I Am Behind You

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  Emil frowns. This isn’t what Molly said was going to happen. He can’t quite remember what she said, but he thinks they were going to give away their blood to whoever came. Voluntarily.

  That doesn’t fit in with the game, so instead the skeleton carries on throwing himself at the wall until his head falls off. Emil bursts out laughing. That’s what’s going to happen. That’s the way it will be.

  *

  Lennart and Olof have dug out their old primus stove and are in the process of filling it up so that they can make a decent cup of coffee when they hear the gunshot. They immediately stop what they are doing, because they know exactly what it is.

  Maud slides out through the door ahead of them as though she too wants to see what is going on, but in fact it is something else that has caught her attention. The beagle is on guard just a few metres away from his caravan, and Maud keeps going until she is about ten metres away from the dog. Then she sits down and hisses at him.

  Lennart and Olof are hurrying over when Peter, Stefan and Majvor emerge from the awning. Majvor’s eyes are wide open, and one hand is resting on her heart.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Lennart calls out. ‘Is anyone hurt?’

  Majvor moves her hand to cover her mouth. There is no sign of blood on her blouse, so presumably she is simply in shock. When Lennart and Olof reach her, they can see that this is the case. She stares at them, takes her hand away from her mouth and whispers: ‘He…he shot at me.’

  Olof can see that the caravan door is closed. Cautiously he edges forward and peers into the awning. Everything looks just as it did the last time he was there. No. There’s one difference. The photograph of Elvis Presley is lying on the floor. The glass is broken, and there is a hole in Elvis’s cheek. When Olof examines the awning itself, he finds another hole there.

  What an idiot. Firing a gun when there are people around.

  He goes back to the others; Stefan and Peter have moved Majvor a safe distance away, and sat her down on the ground. In his peripheral vision Olof can see Maud and the dog running around in circles.

  ‘We wanted to borrow a few planks of wood to build a tower so that we could pick up a mobile phone signal,’ Peter explains. ‘And then Donald appeared with a shotgun. He…’ Peter checks that Majvor isn’t looking at him, then points to his temple, rotating his forefinger.

  His discretion is unnecessary, because Majvor says exactly what he is thinking: ‘He’s gone mad. Completely mad. He’s convinced all this is a dream.’

  *

  His master is very cross, and when that is the case, Benny never knows quite what to do to make sure he doesn’t take it out on him. Cat is better. Cat is weird, but manageable. Cat makes her noise and Benny barks. Cat runs around in circles and Benny runs after her. Or in front of her.

  No. Benny is absolutely not being chased by Cat! He puts on a burst of speed to reduce the distance between them and to show who is the hunter. Cat races across the grass and shakes her head, her tail swishing to and fro.

  Benny has temporarily forgotten the claws and the swipe across his nose. He is gaining on Cat, and it’s a wonderful sensation. He is a good dog, a fast dog, and he feels neither dizzy nor tired as he gradually gets closer and closer to that long, waving tail. This time he’s going to catch Cat!

  Suddenly something unexpected happens. Cat stumbles and falls, rolling over on the grass. Before she can get to her feet, Benny is standing over her, growling and showing his teeth as a drop of saliva trickles from his jaws.

  Cat flattens her body, folds back her ears, curls up. Benny is ready to sink his teeth into the back of her neck, put an end to this. He draws back his lips, showing his teeth even more, still growling. Cat turns her head to one side, exposing her throat.

  Benny is confused. This doesn’t feel right. He licks his lips and lets out a short bark. Then he lifts one paw and brings it down on Cat’s belly. But not hard.

  Cat raises her head and hits him across the nose, but without claws. Benny whimpers, but he’s kind of joking. It didn’t hurt. He doesn’t really know what to do next, so he turns around a couple of times then plonks his bottom down. Cat sits up. They look at one another.

  Cat starts to wash herself, and Benny sniffs the air. It is very clear now—the Grandchildren are getting closer. Benny wonders whether Cat is aware of this too. He can’t tell by looking at her, and he doesn’t know how to ask.

