A stick was threaded through the wheels of the locking mechanism of the safety room. He walked over to the door, listened. Yes. The mumbling, the thuds, were coming from in there. It almost sounded like a…mass. A recited litany that he could not make out the words to.
Devil worshippers…
A silly thought, but when he looked closer at the stick in the door it actually frightened him, because of what he saw at the very tip. Dark red, lumpy streaks that reached about ten centimetres up the stick itself. It looked exactly like knives did when they had been used for violent altercations and had partly dried.
The muttering on the other side of the door continued.
Call for reinforcements?
No. Perhaps there was something criminal going on behind that door that would be completed while he was upstairs making the call. Had to manage this on his own.
He undid the fastening on his holster for easy access to his gun, unhooked the baton. With his other hand he took a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wrapped it around the end of the stick and started to pull it out of the wheels while he listened closely to see if the scraping sound from the stick altered the noises from inside the room in any way.
No. The litany and the thuds continued.
The stick was out. He propped it up against the wall in order not to destroy any prints.
He knew that the handkerchief was no guarantee that prints would not be erased, so instead of grabbing the wheels he used two stiff fingers on one of the spokes and forced it to turn.
The wheel pistons gave way. He licked his lips. His throat felt dry. The other wheel was turned back all the way and the door slid open one centimetre.
Now he heard the words. It was a song. The voice was a high-pitched, broken whisper.
‘Two hundred and seventy-four elephants
On a teensy spider weeeee-
(Thud.)
‘-eb!
They thought it was
Such jolly good fun
That they went and got a friend!
Two hundred and seventy-five elephants
On a teensy spider weee-
(Thud.)
-eb!
They thought it was...
Staffan angled the baton away from his body, pushed the door open with it.
And then he saw.
The lump that Tommy was kneeling behind would have been hard to identify as human had it not been for the arm that stuck out of it, half separated from the body. The chest, stomach, face were only a heap of flesh, guts, crushed bone.
Tommy was holding a square stone with both hands that he, at a certain point in his song, thrust down into the butchered remains. There was little resistance, and the stone mostly went all the way through and hit against the floor with a thud before he lifted it up again and yet another elephant was added to the spider web.
Staffan could not tell for sure that it was Tommy. The person holding the stone was covered in so much blood and tissue scraps that it was difficult to…Staffan became intensely nauseated. He restrained a wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him, looked down in order not to have to see, and his eyes stopped at a tin soldier lying by the threshold. No. It was the figure of pistol shooter. He recognised it. The figure was lying in such a way so the pistol was aimed straight up.
Where is the base?
Then he realised.
His head spun and, oblivious to fingerprints and crime-scene protocol, he leaned his hand against the door post for support while the song continued repetitively:
‘Two hundred and seventy-seven elephants
On…
He must be pretty shaken up because he was hallucinating. He thought he saw…yes…saw clearly how the human remains on the floor, between each blow…moved.
As if trying to get up.
Morgan was a chainsmoker; he was already putting out his butt in a flowerbed outside the hospital entrance when Larry still had half of his left. Morgan pushed his hands down into his pockets, walked to and fro in the parking lot, swore when water from a puddle seeped in through the hole in his shoe and made his sock wet.
‘Got any money, Larry?’
‘As you know I’m on disability and—’
‘Yeah, yeah. But do you have any money?’
‘Why? I’m not going to lend you any if that’s—’
‘No, no, no. But I was thinking: Lacke. What if we were to treat him to a real…you know.’
Larry coughed, looked accusingly at the cigarette.
‘What…to cheer him up, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘No…I don’t know.’
‘What? Because you don’t think it’ll make him feel better or because you don’t have any money or because you’re too cheap to put out?’
Larry sighed, took another puff coughing then made a face and put the cigarette out with his foot. Then picked up the butt and put it in a sand-filled receptacle, looked at his watch.
‘Morgan…it’s half past eight in the morning.’
‘Yes, I know. But in a couple of hours. When stuff opens.’
‘No, I have to think about it.’
‘So you have money?’
‘Should we go in, or what?’
They walked in through the revolving door. Morgan pulled his hands through his hair and walked up to the woman at the reception desk to find out where Virginia was, while Larry went and looked at some fish that were swimming sleepily through a large bubbling cylindrical tank.
After a minute Morgan came back, rubbed his hands over his leather vest to wipe off something that had stuck to him. ‘Damn bitch. Didn’t want to tell.’
‘Oh well. Must be in intensive care.’
‘Can you get in there?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘You seem like you know what you’re doing.’
‘I do.’
They moved in the direction of the Intensive Care Unit. Larry knew the way.
Many of Larry’s ‘acquaintances’ were in or had been in the hospital. At the moment there were two here at Sabb, excluding Virginia. Morgan suspected that people Larry had only met briefly became acquaintances or even friends only at the moment they landed in the hospital. Then he sought them out, went for visits.
Why he did this, Morgan had just been about to ask when they reached the swinging doors of the ICU, pushed them open and caught sight of Lacke at the far end of the corridor. He was sitting in an armchair, in only his underpants. His hands were clutching the arms of the chair while he stared into a room in front of him, where people were hurrying in and out.
