Let the right one in (2 page)

He got up and left the bathroom. Didn't wipe up the drop of blood. Let someone see it, let them wonder. Let them think someone had been killed here, because someone
had
been killed here. And for the hundreth time.

+

Hakan Bengtsson, a forty-five-year-old man with an incipient beer belly, a receding hairline, and an address unknown to the authorities, was sitting on the subway, staring out of the window at what was to be his new home.

It was a little ugly, actually. Norrkoping would have been nicer. But having said that, these western suburbs didn't look anything like the Stockholm ghetto-suburbs he had seen on TV: Kista and Rinkeby and Hallonbergen. This was different.

"NEXT STATION: RACKSTA."

It was a little softer and rounder than those places. Although, here was a real skyscraper.

He arched his neck in order to see the top floors of the Waterworks'

administrative building. He couldn't recall there being any buildings this tall in Norrkoping. But of course he had never been to the downtown area.

He was supposed to get off at the next station, wasn't he? He looked at the subway map over the doors. Yes, the next stop.

"PLEASE STAND BACK FROM THE DOORS. THE DOORS ARE

CLOSING."

Was anyone looking at him?

No, there were only a few people in this car, all of them absorbed in their evening newspapers. Tomorrow there would be something about him in there.

His gaze stopped at an ad for women's underwear. A woman was posing seductively in black lace panties and a bra. It was crazy. Naked skin wherever you looked. Why was it tolerated? What effect did it have on people's heads, on love?

His hands were shaking and he rested them on his knees. He was terribly nervous.

"Is there really no other way?"

"Do you think I would expose you to this if there was another way?"

"No, but..."

"There is no other way.
"

No other way. He just had to do it. And not mess up. He had studied the map in the phone book and chosen a forested area that looked appropriate, then packed his bag and left. He had cut away the Adidas logo with the knife that was lying in the bag between his feet. That was one of the things that had gone wrong in Norrkoping. Someone had remembered the brand name on the bag, and then the police had found it in the garbage container where he had tossed it, not far from their apartment.

Today he would bring the bag home with him. Maybe cut it into small pieces and flush it down the toilet. Is that what you did?

How is this supposed to work anyway?

"THIS IS THE FINAL STATION. ALL PASSENGERS MUST

DISEMBARK."

The subway car disgorged its contents and Hakan followed the stream of people, the bag in his hand. It felt heavy, although the only thing in it that weighed anything was the gas canister. He had to exercise a great deal of self-restraint in order to walk normally, rather than as a man on the way to his own execution. He couldn't afford to give people any reason to notice him.

But his legs were leaden; they wanted to weld themselves onto the platform. What would happen if he simply stayed here? If he stood absolutely still, without moving a muscle, and simply didn't leave. Waited for nightfall, for someone to notice him, call for... someone to come and get him. To take him somewhere.

He continued to walk at a normal pace. Right leg, left leg. He couldn't falter now. Terrible things would happen if he failed. The worst imaginable.

Once he was past the checkpoint he looked around. His sense of direction wasn't very good. Which way was the forested area? Naturally he couldn't ask anyone. He had to take a chance. Keep going, get this over with. Right leg, left leg.

There has to be another way.

But he couldn't think of any other way. There were certain conditions, certain
criteria.
This was the only way to satisfy them. 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
anthology.

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 contents ... 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'