Let the Right One In

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Pillows of fat.

  Tommy stared blankly at the picture in front of him. The girl was pressing her breasts together with her hands so they stood out like two balloons, pursed her mouth into a pout. It looked sick. He had thought he was going to jack off, but there must be something wrong with his brain, because he thought the girl looked like a freak.

  He folded the magazine up with unnatural slowness, tucked it back under the sofa cushions. Every little movement directed by conscious thought. Wasted. He was utterly wasted with glue fumes. And that was good. No world. Only the room he was in, and outside that…a billowing desert.

  Staffan.

  He tried to think about Staffan. Couldn’t. Didn’t get a hold of him. Only saw that cardboard cut-out of the policeman up at the post office. Life-size. To scare off any would-be robbers.

  Should we rob the post office?

  Man, you must be crazy! Can’t you see the cardboard policeman is there?

  Tommy giggled when the cardboard policeman’s face took on Staffan’s features. Assigned as punishment. To guard the post office. There was something written on the cut-out as well, what was it?

  Crime doesn’t pay. No. The police are watching you. No. What the hell was it? Watch out! I’m a champion pistol-shooter!

  Tommy laughed. Laughed more. Laughed until he shook and thought the naked bulb in the ceiling was swinging to and fro in time with his laughter. Giggled at it. Watch out! The cardboard policeman! With his cardboard gun! And his cardboard head!

  There was a knock inside his head. Someone wanted to come into the post office.

  The cardboard policeman pricks up his ears. There are two hundred cardboards at the post office. Undo the safety. Bang-bang.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Bang.

  Staffan…Mum, shit…

  Tommy stiffened. Tried to think. Couldn’t. Just a ragged cloud in his head. Then he calmed down. Maybe it was Robban or Lasse. It could be Staffan. And he was made of cardboard.

  Penis-dummy, cardboard-mummy.

  Tommy cleared his throat, said thickly, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  He recognised the voice, couldn’t place it. Not Staffan, at any rate. Not paper-Papa.

  Barba-papa. Stop it.

  ‘Who are you, then?’

  ‘Can you open?’

  ‘The post office is closed for the day. Come back in five years.’

  ‘I have money.

  ‘Paper money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  He got up off the couch. Slowly, slowly. The contours of things didn’t want to stay put. His head was full of lead.

  Concrete cap.

  He stood still for a few seconds, swaying. The concrete floor tilted dreamily to the right, to the left, like in the Funny House. He walked forward, one step at a time, lifted the latch, pushed open the door. It was that girl. Oskar’s friend. Tommy stared at her without understanding what he was seeing.

  Sun and surf.

  The girl was wearing only a thin dress. Yellow with white dots that absorbed Tommy’s gaze. He tried to focus on the dots but they started to dance, move around so he became sick to his stomach. She was maybe twenty centimetres shorter than him.

  As cute as…a summer day.

  ‘Is it summer now all of a sudden?’ he asked.

  The girl put her head to one side.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well you’re wearing a…what’s it called…a sundress.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tommy nodded, pleased that he had been able to think of the word. What had she said? Money. Yes. Oskar had said that…

  ‘Do you…want to buy something?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Yes, sure.’

  ‘Say that I can come in.’

  Tommy made an exaggerated, sweeping gesture with his arm. Saw his own hand moving in slow-motion, a drugged fish swimming through the air.

  ‘Step inside. Welcome to the…local branch.’

  He didn’t have the energy to stay on his feet any longer. The floor wanted him. He turned around and flopped back on the couch. The girl walked in, closed the door behind her, put the latch back on. He saw her as an enormous chicken, giggling at his vision. The chicken sat down in an armchair.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘No, it’s just…you’re so…yellow.’

  ‘I see.’

  The girl crossed her hands over a little purse in her lap. He hadn’t noticed that she had one. No. Not a purse. More like a cosmetic bag. Tommy looked at it. You see a bag. You wonder what’s inside.

  ‘What do you have in there?’

  ‘Money.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Nope. This is fishy. There’s something strange about this.

  ‘What do you want to buy, then?’

  The girl unzipped the case and took out a thousand kronor note. One more. Then another. Three thousand. The bills looked ridiculously large in her small hands when she leaned forward and placed them on the floor.

  Tommy chortled, ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Three thousand.’

  ‘Yes. But what for?’

  ‘For you.’

  ‘Give me a break.’

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘That must be some kind of damn…Monopoly money or something. Isn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s it for, anyway?’

  ‘Because I want to buy something from you.’

  ‘You want to buy something for three thou…no.’

  Tommy stretched out one arm as far as he could, snapped up a bill. Felt it, crinkled it with his hand, held it up against the light and saw the watermark. Same king or whoever was printed on the front. The real deal.

  ‘You’re not kidding, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  Three thousand. Could…go somewhere. Fly somewhere.

  Then Staffan and his mum could stand there and…Tommy felt his head clear a little. The whole thing was cuckoo but OK: three thousand. That was a fact. Now the only question was…

  ‘What do you want to buy? For this you can have…’

  ‘Blood.’

