Cold Fear

by Mads Peder Nordbo

  ‘Hunting?’ Tom furrowed his brow without taking his eyes off Abelsen’s enlarged pupils.

  ‘I feel like shooting something,’ Abelsen went on, moistening his lower lip with his tongue. He looked at the pills and reached out for the box. ‘And these are coming with me.’

  ‘I made them just for you,’ Tom said, still keeping his gaze trained on Abelsen’s face.

  ‘People like you don’t get Verdi,’ Abelsen announced, marching towards the door. ‘I’ll arrange for you to have everything you need so we can do this properly.’

  Abelsen closed the door behind him and Tom collapsed in the chair. A shiver ran through him. When Abelsen had started talking about shooting, a flashback of Reese and Bradley had appeared in Tom’s mind. With dark, bleeding bullet holes to their faces. Shot at close range. Tom didn’t know where the images had come from. He was sure that he hadn’t shot them, that he hadn’t seen them, yet doubt was eating away at him. It had to be Abelsen who was behind it all. It couldn’t have been anybody else. Bradley and Reese. Matthew and the little girl. Even the simpleminded giant and his wife, chained to a chair. All of them dancing at the end of the strings Abelsen pulled.

  Tom got up and tore off his jumper. And his shirt. He lay down flat on the floor and started doing push-ups. He carried on until his arms were shaking and the sweat was dripping from his forehead and onto the grey floor. He gave in and collapsed from exhaustion, his upper body sticking to the floor.

  32

  Tom was haunted by the image of the chained woman. He knew that it was up to him and him alone if she and her children were to be freed from their nightmare.

  Once Abelsen had left, Tom spent the rest of the day exploring the corridors, except the area where Bárdur and his family lived. He needed to familiarise himself with the layout so that he could find his way around in the dark as well as the light.

  Many of the doors in the old bunker were locked and he was tempted to force them, but he quickly dropped the idea. It was too risky if Abelsen was still around.

  The last door at the end of his own corridor was broken. It looked as if someone had come at it with an axe. The wood was splintered and cracked, and the handle had been almost knocked off.

  Tom walked right up to the door and opened it carefully. The room behind it smelled mouldy and rotten. He breathed slowly and with control. The room was as dark as the cell he had lain in first while Abelsen had subjected him to light torture. He fumbled around the wall by the door for a light switch, but found nothing but concrete.

  The room was quiet and cold. Tom took a few steps inside it but could see nothing, and so he stopped. He needed to find a source of light so he could explore, but the smell intrigued him and made him reluctant to leave. He closed his eyes and listened. There was something more to the smell. There was salt. The sea.

  Slowly he fumbled his way in the darkness with his hands and feet. He slid his feet across the floor as quietly as possible while stretching out his arms. It wasn’t a big room. After only four or five metres he reached a new door. A set of doors. Made from glass with big, curved handles. The smell of the sea came through the gap between the two doors. When he moved his head very close to the gap, he could feel the sea breathe coolly against his skin.

  It was just as dark on the other side of the doors. The smell of rot accompanied the smell of the sea.

  He let his hand glide down the smooth surface; the glass was filthy on the inside. He could feel traces of something that had dried on its surface. He moistened his fingertips and rubbed them against the dried trails. Sniffed his fingers. He could smell iron.

  The floor in this room was covered with linoleum, and his fingers told him that there was also some dried material on the floor.

  The smell of decay grew stronger—not by much, but enough for him to detect differences in his nose and mouth.

  Everything inside him wanted to leave, but he continued to move forward in the darkness. He felt his way across sections of linoleum. He crawled on his knees, his hands exploring the floor. He could hear water moving. Not like the sea outside, but loud enough for him to hear it. Or perhaps mostly sense it.

  He crawled a bit further until his fingers bumped into a low raised section. Then he touched water. This had to be Abelsen’s swimming pool, and it was indeed filled with seawater. It certainly smelled of salt. Tom tasted the water and spat it out immediately. It was salty, but tasted fresh, although the room itself smelt putrid.

