty officers out here, dogs, a helicopter. It"s just not feasible, that"s all."
"Will you keep searching Judarn forest?"
"Yes. The possibility that he remains in the area cannot be ruled out. But we will divert some of our forces from here in order to concentrate on ... in order to investigate how he has been able to proceed." The man is severely disfigured and was at the time of his escape dressed in a light blue hospital gown. The police ask that anyone with information regarding the disappearance contact them at the following number...
SUNDAY.
8 NOVEMBER [EVENING].
Public interest in the police search of Judarn forest was at an all-time high. The evening news realized they would not be able to print the composite picture of the murderer one more time. They had been hoping for images of an apprehended suspect but in the absence of this both evening papers ran the sheep picture.
The Expressen Expressen even put it on the front page. even put it on the front page.
Say what you will, there was undeniable drama in that photograph. The police officer"s face twisted by exertion, the splayed limbs and open mouth of the sheep. You could almost hear the panting, the bleating. One of the papers had even tried to reach the royal court for comment, since it was the King"s sheep that the officer was manhandling in this way. The King and Queen had only two days earlier informed the public that they were expecting their third child, and decided that that would have to do. The court offered no comment.
Of course several pages were devoted to maps of Judarn and the western suburbs. Where the man had been sighted, how the police search had been organized. But all this had been seen before, in other contexts. The sheep picture was something new and it was this that people remembered.
Expressen had even dared to try a little joke. The caption said, "Wolf in sheep"s clothing?" had even dared to try a little joke. The caption said, "Wolf in sheep"s clothing?"
You had to laugh a little, and people needed this. They were scared. This same man had killed two people, almost three, and now he was once more on the loose and kids again were subject to a curfew. A school field trip to Judarn on Monday was canceled.
And running right through this there was an underlying anger at the fact that one person, one single person, could have the power to dominate so many people"s lives simply through his evil and his . . . ability to stave off death.
Yes. Experts and professors who were called upon to comment in newspapers and TV all said the same thing: it was impossible that the man was still alive. In answer to a direct question they then went on to say in the next breath that the man"s escape was just as impossible. A professor of medicine at Danderyd made an unfavorable impression on the evening news when he said, in an aggressive tone of voice: "Until very recently the man was hooked up to a respirator. Do you know what that means? That means that you are not able to breathe on your own. Add to this a fall of about thirty meters ..." The professor"s tone implied that the reporter was an idiot and that the whole thing was an invention by the media.
So everything was a soup of guesses, impossibilities, rumors and-of course-fear. Not so strange then that one used the sheep picture in spite of everything. That at least was concrete. The photograph was disseminated throughout the land and found its way to people"s eyes.
Lacke saw it when he bought a packet of Red Prince cigarettes in the Lover"s newsstand, with his last few kronor, on his way over to Gosta"s. He had been sleeping all afternoon and felt like Raskolnikov; the world was hazily uncertain. He glanced at the sheep photograph and nodded to himself. In his present state it did not seem strange to him that the police were apprehending sheep.
Only when he was halfway to Gosta"s place did the image come back to him and he thought, "What the h.e.l.l was that?" but didn"t have the energy to pursue it. He lit a cigarette and kept going.
Oskar saw it when he came home after having spent the afternoon walking around Vallingby. When he got off the subway Tommy was getting on. Tommy looked jumpy and wound up and said he had done something "f.u.c.king hilarious" but didn"t have time to say anything more before the doors closed. At home there was a note on the kitchen table; his mom was going to dinner with the choir tonight. There was food in the refrigerator, the advertising flyers had been delivered, hugs and kisses. The evening paper was on the kitchen sofa. Oskar looked at the sheep on the front page and read everything about the search. Then he did something he had been lagging behind on: cut out and saved the articles about the Ritual Killer from the paper over the last few days. He took the pile of newspapers out from the cleaning closet, his sc.r.a.pbook, scissors, paste, and got to work.
Staffan saw it about two hundred meters from where it had been taken. He had not been able to catch Tommy, and after a few brief words with a distraught Yvonne he had left for Akeshov. Someone there had referred to a colleague he didn"t know by the name of "the sheep man" but he hadn"t gotten the joke until a few hours later when he had a chance to see the evening paper.
Police management was ticked off at the newspapers" indiscretion, but most officers in the field thought it was funny. With the exception of "the sheep man" himself, of course. For several weeks he had to endure the occasional "baaaaaa" and "nice sweater, is that sheep"s wool?"
Jonny saw it when his four-year-old little brother- half half little brother- little brother- Kalle came up to him with a present. A wooden block that he had wrapped in the first page of the evening paper. Jonny shooed him out of his room, said he wasn"t in the mood, locked the door. Took up the photo alb.u.m again, looking at pictures of his dad, his real dad, who was not Kalle"s dad.
A little later he heard his stepfather yelling at Kalle because he had destroyed the paper. Jonny then unwrapped the present, turning the block in his fingers as he studied the close-up of the sheep. He chuckled, the skin pulled taut around his ear. He stowed the photo alb.u.m in his gym bag-it would be safest to keep it at school-and from there his thoughts turned to what the h.e.l.l he should do with Oskar.
