John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

'Hello sweetheart, how is everything?'

The sound of her own voice filled the silence, chasing it away. The anxious feeling in her chest stilled.

'When I was little I had this kind of painting by my bed. Except it had a troll-daddy and his daughter, fishing. The girl was holding the rod and the father who was-this big-and clumsy, and covered in warts, he was teaching her how she should hold it, holding her arm carefully like this to show her. I don't know if my mum knew how I stared at that picture and how I thought or fantasised that I had a father who would do that with me. Who showed me what to do and who was so close, standing behind me and was big like that and looked kind. All I know is that when I was little I wanted to be a troll. Because everything seemed simple for the trolls. They had nothing, and yet they had everything.'

She rested her hands in her lap, looking straight at the painting- Whatever happened to it? -recalling how she had kneeled in her bed, tracing the outline of the troll father's face with her finger.

She sighed, looking at the window. A painted balloon was floating outside. She gasped violently. The balloon was a face. A swollen, white face with two dark slits for eyes. The lips were gone and the teeth exposed. She stared at the face as if turned to stone. The nose was just a hole in spongy, white flesh and it was a face made of floury dough with a lot of big teeth stuck into it.

A hand rose and was placed on the glass. Even this was corpse white, swollen.

She screamed, deafening herself.

The face drew back from the window, in the direction of the door. She jumped to her feet, hitting her hip against the corner of the table but felt nothing, reached the kitchen-

Mummy?

– and took hold of the door, holding the handle.

Mummy?

Elias' voice, inside her head. She braced herself against the wall, pulling on the handle as hard as she could. Someone had grabbed it on the outside. She was resisting. The thing on the other side was jerking on it.

Dear merciful God, don't let it come in don't let it

Mummy what

don't let it

is it?

It was strong. She sobbed when the door hit against the frame.

'Go away! Go away!'

She could feel the dead, mute power through the handle as the creature monotonously pulled on the door, wanting to get in to her and Elias. Terror made her throat a single tensed muscle. She turned her head stiffly toward the kitchen, looking for a weapon, anything.

There was a small axe under the kitchen counter, but she couldn't let go of the door to grab it. The creature was pulling harder and when the door opened slightly she could momentarily glimpse the whole of the body. It was white and naked, lumps of dough thrown onto a skeleton, and she understood.

A drowned man. It's a drowned man.

She laughed breathlessly as she continued to resist, getting more glimpses of the creature's dissolved, fish-eaten flesh.

The drowned ones. Where are they?

In a flash she saw the whole sea filled with drowned people, all the accidents of the summer months-how many? Floating white bodies, scraping against the bottom. Predatory fish, eels that ate through the skin and gorged themselves on the innards.

Mummy!

Elias' voice was frightened now. She could neither rejoice at the fact that he was speaking to her, nor comfort him. The only thing she could do was resist, stop the thing from entering.

Her arms were starting to feel paralysed by the continuous pulling, the strength required to hold out.

'What do you want? Go away! Go away!'

It let go.

The door banged shut one last time and some slivers of wood broke off, fluttering down to her feet. She held her breath, listening. The blackbird had stopped singing and she heard rapping sounds on the rock outside. Bone on stone. The creature was leaving.

Mummy, what is it?

She answered.

Don't be afraid. It's leaving now.

The whining started, like a fleet of small boats approaching across the bay, coming closer. More than anything Anna wanted to scream, Stop it, leave us alone, go away to everything that seemed to want to get at them, but she did not dare for fear that it would frighten Elias. Elias quickly pulled out of her head and the whining died away.

Anna jumped back from the door, grabbed the axe and took up her post again. She listened outside. Nothing to be heard. The axe slid in her sweaty hand. During the whole episode she had not felt the drowned one inside her head for an instant, and that scared her even more. With Elias there was always a shimmer, a presence. The drowned man was silent.

When the blackbird resumed its song, she dared to leave the door and go in to Elias. She stopped in the door opening, dropping the axe.

The drowned man was standing on the rock outside the window, looking in. She carefully lowered herself down and took up the axe again, as though it were an animal that might be startled by the slightest movement. But the drowned one stood still.

What is it doing?

It couldn't look, it had no eyes. Anna sat on the edge of the bed squeezing the axe hard, sitting at an angle so that she could not see the thing outside the window. She'd be able to hear if it moved again, though. It was the most repulsive thing she had ever seen. She could not think about it, was not permitted to think about it-as if there was a finely balanced switch inside her head, poised to flip and catapult her into the darkest insanity.

She stared at the troll picture on the wall; the kind troll-man with his big comforting hands. The little child. And she thought:

Daddy, come home.

Kungsholmen 17.00

They had found a spot in an overgrown thicket along the beach at Kungsholm, halfway between their apartment and the parliament building. David assumed it was against the law to bury animals in the city without authority, but what could they do?

Before they set out they had made a cross from some pieces of string and skirting board. Magnus himself had written BALTHAZAR with a felt pen. David stood guard while Magnus and Sture dug a hole in the thicket large enough for the shoebox.

From this smaller perspective, David thought he could understand the purpose of a burial. Magnus busied himself with the box and the flowers that would be added to it, the construction of the cross satisfied him in a way that words and comforting on their own could not. He had cried a great deal on his way back from the Heath, but as soon as they reached the apartment he had started to talk about the funeral and what they should do.

Even David and Sture had become completely absorbed in the project; they had not yet said a word about what happened. What Eva had done and what it might mean could not be discussed with Magnus there, needing all their attention. But one thing you cou lei say for sure: Eva would not be coming home. Not for a long time.

The hole was ready. Magnus opened the lid of the box one last time and Sture hurried to shift the rabbit's head into place. Magnus stroked the fur with his finger.

'Goodbye little Balthazar. I hope it will be good for you.'

David could not cry anymore. What he felt was rage. A hopeless, compressed rage. If he had been alone he would have shaken his fists at the sky and screamed at it. Why Why Why? Instead he sank down next to Magnus and put a hand on his back.

It's his birthday for fuck's sake. Couldn't he have had… just one day.

Magnus put the lid back and placed the shoebox in the ground. Sture handed him the shovel and he shovelled earth and more earth until the box disappeared from view. David sat absolutely still, staring at the shrinking pile of dirt, the hole filling up.