He had done it twice before, and had messed up both times. Hadn’t bungled it quite as much that time in Vaxjo but enough that they had been forced to move. Today he would do a good job, receive praise.
Perhaps a caress.
Two times. He was already lost. What difference did a third time make? None whatsoever. Society’s judgement would probably be the same. Lifetime imprisonment.
And morally? How many lashes of the tail, King Minos?
The park path he was on turned a corner further up, where the forest started. It had to be the forest he had seen on the map. The gas container and the knife rattled in the bag. He tried to carry the bag without jostling the contents.
A child turned onto the path in front of him. A girl, maybe eight years old, walking home from school with her school bag bouncing against her hip.
No, never!
That was the limit. Not a child so young. Better him, then, until he fell dead to the ground. The girl was singing something. He increased his pace in order to get closer to her, to hear.
“Little ray of sunshine peeking in Through the window of my cottage⦔
Did kids still sing that one? Maybe the girl’s teacher was older. How nice that the song was still around. He would have wanted to get even closer in order to hear better, so close in fact that he would be able to smell the scent of her hair.
He slowed down. Don’t create a scene. The girl turned off from the park path, taking a small trail that led into the forest. Probably lived in a house on the other side. To think her parents let her walk here all alone. And so young.
He stopped, let the girl increase the distance between them, disappear into the forest.
Keep going, little one. Don t stop to play in the forest.
He waited for maybe a minute, listened to a chaffinch singing in a nearby tree. Then he went in after her.
***
Oskar was on his way home from school, his head heavy. He always felt worse when he managed to avoid punishment in that way, by playing the pig, or something else. Worse than if he had been punished. He knew this, but couldn’t handle the thought of the physical punishment when it approached. He would rather sink to any level. No pride.
Robin Hood and Spider-Man had pride. If Sir John or Doctor Octopus cornered them they simply spit danger in the face, come what may.
But what did Spider-Man know, anyway? He always managed to get away, even if it was impossible. He was a comic book action figure and had to survive for the next issue. He had his spider powers, Oskar had his pig squeal. Whatever it took to survive.
Oskar needed to comfort himself. He had had a shitty day and now he needed some compensation. Despite the risk of running into Jonny and Micke he walked up toward downtown Blackeberg, to Sabis, the local grocery store. He shuffled up along the zigzaging ramp instead of taking the stairs, using the time to gather himself. He needed to be calm for this, not sweaty.
He had been caught shoplifting once at a Konsum, another grocery chain, about a year ago now. The guard had wanted to call his mother but she had been at work and Oskar didn’t know her number, no, really he didn’t. For a week Oskar had agonized every time the phone rang, but then a letter arrived, addressed to his mother.
Idiotic. It was even labeled “Police Authorities, District of Stockholm” and of course Oskar had ripped it open, read about his crime, faked his mother’s signature, and returned the letter in order to confirm that she had read it. He was a coward, maybe, but he wasn’t stupid.
What was cowardly, anyway? Was this, what he was about to do, cowardly? He stuffed his down coat full of Dajm, Japp, Coco, and Bounty chocolate bars. Finally he slipped a bag of chewy Swedish Cars between his stomach and pants, went to the checkout, and paid for a lollipop.
On the way home he walked with his head high and a bounce to his step. He wasn’t just Piggy, whom everyone could kick around; he was the Master Thief who took on dangers and survived. He could outwit them all.
Once he walked through the front gate to the courtyard of his apartment complex he was safe. None of his enemies lived in this complex, an irregular circle of buildings positioned inside the larger circle formed by his street, Ibsengatan. A double ring of protection. Here he was safe. In this courtyard nothing shitty had ever happened to him. Basically.
He had grown up here and it was here he had had friends before he started school. It was only in fifth grade that he started being picked on seriously. At the end of that year he had become a full-fledged target and even friends outside his class had sensed it. They called more and more seldom to ask him to play.
It was during that time he started with his scrapbook. He was on his way home to enjoy that scrapbook right now.
Wheeee!
He heard a whirring sound and something bumped into his feet. A dark red radio-controlled car was backing away from him. It turned and drove up the hill toward the front doors of his building at high speed. Behind the prickly bushes to the right of the front door was Tommy, a long antenna sticking out from his stomach. He was laughing softly.
“Surprised you, didn’t I?”
“Goes pretty fast, that thing.”
“Yeah, I know. Do you want to buy it?”
“⦠how much?”
“Three hundred.”
“Naw, I don’t have that much.”
Tommy beckoned Oskar closer, turned the car on the slope and drove it down at breakneck speed, stopping it with a huge skid in front of his feet, picked it up, patted it, and said in a low voice:
“Costs nine hundred in the store.”
“Yes.”
Tommy looked at the car, then scrutinized Oskar from top to bottom.
“Let’s say two hundred. It’s brand new.”
“Yes, it’s great, but⦔
“But what?”
“Nothing.”
Tommy nodded, put the car down again, and steered it in between the bushes so the large bumpy wheels shook, let it come around the large drying rack and drive out on the path, going further down the slope.