The sheep picture would start a minor debate about the ethics of photojournalism, but was nonetheless featured in both papers" end-of-year collage of the year"s most unforgettable images. In the spring the tackled ram himself was let out into the Drottningholm summer pastures, forever oblivious to his fifteen minutes of fame.
Virginia rests rolled up in duvets and blankets. Her eyes are closed, the body completely still. In a moment she will wake up. She has been lying here for eleven hours. Her body temperature is down to twenty-seven degrees, which corresponds to the temperature inside the closet. Her heart rate is four faint beats a minute.
During these past eleven hours her body has changed irrevocably. Her Stomach and lungs have adapted to a new kind of existence. The most interesting detail, from a medical point of view, is a still-developing cyst in the sinoatrial node of the heart, the clump of cells that controls the heart"s contractions. The cyst has now grown to twice its former size. A cancer-like growth of foreign cells continues unhindered.
If one could take a sample of these cells, put the sample under a microscope, one would see something that all heart specialists would reject with the a.s.sumption that the sample had become contaminated, mixed. A tasteless joke.
Namely, the tumor in the sinoatrial node consists of brain cells. Yes. Inside Virginia"s heart a separate little brain is forming. This new brain has, during its initial stage of development, been dependent on the large brain. Now it is self-sufficient, and what Virginia during a terrible moment sensed is completely correct: it would live on even if her body died.
Virginia opened her eyes and knew she was awake. Knew it even though opening her eyelids made no difference. It was as dark as before. But her consciousness was turned on. Yes. Her consciousness came to life, and at the same time it was as if something else quickly withdrew. Like... Like...
Like coming to a summer cottage that has been empty all winter. You open the door, fumble for the light switch, and at that same moment you hear the rapid scuttling, the clicking of small claws against the floorboards, you catch a brief glimpse of the rat squeezing in under the kitchen counter.
An uncanny feeling. You know it"s been living there in your absence. That it thinks of the house as its own. That it will come sneaking out again as soon as you turn out the light.
I am not alone.
Her mouth felt like paper. She had no feeling in her tongue. She continued to lie there, thinking of the cottage that she and Per, Lena"s father, had rented a couple of summers when Lena was little. The rat"s nest they found all the way in under the kitchen counter. The rats had chewed off small pieces of a milk carton and a packet of cornflakes, built what almost looked like a little house, a fantastic construction of multicolored cardboard.
Virginia had felt a certain kind of guilt as she vacuumed up the little house. No, more than that. A superst.i.tious feeling of transgression. transgression. As she inserted the cold mechanical trunk of the vacuum cleaner into the delicate, fine construction the rat had spent the winter building it felt like she was casting out a good spirit. As she inserted the cold mechanical trunk of the vacuum cleaner into the delicate, fine construction the rat had spent the winter building it felt like she was casting out a good spirit.
And sure enough. When the rat was not caught in any of the traps but continued to eat their dry goods even though it was summer, Per had put out rat poison. They had argued about it. They had argued about other things. About everything. In July sometime the rat had died, somewhere inside the wall.
As the stench of the rat"s dead, decomposing body spread through the house, their marriage slowly broke down that summer. They had gone home a week earlier than planned since they could no longer tolerate the stench or each other. The good spirit had left them.
What happened to that house? Does anyone else live there now?
She heard a squeaking sound, a hiss.
There IS a rat! Inside these blankets!
She was gripped by panic.
Still wrapped up, she threw herself to the side, hitting the closet doors so they flew open, and she tumbled out onto the floor. She kicked with her legs, waving her arms until she managed to free herself. Disgusted, she crawled up onto the bed, into a corner, pulling her knees under her chin, staring at the pile of blankets and duvets, waiting for a movement. She would scream when it came. Scream so the whole house came rushing with hammers and axes and beat the pile of blankets until the rat was dead.
The blanket on top was green with blue dots. Wasn"t there a movement there? She drew a breath in order to scream, and she heard the squeaking, hissing again.
I"m ... breathing.
Yes. That was the last thing she had determined before she fell asleep: that she wasn"t breathing. Now she was breathing again. She drew the air in tentatively, and heard the squeaking, hissing. It was coming from her air pa.s.sages. They had dried out as she was resting, were making these sounds. She cleared her throat and felt a rotten taste in her mouth. She remembered everything. Everything.
She looked at her arms. Strands of dried blood covered them, but no cuts or scars were visible. She picked out the spot on the inside of her elbow where she knew she had cut herself at least twice. Maybe a faint streak of pink skin. Yes. Possibly. Except for that everything was healed. She rubbed her eyes and checked the time. A quarter past six. It was evening. Dark. She looked down again at the green blanket, the blue dots.
Where is the light coming from?
The overhead light was off, it was evening outside, all the blinds were drawn. How could she possibly be seeing all the contours and colors so clearly? In the closet it had been pitch black. She hadn"t seen anything there. But now... it was clear as day.
A little light always gets in.
Was she breathing?
She couldn"t figure it out. As soon as she started to think think about her breathing she also controlled it. Maybe she only breathed when she thought of it. about her breathing she also controlled it. Maybe she only breathed when she thought of it.