  Tom shuffled along the edge of the pool until he bumped into the wall. The same happened on the opposite side. There was no way around the swimming pool. If he wanted to find a channel that might lead to the sea, he would have to enter the water, and it was very cold.

  He got up and slowly made his way back to the double doors. No matter what the swimming pool concealed, the chained woman was his first priority.

  The abattoir at the opposite end of the bunker near Bárdur’s quarters was empty, but the light was on. There were dark lumps of meat on a table, along with a couple of long, skinned haunches, but that was all.

  He looked around the room. The tiles were gleaming. The sink had been scoured clean of blood. The meat hooks under the ceiling glistened in the glow from the lamp, as did the steel tables. If there had been some kitchen appliances, it would have looked like any other commercial kitchen. But this room was used exclusively for butchering and carving up dead animals.

  Tom returned to the corridor and went to the door to the living room where he had last seen the chained woman. He cautiously pressed his ear against the door and listened. He could hear voices from the other side, Bárdur shouting something unintelligible. Tom quickly sought refuge in the dark room next to the living room. It had been locked the last time, but it wasn’t now.

  He could clearly hear Bárdur in the other room, his deep voice switching between Danish and Faroese.

  ‘Come on,’ Bárdur said. ‘It’s bedtime now.’

  The door from the living room to the corridor was opened. Tom retreated even further into the pitch-black room. He grabbed something which felt like a garment rail with coats on it and hid behind it. Pressed himself up against the wall to the living room.

  Shortly afterwards the door to the room where he was hiding was opened and light from the corridor poured in. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He held his breath and pressed his eyes shut. He felt like an idiot who had accidentally descended into hell without remembering to die first.

  Tom was startled when the light in the room was switched on. Then he looked at the coats in front of him. With a bit of luck, he was completely concealed. There was a slight gap between two of the coats, but it was too late to do anything about it. He caught glimpses of Bárdur on the other side. He saw the two little girls the big man was carrying, one on each arm.

  ‘Go to sleep now, Solva,’ Bárdur said. ‘Good night, Kristina.’

  One of the girls protested briefly, but was stopped by a grunt. ‘Dada is tired.’

  Tom heard how each girl got a kiss before Bárdur went back to the door. He turned off the light. ‘God’s peace,’ he whispered to them before closing the door.

  Dense darkness descended upon the room. Tom could hear the two little girls breathing. The younger one was chatting to her doll.

  ‘Be quiet, Solva,’ her big sister hushed her.

  Back in the living room Bárdur started shouting at the woman. She didn’t reply and so he shouted at her again.

  Tom heard Solva titter. ‘The whore,’ she whispered. ‘The whore.’

  It was the same word they could hear coming from the living room.

  Bárdur shouted it again and both girls giggled in the darkness.

  ‘I want to hit the mummy beast as well,’ Solva said.

  Kristina hushed her again. ‘Not now…We have to go to sleep.’

  Another outburst from Bárdur silenced them both.

  ‘No, no, I don’t want to.’ The woman’s voice was raw and desperate. ‘Please don’t…I can�
�t take any more.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, Mona,’ Bárdur roared.

  It sounded as if he hit her. Several times. Then there was silence.

  Tom could hear her chain rattle. Rhythmically. Bárdur’s moaning grew louder and louder.

  Mona began to whimper.

  Solva mimicked the noises her father was making. Only much more quietly.

  33

  The girls had fallen quiet. Their tittering and grunting had stopped. As had Bárdur’s strained moaning and panting.

  Tom was still hiding behind the garment rail. He had closed his eyes and was leaning against the wall.

  Bárdur stirred in the living room. The chain rattled and Mona started whimpering again. Her whimpers turned into sobs, and there was a noise as if Bárdur had tossed her aside. The chain rattled metallically and grated against some item of furniture.