Morgan sniffed. ‘What the hell? Are they cremating someone or what?’ He laughed. ‘Damn conservatives. Budget cuts, you know. Let the hospitals take over the…’
He stopped talking when they reached Lacke, whose face was ashen, his eyes red and unseeing. Morgan sensed what must have happened, let Larry take the lead. Wasn’t good at this kind of thing.
Larry walked over to Lacke, put a hand on his arm.
‘Hey there, Lacke. How’s it going?’
Chaos in the room closest to them. The windows visible from the door were wide open but despite this the sour smell of ash drifted out into the corridor. A thick cloud of dust was floating through the air, people were standing in its midst talking loudly, gesturing. Morgan caught the words ‘hospital’s responsibility’ and ‘we have to try…’
What they had to try he didn’t hear, because Lacke turned to them, staring at them like they were two strangers, and said, ‘Should have realised…’
Larry leaned over him.
‘Should have realised what?’
‘That it would happen.’
‘What’s happened?’
Lacke’s eyes cleared and he looked towards the foggy, dreamlike room, said simply, ‘She burned.’
‘Virginia?’
‘Yes. She went up in flames.’
Morgan took a couple of steps towards the room, peeked in. An older man with an air of authority came over
to him.
‘Excuse me, this is not a public exhibition.’
‘No, no. I was just…’
Morgan was about to say something witty about looking for his boa constrictor, but dropped it. At least he had had time to see. Two beds. One with wrinkled sheets and a blanket thrown to one side as if someone had gotten out of it in a hurry.
The other was covered with a thick grey blanket that stretched from the foot end to the pillow. The wood of the headrest was covered with soot. Under the blanket you could see the outline of an unbelievably thin person. Head, chest, pelvis were the only details you could make out. The rest could just as well be folds, irregularities in the blanket cloth.
Morgan rubbed his eyes so hard that his eyeballs were pressed a little into his head. It’s true. It’s fucking true.
He looked down the corridor, looking for someone to work through his confusion on. Caught sight of an older man leaning against a walker, an IV stand next to him, trying to get a glimpse into the room.
‘What are you looking at, you old fool? Want me to kick your walker out from under you too?’
The man started to retreat, in tiny steps. Morgan balled his hands into fists, tried to control himself. Remembered something he had seen in the room, turned abruptly and went back.
The man who had spoken to him was on his way out.
‘Excuse me, but what…’
‘Yes, yes, yes…’ Morgan shoved him out of the way, ‘…just getting my friend’s clothes for him, if that’s all right. Or do you think he should keep sitting out there in the buff?’
The man crossed his arms over his chest, let Morgan pass.
He grabbed Lacke’s clothes from the chair next to the unmade bed, threw another glance at the other bed. A charred hand with outstretched fingers poked out from under the sheet. The hand was unrecognisable; the ring that sat on the middle finger was not. Gold, with a blue stone, Virginia’s ring. Before Morgan turned away he also noted that a leather strap was fastened across the wrist.
The man was still standing in the door, his arms crossed.
‘Happy now?’
‘No. But why the hell was she restrained like that?’
The man shook his head.
‘You can let your friend know the police will be here shortly and they will no doubt want to talk to him.’
‘What for?’
‘How should I know? I’m not the police.’
‘No, of course not. Easy to make that mistake, though, isn’t it.’
Out in the corridor, they helped Lacke get into his clothes and had just finished when two police officers arrived. Lacke was completely spaced out, but the nurse who had pulled the blinds up had enough presence of mind to be able to vouch that he had had nothing to do with it. That he had still been sleeping when the whole thing…began.
She was comforted by one of her colleagues. Larry and Morgan led Lacke out of the hospital.
When they had gone through the revolving front door Morgan drew a deep breath of the cold air, said ‘Sorry, have to barf,’ leaned over the flowerbeds and deposited the remains of last night’s dinner mixed with green slime over the bare bushes.
When he was done he wiped his mouth with his hand and dried his hand on his trousers. Then held up the hand as if it were exhibit A and said to Larry, ‘Now look here, you’re fucking going to have to cough up.’
They made their way back to Blackeberg and Morgan was given one hundred and fifty to spend at the bottle shop while Larry took Lacke back to his place. Lacke allowed himself to be led. He had not said a single word the whole time they were on the subway.
In the lift up to Larry’s apartment on the sixth floor he started to cry. Not quietly, no; he wailed like a kid, but worse, more. When Larry opened the lift door and pushed him out onto the landing the cry deepened, started to reverberate against the concrete walls. Lacke’s scream of primal, bottomless sorrow filled the stairwell from top to bottom, streamed through the letter slots, keyholes, transformed the high rise into one big tomb erected in the memory of love, hope.
Larry shivered; he had never heard anything like it before. You don’t cry like this. You’re not allowed to cry like this. You die if you cry like this.
The neighbours. They’re going to think I’m killing him.
Larry fumbled with his keys while thousands of years of human suffering, of helplessness and disappointments, that for the moment had found an outlet in Lacke’s frail body continued to pour out of him.
