After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

“No, thanks.”

  “A cup of tea?”

  I shake my head and wander in his direction.

  His dark hair is wet, and his shirt smells slightly of sweat. His eyes are serious and a little slanted, just like Kenny’s.

  I’ve never thought about it before, but Andreas has Kenny’s eyes.

  On his cheek I see a small, fresh wound—maybe he scratched himself when we were at the ironworks.

  A small drop of blood glitters at the edge of the wound.

  He looks like he doesn’t really know what to do with me now that he’s finally taken me home.

  “Well,” he says.

  “Well,” I say, suddenly very aware of his proximity.

  I take a step closer; he doesn’t move an inch.

  His breath is warm and damp against my cheek, like the summer wind on a muggy day down by the creek. I feel the heat of his body radiating against mine.

  When I kiss him, he retreats a step.

  “Is this a good idea?” he whispers.

  But his doubts last only a moment. Then he pulls me close and kisses me back.

  Jake

  The moped struggles to move forward as I rev on the gas. The snow sprays around my legs. I don’t care anymore about driving slow, but I keep my feet near the ground in case I wobble.

  It’s half past two on a Monday morning.

  I slept a few hours after finishing the diary. Not just because I was tired, but I’d decided that the best time to head here was in the middle of the night. Surely no one’s crazy enough to be up now?

  When I woke, I saw that Saga had sent me seven text messages—the first four were angry, but the last three were more worried. I decided I’d call her in a few hours. I don’t want to wake her up.

  I think of Hanne and P. Wonder if he “deserved her” or if she was “too good for him,” which are questions Mom used to ask about her girlfriends’ relationships.

  Women are usually too good for men. Maybe all men are so bad that they really deserve to be alone.

  And what about Dad? I don’t think he’s bad, or at least he wasn’t before Mom died.

  A gust of wind envelops me and for a moment I think I might roll over, but then the moped steadies, and I keep plowing through the snow.

  Around me is only darkness. Tall spruces line the road on either side, their snowy branches stretching over the road as if they’re trying to reach each other.

  It’s strange that I’m even doing this. But so many strange things have happened lately I’m no longer sure what’s normal. Not even sure who I am. I think of Dad’s eyes as the cops took him away. Of Saga’s soft lips against mine, of my hands ramming Vincent’s head against the concrete floor, of the words I said to him, my threat to tell everyone who his father really is.

  What’s happening to me?

  I don’t know, but whatever it is, I don’t think I can stop it. I just have to go with the flow and hope for the best.

  The buildings are dark and silent when I arrive. The larger house is maybe fifty meters away, next to the edge of the woods. It has a big satellite dish on its roof and three windows facing the driveway.

  I stand in front of the smaller house—it reminds of the big house, except for the satellite dish. And it has only two windows in the front.

  The wind is stronger, and small, light snowflakes whip against my cheek as I walk toward the front door.

  The wooden figurines on the lawn are buried beneath a thick blanket of snow.

  I’ve been here many times before. I know every bush, every tree, but I’ve never been inside either house.

  A plastic wreath hangs on the door, swaying a little in the wind. Snow lies in drifts up to the front door.

  I gently try the handle.

  Locked.

  I peek in through the kitchen window. Everything is dark and quiet, with only a tiny light shining like an unblinking yellow eye on something that looks like a refrigerator. Dim light comes from the room next door, which must be the hall.

  There are geranium pots lining the steps to the front door. My guess is that they’re plastic, because the flowers look unnaturally healthy and colorful, even with a thick layer of snow on top of them. I take my gloves off, put them in my pocket, and grope around in the snow near the bottom of the flowerpots. Lift them one by one until bingo, I find an old rusty key.

  No one in Ormberg is particularly concerned about safety.

  That’s a big mistake, Dad says. Most people hide an extra key somewhere near the door, but the refugees aren’t trustworthy like the locals. They could break in and rape you or raise the caliphate’s black flags or steal everything of value.

  Whatever that means. I don’t know anyone who has anything particularly valuable, except maybe a computer or flat screen.

  The key slides into the lock easily. I turn it, and the door opens silently.

  I stand at the threshold.

  Obviously, I know I should call the police instead of entering this dark house by myself.

  But the cops think Dad’s a mentally disturbed drunk. They actually believe he could have murdered that woman. They might lock him up for life.

  The lump in my throat—the one I’d almost forgotten—comes back again.

  No, I have to find out who killed the woman at the cairn so they’ll let Dad go. I step over the threshold and gently pull the door closed behind me.

  The hallway smells like pizza and sour dishrags. A single bare bulb hanging from the living room ceiling throws a pale, yellow light across the floor. Bags of garbage stand next to the front door and a pair of boots sit next to them. Coats hang from nails on the wall.

  I wipe my shoes as much as I can on the doormat and then sneak into the kitchen. The floor creaks and I stop several times to make sure nobody’s coming. The only thing I hear is the faint buzz of the fridge and the radiator clicking a bit. At the far end of the room, I see some shelves.

  I go over to them and hunch down. Run my hand along the baseboard.

