The mouth, which was not a mouth, was opening.
The half-healed wound came apart with a sound like when you skin a fish, single strips of pink skin refused to tear, stretched out when the hole in the lower half of the face widened, kept widening.
‘AAAAAA!’
The howl echoed through the empty corridors and Benke’s heart was beating faster.
Keep still! Be quiet!
If he’d had a hammer in his hand at that moment he would have likely smashed it right into that revolting, quivering mass with that staring eye, those strips of skin over the mouth hole that now snapped like over-stretched rubber bands. Benke could see the man’s teeth glow white in all that reddish-brown fluid that was his face.
Benke walked back to the foot end of the gurney again, started to push it through the corridors, towards the lift. He half ran, afraid that the man was going to twist so much he fell off.
The corridors stretched out endlessly before him, as in a nightmare. Yes. It was like a nightmare. All thoughts of a ‘good story’ were gone. He wanted to come up to the surface where there were other people, living people who could rescue him from this monster who was screaming on the gurney.
He reached the lift and pressed the button that would get it to come, visualising the route to the ER. Five minutes and he would be there.
Already up on the ground floor there would be other people who could help him. Two minutes and he would be back in real life.
Come on, damn you!
The man’s healthy hand was waving.
Benke looked at it and closed his eyes, opened them again. The man was trying to say something, softly. He was indicating for Benke to come closer. He was clearly conscious. Benke moved next to the gurney, bent down over the man. ‘Yes, what is it?’
The hand suddenly grabbed hold of his neck, pulled his head down. Benke lost his balance, fell down over the man. The grip on his neck iron-hard as the hand pulled him down to that…hole.
He tried to grab hold of the metal bars at the top end of the stretcher to resist, but his head twisted to the side and his eyes ended up only a few centimetres from the wet compress on the man’s neck.
‘Let go of me, for…’
A finger pushed into his ear and he heard the bones in the ear canal crackle and give way as the finger forced itself in, further in. He kicked out with his legs and when his shin hit the metal bars under the gurney he finally screamed.
Then teeth clamped down on his cheek and the finger in his ear reached a point where it turned something off, something turned off and…he gave up.
The last thing he saw was how the wet compress in front of his eyes changed colour and grew pink as the man chewed on his face.
The last thing he heard was a
pling
as the lift arrived.
They lay next to each other on the couch, sweating, panting. Oskar was sore all over, exhausted. He yawned so wide his jaws cracked. Eli also yawned. Oskar turned his head to her.
‘Give it up.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You aren’t really sleepy, are you?’
‘No.’
Oskar made an effort to keep his eyes open, was talking almost without moving his lips. Eli’s face was starting to appear foggy, unreal.
‘What do you do? To get blood.’
Eli looked at him. For a long time. Then she seemed to make up her mind about something and Oskar saw how something moved inside her cheeks, lips, as if she was swirling her tongue around in there. Then she parted her lips, opened wide.
And he saw her teeth. She closed her mouth again.
Oskar turned away and looked up at the ceiling where a thread of dusty cobwebs stretched down from the unused overhead light. He didn’t even have the energy to be surprised. Oh. She was a vampire. But he already knew that.
‘Are there a lot of you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know.’
‘No, I don’t.’
Oskar’s gaze roamed the ceiling, trying to locate more cobwebs.
Found two. Thought he saw a spider crawling on one of them. He blinked. Blinked again. Eyes full of sand. No spider.
‘What do I call you, then? This thing that you are.’
‘Eli.’
‘Is that really your name?’
‘Almost.’
‘What’s your real name?’
A pause. Eli shifted away from him, against the back of the couch, turned around onto her side.
‘Elias.’
‘But that’s a…boy’s name.’
‘Yes.’
Oskar closed his eyes. Couldn’t take any more. His eyelids had glued themselves shut onto his eyeballs. A black hole was growing, enveloping his whole body. The faint impression somewhere far away at the very back of his head that he should say something, do something. But he didn’t have the energy.
The black hole exploded in slow motion. He was sucked forward, inward, turned a slow somersault in space, into sleep.
Far away he felt someone stroke his cheek. Didn’t manage to articulate the thought that, because he felt it, it must be his own. But somewhere, on a planet far far away, someone gently stroked someone’s cheek.
And that was good.
Then there were only stars.
PART
four
We are the troll company,
we don’t let anyone go free!
RUNE ANDRÉASSON,
BAMSE IN THE MAGIC FOREST: WE ARE THE
TROLL COMPANY!
(SWEDISH CHILDREN’S COMIC BOOK)
Sunday
8 November
The Traneberg bridge. When it was unveiled in 1934 it was hailed as a minor miracle of engineering. The longest concrete single-span bridge in the world. One single mighty arc that soared between Kungsholmen and the western suburbs which at that time consisted of the little garden cities of Bromma and Äppelviken. The single-family-house movement’s prefabricated prototypes in Ängby.