“Can I try?”
Tommy looked at Oskar as if to evaluate his worthiness, then handed over the remote, pointing at his upper lip.
“You been hit? You’ve got blood. There.”
Oskar wiped his lip. A few brown crusts came off on his index finger.
“No, I just⦔
Don’t tell. There was no point. Tommy was three years older, a tough guy. He would only say something about fighting back and Oskar would say “sure” and the end result would be that he lost even more respect in Tommy’s eyes.
Oskar played with the car for a while, then watched Tommy steer it. He wished he had the money so they could have made a deal. Have that between them. He pushed his hands into his pockets and felt the candy.
“Do you want a Daim?”
“No, I don’t like those.”
“A Japp?”
Tommy looked up from the remote. Smiled.
“You have both kinds?”
“Yeah.”
“Swiped ‘em?” ⦠yeah.
“OK.”
Tommy put his hand out and Oskar gave him a Japp that Tommy slipped into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Thanks. See you.” Bye.
Once Oskar made it into the apartment he laid out all the candy on his bed. He was going to start with the Dajm, then work his way through the double bits and end with the Bounty, his favorite. Then the fruit-flavored gummy cars that kind of rinsed out his mouth.
He sorted the candy in a long line next to the bed in the order it would be eaten. In the refrigerator he found an opened bottle of Coca-Cola that his mom had put a piece of aluminum foil over. Perfect. He liked Coke even more when it was a little flat, especially with candy.
He removed the foil and put the bottle next to the candy, flopped belly down on his bed, and studied the contents of his bookcase. An almost complete collection of the series Goosebumps, here and there augmented by a Goosebumps antholo
gy.
The bulk of his collection was made up of the two bags of books he had bought for two hundred kronor through an ad in the paper. He had taken the subway out to Midsommarkransen and followed the directions until he found the apartment. The man who opened the door was fat, pale, and spoke in a low, hoarse voice. Luckily he had not invited Oskar to come in, just carried out the two bags, taken the two hundred, nodded, said “Enjoy,” and closed the door.
That was when Oskar had become nervous. He had spent months searching for older publications in the series in the used comics stores along Gotgatan in South Stockholm. On the phone the man had said he had precisely those older volumes. It had all been too easy.
As soon as Oskar was out of sight he put the bags down and went
through them. But he had not been cheated. There were forty-five in all, from issue number two to forty-six.
You could no longer get these books anywhere. And all for a paltry two hundred’;
No wonder he had been afraid of that man. What he had done was no less than rob him of a treasure.
Even so, they were nothing compared to his scrapbook.
He pulled it out from its hiding place under a stack of comics. The scrapbook itself was simply a large sketchbook he had swiped from the discount department store Ahlens in Vallingby; simply walked out with it under his arm-who said he was a coward?-but the contentsâ¦
He unwrapped the Dajm bar, took a large bite, savoring the familiar crunch between his teeth, and opened the cover. The first clipping was from The Home Journal: a story about a murderess in the US in the forties. She had managed to poison fourteen old people with arsenic before she was caught, tried, and sentenced to death by electric chair. Understandably, she had requested to be executed by lethal injection instead, but the state she was in used the chair and the chair it was.
That was one of Oskar’s dreams: to see someone executed in the electric chair. He had read that the blood started to boil, the body contorted itself in impossible angles. He also imagined that the person’s hair caught on fire but he had no official source for this belief.
Still, pretty amazing.
He turned the page. The next entry was from the newspaper Afton-bladet and concerned a Swedish murderer who had mutilated his victims’ bodies. Lame passport photo. Looked like any old person. But he had murdered two male prostitutes in his home sauna, butchered them with an electric chain saw, and buried them out back behind the sauna. Oskar ate the last piece of Dajm and studied the man’s face closely. Could have been anybody.
Could be me in twenty years.
***
Hakan had found a good place to stand watch, a place with a clear view of the path in both directions. Further in among the trees he had found a
protected hollow with a tree in the middle and there he had left the bag of equipment. He had slipped the little halothane gas canister into a holster under his coat.
Now all he had to do was wait.
Once I also wanted to grow up
To know as much as Father and Motherâ¦
He hadn’t heard anyone sing that song since he was in school. Was it Alice Tegner? Think of all the wonderful songs that had disappeared, that no one sang anymore. Think of all the wonderful things that had disappeared, for that matter.
No respect for beauty-that was characteristic of today’s society. The work of the great masters were at most employed as ironic references, or in advertising. Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” where you see a pair of jeans in place of the spark.
The whole point of the picture, at least as he saw it, was that these two monumental bodies each came to an end in two index fingers that almost, but not quite touched. There was a space between them a millimeter or so wide. And in this space: life. The sculptural enormity and richness of detail of this picture was simply a frame, a backdrop, to emphasize the crucial void in its center. The point of emptiness that contained everything.
And in its place someone had superimposed a pair of jeans.
Someone was coming up the path. He crouched down with the sound of his heart beating in his ears. No. An older man with a dog. Two wrongs from the outset. First a dog he would have to silence, then poor quality.