  It takes a few minutes before I find it: a small metal hinge a couple of centimeters above the floor. I have to fiddle with it for a while, and then the secret door slides open with a slight click.

  It’s no ordinary door; it’s thick and has metal on the inside.

  A puff of moist air hits me: It’s just like Saga’s storeroom, which she says has mold in it that they’ll have to clean when they can afford it.

  I stand up, step into the dark space, and pull the door behind me so that only a narrow streak is visible.

  It’s cooler in here. Cool and damp.

  I shiver. Take out my phone, whose batteries will soon be drained, and turn on the flashlight.

  I have to be stingy with the batteries from now on.

  The stairs are steep and wet with moisture. The walls are stained, and spiderwebs hang from the ceiling; they flutter in the draft of the open door.

  In the middle of the stairs there’s a tobacco container and a glove still in the shape of a fist—it almost looks like it’s reaching for the tobacco.

  I climb down step-by-step. Slowly and cautiously, trying not to make any sound. The air feels thicker as I descend, harder to breathe, and the stench of the humid basement is more intense. Clothes are spread out on the floor near a coat hanger. I look at the wall: Three gaping holes reveal where the hanger used to be attached. Next to the clothes lie a broken plate and a broken glass.

  There are two doors: one on the right and one on the left. The right door has a big bend in the middle, as if someone kicked it, and the lock looks broken.

  I hesitate before I push on the door. Anything could be on the other side of that door: a ghost, a zombie, a…

  The thought fades quickly when I suddenly realize ghosts or zombies can’t scare me anymore. Everything I once imagined and feared has lost its powe
r over me: slimy corpses, demons, and flesh-eating undead. Ax murderers, chainsaw hooligans, and aliens waiting to take over the world and eat human brains like popcorn.

  Reality is so much worse.

  I nudge the door, and it glides open. Silently. It’s heavier than I thought and has metal on the inside, just like the secret door to the kitchen.

  The room is small, windowless, and cold, but above all it’s empty.

  No human or rotting body can be seen. Just a lonely bed standing along one wall. In the bed are some pillows and a blanket with a flower pattern on it. Next to the bed stands a floor lamp and a small bedside table. On the bedside table sits a water glass and a ChapStick. On the floor next to the bed: a pile of clothes—all neatly folded. Next to the wall are piles of books. There must be at least a hundred. I walk over to them and shine the flashlight over their spines.

  All in English.

  At the far end of the room is another door.

  I walk to the door and open it, shine my phone inside.

  A toilet and a sink.

  On the edge of the sink lies a fringed pink towel. A roll of toilet paper stands on the floor, warped by moisture. On the wall opposite the toilet: a shelf with a toothbrush, a deodorant, a small cracked soap, and a pink hairbrush.

  I reach for the hairbrush.

  It is full of long gray hairs.

  Saga’s words appear in my head.

  She looked like a ghost. With long scary gray hair.

  Did the murdered woman at the cairn live here in the basement?

  The pipes that run along the ceiling start to rumble, and it shakes me out of my thoughts. I back out of the bathroom and look around the room again, trying to find some detail I may have missed.

  Above the bed I see a pattern in the concrete wall, like a weak grid. I go closer and direct the light at the wall. Small stripes appear; they look like someone carved them into the concrete.

  I bend forward, see something that looks like a fence: four vertical lines, and then a fifth crossed over the other four.

  I back up and see more fences next to it. Take a few more steps back, sweep the light across the concrete, and realize to my horror that the entire wall is filled with stripes.

  The whole damn wall is filled with stripes!

  And at that very moment, when I understand what those lines mean, panic overtakes me. Not from the dirty little room, the disgusting toilet with stains on the floor, or the spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling.

  It’s the insight that someone must have spent years here. Not days, weeks, or months, but years. A human being carved those lines into that damp concrete to keep track of the days and nights as they passed by.

  Was it her, the woman with the long gray hair?

  I stagger, have to take a few steps in order not to lose my balance and fall.

  How could someone survive here? Wouldn’t you die, from lack of light and fresh air? Wouldn’t you rot like a vegetable that’s forgotten in a cold, damp refrigerator?

  The air grows thick again, and my chest feels bound by an invisible rope. The walls creep closer, bend over me, and my heart turns over in my chest.

  So many days, so many nights.

  I back out of the room with my heart still pumping in my chest. The realization that someone lived here, held captive behind that thick door, makes me sick and dizzy.

  My hands shake as I walk out into the small hall. I stumble on the tray and the porcelain clinks.

  My heart stops in my chest, and I hold my breath.

  It’s quiet.

  The only sound is the pipes and a quiet buzzing behind the other door.

  I turn around and shine my phone toward it.

  It looks like a regular door, and when I try the handle it’s not locked.

  I open it, shine my phone into the room.

  Another cold, windowless basement space, even smaller than the other one.

  The only thing in the room is a giant freezer standing against one wall—the kind with a door on top, just like the one we have in our basement at home that Dad usually keeps elk and deer meat inside.

