She holds the knife in the air.
Screams.
THIS IS NOTHING.
Then she stabs the knife into the man’s chest and stomach over and over again and his irises disappear into his head, his eyes go white and his whole body shakes and she stabs the knife into him over and over again and the blood sort of seeps out from the gap between his brown top and grey trousers.
He’s still now.
And I’m terrified, but I couldn’t be more present.
She takes one of his hands, Mum.
And then the knife again, she saws and cuts and the fingers fall off onto the floor, one by one by one, the blood, Mum, the blood.
Fingerless hands on the fabric of the sofa.
She’s done now.
Turns towards me, Mum.
I yank strain scream cry.
But nothing happens.
If you’re on your way, you need to hurry now.
69
Finspång.
The time is now a quarter past six, and the streets of the industrial community are still empty, Zeke takes a short cut the wrong way around a roundabout and comes close to running over a bleary-eyed paperboy.
The centre.
Grey buildings, a hotdog kiosk, trees shrinking away from the sun, the flowerbeds not as well tended here as in Linköping, but there’s still a feeling of summer idyll, as if the industrial town had come to terms with its transformation into a sleepwalker’s hideaway.
But something is happening.
‘Turn here,’ Malin shouts and her mobile rings, she knows it’s Sven Sjöman again, he’s called her mobile ten times, and tried them over the radio, but we’re doing this on our own.
‘Stop.’
And Zeke brakes hard and they throw the doors open and pour out of the car. Malin runs towards the building where Sture Folkman lives, pulling her pistol from the holster under her jacket, Zeke hot on her heels with his gun in his hand, Janne shadowing them, crouching, as if he were expecting enemy fire from the windows of the white block of flats.
They creep up the stairs.
Press close to the wall.
Malin puts her ear to the door, making a hushing sign, finger to her mouth, listening for any sounds from inside the flat.
Groaning noises.
A woman’s voice saying, there, there.
How to play this?
She’s put a blue thing around her waist, she’s cut open my trousers and pants with a knife and I’m naked now.
This isn’t happening.
Tell me this isn’t happening.
The fingers all around me, in a circle, like worms, like eyeless baby snakes.
I try to close my eyes and cry, but she holds my eyelids open the whole time, it’s like I have to see everything and my skin stings as if she’s rubbed it with something that burns.
Standing up, she rattles a necklace made of animal claws over me.
‘Do you see the fingers?’
Her face is covered by a mask, her hands wearing white rubber gloves and blood of the man on the sofa is oozing towards me now, it will soon reach me and it stinks of guts and iron and I don’t want it to touch me, away, away with the blood.
And what’s she doing now?
Talking, wondering.
‘What would be best?’
A curious, expectant voice.
‘The nothing, or spider-fingers around your neck?’
She looks up at the ceiling, as if she were seeking an answer.
It’s happening now.
I’m going to kill you and you will be resurrected.
The fingers are gone now.
Then we shall cycle with the wind in our hair to a water where love is eternal, where we can lie next to each other and believe that this world, this life wishes us well.
I shall put everything right.
There now, don’t be frightened.
I shall start by squeezing the life out of you, then I shall fill something with nothing one last time, and then you will look at him, at yourself, at the world, lying safe and open ahead of us.
You’ll see that I’ve put everything right.
Together we shall fly through the countryside like loving summer angels.
Malin!
Don’t wait any longer.
Go in!
It isn’t too late for Tove yet, the way it is for us. The truth, you’ve reached its front yard, and it’s behind that door.
The sight behind it is terrible to behold.
But you can do it, both of you, because your lives can be saved behind there, in the darkness.
See to it that this comes to an end.
Wipe out our fear and help us enjoy our insight, our freedom. Give our mums and dads the solace to be gained from putting a name, a face, to evil.
Open the door, Malin.
Do it now.
It’s high time.
My hands around your neck.
Stop wriggling.
It won’t take long and I understand that you’re scared, that it hurts, but you can come back as pure love, as the most beautiful person in the world.
Your skin is warm, so warm, and I press harder now.
Give up, give up, that’s right.
They hesitate.
Whisper soundlessly: ‘How are we going to play this?’
‘Burst in.’
‘But . . .’
No buts, no alternatives, and Malin takes a step back, kicks in the door with all her strength and four metres inside the flat she can see a bloody human beast standing crouched over a clean-scrubbed body on the floor, human fingers all around, the human beast’s hands around the neck of the body, the human beast like black organic magma, its veins filled with glowing worms and Tove on the floor and Malin screams:
‘LET GO! STOP!’
And holds the gun in front of her, takes aim and the human beast moves, looks at Malin, stares into her eyes, then turns towards Tove again.
Because that is you, isn’t it, Tove?
She looks into my eyes and I vanish, everything goes white and I seem to be drifting, Mum, is that you shouting, Dad, is that you I can hear?
Your eyes, you’re disappearing into them and something new arises.
They’re your eyes, sister, and you’re back, I look into your pupils and feel an endless love.
So the nothing wasn’t needed.
I squeeze and then I explode into sound.
Malin squeezes the trigger.
No time to fight, to lose, just reply to the volcano in kind, become part of the volcano.
Pulling the trigger again and again.
Zeke pulls his trigger.
Over and over again and the smell of blood merges with the smell of gunpowder and Janne screams: ‘Tove, Tove, stop firing!’ as he rushes into the living room, almost slipping on the blood on the floor, kicks, pushing aside the lifeless body that has collapsed on top of Tove before feeling her neck with two fingers, screaming ‘Fuck!’, and then he presses his mouth to Tove’s, forcing air into her lungs.
Malin and Zeke beside him.
The mutilated corpse on the sofa, its hands bloody stumps, face white, bloodless, the naked body next to Tove perforated by dozens of bullets, blood pumping out in gushes over the amputated fingers arranged in a circle, then Janne’s order: ‘Don’t just stand there, cut her loose!’
And without thinking Malin grabs a large knife with a black handle and cuts Tove free from the floor, rope by rope, Zeke swearing in the background: ‘This is the worst, the fucking worst thing I’ve ever seen.’
And Janne pumps in air, counts, pauses, pumps and Malin sits down beside him, stroking Tove’s forehead, pleading out loud: ‘Please, please, please, this can’t be happening,’ but nothing helps.