Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Authors: John Ajvide Lindqvist
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Gothic, Romance - Gothic, Media Tie-In - General, Media Tie-In, Horror, Occult fiction, Vampires, Occult & Supernatural, Fiction - Romance, Ghost, Horror Fiction, Horror - General, Sweden, Neighbors - Sweden, Swedish (Language) Contemporary Fiction
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about to say something. Hakan swallowed. The thought that this man had been allowed closer to his beloved than he ever had revolted him. His hand fumbled for his flask, wanted to burn away his anguish, but he stopped himself. The neck.
There was a wide red mark running around the man's neck like a necklace. Hakan leaned over him and saw the wound Eli had opened in order to get at the blood.
Lips against his skin.
—but that didn't explain the neck ... lace ...
Hakan turned the flashlight off, drew a deep breath, and involuntarily leaned back in the tight space so that the cement walls scraped against the bald spot in the back of his head. He clenched his teeth together in response to the stinging pain.
The skin on the man's neck had split because ... because the head had been rotated 360 degrees. One full rotation. The spine had snapped. Hakan closed his eyes, breathed slowly in and out to calm himself and to stop the impulse to get up and run far, far away from ... all this. The cement wall pressed against his head, the stones underneath him. To the left and right, a path where people who would call the police could come walking along. And in front of him ...
It is only a dead body.
Yes. But... the head.
He didn't like knowing that the head was loose. It could fall back, perhaps come off if he lifted the body. He curled up and rested his forehead on his knees. His beloved had done this. With bare hands.
He felt a tickle of nausea in the back of his throat when he imagined the sound it had made. The creaking when the head was twisted around. He didn't want to touch this body again. He would sit here. Like Belacqua at the foot of the Mountain of Purgatory, waiting for dawn, waiting for ... A few people came walking from the direction of the subway. Hakan lay down in the leaves, close to the dead man, pressed his forehead against the ice cold stone.
Why? Why do this . . . with the head?
The risk of infection. You could not allow it to reach the nervous system. The body had to be turned off. That was all he had been told. He had not understood it then, but he did now.
The steps grew quicker, the voices more distant. They were taking the stairs. Hakan sat up again, glancing at the contours of the dead, gaping face. Did that mean this body would have sat up and brushed the leaves off itself if it hadn't been ... turned off?
A shrill giggle escaped him, fluttering like birdsong in the underpass He slapped his hand over his mouth so hard it hurt. The image. Of the corpse rising out of the leaves and sleepily brushing dead leaves from its jacket.
What was he going to do with the body?
Maybe eighty kilos of muscles, fat, bone that had to be disposed of. Ground up. Hacked up. Buried. Burned.
The crematorium.
Of course. Carry the body over there, break in, and do a little burnin on the sly. Or just leave it outside the gate like a foundling and hope thi their enthusiasm for burning was so great they would pop it in without bothering to call the police.
No. There was only one alternative. On his right the path continue on through the forest, toward the hospital, and down to the water. He stuffed the bloody sweater under the man's coat, hung his bag over his shoulder and pushed his hands under the back and knees of th corpse. Got to his feet, staggered a little, regained his balance. Just as h had expected, the head fell back at an unnatural angle and the jaws shut with an audible click.
How far was it to the water? A few hundred meters maybe. And i someone came by? Nothing to do about that. Then it would be all over And in a way it would be a relief.
+
But no one came by and once he was safely down by the shore he crept— his skin steaming with sweat—out along the trunk of a weeping willow that grew almost horizontally over the water. With some rope, he had se-cured two large stones from the shore around the feet of the corpse.
With a slightly longer rope wound in a noose around the chest of the corpse he
There was a wide red mark running around the man's neck like a necklace. Hakan leaned over him and saw the wound Eli had opened in order to get at the blood.
Lips against his skin.
—but that didn't explain the neck ... lace ...
Hakan turned the flashlight off, drew a deep breath, and involuntarily leaned back in the tight space so that the cement walls scraped against the bald spot in the back of his head. He clenched his teeth together in response to the stinging pain.
The skin on the man's neck had split because ... because the head had been rotated 360 degrees. One full rotation. The spine had snapped. Hakan closed his eyes, breathed slowly in and out to calm himself and to stop the impulse to get up and run far, far away from ... all this. The cement wall pressed against his head, the stones underneath him. To the left and right, a path where people who would call the police could come walking along. And in front of him ...
It is only a dead body.
Yes. But... the head.
He didn't like knowing that the head was loose. It could fall back, perhaps come off if he lifted the body. He curled up and rested his forehead on his knees. His beloved had done this. With bare hands.
He felt a tickle of nausea in the back of his throat when he imagined the sound it had made. The creaking when the head was twisted around. He didn't want to touch this body again. He would sit here. Like Belacqua at the foot of the Mountain of Purgatory, waiting for dawn, waiting for ... A few people came walking from the direction of the subway. Hakan lay down in the leaves, close to the dead man, pressed his forehead against the ice cold stone.
Why? Why do this . . . with the head?
The risk of infection. You could not allow it to reach the nervous system. The body had to be turned off. That was all he had been told. He had not understood it then, but he did now.
The steps grew quicker, the voices more distant. They were taking the stairs. Hakan sat up again, glancing at the contours of the dead, gaping face. Did that mean this body would have sat up and brushed the leaves off itself if it hadn't been ... turned off?
A shrill giggle escaped him, fluttering like birdsong in the underpass He slapped his hand over his mouth so hard it hurt. The image. Of the corpse rising out of the leaves and sleepily brushing dead leaves from its jacket.
What was he going to do with the body?
Maybe eighty kilos of muscles, fat, bone that had to be disposed of. Ground up. Hacked up. Buried. Burned.
The crematorium.
Of course. Carry the body over there, break in, and do a little burnin on the sly. Or just leave it outside the gate like a foundling and hope thi their enthusiasm for burning was so great they would pop it in without bothering to call the police.
No. There was only one alternative. On his right the path continue on through the forest, toward the hospital, and down to the water. He stuffed the bloody sweater under the man's coat, hung his bag over his shoulder and pushed his hands under the back and knees of th corpse. Got to his feet, staggered a little, regained his balance. Just as h had expected, the head fell back at an unnatural angle and the jaws shut with an audible click.
How far was it to the water? A few hundred meters maybe. And i someone came by? Nothing to do about that. Then it would be all over And in a way it would be a relief.
+
But no one came by and once he was safely down by the shore he crept— his skin steaming with sweat—out along the trunk of a weeping willow that grew almost horizontally over the water. With some rope, he had se-cured two large stones from the shore around the feet of the corpse.
With a slightly longer rope wound in a noose around the chest of the corpse he
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