Handling the Undead (21 page)

'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 his 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 ... ?'

'He's with his father.'

'I see. I see. That's how it is. Back and forth. So it's only you and the girl, then. That's nice.' Aronsson glanced into the back seat, which was filled with bags from the Flygfyren in Norrtalje. 'Are you staying long?'

'We'll see. You know what, I have to .. .'

‘I understand’. Aronsson jerked his head in the direction of the road behind them, adopting a pitying tone.‘The Siwerts have cancer, did you hear that? Both of them. Got the diagnoses only a month apart. That's how it is sometimes.'

'Yes. I've got to .. .' Mahler touched the accelerator even though he was idling and Aronsson took a step away from the car.

'Of course,' Aronsson said. 'Home to the girl. Maybe I'll look in on you one day.'

Mahler could not immediately think of a plausible reason to say no, so he nodded and drove home.

Aronsson. Somehow he had managed to forget that there were other people in the area. He had only seen the cottage, the forest, the sea. Not long noses that liked to poke in where they'd no business.

Who called the police as soon as an unknown car was parked a little too long in the area? Aronsson. Who had tipped off social security that Olle Stark, who was on disability, was working in the forest? No one knew. Everyone knew. Aronsson.

And what had he meant by that,
do you really think that?

They would have to be careful. Damn it. Aronsson was a selfrighteous old bugger; why couldn't anyone get it together to burn his house down, preferably when he was asleep inside it?

Mahler clenched his teeth. As if they didn't have enough problems.

He got out of the car and started to unload irritably. When a handle on one of the paper bags broke and a couple of kilos of fruit and vegetables tumbled out he just wanted to swear and kick it all to hell. He managed to control himself-because of Aronsson, which just made him even angrier.

He walked toward the house with the bag in his arms and could not help sneaking a glance over his shoulder, checked to make sure Aronsson was not peeking from up atthe bend. He wasn't.

Mahler put the bag down on the kitchen table and called out 'Hello?' When no one answered, he went into the bedroom.

Elias was lying as he had left him, but now his hands were up on his chest. Mahler swallowed. Would he ever get used to him looking like this?

Next to the bed, on the floor, was Anna. She was lying like a dead person, wide eyes staring at the ceiling.

'Anna?'

Without lifting her head, she answered in a weak voice, 'Yes?'

A baby bottle was lying beside Elias' head. A little bit of liquid had spilled out onto the sheet. Mahler picked it up and placed it on the bedside table.

'What is it?'

The feeling of irritation was still there. It had been a lesser form of hell to run around Norrtalje in the oppressive heat, dutifully fetching and carrying. He had hoped to come home to a little peace and quiet. But now there was something new. Anna did not answer. He wanted to poke at her with his foot, but restrained himself.