  ‘Blood.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tommy snorted, shook his head.

  ‘No, sorry. We’re all sold out.’

  The girl sat still in the armchair, looking at him. Didn’t even smile.

  ‘No, but seriously,’ Tommy said. ‘I mean, what?’

  ‘You’ll get this money…if I get some blood.’

  ‘I don’t have any.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tommy suddenly got it.

  What the hell…

  ‘Are you serious?’

  The girl pointed at the bills.

  ‘It’s not dangerous.’

  ‘But…what…how?’

  The girl stuck her hand into the kit, fished something out. A small, white, square bit of plastic. Shook it. It rattled a little. Now Tommy saw what it was. A packet of razor blades. She put it into her lap, took out something else. A skin-coloured rectangle. A large band-aid.

  This is ridiculous.

  ‘No, cut it out now. Don’t you understand that…I could just take that money from you, you know. Put it in my pocket and say, “What? Three thousand? Haven’t seen it.” It’s a lot of money, don’t you realise that? Where did you get it from?’

  The girl shut her eyes, sighed. When she opened them again she didn’t look as friendly.

  ‘Do you want to or not?’

  She means it. She really means it. No…no…

  ‘What, are you, like, going to…swish, and then…’

  The girl nodded, eagerly.

  Swish? Wait a minute. WAIT a little now…what was it… pigs…

  He frowned. The thought bounced around his
head like a rubber ball thrown hard inside a room, trying to find a resting place, to stop. And it stopped. He remembered something. Gaped. Looked her in the eyes.

  ‘No…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is some kind of joke, isn’t it? You know what? Go. I want you to leave.’

  ‘I have an illness. I need blood. You can have more money if you want.’

  She dug around in the kit and took out two more thousand kronor notes, put them on the floor. Five thousand. ‘Please.’

  The murderer. Vällingby. His throat slit. But what the hell, this girl…

  ‘What do you need it for…what the hell, you’re just a kid, you…’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘No, I can always…are you scared?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of you saying no.’

  ‘But I am saying no. This is completely…come off it. Go home.’

  The girl sat still in the chair, thinking. Then she nodded, got up and picked the money up off the floor, put it back in the make-up kit. Tommy looked at the spot where it had been. Five. Thousand. A clink as the latch was lifted. Tommy turned over on his back.

  ‘But…what…are you planning to slit my throat?’

  ‘No, on the inside of your elbow. Only a little.’

  ‘But what will you do with it?’

  ‘Drink it.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tommy’s mind turned inward and he saw that chart of the circulatory system projected over his skin like an overhead transparency. Felt, maybe for the first time in his life, that he had a circulatory system. Not just isolated points, wounds where one or more drops came out, but a large pumping tree of veins filled with…how much was it?…four to five litres of blood.

  ‘What kind of illness is it?’

  The girl didn’t say anything, just stood there at the door with the latch in her hand, studying him, and then the lines of veins and arteries of his body, the chart, suddenly took on the character of a…butcher’s chart. He pushed the thought away, and thought instead: become a blood donor. Twenty-five even and a cheese sandwich. ‘So give me the money.’

  The girl unzipped the case, took out the bills again.

  ‘How about if I give you…three now. And two after?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. But I could just jump you and take the money anyway, don’t you understand that?’

  ‘No. You couldn’t.’

  She held the three thousand out to him, between index and middle finger. He held each one of them up to the light, checking to make sure that they were genuine. Rolled them into a cylinder that he clenched his left hand around.

  ‘OK. And now?’

  The girl put the other two bills on the chair, crouched down next to the couch, dug out the white packet from the kit, shaking out a razor blade.

  She’s done this before.

  The girl turned the razor blade to see which side was sharper. Then held it up next to her face. A little message, whose only word was: swish.

  ‘You can’t tell anyone about this.’

  ‘What happens if I do?’

  ‘You cannot tell anyone about this. Ever.’

  ‘No.’ Tommy glanced at his outstretched arm, at the thousand kronor bills on the chair. ‘How much are you going to take?’

  ‘One litre.’

  ‘Is that…a lot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it so much that I…’

  ‘No. You can handle it.’

  ‘Because it comes back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tommy nodded. Then watched with fascination as the razor blade, shining like a little mirror, was lowered against his skin. As if it was happening to someone else, somewhere else. Only saw the play of lines. The girl’s jawbone, her dark hair, his white arm, the rectangle of the razor blade that pushed aside a thin hair on his arm and reached its goal, rested for a split-second against the swelling of the vein, somewhat darker than the surrounding skin.

  Then it pressed down, lightly, lightly. A point that sank down without puncturing it. Then—

  Swish.

  Tommy had an involuntary reaction to pull away and he gasped, squeezed his other hand tightly around the bills. A creaking inside his head as his teeth bit down, grinding against each other. The blood streamed out, pressed out in spurts.