But the modern was already on its way. The first real suburbs of three-storey apartment buildings were already finished in Traneberg and Abrahamsberg, and the state had bought up large areas further west to start constructing everything that would one day become Vällingby, Hässelby and Blackeberg.
To all this, the Traneberg bridge was the link. Almost everyone who travelled to or from the western suburbs used it.
In the 1960s reports started to come in about how the bridge was slowly disintegrating as a result of the heavy traffic it was subjected to. It was renovated and reinforced from time to time but the large-scale renovation and new construction that came up in talks was still a thing of the future.
So on the morning of the 8th of November 1981 the bridge looked tired. A life-weary senior, sorrowfully pondering the days when the heavens were brighter, the clouds lighter and when it was still the longest single-span concrete bridge in the world.
The snow had started to melt towards morning and snow-slush ran down into cracks in the bridge. The city didn’t dare to salt it because it would eat away further at the ageing concrete.
There wasn’t much traffic at this time, particularly not on a Sunday morning. The subway had stopped running for the night and the occasional drivers who passed by were either longing for their beds or to return to their beds.
Benny Molin was an exception. Sure, he was looking forward to his bed at home but he was probably too happy to sleep.
Eight times now he had met with various women through the personal ads, but Betty, whom he had arranged to meet on Saturday night, was the first that he had clicked with.
This was going to be something. Both of them knew it.
They had doubled over with laughter at how ridiculous it sounded: ‘Benny and Betty’. Like a comedic duo, but what can you do? And if they had kids, what would they call them? Lenny and Netty?
Yes, they had had a lot of fun together. They had sat in her place in Kungsholmen, talking about their worlds, trying to fit
their puzzle pieces together, with pretty good results. Towards morning there were sort of only two alternatives for what to do next.
And Benny had chosen what he thought was the right one, even though it was hard. He had said goodbye, with the promise of meeting up again Sunday night, then got into his car and driven home to Bromma while he sang ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’ out loud.
So Benny was not someone who had any energy to spare for complaining about, or even noticing, the miserable state of the Traneberg bridge this Sunday morning. For him it was simply the bridge to paradise, to love.
He had just arrived at its end on the Traneberg side and started singing the song’s chorus, for perhaps the tenth time, when a blue figure turned up in the beam of his headlights, in the middle of the road.
He had time to think—Don’t jump on the brakes!—before he took his foot off the accelerator and jerked the steering wheel to the side, swerving to the left when there were only about five metres between him and the person. He caught a glimpse of a blue coat and a pair of white legs before the corner of the car banged into the concrete barrier between the lanes.
The scraping sound was so loud it deafened him as the car was pressed up against and forced down along the barrier. The side-view mirror was torn off and fluttered away, and the car door on his side was pushed in until it touched his hip before the car was flung out into the middle of the road again.
He tried to correct it, but the car skidded over to the other side and hit the railing of the pedestrian walkway. The other side-view mirror was ripped off and flew away over the bridge railing, reflecting the lights of the bridge up into the sky. He braked carefully and the next skid was less violent; the car only nudged up against the concrete barrier.
After approximately a hundred metres he managed to stop the car. He exhaled, sat still with his hands in his lap and the engine running. He had a bloody taste in his mouth; had bitten his lip.
What kind of lunatic was that back there?
He looked up into the rear-view mirror and in the yellowish light of the streetlamps he could see the person stagger on down in the middle of the lane as if nothing had happened. That made him angry. A nutcase, sure, but there were limits, damn it.
He tried to open his door, but couldn’t. The lock must have gotten smashed in. He released his seat belt and crawled over to the passenger’s side. Before he wriggled out of the car he turned on the hazard lights. He stood next to the car, his arms folded, waiting.
Saw that the person making his way along the bridge was dressed in some kind of hospital gown and nothing more. Bare feet, bare legs. Would have to see if it was possible to talk any sense into him.
Him?
The figure got closer. The slush splashed up around the bare feet, he walked as if he had a thread attached to his chest, inexorably pulling him along.
Benny took a step towards him and stopped. The person was maybe ten metres away now and Benny could clearly see his…face.
Benny gasped, and steadied himself against the car. Then he quickly wriggled back into it through the passenger side, put the car in first gear and drove away so fast the slush sprayed out from his back wheels and probably hit…that thing on the road.
Once he was back in his apartment, he poured himself a good-sized whisky, drank about half. Then he called the police. Told them what he had seen, what had happened. When he had drunk the last of the whisky and started to lean towards hitting the hay after all, the mobilisation was in full swing.
They were searching all of Judarn forest. Five police dogs, twenty officers. Even one helicopter, unusual for this type of search.
One wounded, dazed man. A single canine unit should have been able to track him down.
But the stakes were raised in part because of the high media profile of the case (two officers had been assigned simply to handle all the reporters crowding around Weibull’s nursery next to the Åkeshov subway station) and the police wanted to demonstrate that they were putting in the maximum effort even on a Sunday morning.
