John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

A jolt of terror ran through Elvy. This was it. She'd failed to protect the girl, and now… Her hands went up to Flora's face, stroking her cheeks. She said, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 1 should call a taxi. Does that sound good? I'll call a taxi and then… you and 1 can get out of here. Yes?'

Flora shook her head slowly, grabbed Elvy's hands and held them. 'Aaaaahhh,' she said again, with the shadow of a smile this time. Elvy gave a short, sharp laugh, almost a bark, of relief. Flora was joking. She was making the sound the undead made in her computer game.

'Oh, Flora, you scared me. I thought…'

'Sorry, Nana.' Flora looked around the room with her normal eyes. The emptiness in them had vanished. 'What should we do?'

'Flora, I don't know.'

Her granddaughter frowned.

'Let's think this through,' she said. 'The first thing is: is there a chance that he never really died? That he's sort of been gone, and now he's come back?'

Elvy shook her head. 'No. Unless we've all simply been duped somehow. I looked at him when I went down with his suit the day before yesterday and… Flora, are you all right?'

'I'm fine. I'm just trying… to work this out.'

Elvy was amazed. She was speaking in a completely normal voice, holding her fingers up in front of her and checking off the possibilities. It was as if she had gone through a few minutes of shock and doubt, and was now done with that. In its place, the side of her had emerged that she usually tried to suppress: the lawyer's daughter.

'Secondly,' Flora checked off on her middle finger, 'if he really is dead, what is it that brought him back to life? Does it have anything to do with what happened in the garden?'

'Ye-e-e-s…I think that's likely.'

'Thirdly…'

Elvy began to understand. This change in Flora, she thought, was not as straightforwardly positive as she'd believed at first. The rational way of talking had taken over beause she'd started to look at the whole situation as a video game; not as an impossible event, but as a series of problems, there to be cracked.

Well, Elvy thought, it could be worse.

'… thirdly: is this something that only we can see or is it like real… well, you know what I mean.'

Elvy thought of the feeling of Tore's sloped shoulders under her hands, the chill that had radiated from them.

'It is real, and I think we should… call an ambulance.'

Flora stood up. 'Can I?'

'Don't you think it's better if 1… '

'Yes. But can I do it?'

Flora had actually clasped her hands in front of her, entreating, and Elvy shrugged. She did not understand the child's enthusiasm but thought this was a good enough way to be. Flora went to make the call while Elvy sat on the floor, thinking.

It means something.

All of this… means something.

Overview

23.10-23.20:The dead come back to life at every morgue in the greater Stockholm area.

23.18:An old man is observed on the street, completely naked, outside the aged care facility in Solkatten. Does not respond to speech. The police are called to the scene in order to return the individual to his home.

23.20:A young man is run over by a van about a hundred metres from the Medical Examiner's office in Solna, When the police arrive at the scene, the victim has walked away. The driver of the van is in a state of shock, claiming that the victim had a big scar on his abdomen. The man was thrown some ten metres in the collision, and his stomach split open, but he stood up and walked away.

23.24:The first call to the emergency line. An elderly woman has received a visit from the sister she's lived with for the past five years, who died two weeks ago.

23.25:The staff of Danderyd Hospital start calling around to those aged care facilities and churches that have mortuaries, to inform them of the situation.

23.25-23.45:Twenty-odd reports of old people wandering around on the street.

23.26:Nils Lundstrom, retired nature photographer, takes the picture that will dominate the front page of the tabloid Expressen the next day. At the cemetery by Taby Church, seven old people in shrouds come staggering out of the mortuary, heading for the exit. The photograph captures them among the gravestones.

23.30-23.50:Radio communications from patrol cars dispatched to take Care of disoriented old people reveal that all of the individuals concerned died over the course of the past few weeks. The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs is informed.

23.30 and on:The emergency call centre in inundated by callers in a state of shock, sometimes hysterical, reporting the return of dead relatives. Paramedics, counsellors and religious ministers are quickly rounded up to be assigned to the families concerned.

23.40:The infectious diseases ward at Danderyd Hospital is designated as a temporary gathering place. Extra staff are summoned urgently.

23·50:There is a report from Danderyd that two bodies have not come back to life. Their medical records show that one has been dead for ten weeks, the other for twelve. Both corpses had been treated repeatedly with formaldehyde while the formalities regarding their funeral arrangements were cleared up.

More reports of non-awakenings follow. It appears that only those who have been dead two months or less have come back.

23·55:Databases are correlated: numbers of deceased unburied in the greater Stockholm area going back two months, yields a total of exactly 1042 people.

23.57:It is decided that the unthinkable must be investigated. A delegation with sound amplification and digging equipment is dispatched to the Stockholm Woodland Cemetery in order to listen to the graves, possibly with a view to opening them.

23·59 and on:Emergency psychiatric units begin to receive relatives who have had breakdowns upon being reunited with their dead.

Racksta 00.12

Angbyplan, Islandstorget, Blackeberg…

Mahler's sweating hands slipped on the steering wheel as he turned out of the space-age roundabout and took a right at the Racksta Crematorium and Cemetery.

His mobile rang. He slowed down, managed to extract it from his bag and checked the number. Editorial. Benke probably wanted to know how he was doing with the pictures, where his story was. No time. He put the phone back and let it ring as he turned into the small parking lot, turned off the engine. He opened the door, reflexively grabbing the bag, heaved himself out of the car and…

Stop.

He stood by the car, leaning against the door. Hiked up his pants.

There was no one here.

There was utter silence inside the high brick walls. A yellow early-summer moon spilled soft light onto the angular outline of the crematorium. Nothing moved.

What had he expected? To see them standing here, shaking the bars and…?

Yes. Something like that.

He walked up to the gate, looked in. The large open area in front of the chapel where he had stood only a month ago, sweating in his dark suit with his heart in shreds, had been given over to the night. The moon spread its blanket over the headstones, lit the occasional star in the gravel.

He looked up toward the memorial grove. Weak dots of light illuminated the pines from below. Memorial candles, placed there by grieving loved ones. He felt the gates. Locked. He stared up at the spikes on top. Impossible.

But he knew the cemetery by now; it was easy to get in. More difficult to see why they locked it in the first place. He walked along the wall until it gave way to a sharply inclined grass embankment where some artificially watered annuals bloomed when everything else in sight had withered.