Handling The Undead

by John Ajdive Lindqvist

  She poured two cups of coffee and put them on the table. She was calm now. They could talk. Outside, the covering over the sky was turning to grey. A faint breeze rustled the trees. She glanced at her father.

  He looked tired. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced than normal and his entire face seemed pained by gravity, pulled down toward the earth in folds and wrinkles.

  ‘Daddy? Don’t you want to rest a little?’

  Mahler shook his head so that his cheeks wobbled.

  ‘Don’t have time. I called the paper and someone’s been looking for me: the husband of the woman who… well, they wanted me to write more, but I’ll have to see… and we need food and things…’

  He shrugged and sighed. Anna took a few sips of coffee; stronger than she liked, as always when her [ather made it. She said, ‘You can go. I’ll stay here.’

  Mahler looked at her. His eyes were small and bloodshot, almost disappeared into the swollen flesh.

  ‘You’ll manage, then?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Anna put the coffee mug down, forcefully. ‘You don’t trust me. I know that. But I don’t trust you either. It runs deep. I don’t know what you want.’

  She got up from the table and went to the fridge to gel some milk for the coffee. The fridge was empty. When she came hack to the table, Mahler had sunk into his chair.

  ‘I just want everything to be all right.’

  Anna nodded, ‘I believe you. But you want it to be how you think it should be. How you’ve planned, in your extremely rational way: Go on. I’ll manage here.’

  They made a list of items they needed to buy, plann i ng the pu rchascs as if stocking up for a siege.

  When Mahler had left, Anna checked on Elias, then walked around the house and shook out the rugs, brushed dead flies From the window sills and vacuumed. As she was wiping the kitchen counter she caught sight of the two unused baby bottles. She put the vacuum cleaner away and went in to Elias. She shook some dextrose into the bottle, filled it with water and shook it until it dissolved. Then she sat there with the bottle in her hand and looked at Elias.

  Simply feeling the shape of the bottle in her hand brought back memories. Right up until the age of four, Elias wanted to have a bottle of milk in bed when he was going to sleep. He had never used a dummy or sucked his thumb, but he wanted his bottle.

  She had sat like this on the side of his bed countless times as he was going to sleep. Kissed him and said good night, then given him his bottle. Felt that feeling of satisfaction as his little hands took hold of it, his mouth sucked onto the nipple and his gaze grew distant. That he managed.

  ‘Here, Elias… ‘

  She brought the teat to his mouth. Mahler had said that would come later, that Elias couldn’t manage to drink by himself yet. But she wanted to try. The dry rubber nudged his lips. He did not move them. Carefully she pushed it in between his lips.

  Something happened. At first she thought an insect was crawling on her stomach and she looked down. Elias’ fingers were moving slightly. Stiffly, slowly, but they were moving.

  When she looked up at his face again, his lips had sealed themselves around the teat. And he was sucking. Tiny, tiny movements in the tinder dry lips, a muscle in his throat faintly working.

  The bottle shook in her hand and she clapped her other hand over her mouth so hard that she felt a metallic taste on her tongue.

  Elias was drinking from the bottle.

  It hurt so much she could not breathe, but when the first wave of pain, of hope, had stilled, her hand reached out and she caressed his cheek as he continued to drink. She bent her head over him.

  ‘My boy… my good little boy… ‘

  Kungsholmen 13.45

  Children, children, children…

  David stood in the school yard and watched as the children poured out of the school like a liquid. Three, four, ten, thirty multicoloured little beings with backpacks ran down the stairs. Pieces of humanity, a mass to direct and discipline. Four hundred of them were stuffed into this building six hours a day, four hundred were let out again when those six hours were up.

  Material.

  But zoom in on one single child and there you had an upholder of the world. A child with a mother and father, grandparents, relatives and friends. A child whose existence is necessary for the proper functioning of many lives. Children are fragile, and carry so many lives on their frail shoulders. Fragile is their world, controlled by adults. Everything is fragile.

