Let the Right One In

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Someone’s lying…down there.

  Yes. What he had felt under his fingertips had been a belly. That had yielded under the pressure of his hand, before he pulled it out. In order to stave off the feeling of revulsion, he scanned the floor, found the knife, picked it up and squeezed the shaft.

  What the hell am I…

  If he had been sober he would perhaps have left at this point. Left this dark tarn that could be concealing just about anything under its once more still, polished-mirror surface. A butchered body, for example.

  The stomach is maybe…it maybe is just a stomach.

  But the intoxication made him merciless even to his own fear so when he saw the thin chain that led from the edge of the bathtub down into the dark liquid he stretched out his hand and pulled on it.

  The plug was pulled out down there, there was a filtering, clucking sound from the pipes and a faint whirl formed on the surface. He knelt in front of the bathtub, licked his lips. Felt the harsh taste on his tongue, spat on the floor.

  The surface became gradually lower. A sharply delineated dark red edge became visible along its highest level.

  It must have been here a long time.

  After a minute the contours of a nose appeared at one end. At the other a set of toes that as he watched became two half feet. The vortex on the surface became narrower, stronger, positioned exactly between the feet.

  His gaze crept along the child’s body that was gradually being revealed. A couple of hands, folded across the chest. Knee caps. A face. A muffled slurp as the last of the blood drained out.

  The body in front of his eyes was dark red; blotchy, and slimy like a newborn. It had a navel, but no genitals. A boy or a girl? It didn’t matter. When he looked closely at the face with its closed eyes he recognised it only too well.

  When Oskar tried to run, his legs froze up. Refused.

  During five desperate seconds he had really believed that he was going to die. That they were prepared to push him. Now his muscles were having a hard time getting past the idea.

  They gave out in the walkway between the school and the gymnasium.

  He wanted to lie down. Tip back into those bushes, for example. The jacket and his lined pants would protect him from sharp twigs; the branches would provide gentle support. But he was in a hurry. The second hand; its staccato progress along the clock face.

  The school.

  The red-brown sharp-edged brick façade of stone laid against stone. In his thoughts he swooped like a bird along the corridors, into the classrooms. Jonny was there. Tomas. Sat at their desks and smiled mockingly at him. He bent his head, checked his boots.

  The shoelaces were dirty; one about to become untied. A metal hook towards the top had been bent open. He walked slightly pigeon-toed; the leather imitation on both shoes was slightly stretched at the heels, worn to a shine. Even so he was going to be wearing these boots all winter, most likely.

  Cold in his wet pants. He lifted his head.

  I won’t let them win. I. Won’t. Let. Them. Win.

  Warmth streamed into his legs. The straight masonry lines of the brick façade dropped away, were rubbed out, disappeared as he started to run. His legs stretched out, the dirt squelched and sprayed up around his feet. The ground flowed out from under him and now it felt as if the Earth was turning too fast, he couldn’t keep up.

  His legs took him stumbling past the high rises, the old Konsum store, the coconut factory and with his speed in combination with old habits he rushed into the courtyard, past Eli’s door and straight to his own building.

  He almost ran into a police officer who was heading the same way. The officer opened his arms, received him.

  ‘Hey there! You’re in quite a hurry.’

  His tongue stiffened. The officer let go of him, looked at him… with suspicion?

  ‘Do you live here?’

  Oskar nodded. He had never seen this police officer before. Admittedly he looked quite nice. No. He had a face that Oskar would normally think looked nice. The officer pinched his nose and said, ‘You see…something’s happened here. In the building next door. So now I’m going door to door around here asking if anyone’s heard anything. Or seen anything.’

  ‘Which…which building?’

  The officer nodded his head towards Tommy’s building and the immediate panic left Oskar.

  ‘That one. Well, not in the building per se…more like, the basement. You wouldn’t have happened to hear or see anything unusual around there? The past few days?’

  Oskar shook his head, his thoughts spinning so chaotically that he technically wasn’t thinking anything at all, but he suspected his anxiety was shining from his eyes, fully visible to the officer. And the officer did incline his head, scrutinising him.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s all…over now. So there’s nothing you need to be worried about or anything. Are your parents home?’

  ‘No. My mum. No.’

  ‘OK. Well, I’m going to be walking around here for a while, so…you can always think a little about what you may have seen.’

  The police officer held the door open for him. ‘After you.’

  ‘No, I was going to…’

  Oskar turned and did his best to walk naturally down the hill. Halfway down he turned and saw the police officer go into his building.

  They’ve taken Eli.

  His jaws started to chatter, his teeth clicking an unclear Morse code message through his bones while he pulled open the door to Eli’s building, continued on up the stairs. Would they have put that kind of tape on the door, sealed it off?

  Say that I can come in.

  The door was ajar.

  If the police have been here, why did they leave the door open? That wasn’t something they did, was it? He put his fingers on the handle, pulled the door open gently, crept into the hallway. It was dark in the apartment. One of his feet bumped into something. A plastic bottle. At first he thought there was blood in the bottle, then he looked and saw it was lighter fluid.