The key finally made it into the lock and with a strength he had not believed he possessed, Larry carried Lacke into the apartment and closed the door. Lacke continued to scream, the air never seemed to give out. Sweat was starting to form on Larry’s brow.
What the hell should I…should I…
In his panic he did what he had seen in the movies. With an open hand he slapped Lacke’s cheek, was startled by the sharp slapping sound and regretted it in the same moment that he did it. But it worked.
Lacke stopped screaming, stared at Larry with wild eyes and Larry thought he was going to get hit back. Then something softened in Lacke’s eyes, he opened and closed his mouth like he was trying to get some air, said, ‘Larry, I…’
Larry put his arms around him. Lacke leaned his cheek against his shoulder and cried so hard he was shaking. After a while Larry’s legs started to feel weak. He tried to untangle himself from the embrace so he could sit down on the hall chair, but Lacke hung onto him and followed him down. Larry landed on the chair and Lacke’s legs buckled under him, his head sank down onto Larry’s lap.
Larry stroked his hair, didn’t know what to say. Just whispered. ‘There, there…there, there…’
Larry’s legs had fallen asleep when a change occurred. The crying had given way to a soft whimpering when he felt Lacke’s jaws tense up against his thigh.
Lacke lifted his head, wiped away the snot with his sleeve and said, ‘I’m going to kill it.’
‘What?’
Lacke lowered his gaze, stared right through Larry’s chest and nodded.
‘I’m going to kill it. I’m not going to let it live.’
During the long recess at half past nine both Staffe and Johan came over to Oskar and said ‘Great job’ and ‘Fucking awesome’. Staffe offered him chewy candy bars and Johan asked if Oskar wanted to come with them and collect empty bottles one day.
No one shoved him or held his nose when he walked past. Even Micke Siskov smiled, nodding encouragingly as if Oskar had told him a funny story when they met outside the cafeteria.
As if everyone had been waiting for him to do exactly what he did, and now that it was done he was one of them.
The problem was that he couldn’t enjoy it. He noted it, but it didn’t affect him. Great not to be picked on any more, yes. If someone tried to hit him, he would hit back. But he didn’t belong here any more.
During math class he raised his head and looked at the classmates he had been with for six years. They sat with their heads bent over their work, chewing on pens, sending notes to each other, giggling. And he thought: But they’re just…kids.
And he was also a kid, but…
He doodled a cross in his book, changed it to a kind of gallows with a noose.
I am a child, but…
He drew a train. A car. A boat.
A house. With an open door.
His anxiety grew. At the end of math class he couldn’t sit still, his feet banged on the floor, his hands drummed against his desk. The teacher asked him, with a surprised turn of her head, to be quiet. He tried, but soon the restlessness was there again, pulling in the marionette threads and his legs started to move on their own.
When it was time for the last class of the day, gym class, he couldn’t stand it any longer. In the corridor he said to Johan, ‘Tell Ávila I’m sick, OK?’
‘Are you taking off, or what?’
‘Don’t have my gym clothes.’
This was actually true; he had forgotten to pack his gym cl
othes this morning, but that was not why he had to cut class. On the way to the subway he saw the class line up in straight rows. Tomas shouted ‘buuuuu!’ at him.
Would probably tell on him. Didn’t matter. Not in the least.
The pigeons fluttered up in grey flocks as he hurried across Vällingby square. A woman with a stroller wrinkled up her nose in judgment at him; someone who doesn’t care about animals. But he was in a hurry, and all the things that lay between him and his goal were mere objects, were simply in the way.
He stopped outside the toy store. Smurfs were arranged in a sugary cute landscape. Too old for stuff like that. In a box at home he had a couple of Big Jim dolls that he had played with quite a bit when he was younger.
About a year or so ago.
An electronic doorbell sounded as he opened the door. He walked through a narrow aisle where plastic dolls, krixa-men and boxes of building models filled the shelves. Closest to the register were the packages with moulds for tin soldiers. You had to ask for the blocks of tin at the counter.
What he was looking for was stacked on the counter itself.
Yes, the imitations were stacked under the plastic dolls, but the originals, with the Rubik’s logo on the packaging they were more careful with. They cost ninety-eight kronor a piece.
A short, pudgy man stood behind the counter with a smile that Oskar would have described as ‘ingratiating’ if he had known the word.
‘Hello…are you looking for anything special today?’
Oskar had known the cubes would be stacked on the counter, had his plan figured out.
‘Yes. I was wondering…about the paints. For tin.’
‘Yes?’
The man gestured to the tiny pots of enamel paint arranged behind him. Oskar leaned over, putting the fingers of one hand on the counter just in front of the Rubik’s cubes while the other hand held his bag that was hanging open underneath. He pretended to search among the colours.
‘Gold. Do you have that?’
‘Gold. Of course.’
When the man turned around Oskar took one of the cubes, popped it into his bag and had just managed to return his hand to the same place when the man came back with two pots of paint and placed them on the counter. Oskar’s heart was beating heat up into his cheeks, across his ears.
Let the Right One In Page 43