  All day David had walked around as if in a dream. After the visit to the Medical Examiner he had gone to a pizzeria and drunk a litre of water, then lain down under a tree in the park and slept for almost three hours. When a barking dog woke him up, he opened his eyes to a world that had shut him out. People were having picnics, children were running on the grass. He was no longer part of this life.

  The only thing that seemed to have anything to do with him was the black clouds that were slowly approaching. As yet, they were still distant, but they looked to be closing in on Stockholm. He heard a roaring in his ears, felt an itch behind his eyelids. The sunshine did not reach in under his tree, so he curled up against the trunk, picked up the newspapers and read the article again. This too seemed to be about him.

  Without really knowing what he wanted to say, what he actually wanted, he took out his cell phone and dialled the newspaper. He told them who he was and said he was looking for Gustav Mahler. He learned that Mahler was a freelancer; unfortunately they could not give out his number, however they would pass on a message and was there anything in particular he wished to say?

  ‘No, I just wanted… to talk to him.’

  This would be relayed.

  David took the subway back to Kungsholmen. Everyone in the subway carriage who was talking, was talking about the dead. They all thought it was horrible. Someone noticed him, realised who he was and went silent. No condolences this time.

  Even on his way toward the school he felt how the threads that usually connected him to the world were severed. At most he was a pair of eyes hovering through the air, avoiding obstacles, stopping for a red light. At the school he grasped a black metal railing, held onto it.

  Then the bell rang and the children came pouring out. He opened his eyes and saw the mass of biological tissue that hopped and skipped its way down the stairs and he held onto the railing so that he would not float away.

  When the flood had spread out across the schoolyard and started to gush through the gates, Magnus came out. Pushed open the doors with all his might and ended up standing up on the landing, looking around.

  David became aware of the railing in his hand. Aware that he had a hand that was holding onto the railing; that the hand was attached to a body that was his. He fell back into his body and became… a father. He was back in the world and he went to meet his son.

  ‘Hi buddy.’

  Magnus hoisted his backpack and stared at the ground.

  ‘Dad… ‘

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Has Mum become like one of those orcs?’

  Evidently there had been talk at school. David had gone back and forth about how to tell him, how he would take it one step at a time, but now that possibility was gone. He took Magnus by the hand and they started to walk home.

  ‘Have you talked about it at school today?’

  ‘Yes. Robin said that it was the same thing as the orcs, that they eat human flesh and stuff.’

  ‘Well, what did the teacher say?’

  ‘Said that it wasn’t like that, that it was like… Dad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know who Lazarus is?’

  ‘Yes. Come on…’

  They sat down on the edge of the sidewalk. Magnus took out his Pokemons,

  ‘I’ve traded five cards. Do you want to see?’

  ‘Magnus, you know…’

  David took the cards out of Magnus’ hand, and Magnus let him. He stroked the back of h
is son’s head; the thin summery white-blond hair, the fragile skull underneath.

  ‘First of all. Mum hasn’t become one of those… orcs. She has just been in an accident.’

  The words dried up, he did not know how to go on. He flipped through the cards; Grimer, Koffing, Ghastly, Tentacool; all more or less terrifying creatures.

  Why does everything in their world have to be about horror?

  Magnus pointed at Ghastly. ‘Scary, isn’t he?’

  ‘Mmm. You know, it’s… you know what you were talking about today. It has happened to Mum. But she is… much healthier than all the others.’

  Magnus took back his cards, sorted through them for a while.

  Then asked, ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘Yes, but… she’s alive.’

  Magnus nodded. ‘So when is she coming back?’

  ‘I don’t know. But she is coming back. Somehow.’

  They sat quietly next to each other. Magnus went through all his cards. Looked carefully at a couple. Then his head pulled down to his shoulders and he started to cry. David threw his arms around him and Magnus curled up into a ball, pressed his face against David’s chest. ‘I want her to be home now. When I get home.’

