Eli was being handled, like an object.
While he was swimming to the surface of the darkness he had sunk into he felt how his body, at a distance, in another part of the sea ... was being handled.
Intense pressure against his back, legs that were forced up, back, and iron rings pulled tight around his ankles. Now the ankles with their iron rings were on either side of his head and his spine was tight, so stretched it felt like it was about to snap.
I"m going to break.
His head felt like a container of gleaming pain, as his body was doubled over by force, folded up like a bolt of fabric and Eli thought he was still having an hallucination because when his eyes started to see again, they only saw yellow. And behind the yellow a ma.s.sive, billowing shadow. Then came the cold. Something was rubbing a ball of ice across the thin skin between his b.u.t.tocks. Something tried, first poking, then thrusting, to force its way into him. Eli gasped; the fabric of the dress that had been spread over his face was blown aside, and he saw.
Hakan was lying over him. His only eye was staring fixedly at Eli"s spread b.u.t.tocks. His hands were locked around Eli"s ankles. His legs had been brutally bent back so that his knees were pressed to the ground on either side of Eli"s shoulders and when Hakan pressed harder Eli heard how the tendons in the back of his thighs broke like tightly pulled strings.
"Noooo!"
Eli screamed into Hakan"s shapeless face where no feelings at all could be discerned. A strand of drool came out of Hakan"s mouth, stretched and broke, falling onto Eli"s lips, and the taste of corpse filled his mouth. Eli"s arms fell out from his body as limp as a rag doll"s.
Something under his fingers. Round, hard.
He tried to think, forced himself to create a sphere of light inside the black, whirling insanity. And envisioned himself in the pool of light, holding the stick in his hand.
Yes.
Eli squeezed the handle of the broom, locking his fingers around the delicate savior while Hakan kept pushing, poking, trying to enter. The point. The point has to be on the right side. The point. The point has to be on the right side.
He turned his head to the stick and saw it was lying the right way. A chance. A chance.
Everything went quiet inside Eli"s head as he visualized what he had to do. Then he did it. In one movement he raised the stick from its p.r.o.ne position and thrust it up toward Hakan"s face with all his might. His underarm brushed against the side of his thigh and the stick formed a straight line that... stopped a few centimeters from Hakan"s face when Eli, because of his position, could not manage to bring his arm further. He had failed.
For one second Eli had time to think that maybe he possessed the ability to will his body to die. If he turned off all...
Then Hakan thrust himself forward and at the same time dropped his head down. With the soft sound of a wooden spoon pushed down into thick porridge, the sharp end of the stick went into his eye. Hakan did not scream. Perhaps he did not even feel it. Maybe it was simply surprise over not being able to see that made him loosen his grip around Eli"s ankles. Without feeling anything from his damaged legs, Eli wriggled his feet free and kicked straight out at Hakan"s chest. The soles of his feet met skin with a moist smacking sound and Hakan fell back. Eli pulled his legs under him and with a wave of cold pain from his back he got to his knees. Hakan had not fallen, only been folded up, and like an electric doll in a ghost house he now straightened up again.
They faced each other, on their knees.
The stick in Hakan"s eye was pulled downward in stages, inching down with the regularity of a second hand and then fell out, drummed out a few beats on the floor and then it lay still. A translucent fluid started to seep out of the hole where it had been, a teary flood.
Neither of them moved.
The fluid from Hakan"s eye trickled down onto his naked thighs. Eli concentrated all of his strength into his right arm, made a list. When Hakan"s shoulder jerked to life and his body made an effort to stretch out to Eli, to pick up where it had left off, Eli hit his right hand straight into the left side of Hakan"s chest.
The ribs cracked and the skin was stretched to its limit for a moment, then gave way, broke.
Hakan"s head bent down to see what it couldn"t see as Eli fumbled inside his chest cavity and found his heart. A cold, soft lump. Unmoving. It"s not alive. But it has to . .. It"s not alive. But it has to . ..