  You can fit almost a whole deer inside this one.

  The floor is covered by large dark brown spots—I don’t even want to think about what they might be.

  A line of dark drops runs from the largest of the spots to the freezer.

  I go over to it and put my hand on the door handle. At that very moment it starts to hum, almost as if it’s trying to tell me something.

  I carefully open the door.

  The freezer sighs as the cold air streams out. I lean forward and shine my phone inside.

  Inside, next to a big tub of ice cream, there’s a human being. A man, curled into a fetal position.

  He’s covered by a thin layer of sparkling frost, but I can still make out his gray-blond hair, his blue coat, and the checkered shirt he’s wearing beneath it.

  I try not to look at him, focusing instead on the smiling clown on the lid of the ice cream.

  It doesn’t work.

  The nausea rolls over me. I drop my phone on the floor and let go of the door; it slides out of my hands, and I can’t stop it from falling with an ominous dull thud.

  Though my body is unable to move, and even with the room spinning and vomit trying to come up, my brain keeps churning out hypotheses, testing theories.

  I remember what it said about P in the article in the local newspaper:

  …At the time of his disappearance he was wearing a red-and-white-checked flannel shirt and a blue coat.

  The man in the freezer is P.

  I pick up the phone from the floor and slip it into my pocket. Then I stumble back out of the room into the tiny hall. Lean against the concrete wall, sink down to the floor, and start to crawl on all fours up the stairs, like a dog.

  All I can think about is getting away from here. Something far worse than I ever could have imagined took place here, beneath the floorboards of a boring house in the world’s most boring town, where every day is exactly the same and nothing dangerous ever happens.

  The steps seem to transform into mountains and I have to climb them one by one. They hit my knees and my nails split against the concrete, but I feel no pain anymore. All I feel is paralyzing terror.

  When I’m almost halfway up, I stand. The floor is damp and slippery and the thought of the man in the freezer makes my legs unsteady. Just as I think that I absolutely must not fall, I stumble on something.

  As I fall, I realize it must be the tobacco and the glove.

  The back of my head hits the floor with a thud.

  The pain is sharp, but fades away as fast as it arrived. It’s replaced by a feathery lightness, a feeling like floating.

  The darkness around me dissolves and turns white, like snow.

  * * *

  —

  When I wake up, my whole body hurts. I don’t know how long I’ve been lying on the concrete floor, but my body is stiff with cold as I stand and feel the back of my head. The bump is sore and the size of a Ping-Pong ball, but no skin is broken.

  I check my phone—it’s cracked and dead.

  Slowly I go up the stairs, careful not to trip on the glove and tobacco again. The narrow strip of light above me grows. Just as I’m about to push the secret door open, I notice that the light is turned on in the kitchen. I peek through the gap and hold my breath. Put my hand against the rough concrete wall and lean forward to get a better look.

  The ceiling light is on, and just a few meters in front of me I see a pair of powerful legs.

  Malin

  The moment I wake up, I know my life has changed forever. I’ve crossed a boundary, stepped into a foreign land I’ll never leave again. Everything I thought I knew about my life and my future was wrong: a lie I constructed, woven from my conviction
that happiness must reside elsewhere, far, far away from Ormberg.

  I lie on my side and peer into the dark toward Andreas.

  He’s asleep on his back, his arms stretched above his head, like a child. His breathing is deep and almost soundless.

  Fucking Andreas.

  If it hadn’t been for him, I could have managed it.

  I would have married Max and moved to Stockholm. Left Ormberg behind and stopped thinking about this wasteland, until even the memory faded like one of those old Polaroid images in Mom’s album. It would have become a picturesque story I told at one of those dinner parties Max and I always go to.

  No, I grew up in Ormberg. You’ve never heard of it? Well, that’s not so strange: It’s very small, and not very exciting, but quite beautiful and…

  I stretch a hand toward him, touch his shoulder lightly and feel the tiny strands of hair on my palm.

  He’s ruined everything.

  So why does it feel so good? Why does it feel like I’ve found something I didn’t know I was looking for?

  Andreas grunts, turns on his side. And his scent…It’s strangely familiar and yet so new—irresistibly attractive and at the same time so forbidden.

  It’s Kenny’s scent.

  It’s the scent of everything I denied and fled from: desire, a loss of control, dark forests, TrikåKungen’s brick buildings and the ruins of ironworks.

  It’s Mom’s stocky figure in front of the stove, and Magnus’s blank expression when he jerks on Zorro’s collar and lowers his eyes to the ground.

  Actually it’s kind of hilarious—even if everything’s gone to hell, I must admit that.

  I’m lying in bed with a country bumpkin who likes to read car magazines on the couch in front of the TV, and who doesn’t want more from his future than some new furniture now and then, time to work on his biceps, and a trip to Thailand once a year.

  Or, that’s what I imagine I know about him. The truth is, I don’t really know him that well, and this picture I have of him has been stitched together by my own conception of the world.

  I look at the gold ring gleaming on my finger. Take it off and lay it on the nightstand.