  The tears welled up in David’s eyes as well. He rocked Magnus back and forth, stroking his hair.

  ‘I know sweetheart…I know.’

  Bondegatan 15.00

  The curved stone staircase to Flora’s apartment on the third floor was worn by generations of feet. Like most of the old houses, this building on Bondegatan was aging with dignity. Wood and stone bulged or wore away; there was not the crack and break of concrete. A building with character, and Flora loved it despite herself.

  She knew how each one of the forty-two steps looked, knew each irregularity in the stairwell walls. About a year earlier she had drawn an anarchist symbol the size of a fist down by the front door in felt pen. She had been jarred herself by the sight of it each time she walked by, and was relieved when it was painted over.

  Her head was spinning when she reached the top of the stairs. She had eaten nothing all day and had only had a few hours’ sleep at night. She opened the door and had time to hear a couple of seconds of grinding techno from the living room before it was turned off. Then an agitated whispering and rapid movements.

  When she reached the living room, Viktor-her ten-year-old brother-and the friend, Martin, at whose place he had spent the night, were each sitting in an armchair absorbed in a Donald Duck comic.

  ‘Viktor?’

  He answered ‘Mmm’ without raising his eyes from the magazine. Martin raised his comic so she couldn’t see his face. She did not waste her breath on them, instead she pressed the eject button on the VCR and took out the tape, holding it out to Viktor.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ He did not answer. She snatched the comic from his hands. ‘Hello! 1 asked you something.’

  ‘Give it a rest,’ Viktor said. ‘We just wanted to know what it was.’

  ‘For an hour?’

  ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘That’s a crock. I know by the music where you were. You almost saw the whole thing.’

  ‘How many times have you seen it then?’

  Flora banged the video-The Day of the Dead-into Viktor’s head with a judicious amount of force.

  ‘Stay away from my stuff.’

  ‘We just wanted to see what it was’

  ‘I see. Was it fun?’

  The boy exchanged glances and shook their heads… Viktor said, ‘But it was cool when they pulled them apart.’

  ‘Mm. Really cool. We’ll see what kind of dreams you have tonight.’

  Flora did not think they would dip into her video library anymore. She sensed the childish revulsion and fear seeping from their bodies. The movie had made its mark. Probably Viktor and Martin would now be haunted by the images the way she had been after seeing Cannibal Ferox at an older friend’s house when she was twelve. It had never left her.

  ‘Flora’ Viktor asked. ‘Is it true that they’ve come up out from the graves? For real?’

  ‘Yes’

  ‘Is it like it is on there?” Viktor pointed to the cassette in Flora’s hand. ‘That they eat people and stuff?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what is it then?’

  Flora shrugged. Viktor had been very sad about their grandfather’s death, but Flora had intuited that it was less the person he grieved for than the fact of death itself. Death meant that people actually disappeared. That everyone was going to disappear.

  ‘Are you scared?’ she asked.

  ‘1 was super scared when 1 walked home from school,’ Martin said. ‘1 kept thinking everyone was one of those zombies.’

  ‘Me too,’ Viktor said. ‘But 1 saw one for real. He was totally sick in the eyes. Man, I ran so fast. Do you think Grandpa will get like that?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Flora lied and went to her room.

  She nodded at Pinhead who was staring at her from the poster on the wall, and then she put the video back on the shelf. She should eat something but did not have the energy to go to the fridge and get it all the together. It felt good to be hungry-ascetic. She lay down on the bed and her body was at peace.

  When she’d rested for a while she took down the Pretty Woman DVD case and took out the razor blade she kept inside. Her parents had never found it during the phase when she used it.

  The scars on her arms were from her amateur period, she had quickly moved on to cutting herself under her collar bones, shoulder blades. There were a couple of scars on the outside of her shoulder blades that were so deep it almost looked like a pair of wings had been cut off. A beautiful thought, but that time she had gotten scared; it wouldn’t stop bleeding and it was around that time that the conversation with Elvy happened. Life became slightly more bearable and the wing-scars became the last.

