John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

Sture walked up and gently extracted the head from Eva's dark red hands, placing it on the night stand. He closed his eyes against Magnus' inner screams, took out the two wooden dolls and placed these in her hands instead.

'Here,' he said. 'Your dolls. Eva and David.'

Eva took the dolls, holding them in her hands and looking at them.

'Eva and David,' she said. 'My dolls.'

'Yes.'

'They are very nice.'

The tone of her voice frightened Sture more than what she had done to Balthazar. It sounded like his daughter, and not like her. It sounded like someone imitating her voice. He could not bear to listen to it and he left Eva sitting there with the dolls in her lap.

David was carrying Magnus, Sture what was left of Balthazar. Some tufts of blotchy fur that no longer dreamed of hay. Outside the front door they were confronted by a policeman waving his arms in the direction of the exit.

'I have to ask you to leave the area immediately.'

'What is it?' Sture asked.

The policeman shook his head. 'Figure it out for yourself,' he said and ducked in through the door to continue the evacuation.

They had been so preoccupied by what had happened with Eva that they had ignored the warning cries from the field. David's mind was filled with Magnus' despair, but when Sture turned his attention to the outside he heard-thought-the sound of a large tree just before it falls to the axe. Sharp cracks, the trunk swaying-which way will it fall?

Thousands of consciousnesses in such panic that no thoughts could be distinguished, an ant-war going on at full volume and through it all that whining, piercing sound. Sture made a face and grabbed David's shoulder.

'Come,' he said. 'We have to get out of here. Now.'

They walked as fast as they could to the gates. Any thoughts of their own were sucked up by the field. More people were pouring out of doors and running toward the exit like they were fleeing from a fire, a war, an approaching army.

The Heath would never again be open to the public.

The Heath 13.15

Flora lay on the bench, curled up like a foetus. She hugged her backpack. Inside the world was coming to an end. Everything was exploding in demented fireworks. She shut her eyes as tightly as she could, as if to prevent her eyeballs from popping out. She couldn't move, she could only wait for it to end, to be over.

Large numbers of dead people were having an effect on the minds of the living, but the large numbers of the living were also affecting the dead. As if through a system of prisms, emotions were being enlarged, reflected in each other, reinforced, and this went on until the force field was unbearable.

After five minutes it started to abate. The horrible thoughts dissipated and ebbed away. After ten minutes she dared to open her eyes, and realised that she had been overlooked. A couple of police officers were just leaving the courtyard. A man was sitting outside a door, weeping. He had scratches in his face and splotches of blood on his shirt collar. As Flora watched, an emergency worker came over to attend to the man's cuts.

Flora lay absolutely still. In her black clothes she was a shadow on the bench. If she moved she would become a human, and humans had to leave.

Once the wounds had been dressed, the paramedic supported the man under an arm and led him away. The man walked as if there was a yoke across his shoulders and he was thinking of his mother, her love, and her nails-polished and painted a cherry red. She had always been particular about her nails, even during her years of illness. When all other dignity was taken from her bit by bit she still insisted that her nails be groomed and painted cherry red. These nails. One of them had been broken off when she scratched him.

Flora waited until they had left the courtyard and then peeked out. The Power told her there was no living being close by, but everything was so

strange here she could not be sure.

No person in sight. She crawled out and ran through the passageway to the next courtyard. She had to wait a couple of minutes there for a few more people to leave. One of them was a psychologist or something like that, and she was seriously considering suicide when she got home. Inject herself with an overdose of morphine. She had no family. Neither here nor anywhere else.

It was a quarter to two when Flora gently knocked on Peter's window and was let in. By that time there was not a single living consciousness left in the area.

[ Daily Echo 14.00J

… have no explanation for the events at the Heath. Police and medical personnel were forced to evacuate the area shortly after one o'clock. Twelve people sustained injuries-three seriouslyafter having been attacked by the reliving. The Heath will remain closed to the public for the time being…

Summary [Dept. Soc. Affairs; CLASSIFIEDJ

… in short, it is our conviction that the reliving are using up their intracellular resources at a rapid pace. If the present rate is taken as a guideline, it can be predicted that the resources will be exhausted in at most a week, in certain cases significantly earlier.

That is to say, if nothing is done, the reliving will be burned out in one week-for want of a better terminology.

At present we have no solution.

It may be added that we wonder if such a solution is to be wished for.

[ Daily Echo , 16.00J

… have placed the Heath under a similar quarantine. A few medical personnel will remain in the area, but at present there are no plans for continued rehabilitation.

Labbskar Island 16.45

The shadows had grown long by the time Mahler rose from his bolt-hole and walked back to the cottage. His body ached from the extended period of sitting on rock. He had stayed away longer than it took him to calm down. He had wanted to make a protest, to give Anna a taste of how it would be if he, superfluous as he was, were gone.

On the rocks outside the house there was an old drying rack for nets, three large T-shapes with hooks. Anna was standing under one of them, humming and hanging up Elias' clothes, which she had washed with soap and salt water. She looked thoroughly content, not anxious as Mahler had hoped.

She heard his footsteps on the rock and turned around. 'Hello,' she said. 'Where have you been?'

Mahler waved vaguely with his hand and Anna tilted her head, taking stock of him.

As if I were a child, Mahler thought and Anna chuckled, nodding. The low sun gleamed momentarily in her eye.

'Have you found any water?' he asked.

'No.'

'And that doesn't worry you?'

'Yes, of course, but… ' she shrugged and hung up two tiny socks

on the same hook.

'But what?'

'I thought you'd go and get some.'

'Maybe I don't feel like it.'

'Well, in that case you'll have to show me how the motor works.'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

Anna shot him a look, don't be ridiculous yourself, and Mahler stomped into the house. The largest lifejacket was too small for him, he looked like a giant baby when he pulled the strap across his tummy, so he decided to forgo the vest. Everything seemed to matter less, all of a sudden. He looked in on Elias, lying in the bed under the troll painting. He felt no particular desire to go to him. He picked up the water container and walked out.

'Well then,' he said. 'I guess I'm off.'

Anna had finished hanging up the washing. She crouched down with her hands on her knees.

'Dad,' she said in mild tone of voice. 'Stop it.'

'Stop what?'

'Just stop. You don't have to.'

Mahler walked past her down to the boat. Anna said,

'Drive carefully.'

'Sure, sure.'

When the sound of the engine had died away between the islands, Anna lay on her back on the sun-baked rock, shifting around so the warmth would reach as much of her skin as possible. When she had lain like this for a while she went in and got Elias, putting him next to her on the rock, wrapped in the blanket.