John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

'Dad, what is it?'

'Just a little stomach ache. It'll be fine.'

Yes. The pressure momentarily subsided and he could straighten up, look out over the thousands of heads now dividing into two more compact masses around the gates. Sture shook his head, said, 'It's going to take hours like this.'

Eva, are you there?

Testing, David sent out the strongest thought he could muster, but received no answer. That field they were talking about-where exactly did it start, and why was it only the living could hear each other, not the reliving?

A police officer wandering around, underemployed in the wellmannered crowd, came up to them and said hello. They returned the greeting and the policeman pointed to the basket in Magnus' lap. 'What do you have there?'

'Balthazar,' Magnus answered.

'His rabbit,' David answered. 'It's his birthday today and… ' he fell silent, sensing that an explanation wouldn't matter either way.

The policeman smiled. 'Well, congratulations! Were you planning to bring it in? The rabbit?'

Magnus looked up at David.

'That's what we'd been thinking, yes,' David said. He didn't dare lie for fear that Magnus would contradict him.

'I don't think that's such a good idea.'

Sture took a step closer. 'Why not?' he asked. 'Why can't he bring the animal?'

The policeman held up his palms, Only following orders. 'There aren't supposed to be any animals in there, that's all I know. Sorry.'

The policeman walked away and Magnus sat down on the ground with the basket on his lap. 'I'm not going in.'

Sture and David looked at each other. Neither of them was going to stay outside with Magnus, and leaving Balthazar in the car was probably out of

the question. David stared angrily at the policeman who had wandered on with his hands clasped behind his back, wishing he had been able to pulverise him with his thoughts.

'Let's walk around a bit,' Sture said. They moved around the outskirts of the crowd in a wide quarter circle until they left it and arrived at a forested area where, to his relief, David spotted a couple of portaloos. He excused himself, selected the one with the least graffiti, sat down and exploded with freedom. When he was done he discovered that there was no toilet paper. He tried to use the flyer but the shiny paper was only good for smearing. He removed his socks, used them and tossed them into the hole.

All right… now…

David felt better. Everything was going to go well. He tied his shoe laces on his bare feet and walked out. Sture and Magnus were looking secretive.

'What is it?' David asked.

Sture lifted his jacket a little like a black market dealer and showed the inner pocket with Balthazar's head sticking up. Magnus giggled and Sture shrugged: it was worth a shot anyhow. David had no objections. He was cleansed inside now, unbound and light of heart. Just as the neurologist had requested.

They walked back to the gates. Sture complained that Balthazar was nibbling on his shirt and Magnus laughed. David glanced at Sture, who was struggling exaggeratedly with his jacket, and felt enormous gratitude. It would not have been possible without him. The tension around smuggling Balthazar in appeared to have distracted Magnus completely from the visit ahead of them.

They reached the gates in time for another speech. The crowd had shrunk considerably in their absence, so presumably the guards were not particularly strict about verifying relatives' identities. Before they had reached the queue, something happened up on the podium.

Two elderly women got up on stage and switched on the PA. Before anyone had time to react, one of them approached the microphone.

'Hello?' she called out and was startled by the strength of her own voice, taking half a step back. The other lady put a hand to her ear. The one who had spoken summoned her courage, stepped up again and repeated, 'Hello! I just want to say that all of this is a mistake. The dead have awakened because their souls have returned. This is about our souls. We are all lost if we do not… '

She did not get any further. The PA was turned off and her prescription for how to avoid being lost could only be heard by those closest to the stage. A very large man in a suit, most likely security, got up on stage, ushered the woman firmly away from the microphone and led her to the ground. The other woman followed.

'Daddy?' Magnus asked. 'What is a soul anyway?'

'Something that some people think we have inside of us.' Magnus felt with his hands over his body.

'Where is it, then?'

'Nowhere in particular. It's like an invisible ghost where all the thoughts and feelings come from, sort of. Some people think that when we die it flies out of the body.'

Magnus nodded. 'I think so.'

'Yes,' David said. 'But I don't.'

Magnus turned to Sture who was holding a hand over his heart as if he was having a heart attack. 'Grandad? Do you believe in the soul?'

'Yes,' Sture said. 'Absolutely. I also believe I'm getting a hole in my shirt.

Can we go?'

They got in line. There were still a couple of hundred people ahead of them but the line was moving rapidly. In ten minutes they would be inside.

The Heath 12.15

When Flora reached the Heath and saw the great mass of people and how quickly it was shrinking, her hope of getting in increased. She did not have the same last name as her grandfather and no way to prove her status. She had called Elvy that morning to get a signed document, but as usual she only got to talk with a lady who said that Elvy was busy.

She went and stood in one of the lines snaking up toward the gates. Over the last few days she had spoken several times to Peter, who had avoided discovery during the clear-out and managed to stay in his basement. The evening before, however, his battery had gone flat and he had no possibility of getting out to where there was electricity as long as the feverish activity in the area continued.

Damn, how they must have worked.

Just the feat of putting up at least three kilometres of fence to encircle the area. In two days. One of the few times that Peter had dared to go out he had reported that the area was swarming with military personnel and that the work was continuing round the clock. The press had either been excluded or come to some kind of arrangement, and nothing had been written about the Heath until the Prime Minister made his announcement.

Flora moved slowly forward, straightening the backpack full of fruit that she had brought for Peter. In her head she counted prime numbers-o ne, two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen – since it was almost unbearable standing here among all these people.

The whiff of fear she could pick up on the streets was nothing to what she found here. Wherever she turned her attention she caught the same signals. People looked as they usually did, possibly somewhat more abstracted in their gaze, a little more purposeful, but there were deep-sea creatures swimming inside them, the terror of confronting the completely unknown; the other.

nineteen, twenty-three…

Unlike her, most of the people here had never seen one of the undead. They were here because relatives had awakened in morgues, their dearly departed had been plucked out of the earth by the military and transported to sealed wards. There were good reasons to fear the worst, and that was exactly what people were doing. Flora tried to shut her brain from the ever-present horror and could not understand why people had decided to enact their reunions in this way.

She lowered her head and tried to escape through concentration.

Twenty-nine, thirty-one… thirty-seven… to show they have everything under control… thirty-nine, no… mum rotten face fingers· bone… forty-one… forty-one…