Torgny is fully dressed, wearing jeans, a denim jacket, and boots.
He is standing by the shower cubicle, blocking the doorway. He looks at Jan and smiles.
Torgny is not the leader of the gang, but he is the one who most wants to impress Peter Malm. Peter is the leader; he has never bothered with Jan. But Torgny is dangerous.
He seems delighted to have a naked Year 10 pupil in front of him.
Jan stares back at him. He doesn’t do anything else. He might possibly be able to straighten up and push his way past Torgny, but in that case he would have to be someone else, not Jan Hauger.
So Jan stays where he is, and smiles.
He always smiles in threatening situations, even though he doesn’t want to. The more frightened he is, the more he smiles.
Torgny is actually smiling too, a victorious smile. He shows his teeth, grinning broadly at Jan. Then he turns his head to the right and calls to someone. He carries on smiling and calls out several names, and when he has finished there is silence for a few seconds.
Then the door of the sauna opens and his three friends emerge. The pack, the Gang of Four. Each of them is holding a glowing cigarette.
Could he push his way past them and escape?
Too late.
‘So they were sitting in the sauna?’ Rami said. ‘Why?’
‘They were hiding from the teachers,’ Jan explained. ‘They were having a secret smoke. The sauna was turned off, so they sat in there smoking and waiting for the weekend to begin. There was Torgny, Niklas, Christer, and Peter Malm. And they all walked out of the sauna, and when I saw them I moved backwards.’
But where can Jan go? He is standing in a shower cubicle, naked, in a puddle of cold water. He can’t back away through a wall.
Torgny says just one word: ‘Hauger.’
His name sounds like an accusation.
‘What are you doing here, Hauger? Are you spying on us?’
Jan doesn’t reply; he just keeps on smiling at Torgny to show that he is completely harmless. And he is, of course. Four fifteen-year-olds against one fourteen-year-old. That’s about the right level of opposition for the gang.
Torgny was the one who discovered their prey, and now he is the one who brings it down. He places his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, grabs hold of Jan’s arm and delivers a sharp kick to his shin. Jan crumples on to the tiles. Into the cold water.
He tries to get up, but feels hands on his body, holding him firmly. Not Peter Malm — he doesn’t bother — but all the others. Three pairs of hands are pushing him down.
Through the fear Jan knows that Peter is the leader. He is the master, the others are his savage dogs. Jan tries to make eye contact.
Don’t let them loose, he thinks.
‘What shall we do with him?’ Torgny asks.
‘Do something cool,’ says Peter.
Torgny nods; he has an idea: ‘We’ll stub out our fags on him!’
Peter stands back and carries on smoking as his subordinates put out their cigarettes. One by one, on Jan’s skin. It turns into a competition to find the best place.
Christer stubs out his cigarette on Jan’s chest, between the nipples.
Niklas goes for a testicle. ‘Did you hear that?’ he shouts. ‘It made a hissing noise! Did you hear it?’
Peter Malm nods and takes another drag on his cigarette.
Torgny smiles and takes his time.
Eventually he chooses the place where the skin is thinnest, on the throat.
At that point Jan closes his eyes.
‘The worst thing isn’t the pain,’ Jan said to Rami. ‘I mean, of course it hurts, it’s a bit like a nail going through your skin... but that passes.’
‘So what is the worst thing?’
‘It’s the smell. It kind of lingers. You can smell burnt flesh... and it’s your own.’
As he talked about it the smell was there again, as if it were still inside his nostrils after a whole week.
He had known he was going to die there in the shower. Alone with the Gang of Four — there was no hope for him.
The cigarettes have been stubbed out. Jan has brownish-red circles on his skin, like fresh birthmarks. The hands holding him down loosen their grip slightly; the fingers are beginning to tire.
Soon. Soon it will be over, he thinks. They’ll go in a minute.
But then Peter Malm issues a new order: ‘Chuck him in the sauna.’
‘Fanfuckingtastic!’says Torgny. ‘We’ll lock him in!’
‘What are you talking about?’ says Niklas. ‘There’s no lock.’
Disappointed silence. Jan keeps quiet too.
‘Chuck him in there anyway,’ says Peter; it is obvious from the tone of his voice that he is starting to get bored. ‘Chuck him in and we’ll get out of here.’
The grip on Jan’s arms tightens once more. They are assuming he will fight back, and he does. This is the final battle, but he loses it in no time. Six hands drag him towards the sauna, and Peter holds the door open.
For just a second Jan’s thigh presses against Torgny as they struggle, and he realizes that Torgny has a rock-hard erection.
Then Jan is hurled into the sauna. He lands on his back on the duckboards, and the door slams shut.
Silence.
The light is on inside the sauna, and a faint smell of cigarette smoke still lingers in the air.
Jan can hear their laughter through the door.
‘Time to turn up the heat, Hauger!’
The light goes out. The Gang of Four have switched it off.
Torgny is still shouting. ‘We’re taking your clothes.’
Niklas chips in, ‘We’re going to chuck them in the pond, Hauger, so everybody will think you’ve drowned!’
Jan doesn’t respond. He lies there like a mouse in the darkness. Silent, waiting.
He knows that the Gang of Four are holding the door shut, but they’re bound to leave at some point. Sooner or later torturing a little Year 10 kid is going to get boring, it’s going to start feeling like hard work, and then they’ll give up. That’s what he’s waiting for.
The black metal heater inside the sauna begins to make a series of clicking noises, and he realizes they’ve actually done it; they’ve turned the control outside the door from OFF to ON. But how high have they set the temperature? Fifty degrees? Sixty? Or much hotter?
It doesn’t matter. They’ll go soon.
Eventually everything goes quiet outside the door, and Jan feels brave enough to move.
He gets to his feet. The sauna is already warmer. Not hot, but warm.