John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

Manoeuvring for better access, he put one foot in the middle, heard the wood crack, moved the foot to the side with alarm.

His sweat-soaked shirt lay glued to his body, straining. The pressure had built up inside his skull while he'd been bent over and it felt as if the next time he lowered his head it would blow up like an overheated boiler.

His bottom rib was at ground level. He started seeing stars again as he leaned over the edge, panting, resting his head on the grass. He closed his eyes, heard the scarlet coursing of blood through his body.

God, this is hard.

When he'd started to dig, he'd imagined that although it would surely take a superhuman feat of strength to reach the coffin, all he would have to do after that would be to pull it up, open it and… be reunited.

But only the dirt they'd taken out to lower the casket had been loose. That was the earth he had managed to remove. To bring up the casket from this same hole was another matter. They didn't dig graves with that in mind.

He slipped his hands behind his head, resting on his feet. A mild breeze drifted over the cemetery, rustling in the aspen leaves and cooling his overheated body. In the stillness it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he had imagined the whole thing. His desire so intense that he had willed the sound into being. Or perhaps an animal, perhaps a…

rat.

He screwed up his eyes. A new breeze caressed his brow. He was absolutely exhausted, could feel the over-exerted muscles in his arms and legs contracting, tensing up as he stood. He did not think he would even be able to get himself up out of the grave without help.

Things are as they are.

The furrows in his brows smoothed, and he felt a strange kind of peace. Images danced faintly before his eyes. He was moving through

a field of reeds. Green, rustling stalks surrounded him, breaking under his advance. Through the curtain of reeds he glimpsed naked bodies; women playing peekaboo like Bollywood sirens.

He too was naked and the reeds scraped his body, cutting deep into his skin. It stung everywhere and a film of blood covered his body as he moved on, dizzy and goaded by the mild pain, the desire for the teasing bodies. An arm here, a breast there, a fluttering strand of brown hair. He stretched out his arms, grabbed only reeds, and more reeds.

There was a crackling and crunching under his feet, the women's laughter rose above the rustling of the reeds and he was a bull, a lumbering fleshly beast trampling the delicate vegetation to satisfy his lust…

He opened his eyes, suddenly alert.

That scraping again.

And he didn't just hear it. He felt it. The vibrations, under his feet, of nails scraping against wood. He raised his head, looked down at the coffin.

Krrrr…

Half a centimetre of wood between the fingers and his foot.

'Elias?'

No reply.

He made his way up, one vertebra at a time.

Among the trees in the memorial grove, he found a long, thick stick that he carried back to the grave. When he surveyed all the dirt that lay scattered around the gaping hole, it didn't seem possible that he could have summoned the strength.

But he kept going.

He pushed the stick down between the head of the coffin and the packed wall of earth, pressed down. The coffin tipped slightly and it felt as if his tongue was swelling in his mouth as he heard something glide, changing position inside.

How does he look, how does he look…

But not just that. There was a clatter as well. As if there were pebbles in there.

Finally he managed to raise the coffin enough so that he could get down on his stomach, grip it with both hands and pull it up.

It did not weigh much. Not much at all.

He stood there with the little box in front of his feet. It was not disfigured by rot, it looked the same as it had done in the chapel. But Mahler knew that what altered a corpse did not come from the outside, but from within.

He rubbed a hand over his face. He was scared.

Sure, he had heard fantastical stories about dead bodies, especially of dead children, exhumed many years after the funeral, which had not changed at all. Simply looked as if they were sleeping. But that was fairy tales, legends of the saints; extraordinary circumstances. He had to be prepared for the worst.

The coffin was rocked by a soft blow from inside, there was a rustling sound, and for the first time since he arrived, Mahler felt a strong urge to run away. The Beckomberga mental hospital was only a kilometre away. Run there. With his hands over his ears, screaming. But…

The Lego fort.

The Lego fort was still in his apartment. The tiny figures left in the same place as the last time they had played. Mahler could see Elias' hands manipulate the knights, the swords.

'Were there really dragons back then, Grandad?'

He bent over the coffin.

The lid was only fastened with two screws, one at the top and one at the bottom end. He managed to remove the top one with his apartment key, took a deep breath and twisted the lid to the side.

Held his breath.

That isn't Elias.

He took a step back from the body that lay nestled in the plush upholstery. It was a dwarf. An ancient dwarf-man who had been buried in Elias' place.

He involuntarily gulped for air through his mouth, his nose, and the pungent smell of over-aged cheese prompted a retching that he was able-with some difficulty-to prevent from becoming full blown vomiting.

That isn't Elias.

The moonlight was strong enough so he could see what had happened to the body. The tiny hands that were now fumbling in the air were desiccated, blackened, and the face… the face. Mahler closed his eyes, clapped his hands over them, whimpered.

He realised now how much he had still believed, against all odds, that Elias would look the same as in life. Why not, given that all of this was impossible anyway?

But he didn't.

Mahler clenched his lips, sucked them into his mouth, and removed his hands from his eyes. He had seen so many terrible things in his work, he knew the trick of making himself blank, empty, not present. He did this now as he went up to the casket and lifted Elias in his arms.

The penguin pyjamas were silky to the touch. Underneath he could feel hardened skin, stiff as dried leather. The entire abdomen was swollen from gases that had formed in the intestines and the smell of rotting protein was worse than he could have imagined.

But Mahler was not here. The person here was a man carrying a child. A very light child. He cast a last glance into the coffin to see if he forgotten anything. Yes, he had. The Legos.

That was what had made the clattering sound. Elias had opened the box of Legos that had been placed with him, and the plastic pieces were now lying in a pile at one end, together with the ripped cardboard.

Mahler stopped short, seeing it in his mind. Elias had lain there and…

He screwed his eyes shut. Erased. Stood there one crazy moment and hesitated, wondered if he should put Elias down and put the Lego pieces in his pocket.

No, no, I'll buy new ones, I'll buy the whole store… I…

With short strides and ragged breaths that did not seem to be enough to oxygenate his blood, he started to walk towards the exit, whispering, 'Elias… Elias… everything will be fine. We're going home… to the Lego fort. All this is over. Now we're… going home… '

Elias twisted slowly in his arms, as if sleepy, and Mahler sawall the times he had carried the sleeping little body from the car or from the couch to the bed. In the same pyjamas.

But this body was not soft, nor warm. It was cold and unyielding, stiff like a reptile. Half-way to the exit he dared to peek at the face again.