Eli squeezed the heart until it went to pieces. It gave way too easily, allowed itself to be broken like a dead jellyfish. Hakan only reacted as if a particularly persistent fly had settled on his skin. He moved his arm up to remove the irritating element and before he had time to grip Eli"s wrist Eli pulled his hand out with remnants of the heart quivering in the clenched fist.
Have to get away from here.
Eli wanted to get up but his legs would not obey him. Hakan was groping blindly with his arms in front of him, trying to find him. Eli rolled over on his stomach and started to crawl out of the room, his knees whispering on the concrete. Hakan turned his head in the direction of the noise, put his arms out, and got a hold of the dress, managed to tear off one sleeve before Eli reached the door, got up on his knees again.
Hakan stood up.
Eli had a few seconds of reprieve before Hakan found his way to the door. He tried to order his broken joints to heal enough to enable him to stand, but when Hakan reached the door his legs were only strong enough to allow Eli to stand braced against the wall.
Splinters from the rough planks punctured the tops of his fingers as he scratched with his hand along them in order not to fall. And he knew now. That without a heart, blind, Hakan would pursue him until... until... Must. .. destroy.. . must.. . destroy him. Must. .. destroy.. . must.. . destroy him.
A black line.
A vertical, black line in front of his eyes. It had not been there before. Eli knew what to do.
"Aaaaa.. ."
Hakan"s hand around one edge of the door frame and then the body that came staggering out of the storage unit, his hands groping the air in front of him. Eli pressed his back into the wall, waiting for the right moment. Hakan came out, a few tentative steps, then stopped exactly in front of Eli. Listened, sniffed.
Eli leaned forward so that his hands were the same height as Hakan"s shoulder. Then he braced himself against the wall, rushed forward, and put everything into throwing Hakan off balance.
He succeeded.
Hakan took a mincing step to the side and fell against the door to the shelter. The crack in the door that Eli had seen as a black line widened as the door opened inwards and Hakan tumbled into the darkness, his arms waving for help, while Eli started to fall headlong into the corridor, managed to stop himself before the floor met his face, then crawled to the door, and grabbed the lower of the two locking wheels.
Hakan lay still on the floor inside as Eli pulled the door shut and turned the wheel, locked it. Then he crawled out to the cellar office, got the stick, and threaded it in between the locking wheels so that it could not be unlocked from the inside.
Eli continued to concentrate his energy on healing his body and started to crawl out of the bas.e.m.e.nt. A rivulet of blood snaked out of his ear. At the door out of the cellar he was healed enough to be able to stand up. He pushed the door open and managed to go up the stairs on wobbly legs.
rest rest rest He pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and stepped out into the hall lamp. He was beaten, humiliated, and the sunrise threatened just under the horizon.
rest rest rest But he had to . . . exterminate. And there was only one way he knew to do that. Fire. Staggering, he made his way across the yard, heading to the only place he knew where he could find it.
7:34, MONDAY MORNING, BLACKEBERG:.
The burglar alarm at the ICA grocery store on Arvid Morne"s Way is set off. The police arrive at the scene eleven minutes later and find the store window broken. The store owner, who lives next door, is there. He says that from his window he saw a very young dark-haired person leave the place running. But upon searching the store nothing is found to be stolen.
7:36, SUNRISE.
The hospital blinds were much better, darker, than her own. There was only one place, where the blinds were damaged, where they let in a thin ray of morning light that made a dust-gray slash in the dark ceiling. Virginia lay outstretched, stiff, in her bed, staring at the gray slice of light that trembled when a gust of wind made the window vibrate. Reflected, weak light. No more than a mild irritation, a grain of sleep in her eye.
Lacke snuffled and wheezed in the bed next to her. They had stayed awake for a long time, talking. Memories, mostly. Close to four in the morning Lacke had finally fallen asleep, with his hand still in hers. She had had to disentangle her hand from his an hour later when a nurse had come in to check her blood pressure, found it satisfactory, and left them with a glance, actually a tender look at Lacke. Virginia had heard how Lacke pleaded to stay, the reasons he had given. Thus the tender glance, she supposed.