  Breathing.

  Someone was breathing.

  Moving.

  The sound came from the bathroom. Oskar walked towards it, one step at a time, folded his lips inward to stop his teeth from chattering and the shivering moved down towards his chin, his neck, the suggestion of an Adam’s apple on his neck. He turned the corner, looked into the bathroom.

  That’s not a policeman.

  A man in shabby clothes was kneeling next to the bathtub, his upper body leaning over the rim, outside Oskar’s field of vision. He only saw a pair of dirty grey pants, ripped-up shoes with the tips pointed down towards the tiled floor. The hem of a coat.

  The old guy!

  But he’s…breathing.

  Yes. Hissing inhalations and exhalations, almost like sighs, came from the bathroom and Oskar crept closer without consciously thinking about it. Little by little he saw more of the bathroom and when he was almost level with the bathtub itself he saw what was happening.

  Lacke couldn’t do it.

  The body at the bottom of the tub looked completely defenceless. It wasn’t breathing. He had put his hand on its chest and registered the fact that its heart was beating but only with a few beats a minute.

  He had been expecting something…terrifying. Something in proportion to the horror he had experienced at the hospital. But this little bloody rag of a person didn’t look as if it could ever get up again, much less hurt anyone. It was only a child. A wounded child.

  Like seeing someone you love wasting away with cancer, and then be shown a cancer cell through a microscope. Nothing. That? That did this? That little thing?

  Destroy my heart.

  He let out a sob, his head falling forward until it hit the edge of the bathtub with a dull, echoing thud. He could. Not. Kill a child. A sleeping child. He simply couldn’t. Even though…

  That’s how it has managed to survive.

>   It. It. Not a child. It.

  It had attacked Virginia and…it had killed Jocke. It. The creature lying in front of him. This creature who would do it again, to other people. This creature that was not a person. It wasn’t even breathing, and even so its heart was beating…like an animal in hibernation.

  Think about the others.

  A poisonous snake living among people. You think you shouldn’t kill it, simply because for the moment it appears defenceless?

  But in the end that wasn’t what helped him make up his mind. It was when he looked at the face again; the face covered in a thin film of blood, and he thought it looked like it was…smiling.

  Smiling at all the evil it had done.

  Enough.

  He raised the kitchen knife above the creature, moved his legs back a little so he could put all his weight behind the thrust and—

  ‘AAAAHHH!’

  Oskar screamed.

  The old guy didn’t flinch, he simply froze, turned his head towards Oskar and said slowly, ‘I have to do it. Do you understand?’

  Oskar recognised him. He was one of the drunks who lived in the apartment complex, and said hello to him from time to time.

  Why is he doing this?

  But that was neither here nor there. The important thing was that the guy had a knife in his hands, a knife that was pointing directly at Eli’s chest as he lay there in the bathtub naked, exposed.

  ‘Don’t do it.’

  The man’s head moved to the right, to the left, more as if he was looking for something on the floor than signalling refusal.

  ‘No…’

  He turned back to the tub, to the knife. Oskar wanted to explain. That the thing in the bathtub was his friend, that it was his…that he had a present for the thing in there, that…that it was Eli.

  ‘Wait.’

  The point of the knife lay against Eli’s chest, pressed in so hard it almost punctured Eli’s skin. Oskar didn’t know exactly what he was doing when he shoved his hand into the pocket of his jacket and took out the cube, showed it to the guy.

  ‘Look!’

  Lacke only saw it in the corner of his eye as a sudden burst of colour in all the grey that surrounded him. Despite the bubble of determination that enveloped him, he couldn’t help turning his head to see what it was.

  One of those cubes in the boy’s hand. Bright colours.

  Looked completely sick in the current context. A parrot among crows. For a second he was hypnotised by the toy’s vividness, then he turned his gaze back to the bathtub, to the knife that was on its way down between the ribs.

  All I need to do is…press…

  A change.

  The creature’s eyes were open.

  He tensed in order to drive the knife in all the way, and then his temple exploded.

  The cube creaked when one of the corners smashed into the guy’s head and it was wrenched from Oskar’s hand. The guy fell to one side, landing on a plastic jug that gave way, hitting the side of the tub with a thundering noise like a bass drum.

  Eli sat up.

  From the bathroom doorway Oskar could only see the back of his body. The hair was plastered against the back of his head and his back was one big open wound.

  The man tried to get back on his feet but Eli didn’t so much as jump as fall out of the bathtub, landed in his lap: a child seeking comfort from his father. Eli wrapped his arms around the man’s neck and pulled his head closer to whisper tender words.

  Oskar backed away from the bathroom as Eli bit the neck. Eli hadn’t seen him. But the man had. His gaze locked with Oskar’s, held him fast as Oskar moved backward towards the hall.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Oskar didn’t manage to get any sound out but his lips formed the word, before he turned the corner and the eye contact was broken.

  He stood with his hand on the door handle as the guy screamed. Then the sound stopped abruptly as if a hand had been clamped over his mouth.