  Mona’s weeping was drowned out by Bárdur’s voice as he started chanting a prayer. ‘Thyatira, Thyatira…Do not tolerate the woman Jezebel who claims to be a prophetess…She teaches you to commit fornication and eat the sacrificial meat.’

  There was silence for a moment. Mona sniffled. The chain clattered faintly.

  ‘I’ve given her time to convert,’ Bárdur went on. It sounded as if he was reading aloud. ‘But she will not turn away from her sin. Now I will throw her on the sickbed, and also those who lie with her, I will throw into great turmoil them unless they turn away from her deeds, and I will kill her children. All believers will know that I am the one who examines their kidneys and hearts, and I will give to each according to his deeds.’

  Tom reached out an arm and let his hand glide slowly along the many coats.

  The girls were still quiet. His fingers clutched a sleeve. Both girls must have been conceived through rape, and Mona had probably given birth to them alone down here in the bunker. No midwife, no stitches, no opportunity to heal after the birth.

  ‘Now kill every boy and every woman. Kill every boy and girl who has lain with a man. However, all the girls who have not lain with a man, you shall let live among you.’

  You’re a sick and twisted creature, Tom thought, shuffling his feet. The two little girls continued to lie still and Tom hoped that they had fallen asleep. Perhaps they were used to falling asleep to the sound of rape.

  He followed the coats carefully one by one until he reached the end of the garment rail, then he slowly disentangled himself and stepped out into the room.

  When his foot hit the crossbar, it was already too late to turn back. The noise sounded like thunder in the dark room.

  ‘Daddy?’ Kristina called out.

  ‘Shhh…’ Tom said softly. ‘I’m here to help you, I—’

  ‘Demon,’ Solva screamed. ‘Demon, demon, demon.’

  Tom threw himself in the direction of the door, but hit the wall. He took a step to the right and felt wood. He grabbed the handle and tore open the door.

  Inside the living room Bárdur yelled something and it sounded as if an item of furniture had been knocked over. Bárdur shouted again, more loudly this time, and Tom started running down the corridor. He ran until he started seeing black spots in front of his eyes. He turned the corner leading to his own corridor and carried on past his room. The door to his room was too flimsy. The big man could break it down with just a few blows.

  He ran right to the end of the corridor, but the first two doors he tried were locked, so he continued onwards to the swimming pool. It was too late to turn around. He could hear Bárdur shouting not far from him.

  The room with the swimming pool was just as dark as earlier, but he didn’t have time to look for other escape routes. Instead he lowered himself carefully into the cold water in the pool. The water was just as black as the room itself and it closed tightly around his body. He could feel his skin shrink and his muscles contract, but it was nothing compared to the experiments in Thule. This was what he had trained for—what his pills could do.

  He breathed slowly and inhaled air deep into his lungs. Then he let himself sink towards the bottom with his back against the side.

  A gentle current flowed through the pool. It wasn’t powerful, but it was enough to confirm his hunch that a couple of underground channels from the sea fed the swimming pool.

  The water flickered above him. Light from a torch pierced the darkness and the room grew brighter. The surface of the water hadn’t settled yet, but Tom was counting on it never being entirely flat.

  The torch light searched the water and the bottom of the pool. Tom noticed several silhouettes on the bottom. He couldn’t see what they were. Some were short, curled up and white. Others long and dark.

  He slowly reached out to touch the white objects close to him, only for his fingertips to realise almost immediately that they were bones.

  He looked around the pool. The torch flickered and the light glistened in the water, but everything was blurry and unclear to him.

  The beam of light disappeared from the pool.

  Tom fought his pulse. He had to keep it low for a little while longer so that he wouldn’t be forced up and out of the water while Bárdur could still hear him break through the surface.