And in part because they had found Bengt Edwards.
That is to say, they assumed it was Bengt Edwards since they had found a wedding band with the name Gunilla engraved on it.
Gunilla was Benke’s wife, his co-workers knew that. No one could bring themselves to call her. Tell her that he was dead, but that they still could not be completely sure it was him. Ask her if she knew of any defining bodily characteristics on, say…the lower half of his body?
The pathologist who had arrived at seven o’clock in the morning to work on the body of the ritual killer, found himself with a new case. If he had been presented with Bengt Edwards’ remains without knowing any of the circumstances he would have guessed that the body had lain outside for one or two days in severe cold, during which time it had been mutilated by rats, foxes, perhaps wolverines and bears—if ‘mutilate’ is the appropriate word to use in the context of animals. At any rate, larger predators could have torn off pieces of flesh in this way, and rodents could have been responsible for damage to protrusions such as nose, ears and fingers.
The pathologist’s hasty, preliminary assessment that went out to the police was the other reason for the considerable mobilisation. The offender was determined to be extremely violent, in official terms.
Completely fucking crazy, in other words.
That the man was still alive was nothing short of a miracle. Not a miracle of the kind the Vatican would want to wave their incense at, but a miracle nonetheless. He had been a vegetable before the fall from the tenth storey, now he was up and walking, and worse.
But he couldn’t exactly be in great shape. The weather was a little milder now, of course, but it was only a few degrees above freezing and the man was dressed in a hospital gown. He had no accomplices as far as the police knew, and it was simply not possible for him to remain hidden in the forest for more than a few hours.
The telephone call from Benny Molin had come in almost an hour after he had seen the man on the Traneberg bridge. But a few minutes later they had received an additional call from an older woman.
She had been out for a morning walk with her dog when she had spotted a man in a hospital gown in the vicinity of the Åkeshov stables where the King’s sheep were housed in the winter. She had immediately gone home and called the police, thinking the sheep were in danger.
Ten minutes later the first patrol car had turned up and the first thing the officers did was check the stables, their guns out and ready, nervous.
The sheep had become restless and before the officers were done combing the building the whole place was a seething mass of anxious, woolly bodies, loud bleating and an inhuman screeching that drew even more police.
During the search a number of sheep escaped from the pen into the walkway in the middle, and when the police finally determined that the place was clean and left the building—their ears ringing—a ram managed to slip out the front door. An older officer with farmers in the family threw himself on the ram and grabbed him by his horns, dragging him back to the pen.
It was only after he had finished coaxing the animal back that he realised some of the bright flashes during his quick action had been photoflashes. He had made the erroneous assumption that the matter was too serious for the press to want to use such a picture. Shortly thereafter, however, they managed to erect a base for the media, outside the perimeter of the search area.
It was now half past seven and dawn was creeping in under dripping trees. The search for the lone lunatic was well organised and in full swing. The police felt assured of a resolution before lunchtime.
Another couple of hours would go by of negative results from the infra-red camera on the helicopter, and from the secretions-sensitive noses of the dogs, before the speculation started that the man was no longer alive. That they were searching for a corpse.
When the first pale dawn light trickled in through the tiny gaps in the blinds and struck Virginia’s palm like a burning hot
light bulb, she only wanted one thing: to die. Even so she instinctively pulled her hand away and crawled further back into the room.
Her skin was cut in more than thirty places. There was blood all over the apartment.
Several times during the night she had sliced her arteries to drink but had not had time to suck or lick everything that ran out. It had landed on the floor, on the table, chairs. The large rug in the living room looked like someone had butchered a deer on it.
The degree of satisfaction and relief lessened each time she opened a new wound, each time she drank a mouthful of her own rapidly thinning blood. Towards morning she was a whimpering mass of abstinence and anguish. Anguish because she knew what had to be done if she was to live.
The realisation had come to her gradually, grown to certainty. Another person’s blood would make her…healthy. And she couldn’t manage to take her own life. Probably it was not even possible; the cuts she made in her skin with the fruit knife healed with unnatural swiftness. However hard and deep she cut, the bleeding stopped within a minute. After an hour the scar tissue was already visible.
And anyway…
She had sensed something.
It was towards morning, when she was sitting on a kitchen chair and sucking blood from a cut in the crook of her arm—the second one in the same spot—that she was suddenly pulled into the depths of her body and caught sight of it.
The infection.
She didn’t really see it, of course, but she had an ever-increasing perception of what it was. It was like being pregnant and getting an ultrasound, looking at the screen showing you how your belly was filled with, in this case not a child but a large writhing snake. That this was what you were carrying.
Because what she had realised at that moment was that the infection had its own life, its own force, completely independent of her body. That the infection would live on even if she did not. The mother-to-be could die of shock at the ultrasound but no one would notice anything because the snake would take control of the body instead.
Let the Right One In Page 30