Now Virginia lay with her hands strapped at her sides, fighting her body"s desire to . .. turn off. Fall asleep Fall asleep was not an adequate expression for it. As soon as she did not consciously concentrate on her breathing, it stopped. But she needed to stay awake. was not an adequate expression for it. As soon as she did not consciously concentrate on her breathing, it stopped. But she needed to stay awake.
She hoped a nurse would come back in before Lacke woke up. Yes. The very best thing would be if he could sleep until it was over. But that was probably too much to hope for.
The sun caught up with Eli in the courtyard, a glowing tong that pinched his mauled ear. Instinctively, he backed up into the shade of the vaulted entrance to the yard, squeezed the three plastic bottles of denatured alcohol to his chest, as if to shield them from the sun as well. Ten steps away was his front door. Twenty steps to Oskar"s. And thirty steps to Tommy"s.
I can"t do it.
No, if he had been healthy, strong, he would perhaps have tried to make it to Oskar"s entrance through the flood of light that grew in intensity for every second he waited. But not to Tommy"s. And not now.
Ten steps. Then up the stairs. The big window in the stairwell. If I trip. If the sun ...
Eli ran.
The sun threw itself over him like a hungry lion, biting itself into his back. Eli almost lost his balance as he was thrown forward by the sun"s physical, howling force. Nature vomited its disgust at his transgression: to show himself in sunlight for even one second.
It sizzled, bubbled, like someone pouring boiling oil on Eli"s back when he reached the front door, threw it open. The pain almost made him faint and he moved toward the steps as if drugged, blinded; didn"t dare open his eyes for fear that they would melt.
He dropped one of the bottles, heard it roll away across the floor. Couldn"t be helped. With head bent, one arm wrapped around the remaining bottles, the other on the banister, he limped up the stairs, reached the landing. One flight left.
Through the window the sun delivered a last swipe at his neck, snapped at him, then bit him in the thighs, calves, heels while he moved up the stairs. He was burning. The only thing missing was flames. He got the door open, fell into the wonderful, cool darkness inside. Slammed the door shut behind him. But it was not dark.
The kitchen door was open and in the kitchen there were no blinds in front of the window. The light was weaker, grayer than what he had just experienced and, without hesitation, Eli dropped the bottles onto the floor, continued on. While the light clawed relatively tenderly at his back as he crawled down the corridor to the bathroom the smell of burnt flesh wafted into his nose.
I will never be whole again.
He stretched his arm out, opened the bathroom door, and crawled into the compact darkness. He pushed a couple of plastic jugs out of the way, closed the door, and locked it.
Before he slid into the bathtub he had time to think: I didn"t lock the front door.
But it was too late. Rest turned him off at the same moment as he sank down into the wet darkness. He wouldn"t have had the energy anyway.
Tommy sat still, pressed into the corner. He held his breath until his ears started to ring and he saw shooting stars in front of his eyes. When he heard the cellar door slam shut he dared to let his breath out in a long panting exhalation that rolled along the cement walls, died out. It was completely quiet. The darkness was so complete that it had ma.s.s, weight.
He held one hand in front of his face. Nothing. No difference. He touched his face as if to convince himself that he existed at all. Yes. His fingertips touched his nose, his lips. Unreal. They flickered to life under his fingers, disappeared.
The little figurine in his other hand felt more alive, more real than he did. He squeezed it, held it close.
Tommy had been sitting with his head bent down between his knees, his eyes tightly shut, his hands held against his ears in order not to have to know, not to hear what was going on outside in the storage unit. It sounded like that little girl was being murdered. He would not have been able to do anything, not dared do anything, and therefore he had tried to deny the whole situation by disappearing.