  PRISONER OF THE DEMONS

  34

  FÆRINGEHAVN, WEST GREENLAND, 22 OCTOBER 2014

  Arnaq counted the seconds between light and darkness. Sometimes there would be only a few before the light went out. Most times a little more. The first hour she had lain sobbing on the floor. She had also screamed and shouted to be let out, but no one had come.

  To begin with the light had caused her severe stress. Every flash was unexpected. It wasn’t until she started counting that she regained some control over herself. She counted the light. She counted it for as long as it lasted. Not the intervals between the flashes or the darkness. Just the light. At times it was just one second. Often five or six. The record was thirteen. Thirteen seconds of light. Thirteen seconds to study the cell in which she lay.

  She had lost track of how long she had been there, but it was a long time and she was exhausted. She was frequently on the verge of falling asleep, but the alternating, aggressive light kept her awake. If she dozed off, it was for only a few seconds. Perhaps a day had passed, twenty-four hours. Maybe more.

  There hadn’t been anyone but her in the cell since she was thrown onto the thin foam mattress. Not a sound. Only the light, the darkness and the silence.

  There was a metal bucket near the iron door. The bucket was old and dented. She had peed in it three times. The four water bottles were empty. She had drunk them quickly. She couldn’t remember when she had emptied the last bottle, but her throat was dry and raw. Her body felt limp. She merely counted the light and stared at nothing. Sometimes she counted with her eyes closed. The light cut red and sharp through her eyelids.

  She counted the light. Three. Six. Two. One. Seven. Three. Five. Eleven. Two. Three. Three. Six. One. Three. Nine. At some point it must exceed thirteen. It was all she was waiting for.

  As she had been dragged down the corridor by the big man, she had caught a glimpse of Lasse and Andreas lying on a steel table in a room that looked like a kitchen. They just lay there. With their smashed skulls. She had had nothing more to throw up and she had stopped screaming. Every time she had screamed, the giant would hit her. His face contorted, he would narrow his eyes and strike her with the back of his hand. His knuckles were big and dug into her skin with each blow.

  It was him, the giant, and his albino son, Símin, who were keeping her prisoner and who had killed her friends. Símin would hide behind his father while his eyes crept around everywhere. He was disgusting. His gaze was sticky. They had told them nothing but lies when they came over to chat to them in the abandoned town. They weren’t on a trip. They lived below Færingehavn.

  Alma was gone. Arnaq hadn’t seen her since she was injured in the room where Andreas had lain bludgeoned on the floor and Lasse had been killed.

  Her stomach churned. It hurt too much. She couldn’t.
Seven. Three. Three. Four. Eight. Twelve. Five. Three. Eight. Five. Twelve was close. Twelve was almost thirteen. Almost fourteen.

  Four. Six. Two. Four. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

  Arnaq pushed herself to a sitting position without taking her eyes off the naked lightbulb under the ceiling and without pausing her counting. She was getting close to a minute.

  After two minutes and seventeen seconds a grating sound from the outside forced its way in. A moment later the door was pushed open.

  The giant appeared. He was carrying a tray, and Símin crept in behind him. He wasn’t as big as his father, but he wasn’t small either. Perhaps he was almost as tall as him, only skinny and pale. Very pale.

  The giant set down the tray. There were four new bottles of water and a plate of fried ribs. The meat looked like seal, except that Arnaq thought that the bones were too big and the meat too pale.

  ‘It’s seal,’ the giant said. He followed her gaze. ‘Meat.’ He picked up a water bottle and handed it to her.

  She unscrewed the cap and drained the bottle so quickly that some of the water trickled down her chin and throat.

  The pressure from the water on her stomach made her retch. She looked at the ribs and vomited water all over the floor. She bent double and threw up again. Her throat was stinging.

  Bárdur kicked another bottle towards her. ‘Drink slowly,’ he ordered her.

  Símin stared at Arnaq. He chewed his lower lip and grinned in short bursts at his father. He was clasping his penis through his trousers with one hand.