A lot of screams for so little wool, said the man who sheared the pig.
He looked at his watch. In less than two hours it would be dark. If no one suitable came along in the next hour he would have to settle for whatever was available. Had to be back home before it got dark.
The man said something. Had he seen him? No, he was talking to the dog.
“Does that feel better, sweetpea? You really had to go, didn’t you. When we get home daddy will give you some liverwurst. A nice thick slice of liverwurst for daddy’s good little girl.”
The halothane container pressed against Hakan’s chest as he leaned
his head into his hands and sighed. Poor bastard. All these pathetic lonely people in a world without beauty.
He shivered. The wind had grown cold over the course of the afternoon, and he wondered if he should take out the rain jacket he had stowed away in his bag as protection against the wind. No. It would restrict his movement and make him clumsy where he needed to be quick. And it could heighten peoples’ suspicions.
Two young women in their twenties walked by. No, he couldn’t handle two. He caught fragments of their conversation.
“⦠she’s going to keep it now⦔
“⦠is a total ape. He has to realize that he⦔
“⦠her fault because⦠not taking the pill⦔
“But he, like, has to⦔
“⦠you imagine?⦠him as a dad⦔
A girlfriend who was pregnant. A young man who wasn’t going to take responsibility. That’s how it was. Happened all the time. No one thought of anything but themselves. My happiness, my future was the only thing you heard. Real love is to offer your life at the feet of another, and that’s what people today are incapable of.
The cold was eating its way into his limbs; he was going to be clumsy now, raincoat or no raincoat. He put his hand inside his coat and pushed the trigger on the canister. A hissing noise. It was working. He let go of the trigger.
He jumped in place and slapped his arms to get warm. Please let someone come. Someone who was alone. He looked at his watch. Half an hour to go. Let someone come. For life’s sake, for love.
But a child at heart I want to be
For children belong to the Kingdom of God.
By the time Oskar had read through the whole scrapbook and finished all the candy it was starting to get dark. As usual after eating so much junk, he felt dazed and slightly guilty.
Mom would be home in two hours. They would eat dinner, then he would do his English and math homework. After that he would read a book or watch TV with her. But there wasn’t anything good on TV tonight. They
would have cocoa and sweet cinnamon rolls and chat. Then he would go to bed, but have trouble falling asleep since he would be worried about tomorrow.
If only he had someone he could call. He could of course call Johan, in the hope that he wasn’t doing anything else.
Johan was in his class and they had a good time when they hung out, but if Johan had a choice, he never chose Oskar. Johan was the one who called when he had nothing better to do, not Oskar.
The apartment was quiet. Nothing happened. The concrete walls sealed themselves around him. He sat on his bed with his hands on his knees, his stomach heavy with sweets.
As if something was about to happen. Now.
He held his breath, listening. A sticky fear crept over him. Something was approaching. A colorless gas seeping out of the walls, threatening to take form, to swallow him up. He sat stiffly, holding his breath, and listened. Waited.
The moment passed. Oskar breathed again.
He went out into the kitchen, drank a glass of water, and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife from the magnetic strip. Tested the blade against his
thumbnail, just like his dad had taught him. Dull. He pulled the knife through the sharpener a couple of times, then tried it again. It cut a microscopic slice out of his nail.
Good.
He folded a newspaper around the knife as a standin holster, taped it up, and pushed the packet down between his pants and left hip. Only the handle stuck up. He tried to walk. The blade was in the way of his left leg and so he angled it down along his groin. Uncomfortable, but it worked.
He put his jacket on in the hall. Then he remembered all the candy wrappers that lay strewn around his room. He gathered them all up and stuffed them into his pocket, in case mom came home before he did. He could hide the wrappers under a rock in the forest.
Checked one more time to make sure he hadn’t left any evidence behind.
The game had already begun. He was a dreaded mass murderer. He had already slain fourteen people with his sharp knife without leaving a single clue behind. No hair, no candy wrapper. The police feared him.
would have cocoa and sweet cinnamon rolls and chat. Then he would go to bed, but have trouble falling asleep since he would be worried about tomorrow.
If only he had someone he could call. He could of course call Johan, in the hope that he wasn’t doing anything else.
Johan was in his class and they had a good time when they hung out, but if Johan had a choice, he never chose Oskar. Johan was the one who called when he had nothing better to do, not Oskar.
The apartment was quiet. Nothing happened. The concrete walls sealed themselves around him. He sat on his bed with his hands on his knees, his stomach heavy with sweets.
As if something was about to happen. Now.
He held his breath, listening. A sticky fear crept over him. Something was approaching. A colorless gas seeping out of the walls, threatening to take form, to swallow him up. He sat stiffly, holding his breath, and listened. Waited.
The moment passed. Oskar breathed again.
He went out into the kitchen, drank a glass of water, and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife from the magnetic strip. Tested the blade against his thumbnail, just like his dad had taught him. Dull. He pulled the knife through the sharpener a couple of times, then tried it again. It cut a microscopic slice out of his nail.
Let The Right One In aka Let Me In Page 2