  *

  When Molly told Isabelle about the thin, white figure Emil had seen out on the field, Isabelle understood why she had ended up here. She was twenty-three when she saw the figure for the first and so far only time, and since then she has been waiting to see it again. On that occasion, she wasn’t ready.

  Is she ready now? Yes, she’s ready now.

  Isabelle had just met a football player called Peter, and they had spent a few nights together before he had to go back to Italy and Lazio. They had said they would keep in touch, but Isabelle didn’t really care. Her main focus was on her career, and at the age of twenty-three she had reached her peak. She didn’t know that at the time; she just thought she had taken a huge step up.

  H&M’s summer collection. First the show itself, to be followed no doubt by the advertising campaign.

  Isabelle had served her time on the catwalks of Milan and Paris; she had been on the cover of Femina and could be regarded as well-established, but without that final push that made her a name. The summer collections could change all that.

  The salons at Berns Hotel in Stockholm had been booked for the event, and in the hours leading up to the show Isabelle was in a contradictory state of intoxication and sharp focus. She felt one hundred per cent present in the moment, while at the same time the edges of her existence were dissolving. As if it were someone else who was in the moment.

  She was sharing a dressing area with her sidekicks, three younger girls. She gossiped and sparkled while the final adjustments were made to the one-off pieces she would be modelling. When no one was looking at her, she glanced furtively around the room. There was something there, something she couldn’t quite catch sight of. Or at least it felt that way. The hum of a machine, a pressure inside her skull. She dismissed it as nerves.

  She was ready. The final unnecessary stitch at her waistline, the final unnecessary dab with the powder puff, ritualistic movements. Then she headed for the ramp.

  ‘Survivor’ by Destiny’s Child was blasting out of the speakers and the thump of the bass sucked through Isabelle’s skull as the stage manager counted down on his fingers. She stood in the darkness, dressed up and ready, tortured by the conviction that she had missed something. Something vital. Then came the signal: Go!

  She mounted the few steps to the catwalk. She went out there, took the steps she was supposed to take, adopted the posture she was supposed to adopt, all the way to the end, where she nonchalantly placed her hands on her hips. An explosion of camera flashes. Then she realised.

  This is what I’ve dreamt of.

  Her eyes grew accustomed to the light. Right at the back of the room there was a screen with the image of a green meadow projected onto it to help create a summery atmosphere. Next to the screen was a small, silver-coloured, egg-shaped caravan, giving a three-dimensional illusion. The audience was a dark mass of human shapes, crowding around the sushi buffet, the Riesling and the chillers full of Absolut vodka, their faces occasionally looking at her with vague interest.

  Is this what I’ve dreamt of?

  The gaps between beats grew longer and longer, as if someone had slowed down the track. The thump of the bass turned into a long-drawn-out rumble of thunder that grated inside Isabelle’s sinuses, and a thought that was both banal and crystal clear in equal measure took over her mind.

  I am an object.

  A disposable commodity. A commodity whose function was to sell other commodities. A lone commodity that could be used.

  A camera flash exploded, and time was now passing so slowly that Isabelle was able to follow as it burst int
o life then died away. White light filled her field of vision and there was a tickling sensation in her nostrils. She blinked. Her eyelids were also moving in slow motion, and for a long time she hovered in darkness as the taste of blood filled her mouth.

  When she opened her eyes again, her gaze fell on the screen. There was a figure standing in the meadow. A thin, white figure. It was coming towards her, even though it didn’t appear to be walking. Then it beckoned to her. It was the only thing in the room moving at normal speed; everything else had more or less stopped.

  Come. This is where you belong.

  The figure wanted Isabelle to come. Not her hip or waist measurement, not her sultry eyes or well-shaped lips. Not the object, but Isabelle herself. She hesitated, because this invitation from the depths of existence brought with it the obvious follow-up question: Who am I?

  A blinding flash, right next to her. The music resumed its usual tempo; she could hear the hum of conversation, and the image in front of her was now nothing more than a photoshopped summer meadow with unnaturally bright flowers. She spun around in a half-turn and sashayed back along the catwalk, to the sound of polite applause.

