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

The boy shook his head and pushed on his hand so he could continue his work. But now Hakan couldn't. He had heard about this kind of thing. He put his thumb against the boy's upper lip and pulled up. The boy had no teeth. Someone had knocked or pulled them out in order to make him more fit for his work. The boy stood up, a frothy, whispering sound as he crossed his arms across his chest in the puffy jacket. Hakan tucked his penis back into his pants, zipped them, and stared onto the floor. Not like this. Never like this.

Something came into his line of vision. An outstretched hand. Five fingers. Five hundred.

He took the pack of bills out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. The boy took off the rubber band, ran his pointed finger across the ten pieces of paper, replaced the rubber band and held the packet aloft. "Why?"

"Because… your mouth. Maybe you can… get new teeth." The boy smiled a little. Not a wide grin, but the corners of his mouth pulled up. Perhaps he was only smiling at Hakan's folly. The boy thought for a moment, then took a thousand kronor note from the packet and put it in his outer pocket. Put the rest in an inner pocket. Hakan nodded.

The boy unlocked the door, hesitated. Then he turned to Hakan, stroked his cheek.

"Sank you."

Hakan put his hand over the boy's, held it against his cheek, and closed his eyes. If only someone could.

"Forgive me."

"Yes."

The boy pulled his hand back. Its warmth was still on Hakan's cheek when the outer door banged shut after the boy. He stayed in the booth, staring at something someone had written on the wall.

Whoever you are. I love you.

And right underneath it someone had written,

Do you want some cock?

The warmth had long since left his cheek when he made his way back to the subway and bought an evening paper for his last few kronor. Four pages were devoted to the murder. Among others was a picture of the hollow where he had done it. It was full of lighted candles, flowers. He studied the picture and didn't feel much.

If you only knew. Please forgive me, but if you only knew.

On his way home from school Oskar stopped under the two windows of her apartment. The closest one was only three meters from his own room. The blinds were drawn and the windows formed light gray rectangles against the dark gray concrete walls. Looked suspicious. Probably they were a… strange kind of family.

Drug addicts.

Oskar looked around, then walked in the front door and looked at the list of names. Five surnames neatly spelled out in plastic letters. One line was empty. The name that had stood there before, hellberg, had been there so long you could read it from the dark contours left against a sun-bleached background. But no new letters, not even a note.

He jogged up the two sets of stairs to her door. Same thing there. Nothing. The name plate attached to the mail slot was blank, the way it looked when an apartment was unoccupied.

Maybe she had been lying. Maybe she didn't live here at all. But she had walked in this entrance. Sure. But she could have done that anyway. If she-

The front door downstairs opened.

He turned away from her door and quickly walked down the stairs. Let it not be her. She would think that he was somehow… But it wasn't her.

Halfway down the stairs Oskar met a man he had never seen before. A short, stocky man who was half bald and smiled in an unnaturally wide way. The man saw Oskar, lifted his head and nodded, his mouth still pulled up in that clownlike smile.

Oskar paused in the front entrance, listening. Heard keys pulled out and a door open. Her door. That man was probably her dad. Granted, Oskar had never seen a real life drug addict, but that man looked sick. No wonder she was strange.

Oskar went down to the playground, sat on the edge of the sandbox, and kept an eye on her window to see if the blinds had been pulled up. Even the bathroom window looked like it had been covered on the inside. The frosted glass was much darker than in other peoples' apartments.

He took his Rubik's Cube out from his pocket. It creaked and squeaked as he turned it. A copy. The original was much more supple, but cost five times as much and could only be found in the well-guarded toy store in Vallingby.

Two sides had been completed, all one color, and on a third side only one little bit was out of place. But he couldn't get it there without destroying the two completed sides. He had saved an article from Expressen that described the various kinds of turns-that was how he had managed to solve two sides, but after that it was much harder.

He looked at the Cube, tried to think out the solution instead of just turning. He couldn't. His brain couldn't manage it. He pressed the Cube against his forehead, as if to delve into its interior. No answer. He placed the Cube on a corner of the sandbox half a meter away. Stared at it. Glide, glide, glide.

Telekenesis, that was the name for it. In the USA they had run experiments. There were people who could do stuff like that. ESP. Extra Sensory Perception. Oskar would have given anything to be able to do something like that.

And maybe… maybe he could.

Today at school hadn't been so bad. Tomas Ahlstedt had tried to pull his chair out in the cafeteria, but he had seen it in time. That was all. He

was going to go out into the forest with his knife, to that tree. Make a more serious attempt. Not get all carried away like yesterday.

Cut into the tree calmly and methodically, hack it apart and concentrate on Tomas Ahlstedt's face in his mind the whole time. But… there was the whole thing with the murderer. The real murderer who was out there somewhere.

No, he had to wait with this until the murderer was caught. On the other hand, if there was a normal murderer then the experiment was useless. Os-kar looked at the Cube, imagined a line connecting his eyes to the Cube.

Glide, glide, glide.

Nothing happened. Oskar stuffed the Cube into his pocket, got up, brushed some sand from his pants, and looked at her window. The blinds were still drawn.

He went inside to work on his scrapbook, to cut out and paste the articles about the Vallingby murder. There would probably be a lot of them, in time. Especially if it happened again. He was hoping a little that that would be the case. Hopefully in Blackeberg.

So the police would come to his school, the teachers would be serious, concerned, that kind of atmosphere. He liked it.

Never again. No matter what you say."

"Hakan…"

"No. It's just-no."

"I'll die."

"Then die."

"Do you mean that?"

"No. I don't. But you could do it yourself."

"I'm still too weak."

"You're not weak."

"Too weak for-that."

"Well, then I don't know. But I won't do it again. It's so-horrible, so…

"I know."

"You don't know. It's different for you, it is…"

"What do you know about how it is for me?"

"Nothing, but at least you're…"

"Do you think I like it?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"No."

"No, of course not. Well, anyway… I'm not doing it again. Maybe you've others who have helped you who have been… better at this than me."

"Have you?" "Yes." I see. "Hakan?" "I love you." "Yes."

"Do you love me, even one little bit?" "Would you do it again if I said I loved you?" "No."

"I should love you anyway, you mean." "You only love me to the extent I help you stay alive." "Yes. Isn't that what love is?"

"If only I thought you would love me even if I didn't do it…" "Yes?"

"… maybe I would do it again." "I love you." "I don't believe you."

"Hakan. I can manage for a few more days but then…" "Make sure you start to love me, then."