He had been with his dad. On the soccer field, in the forest, at the Canaan baths. Finally he had paused at the memory of that time on the Racksta field when he and his dad had tried a remote-control airplane that his dad had borrowed from someone at work.
Mom had come along for a while, but in the end she thought it was boring to look at the airplane making circles in the sky, had gone home. He and his dad had kept going until it got dark and the airplane was a silhouette against the pink evening sky. Then they had walked home, hand in hand, through the forest.
Tommy had been in that day, far from the screams, the insanity going on a few meters away. The only thing he was aware of was the furious buzz of the airplane, the warmth of his father"s large hand on his back while he nervously maneuvered the plane in wide circles over the field, the graveyard.
Back then Tommy had never been in the graveyard; had imagined people walking aimlessly around the graves, crying large shiny comic book tears that splashed against the headstones. That was then. Then Dad had died and Tommy had learned that graveyards rarely-all too rarely- look like that.
His hands tightly pressed against his ears, killing away those thoughts. Think about walking through the forest, think about the smell of the airplane"s special gas in the little bottle, think about...
Only when he-halfway through his soundproofing-heard a lock being turned, had he taken his hands down and looked. To no avail, since the safety room was even blacker than the darkness behind his eyelids. Started to hold his breath when the second wheel thundered into place, kept holding it in case whatever-it-was was still in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Then that distant bang from the door to the stairwell, a vibration in the walls, and here he was. Still alive.
It didn"t get me.
Exactly what "it" was, he didn"t know, but whatever it was it had not discovered him. Tommy got up from his crouched position. A tingling trail of ants ran through his numb leg muscles as he groped along the wall, toward the door. His hands were sweaty with fear and the pressure against his ears; the statuette almost slid out of his hand.
His free hand found the wheel of the closing mechanism and started to turn it.
It went about ten centimeters, then it stopped.
What is this . . .
He pressed harder, but the wheel wouldn"t budge. He dropped the statuette in order to be able to grab the wheel with both hands, and it fell to the floor with a thud.
He froze.
That sounded funny. As if it landed on something. .. soft. He crouched down next to the door, tried to turn the lower wheel. Same thing. Ten centimeters, then stop. He sat down on the floor. Tried to think practically. He crouched down next to the door, tried to turn the lower wheel. Same thing. Ten centimeters, then stop. He sat down on the floor. Tried to think practically.
d.a.m.n, am I going to be stuck here.
Like that, sort of.
But it still came creeping ... this terror he had had a few months after his dad died. He had not felt it for a long time, but now, locked in, in the pitch blackness, it was starting to make itself known again. Love for his dad that through death had been transformed into a fear of him. Of his body.
A lump started to grow in his throat, his fingers stiffened.
Think now! Think!
There were candles on a shelf in the storage room on the other side. The problem was making his way over there in the dark.
Idiot!
He slapped his forehead, laughed out loud. He had a lighter! And any-way: what was the use of looking for those candles if there wasn"t anything to light them with?
Like that guy with thousands of cans and no can opener. Starved to death surrounded by food. death surrounded by food.
While he dug around in his pocket for his lighter he reflected that his situation wasn"t so so hopeless. Sooner or later someone would come down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, his mom-if no one else-and if he could just get some light in here, that would be something. hopeless. Sooner or later someone would come down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, his mom-if no one else-and if he could just get some light in here, that would be something.
He got the lighter out of his pocket, lit it.
His eyes that had adjusted to the dark were momentarily blinded by the light, but then when they adjusted again he saw that he was not alone. Outstretched on the floor, right next to his feet, was . ..
.. . Dad... Dad...
The fact that his father had been cremated did not register with him as, in the fluttering flame of the lighter, he saw the face of the corpse and it met his expectations of how one would look after having been in the earth for many years.
.. . Dad... Dad...
He screamed straight into the lighter so the flame went out, but the split second before the light went out he had time to see his dad"s head jerk and ...
. . . it"s alive . . . it"s alive . . .