John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

Outside stood a sodden likeness of her next -door neighbour. Her

hair straggled, her dress spotted with dark patches of moisture. A I '

series of lightning bolts illuminated her and she made an altogether

miserable picture.

'Come in, come in,' Elvy said and guided her into the hall.

'Excuse me,' the woman said, 'but you said that… well, that your house was open. And my husband has been very odd since you left. He drank a great deal and then he went out and… if this really is going to be the last night… '

'I understand,' Elvy said, and did. 'Come in.'

While her neighbour was towelling her hair in the bathroom, there was another knock on the door.

Why all this knocking…

But then Elvy remembered that the power cut must also have knocked out the doorbell. Fearing that it was her neighbour come to fetch his runaway wife she opened up, with a speech about freedom of association ready on her lips.

But it was not the neighbour. It was Greta, one of the older women who had appeared to be swayed when they visited earlier. She came better prepared than the neighbour. A vivid green rain poncho was draped over her head and shoulders, and she pulled a basket out from underneath.

'I brought a little coffee and some home-made pastries with me. So We can keep vigil together.'

It was not long until yet another of the women came. She had brought a box of candles with her, in case they did not have any. Finally Mattias arrived, the young man with the computer background. He said that he had thought about bringing his laptop but that there was no point while the storm was still going.

When they were all assembled in the living room with extra candles lit, coffee poured out and pastries served, there was a general outbreak of explanations. The thunder had died down so Hagar was able to turn up her hearing aid and take part.

It was the storm, they all agreed. It had driven it home. If tonight was going to bring the end of the world, or at least a complete change in life as they knew it, they did not want to sit alone when there was the option of gathering with like-minded people.

When they had spoken about this for a while, everyone's gaze turned to Elvy. She realised they expected her to say something.

'Well,' Elvy said, 'of course, on Our own we can do nothing. Faith only lives when it's shared. It was a blessing that you came here. Together we are greater than the sum of Our pans. Let us now sit vigil through this night and if it is the last, We will at least meet it together. Hand in hand.'

Elvy finished her speech abashed. It was not inspired. She had simply tried to say what they had been expecting her to say. The others considered her platitudes quietly, until Hagar cried, 'Do you have

mattresses?'

Elvy smiled, 'Where there is heart, there is room, and so forth.'

'Should We sing something?' the young man asked.

Yes, of Course they had to sing. Everyone scoured their minds for something appropriate. Hagar looked around.

'What is it?' she asked.

'We want to sing something,' Elvy said loudly. 'We're trying to think of something.'

Hagar thought for a second, then piped up: Nearer My God to Thee…

Everyone joined in as best they could. They sang at the top of their lungs and the candles flickered in their outgoing breath, as they drowned out the storm.

Bondegatan 21.50

Someone's fiftieth birthday party was in full swing in the party room upstairs. The storm had died down and from her room Flora could hear the partygoers' laughter echoing in the stairwell. In the background, they were singing along to 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' and Flora could not for the life of her understand how they could play it without feeling ashamed.

She lay still, savouring her contempt for the middle-class world she had been born into. You were allowed to be a little bit of an individual as long as you did it tastefully. Anything beyond that was a job for a psychologist. She was never at home: the tolerance wrapped her up like a straitjacket and she just wanted to wave her arms and scream.

Viktor had been sent to bed at half past nine, and Flora had declined a party invitation issued in a tone of brittle gaiety.

She rolled out of bed and walked into the living room, turned on the television to check the news. She had heard nothing from Peter and she did not dare call and break his silence.

The news was focused almost exclusively on the reliving. A professor of molecular biology explained that what they had at first believed to be an aggressive decomposition bacterium had revealed itself to be a co-enzyme called ATP, the cell's primary energy supplier. The perplexing thing was that it could survive at such a low temperature.

'It's as if you put a batch of dough out in the snow and it still rose,' explained the professor, who also made appearances on popular science shows.

ATP's baffling liveliness also explained how the newly deceased could overcome their rigor mortis, since it is precisely the breaking down of ATP that locks the muscles.

'Let us for the moment assume that we're talking about a mutated form of ATP. However…' The professor pinched his index finger and thumb together to emphasise the point, 'we do not know if it is this enzyme that has caused them to awaken, or if the behaviour of the enzyme is a consequence of their awakening.'

The professor held his arms out and smiled: cause or effect? What do you think? Flora did not like his smug way of talking, as if the whole thing was a debate about over-fishing cod stocks.

But the next item made her draw several inches closer to the television screen.

That afternoon a television crew had been allowed into Danderyd. There was vision of a large hospital ward where around twenty reliving were sitting on the floor, on beds, in chairs. At first you could see their faces. The remarkable thing was that everyone had the same expression: mute amazement. Eyes wide open, mouths slack. In their blue hospital gowns they evoked a group of uniformed school children watching a magician.

Then the camera tracked out and you saw what they were looking at: a metronome. Perched on a rolling cart, it was ticking back and forth, back and forth before the enraptured audience. A nurse was sitting on a chair next to the metronome, upright, aware of the camera.

Must be the one who starts it again when it stops.

The voiceover outlined how the situation at the hospital had improved now that they'd discovered the thing with the metronome, and that the search was now on for other methods.

The weather would continue to be changeable.

Flora turned off the television and sat looking at her reflection in the screen. Noises from upstairs cut through the silence. They had started to sing a sea shanty, in rounds. When the song was over she heard raised voices, laughter.

Flora leaned back, stretching out onto the floor.

I know, she thought. I know what's missing there. It's death. Death

doesn't exist for them, it's not permitted. And for me it's everywhere.

She smiled to herself.

Come on, Flora. Mustn't exaggerate.

Viktor emerged from his room. He looked so thin and frail in his underpants that Flora was overcome by a sudden tenderness.

'Flora?' he said. 'Do you think they're dangerous? Like in that movie?'

Flora patted the floor next to her. He sat down and pulled his knees to his chin as if he was cold.

'The movie… it's all made up,' she said. 'Do you think there really is a basilisk? Like in Harry Potter?'

Viktor shook his head.

'OK. Do you think that there's… do you think there really are elves and hobbits? Like in Lord of the Rings ?'

Viktor hesitated for an instant, then shook his head and said, 'No, but there are dwarves.'