  When she stepped out of the light the stage manager pointed to his mouth, then to her. She ran a finger over her lips and it came away covered in blood. She had a nosebleed, and had to do the rest of the show with a couple of hastily trimmed, flesh-coloured earplugs blocking her nostrils.

  When it was all over and the audience had gone, Isabelle stood in front of the screen for a long time, but she saw nothing but the green meadow. Then the projector was switched off and the screen rolled up. The silver-coloured caravan had already been removed. She had missed her chance.

  That was how she thought of what had happened during the days and weeks that followed. Something had been offered to her, something

  Come. This is where you belong

  that was fundamentally different from the life she was living, the life of an object. When she found out that they had gone for an ethnic look complete with Eskimos, it was merely confirmation that she had done the wrong thing when she ignored the call. Fear and anxiety sank their claws into her, and she was prescribed Xanor. After a while she called Peter and offered to come down to Italy.

  Yes, she is ready now. For ten years she has waited to see the figure again, to be given another chance. During those years she has tried the conventional methods available to create meaning in her life. She got married, had a child. It didn’t really help at all.

  So now Isabelle is sitting next to Carina, her gaze sweeping across the field.

  This is where you belong.

  Whatever is demanded of her, she will do it. Anything at all to be freed from life, but to go on living.

  *

  Lennart and Olof’s neighbour, Holger Backlund, once went mad. He picked up both of his hunting rifles, went to Olof’s cow pasture and started methodically shooting dead every single animal within range. He had managed to kill five excellent dairy cows before Lennart and Olof put a stop to the massacre by reasoning with Holger, gently and calmly, until he put down the gun.

  This means they have experience, so Lennart and Olof approach Donald’s caravan slowly, looking relaxed, as if they are just paying him an ordinary social call and are not in any particular hurry. In some ways it is similar to the occasion when they talked Holger down; in other ways it is very different.

  One similarity is that as on so many other occasions they would really like to hold hands to find strength in each other, but who knows what reaction this would provoke in someone like Donald? Therefore they approach the awning as two separate and, to tell the truth, pretty scared individuals.

  When they are five metres away, they can see that one of the caravan’s side windows is open, and that Donald is sitting inside watching them.

  ‘Hello, Donald,’ Lennart says, pointing to the small fridge outside. ‘We were just wondering if you had any of that beer left.’

  ‘We haven’t really had a proper chat,’ Olof adds.

  They stop outside the entrance to the awning. Lennart pushes his hands into his back pockets and manages to sound completely relaxed: ‘How about it? Shall we sit down and have a drink together?’

  Olof admires Lennart’s courage; he doesn’t move a muscle when Donald sticks the barrel of the shotgun out of the window, while Olof himself can’t help pointlessly stooping over slightly to reduce the target area.

  ‘You’re having none of my fucking beer!’ Donald bellows. ‘And you’re not touching my fucking floor! You can both fuck off!’

  Lennart only has time to say, ‘But…’ before a shot is fired. A tuft of grass just centimetres away from Lennart’s foot flies up in the air and crumbles, scattering soil all over his legs. Lennart pulls Olof to the right so that they are hidden by the awning as they back away from the caravan.

  ‘Stay away!’ Donald roars, and they hear a series of clicks. ‘Fuck off! All of you, fuck off!’

  Lennart and Olof turn and run back to their own caravan, where Peter and Stefan are waiting. Majvor has gone over to Stefan’s caravan to recover. The four men sit down at the kitchen table, slightly hunched because one of the windows faces Donald. Lennart is out of breath, and speaks in short bursts.

  ‘So. That didn’t. Go too. Well.’

  ‘We’d better leave him alone,’ Stefan says. ‘If we leave him in peace, maybe he’ll…’

  ‘Daddy?’ Molly’s voice comes from the open door. ‘Daddy, I’m frightened.’

  Peter leaps to his feet, rushes over and picks her up. Just as he takes her in his arms, they hear another shot. Fragments of plexiglas fly everywhere as the window shatters, and there is a dull thud as the bullet penetrates the fridge.