  The razor blade fell to the floor with a tinkle and the girl grabbed hold of him with both hands, pressing her lips against the inside of his arm.

  Tommy turned his head away, only felt her warm lips, her tongue lapping against his skin and again he saw that chart inside his head, the channels that the blood ran through, rushing towards that… opening.

  It’s running out of me.

  Yes. The intensity of the pain increased. The arm was starting to feel paralysed; he no longer felt the lips, he only felt the strong suction, how it was sucked out of him, how it was…

  Flowing away.

  He got scared. Wanted to put an end to it. It hurt too much. The tears came to his eyes, he opened his mouth to say something, to… couldn’t. There were no words that would…He bent his free arm towards his mouth, pressed the clenched fist against his mouth. Felt the cylinder of paper that stuck out of it. Bit down on it.

  21:17, Sunday evening, Ängbyplan

  A man is observed outside the hair salon. He presses his face and hands against the glass, and appears extremely intoxicated. The police arrive at the scene fifteen minutes later. The man has left by this point. The window does not appear damaged in any way, only smeared with traces of mud or earth. In the lighted window display there are numerous pictures of young people, hair models.

  ‘Are you sleeping?’

  ‘No.’

  A waft of perfume and cold as his mum came into his room, sat down on the bed.

  ‘Have you had a good time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing in particular.’

  ‘I saw some papers. On the kitchen table.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Oskar pulled the covers more tightly around him, pretended to yawn.

  ‘Are you sleepy?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  True and not true. He was tired, so tired his head was buzzing. Only wanted to roll himself up in his covers, seal the entrance and not emerge again until…until…but sleepy, no. And…could he even sleep now that he was infected?

  Heard his mother ask him something about his dad, and he said ‘fine’ without knowing what he was answering. It got quiet. Then his mum sighed, deeply.

  ‘Sweetheart, how are you doing, really? Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Oskar pressed his face into the pillow, breathing out so that his nose, mouth and lips became hot and moist. He couldn’t do it. It was too hard. Had to tell someone. Into the pillow he said, ‘Iemfecte…’

  ‘What did you say?’

  He lifted his mouth from the pillow.

  ‘I’m infected.’

  His mum’s hand stroked the back of his head, across his neck, continued and the blankets came off a little.

  ‘How do you mean, inf…but you’re still wearing all your clothes!’

  ‘Yes, I…’

  ‘Let me feel you. Are you hot?’ She leaned her cold cheek onto his forehead. ‘You have a fever. Come on. You have to take your clothes off and get into bed properly.’ She stood up and gently shook his shoulder. ‘Come on.’

  She was breathing faster now, thinking something else. Said in a different tone of voice, ‘Weren’t you dressed warmly enough when you were at your dad’s?’

  ‘I was, it’s not that.’

  ‘Were you wearing a hat?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not that.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  Oskar pressed his face into the pillow again, squeezed it and said, ‘Agoinbeahmpire…’

  ‘Oskar, what are you saying?’

&n
bsp; ‘I’m going to be a vampire!’

  Pause. The soft rustling of his mother’s coat as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  ‘Oskar. Get up. And take your clothes off. And get into bed.’

  ‘I’m going to be a vampire.’

  His mum’s breathing. Deliberate, angry. ‘Tomorrow I am going to throw away all of those books you’re always reading.’

  The covers were pulled off him. He got up, slowly took his clothes off, avoided looking at her. Got back into bed, and his mum tucked the covers in around him.

  ‘Do you want anything?’

  Oskar shook his head.

  ‘Should we take your temperature?’

  Oskar shook his head harder. Now he looked at her. She was leaning over the bed, hands on her knees. Searching, concerned eyes.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘No. Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘Could you…tell me a story?’

  A string of different emotions crossed his mum’s face: sadness, joy, worry, a small smile, a wrinkle of concern. All in a few seconds. ‘I…don’t know any fairy tales,’ she said. ‘But I…I can read one to you if you want. If we have some book…’

  Her gaze went up to the bookcase by Oskar’s head.

  ‘No, don’t bother.’

  ‘But I’m happy to do it.’

  ‘No, I don’t want you to.’

  ‘Why not? You said—’

  ‘Yes, I did, but…no. I don’t want you to.’

  ‘Should I…should I sing something?

  ‘No!’

  She pressed her lips together, hurt. Then she decided not to be, since Oskar was sick. ‘I guess I could think of something if that is—’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I want to sleep now.’

  His mum eventually said goodnight, left the room. Oskar lay there, his eyes open, staring at the window. Tried to feel if he was in the process of…becoming. Didn’t know what that felt like. Eli. How had that actually worked when he…was transformed?

  To be separated from everything.

  Leave. His mum, dad, school…Jonny, Tomas… To be with Eli. Always.

  He heard the TV go on in the living room, how the volume was quickly lowered. Distant clatter of the coffee pot from the kitchen. The gas stove being turned on, rattle of a cup and saucer. Cupboards opened.

  The normal sounds. He had heard them a hundred times. And he felt sad. So very sad.