John Lindqvist: Handling The Undead

People continued on their way, talking about it.

'Never seen anything like it… it's this heat… my dad once told me that he… headache…'

David massaged his temples and kept walking across the bridge. People from the other direction met his gaze and everyone smiled bashfully, as if they had all taken part in something illicit. When the older gentleman who had been standing there from the beginning walked past, David asked, 'Excuse me, but… have you got a headache too?'

'Yes,' the man answered, and pressed his fist against his head. 'It's terrible.'

'I was just wondering.'

The man pointed at the dirty grey asphalt spotted with rat blood and said, 'Maybe they had one too. Maybe that was why… ' He interrupted himself and looked at David. 'You've been on television, haven't you?'

He continued on his way. A muted panic hovered in the air. Dogs were barking and pedestrians walked more quickly than usual, as if trying to escape whatever was approaching. He hurried down Odengatan, took out his cell phone and dialled Eva's number. When he was level with the subway station, she answered.

'Hi,' David said. 'Where are you?'

'I've just got in the car. David? It was the same thing at your mum's place. She was going to turn the television off when we arrived, but she couldn't.'

'That'll make Magnus happy. Eva? I…I don't know, but… do you have to go see your father?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Well… do you still have a headache?'

'Yes, but not so I can't drive. Don't worry.'

'No. It's just that I have a feeling that… it's something horrible. Don't you feel it too?'

'No. Not like that.'

A man was standing inside the phone booth at the intersection of Odengatan and Sveavagen, jiggling the hook. David was about to tell Eva about the rats when the line went dead.

'Hello? Hello?'

He stopped and redialled the number, but couldn't get through. Just the crackle of static. The man in the phone booth hung up, cursed and walked out of the booth. David turned off the cell phone in order to try again but the phone refused to turn off. A drop of sweat fell from his brow onto the keypad. The phone felt unusually warm, as if the battery was heating up. He pressed the off button, but nothing happened. The display continued to glow and the battery indicator actually increased by one bar. The time was 21.05, and he half-ran down to Nona Brunn.

Even from outside the club, he could hear that the show had started. Benny Lundin's voice was thundering out onto the street, he was doing his thing about the difference between guys' and girls' bathroom habits and David pulled a face. Was pleased not to hear any laughter at the punchline. Then there was silence for a moment just as David reached the entrance, and Benny started on his next thread: about condom dispensers that stop working when you need them the most. David paused in the entrance, blinked.

The whole room was fully lit. The house lights, normally turned off to isolate the spotlight on stage, were up full bore. The people seated at the tables and at the bar looked pained, staring down at the floor and the tablecloths.

'Do you take American Express?'

That was the punchline. People usually laughed until they cried at Benny's story about how he had tried to buy black-market condoms from the Yugoslavian mafia. Not this time. Everyone just suffered.

'Shut your face, asshole!' a drunk man at the bar yelled, grabbing at his head. David sympathised. The microphone volume was on way too high and was distorting. With the ubiquitous headache, it amounted to mass torture.

Benny grinned nervously, said, 'They let you out of the asylum for this?'

When no one laughed at that either, Benny put the microphone back in the stand, said, 'Thanks everyone. You've been a fantastic audience,' and walked offstage toward the kitchen. There was a general moment of paralysis since everything had been cut off so abruptly. Then the microphone started feeding back and an atrocious ear-splitting squeal cut through the dense air.

Everyone in the room put their hands over their ears and some started to scream along with the feedback. David clenched his teeth, ran up to the mike and tried to disconnect the cord. The weak current shot trails of ants through his skin, but the plug stayed put. After a couple of seconds, the feedback was a butcher's saw hacking through the flesh of his brain and he was forced to give up, press his hands to his ears.

He turned in order to make his way to the kitchen, but was obstructed from doing so by people who had stood up from their tables to throng towards the exit. A woman without much respect for the club's property pushed him aside, wound the microphone cord once around her wrist and yanked. She only managed to knock the stand over. The feedback continued.

David looked up at the mixing booth, where Leo was pushing every button in sight, to no effect. David was about to shout at him to cut the power when he felt a shove and fell on the low stage. He lay there, hands still clapped over his ears, and watched as the woman swung the microphone over her head and dashed it into the concrete floor.

There was silence. The audience stopped, looked around. A collective sigh of relief went through the room. David clawed himself up to standing and saw Leo waving his hands, pulling his index finger across his throat. David nodded, cleared his throat and said loudly, 'Hello!'

Faces turned toward him.

'Unfortunately we have to interrupt tonight's show due to… technical difficulties.'

A few laughs in the audience. Jeering.

'We would like to thank our major sponsor, the Vattenfall Power Company, and… welcome you back another time.'

Boos from around the room. David held out his hands in a gesture that was supposed to mean, So fucking sorry for something that's not remotely my fault, but people had already lost interest in him. Everyone was moving toward the exit. The place was empty in a matter of minutes.

When David reached the kitchen, Leo looked grumpy. 'What was that thing about Vattenfall?'

'A joke.'

'I see. Funny.'

David was about to say something about captains and sinking ships since Leo was the boss of the place-and OK, next time he would make sure he had a routine prepared for a reverse power cut-but he held back. In part because he couldn't afford to get Leo's back up, and in part because he had other things to think about.

He went into the office and dialled Eva's cell phone number from the landline. This time he got through, but only to her voicemail. He left a message asking her to call him at the club as soon as possible.

Someone brought some beers in and the comedians drank them in the kitchen, amid the roar of the kitchen fans. The chefs had turned them on to mitigate the heat from the cooking ranges that couldn't be turned off, and now they had the same problem with the fans. They could barely talk but at least it was cooler.

Most of them left, but David decided to stay put in case Eva called. On the ten o'clock radio news they heard that the electrical phenomenon appeared to be confined to the Stockholm region, that the current in some areas could be compared to an incipient lightning strike. David felt the hairs on his arms stand up. Maybe a shiver, maybe static electricity.

When he felt a vibration against his hip he thought at first it was to do with the electrical charge in the air as well, but then realised it was coming from his cell phone. He didn't recognise the number that came up.

'Hello, this is David.'

'Am I speaking with David Zetterberg?'

'Yes?'

Something in the man's voice generated a clump of anxiety in David's stomach and set it wobbling. He stood up from the table and took a couple of steps into the hall toward the dressing room in order to hear better.