  Everyone crouches down even further, and Peter sinks to the floor with Molly in his arms, with a kitchen cupboard behind him for protection. They wait for ten seconds, thirty seconds, a minute without any further shooting. Molly extricates herself from Peter’s grasp and crawls under the table, where she attempts to tie Lennart and Olof’s shoelaces together.

  ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ Peter says. ‘We can’t have someone sitting there shooting at us. He has to go.’

  *

  To Carina’s relief, Isabelle hasn’t said much since they left the camp. She has spent most of the time sitting in silence, staring out at the expanse of green. The emptiness around them is counterintuitive and ought to be frightening, but Carina doesn’t feel that way.

  For the first kilometre she sat up straight, looking out for signs of people or habitation. From time to time she checked the GPS to make sure that they were following a route that could be retraced, in spite of the fact that the roads shown on the GPS didn’t exist in the world they could see.

  Then something happened. She stopped searching, and was perfectly happy to gaze out at the field before her. By now her brain is completely empty, and it would be extremely difficult to recall what was so important about finding buildings or people. Moving through the emptiness is all she requires.

  When she happens to glance at the GPS screen, it seems perfectly logical that it has now turned blue, and is no longer showing a map. Blue, blue, my love is blue, she thinks listlessly, staring out through the windscreen once more. She feels so contented that the hairs on her arms stand on end. She is resting in the empty space, resting in a way that she so rarely does. Suddenly she hears Isabelle’s voice: ‘Heil Hitler.’

  It’s like having a bucket of cold water poured over her head. Carina gives a start and looks at Isabelle, who is staring at Carina’s shoulder.

  ‘Are you crazy? What did you say?’

  Isabelle nods at Carina’s tattoos. ‘Heil Hitler.’

  ‘Those are two eternity symb—’

  ‘Like hell they are. They’re two figure eights. H H. Heil Hitler.’ Isabelle’s eyes widen as a thought occurs to her, and she laughs out loud. ‘Does your husband think they’re eternity symbols? Perhaps I ought to put him straight.’

&
nbsp; Carina rests her hands on the wheel and stares at the horizon. Isabelle is right. They are two eights, and they represent the eighth letter of the alphabet. H H. Heil Hitler. She has kept the tattoos as a reminder of a life she never wants to go back to. She lets go of the wheel and opens the door, gets out of the car and begins to walk away.

  Behind her she hears frantic movement as Isabelle shifts across to the driving seat. Apparently she can drive when things get tricky. Carina hears her push the ignition button, then swear. The key is in Carina’s pocket, and the sensor can’t pick it up. She hears fabric sliding over leather, footsteps on the grass, then a hand touches her shoulder.

  ‘Carina,’ Isabelle says. ‘Give me the…’

  Oddly enough, what happens next is probably a consequence of the peaceful place in which Carina finds herself, on one level. An emotional MRI scan of her brain would show various levels lying parallel to one another, linked together but without any direct internal relationship. On one level peace, on another rage, on another fear. But they are clear. Everything is so clear.

  With this same clarity she spins around, feeling her right hand clench into a fist. Defined muscle groups radiate strength as she swings her hand upwards from the hip so that it meets Isabelle’s chin with a dry crack.

  Isabelle staggers backwards until she bumps into the car door; she slumps to the ground, mouth gaping, eyes wide open. Her long blond hair swirls around her face as she shakes her head as if to clear it. Or as if she can’t believe what’s happened.

  Carina walks up to her and grabs the neck of Isabelle’s T-shirt with her left hand as if to drag her to her feet and punch her again. She’s done it before, although it was a long time ago. The key thing is not to hesitate, not to stop until the job is done and the victory beyond doubt.

  There is a tearing sound as the seams of the T-shirt rip, and Isabelle sinks back down before Carina has time to let her have it. Isabelle’s right foot shoots out and kicks Carina on the shin. She screams and instinctively bends forward, which exposes her cheek to a kick from Isabelle’s left foot. Carina goes down and lands on her side.