  Oskar hesitated. Then he closed the door. And locked it.

  Without looked to the right he walked down the hall to the living room. Sat down in the armchair.

  Started to hum in order to drown out the noise from the bathroom.

  PART

  five

  Let the Right One Slip In

  These days this is

  my only chance to say my piece…

  BOB HUND, ‘STRUGGLING AGAINST THE CURRENT’

  Let the right one in

  Let the old dreams die

  Let the wrong ones go

  They cannot do

  What you want them to do

  MORRISSEY, ‘LET THE RIGHT ONE SLIP IN’

  From the Daily Update 16:45, Monday, 9 November, 1981

  The so-called Ritual Killer was apprehended by police on Monday morning. He was tracked down in a basement office in Blackeberg, in west Stockholm.

  Police spokesman Bengt Lärn:

  ‘A person has been apprehended. That is correct.’

  ‘Are you sure it is the same man you have been looking for?’

  ‘Quite sure. Certain factors, however, complicate a positive identification at this time.’

  ‘What kind of factors?’

  ‘Unfortunately I can’t go into further details at the moment.’

  After the man was apprehended he was transported to the hospital. His condition was described as critical.

  Together with the suspect, the police also found a sixteen-year-old boy. The boy was physically unharmed but is said to be in a state of severe shock and has been taken to the hospital for further monitoring.

  The police are searching the area for further information regarding the chain of events.

  His Royal Highness Carl Gustaf today opened the new bridge over the Almö Sound in Bohuslän. During the opening speech…

  From diagnostic notes made by the surgeon Professor T. Hallberg, copied for police files

  … preliminary investigation complicated by…spasmodic muscle action…unlocalised stimulation of central nervous system…heart function suspended…

  Muscle movement stops at 14:25…autopsy yields hitherto unobserved…severely deformed inner organs…

  Like the eel that dead and butchered jumps in the frying pan…never before observed in human tissue… ask to retain the cadaver…sincerely…

  From the newspaper Western Suburbs, week 46

  WHO KILLED OUR CATS?

  ‘The only thing I have left is her collar,’ says Svea Nordström as she points to the slushy field where her pet and eight others belonging to neighbouring homeowners were found…

  From the television news program ‘Current Events’, Monday, 9 November, 21:00

  Earlier this evening police entered the apartment believed to belong to the so-called Ritual Killer who was apprehended this morning.

  A call from a member of the public helped police locate the apartment in Blackeberg, some fifty metres from where the man was apprehended.

  We have our reporter Folke Ahlmarker at the scene:

  ‘Emergency technicians are removing the body of a man found in the apartment. The man’s identity is not known at this time. It appears the apartment is unoccupied, although there are certain indications that people have been in the apartment recently.’

  ‘What are the police doing right now?’

  ‘They have been going door to door all day but if they have received helpful information in the process they have made no announcement to that effect.’

  ‘Thank you, Folke.’

  The Tjörn bridge which was finished six weeks before the estimated completion date was opened today by His Royal Highness, Carl Gustaf…

  Monday

  9 November

  Pulses of blue light across the bedroom ceiling.

  Oskar is lying in bed with his hands behind his head.

  Under his bed there are two cardboard boxes. There is money in one, masses of bills and two bottles of T-red, the other is filled with puzzles.

  The box
of clothes was left behind.

  In order to conceal the boxes Oskar has placed his hockey game at an angle in front of them. Tomorrow he’ll carry them down into the basement, if he has the energy. His mum is watching TV, shouting out something about how their building is on the screen. But he only has to get up and go to the window to see the same thing, from another angle.

  He threw the boxes from Eli’s balcony over to his own while it was still light, while Eli was washing himself. When he came out of the bathroom the wounds on his back had healed and he was slightly intoxicated from the alcohol in the blood.

  They lay in bed together, held each other. Oskar told him what had happened in the subway.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Eli said. ‘About starting this.’

  ‘No, it’s all right.’

  Silence. For a long time. Then Eli asked, hesitantly, ‘Would you want to…become like me?’

  ‘No. I would like to be with you, but…’

  ‘No, of course you don’t. I understand.’

  In the evening they finally stood up, put their clothes on. They were standing with their arms around each other in the living room when they heard the saw. The lock was being removed.

  They ran to the balcony, jumped over the railing, landing fairly softly in the bushes below.

  From inside the apartment they heard someone say, ‘What in the world…’

  They curled up under the balcony. There was no time.

  Eli turned his face to Oskar’s, said, ‘I…’

  Closed his mouth. Then pressed a kiss on Oskar’s lips.

  For a few seconds Oskar saw through Eli’s eyes. And what he saw was…himself. Only much better, more handsome, stronger than what he thought of himself. Seen with love.

  For a few seconds.

  Voices in the apartment next door.

  The last thing Eli had done before they got up was remove the piece of paper with the Morse code. Now strange feet are clomping around in the room where Eli once lay and tapped on the wall to him.

  Oskar holds his hand up against the wall.