  She looked at the knife, unfolding it and turning it between her fingers and… yes. She hadn’t been this close to wanting to hurt herself in a long time.

  Her gaze ran over the titles in the bookcase I() sec i I slle wanted to read anything. There was mostly horror there, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Lovecraft. She had read them all, had no desire to re-read anything. Then she caught sight of a picture book, an author’s name, and a little bell went off inside her head.

  Bruno the Beaver Finds His Way Home by Eva Zetterberg. She took the book down, looked at the picture of the beaver standing in front of his house: a mound of sticks in the middle of a river.

  Eva Zetterberg…

  That’s right. She had read about her in the paper. She was the one who could talk, the one who had been dead the shortest time.

  ‘Too bad,’ Flora said to herself and opened the book. She had the other one as well, Bruno the Beaver Gets Lost, which had come out five years earlier, and had been looking forward to the third one that she had heard would soon be out. Of all the books she had been given by her parents, she liked the Bruno books the best, except for Moomin. She had never been able to stand Astrid Lindgren.

  What she had liked and still appreciated was the straightforward approach to sorrow, to death. In the Moomin books it had been called Marran, in the Bruno books it was the Waterman who posed a constant threat lurking in the river. He was death by drowning, he was the force that swept Bruno’s house away, the destroyer.

  After she had read part of the book she started to cry. Because there would never be another book about Bruno the Beaver. Because he had died with his creator. Because the Waterman had finally got him.

  She cried and couldn’t stop. Stroked the book and Bruno’s shiny fur and whispered, ‘Poor little Bruno… ‘

  Koholma 17.00

  Mahler drove through the seaside village, his car fully loaded, on his way home. The holiday season was over and there were few people in the cottages. By the weekend there would be even fewer.

  The closest neighbour, Aronsson, was standing by the road watering his climbing plants. Mahler suppressed a
grimace when Aronsson spotted him, waved him over. He couldn’t wilfully ignore him. So he stopped and rolled down the window. Aronsson came up to the car. He was in his seventies, thin and bony and with a denim fisherman’s hat on his head. It said Black & Decker.

  ‘Hello, Gustav. So you’re out here at last.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mahler said and pointed at the watering can in Aronsson’s hand. ‘Is that necessary do you think?’

  Aronsson glanced at the sky where the clouds were piling up and shrugged. ‘It’s become a habit.’

  Aronsson was protective of his creepers. Thick, luxuriant strands wound their way around the metal archway that framed the entrance to his property. A wrought iron sign at the top of the frame announced ‘THE PEACE GROVE.’ After his retirement, Aronsson had made his summer cottage into the tidiest Swedish paradise that could be imagined. There was currently water rationing but to judge from the greenery within the archway, Aronsson had paid no attention to that.

  ‘You know,’ Aronsson said. ‘I took some of your strawberries. I hope you don’t mind. The deer were after them.’

  Mahler said, ‘No. It’s good they didn’t go to waste,’ even though he would rather the deer ate his strawberries than Aronsson.

  Aronsson smacked his lips. ‘You got some nice berries. That was before the drought, of course. By the way, I read what you wrote. Do you really think that, or was it just for… well, you know.’

  Mahler shook his head. ‘How do you mean?’

  Aronsson immediately back-pedalled. ‘No, I just meant… that it was well-written. It’s been a while now, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mahler had been letting the engine idle. Now he turned his face back to the road to demonstrate that he needed to get going, but Aronsson took no notice.

  ‘And now you’re out here and you have your daughter with you.’

  Mahler nodded. Aronsson had a frightening grasp of everything that went on. He remembered names, dates, events; kept track of what everyone in the vacation village was up to. If a Koholma newsletter ever started up, Aronsson would be a shoo-in for editor.

  Aronsson looked in the direction of Mahler’s house; it lay beyond the bend and-thank God-could not be seen from here. ‘And the little one? Elias. Is he…?’