But that first breath, the one she had mistaken for the sound of a rat... she hadn"t thought that one. But perhaps it had only been like a ... like a ...
She shut her eyes.
Ted.
She had been there when he was born. Lena had never met Ted"s father again after the night when Ted was conceived. Some Finnish businessman in Stockholm for a conference and so on. So Virginia had been there for the birth, had nagged and pleaded her way there.
And now it came back to her. Ted"s first breath.
How he had come out. The little body, sticky, purple, hardly human. The explosion of joy in her chest that changed to a cloud of anxiety when he didn"t breathe. The midwife who had calmly picked up the little creature in her hands. Virginia had expected her to hold the little body upside down, slap him on the behind, but just as the midwife picked him up a bubble of saliva formed at his mouth. A bubble that grew, grew and . . . burst. And then came his cry, the first cry. And he breathed. So?
Was that what Virginia"s squeaky breath had been? A birth cry?
She straightened up, lying down on her back on the bed. Continued to replay the images of the birth. How she had washed Ted, since Lena had been too weak, had lost a lot of blood. Yes. After Ted had come out it had run over the edge of the birthing bed and the nurses had been there with paper, ma.s.ses of paper. Finally it had stopped of its own accord. The heap of blood-drenched paper, the midwife"s dark red hands. Her calm, her efficiency in spite of all... the blood. All that blood. Thirsty. Thirsty.
Her mouth was sticky and she replayed the sequence a number of times, zooming in on everything that had been covered in blood; the midwife"s hands to let my tongue glide over those hands, the blood-drenched paper to let my tongue glide over those hands, the blood-drenched paper on the floor, put them in my mouth, suck on them, between Lena"s legs on the floor, put them in my mouth, suck on them, between Lena"s legs where the blood ran out in a thin rivulet, to . . . where the blood ran out in a thin rivulet, to . . .
She sat up abruptly, ran doubled-over to the bathroom and threw open the lid to the toilet, leaned her head over the bowl. Nothing came. Just dry, convulsive heaves. She leaned her forehead against the edge of the bowl. The images of the birth started to well up again.
Don"twantdon"twantdon"twantdon"twa- She banged her forehead hard against the porcelain and a geyser of icy clear pain spurted up in her head. Everything in front of her eyes turned bright blue. She smiled, and fell sideways to the floor, down onto the bathroom rug that...
Cost 14:90, but I got it for ten because a large piece of fuzz came off when the cashier pulled off the price tag, and when I came out onto the square from Ahlen"s department store there was a pigeon pecking from a cardboard container where there were a couple of french fries and the pigeon was gray ... and ... blue ... there was... a strong backlight... She didn"t know how long she had been gone. One minute, an hour?
Maybe only a few seconds. But something had changed. She was calm. The fuzz of the bathroom mat felt good against her cheek as she lay there and looked at the rusted pipe that ran down from the sink into the floor. She thought the pipe had a beautiful shape.
A strong smell of urine. She hadn"t wet her pants, no, because it was ... Lacke"s urine she smelled. She bent her body, moved her head closer to the floor under the toilet, sniffed. Lacke ... and Morgan. She couldn"t understand how she knew that but she knew: Morgan had peed on the side.
But Morgan hasn"t even been here.
No, actually. That evening when they had helped her home. The evening when she was attacked. Bitten. Yes, of course. Everything fell into place. Morgan had been here, Morgan had used the bathroom, and she had been lying out there on the couch after having been bitten and now she could see in the dark, was sensitive to light, and needed blood and- A vampire.
That"s how it was. She had not contracted some rare and unpleasant disease that was treatable at the hospital or in a psychiatric ward or with ...
Photo-therapy!
She started to laugh, then coughed, turned over on her back, stared up at the ceiling, and went over everything. The cuts that healed so quickly, the effect of the sun on her skin, blood. She said it aloud: "I am a vampire."
It couldn"t be. They didn"t exist. But even so something felt lighter. As if a pressure in her head eased. A weight lifted from her. It wasn"t her fault. The revolting fantasies, the terrible things she had done to herself all night. It wasn"t something she was responsible for.
It was simply . . . very natural.
She got up halfway, and started to run a bath, sat on the toilet and watched the running water, the bath as it slowly filled. The phone rang. She only registered it as an indifferent noise, a mechanical signal. It didn"t mean anything. She couldn"t talk to anyone anyway. No one could talk to her.
Oskar had not read Sat.u.r.day"s paper. Now it was spread out in front of him on the kitchen table. He had had it turned to the same page for a while and read the caption to the picture over and over again. The picture he couldn"t let go of.
The text was about the man who had been found frozen into the ice down by the Blackeberg hospital. How he had been found, how the recovery work had been undertaken. There was a small picture of Mr. Avila as he stood pointing out over the water, toward the hole in the ice. In the quote from Mr. Avila, the reporter had smoothed out his linguistic eccentricities.
All this was interesting enough and worth cutting out to save, but that wasn"t what he was staring at, couldn"t tear himself from.
It was the picture of the shirt.