John Lindqvist - Let The Right One In aka Let Me In

The plug was pulled out down there, there was a filtering, clucking sound from the pipes and a faint whirl formed on the surface. He kneeled in front of the bathtub, licked his lips. Felt the harsh taste on his tongue, spit on the floor.

The surface became gradually lower. A sharply delineated dark red edge became visible along its highest level.

It must have been here a long time.

After a minute the contours of a nose appeared at one end. At the

other a set of toes that, as he watched, became two half feet. The vortex on the surface became narrower, stronger, positioned exactly between the feet.

He crept with his gaze along the child's body that was gradually being revealed on the bottom of the bath. A couple of hands, folded across the chest. Knee caps. A face. A muffled slurp as the last of the blood drained out.

The body in front of his eyes was dark red, blotchy and slimy like a newborn. It had a navel, but no genitals. A boy or a girl? It didn't matter. When he looked closely at the face with its closed eyes he recognized it only too well.

When Oskar tried to run, his legs froze up. Refused.

During five desperate seconds he had really believed that he was going to die. That they were prepared to push him. Now his muscles were having a hard time getting past the idea.

They gave out in the passageway between the school and the gymnasium.

He wanted to lie down. Tip back into those bushes, for example. The jacket and his lined pants would protect him from sharp twigs; the branches would provide gentle support. But he was in a hurry. The second hand; its staccato progress along the clock face.

The school.

The red-brown sharp-edged brick facade of stone laid against stone. In his thoughts he swooped like a bird along the corridors, into the classrooms. Jonny was there. Tomas. Sat at their desks and smiled mockingly at him. He bent his head, checked his boots.

The shoelaces were dirty, one about to become untied. A metal hook toward the top had been bent open. He walked slightly pigeon-toed; the leather imitation on both shoes was slightly stretched at the heels, worn to a shine. Even so he was going to be wearing these boots all winter, most likely.

Cold in his wet pants. He lifted his head.

I won't let them win. I. Won't. Let. Them. Win.

Warmth streamed into his legs. The straight masonry lines of the

brick facade dropped away, were rubbed out, disappeared as he started to run. His legs stretched out, the dirt squelched and sprayed up around his feet. The ground flowed out from under him and now it felt as if the Earth was turning too fast, he couldn't keep up.

His legs took him stumbling past the high-rises, the old Konsum store, the coconut factory, and with his speed in combination with old habits he rushed into the courtyard, past Eli's door, and straight to his own building.

He almost ran into a police officer who was heading the same way. The officer opened his arms, received him.

"Hey there! You're in quite a hurry."

His tongue stiffened. The officer let go of him, looked at him… with suspicion?

"Do you live here?"

Oskar nodded. He had never seen this police officer before. Admittedly he looked quite nice. No. He had a face that Oskar would normally think looked nice. The officer pinched his nose and said:

"You see… something's happened here. In the building next door. So now I'm going door to door around here asking if anyone's heard anything. Or seen anything."

"Which… which building?"

The officer nodded his head toward Tommy's building and the immediate panic left Oskar.

"That one. Well, not in the building per se… more like, the basement. You wouldn't have happened to hear or see anything unusual around there? The past few days?"

Oskar shook his head, his thoughts spinning so chaotically that he technically wasn't thinking anything at all, but he suspected his anxiety was shining from his eyes, fully visible to the officer. And the officer really did incline his head, scrutinizing him.

"How are you doing?"

"… fine."

"There's nothing to be afraid of. It's all… over now. So there's nothing you need to be worried about or anything. Are your parents home?"

"No. My mom. No."

"OK. Well, I'm going to be walking around here for a while, so… you can always think a little about what you may have seen."

The police officer held the door open for him. "After you."

"No, I was going to…"

Oskar turned and did his best to walk naturally down the hill. Halfway down he turned and saw the police officer go into his building.

They've taken Eli.

His jaws started to chatter, his teeth clicking an unclear Morse code message through his bones while he pulled open the door to Eli's building, continued on up the stairs. Would they have put that kind of tape on the door, sealed it off?

Say that I can come in.

The door was ajar.

If the police have been here, why did they leave the door open? That wasn't something they did, was it? He put his fingers on the handle, pulled the door open gently, crept into the hallway. It was dark in the apartment. One of his feet bumped into something. A plastic bottle. At first he thought there was blood in the bottle, then he looked and saw it was lighter fluid.

Breathing.

Someone was breathing.

Moving.

The sound came from the corridor in the direction of the bathroom. Oskar walked toward it, one step at a time, folded his lips inward to stop his teeth from chattering and the shivering moved down toward his chin, his neck, the suggestion of an Adam's apple on his neck. He turned the corner, looked into the bathroom.

That's not a policeman.

A man in shabby clothes was kneeling next to the bathtub, his upper body leaning over the edge, outside Oskar's field of vision. He only saw a pair of dirty gray pants, ripped up shoes with the tips pointed down toward the tiled floor. The hem of a coat.

The old guy!

But he's… breathing.

Yes. Hissing inhalations and exhalations, almost like sighs, came from

the bathroom and Oskar crept closer without consciously thinking about it. Little by little he saw more of the bathroom, and when he was almost level with the bathtub itself he saw what was happening.

Lacke couldn't do it.

The body at the bottom of the tub looked completely defenseless. It wasn't breathing. He had put his hand on its chest and registered the fact that its heart was beating but only with a few beats a minute.

He had been expecting something… terrifying. Something in proportion to the horror he had experienced at the hospital. But this little bloody rag of a person didn't look as if it could ever get up again, much less hurt anyone. It was only a child. A wounded child.

Like seeing someone you love wasting away with cancer, and then being shown a cancer cell through a microscope. Nothing. That? That did this? That little thing? Destroy my heart.

He let out a sob, his head falling forward until it hit the edge of the bathtub with a dull, echoing thud. He could. Not. Kill a child. A sleeping child. He simply couldn't. Even though… That's how it has managed to survive. It. It. Not a child. It.

It had attacked Virginia and… it had killed Jocke. It. The creature lying in front of him. This creature who would do it again, to other people. This creature that was not a person. It wasn't even breathing, and even so its heart was beating… like an animal in hibernation. Think about the others.

A poisonous snake living among people. You think you shouldn't kill it, simply because for the moment it appears defenseless?