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

Then he and his mom had had hot cocoa and cinnamon buns. Oskar knew they had chatted but couldn't remember about what. Something about painting the kitchen sofa blue, maybe.

He stared at the wallpaper.

The whole wall that his bed was pushed up against was decorated with a photograph wallpaper depicting a forest meadow. Wide tree trunks and green leaves. He would sometimes lie in bed and dream up figures in the leaves nearest his head. There were two figures he always saw as soon as he looked. The others he had to try harder to summon forth.

Now the wall had developed another significance. On the other side, on the other side of the forest, there was… Eli. Oskar lay there with his hand pressed against the green surface and tried to imagine what the other side looked like. Was the room on the other side her bedroom? Was she also lying in her bed right now? He transformed the wall into Eli's cheek, stroked the green leaves, her soft skin.

Voices on the other side.

He stopped stroking the wallpaper, and listened. One high and one low voice. Eli and her father. It sounded like they were arguing. He pushed his ear against the wall to hear better. Damn it. If only he had had a glass. He didn't dare get up and get one because maybe they would stop talking before he got back.

What are they saying?

Eli's dad was the one who sounded angry. You could hardly hear Eli's voice at all. Oskar had to concentrate to catch the words. He only heard the occasional swear words and "… unbelievably cruel." Then there was a thud as if something had been knocked over. Had he hit her? Had he seen them when Oskar stroked Eli's cheek… could that be it?

Now Eli was talking. Oskar could not hear a word of what she was saying, only the soft tones of her voice as it rose and sank. Would she be talking that way if he had hit her? He couldn't hit her. Oskar would kill him if he hit her.

He wished he could vibrate himself through the wall, like Lightning, the superhero. Disappear through the wall, in through the forest and out the other side, see what was happening, if Eli needed help, comforting, anything.

Now it was quiet on the other side. Only the sound of his heart drumming out its sucking whirling beats in his ear.

He got up out of bed, went over to his desk, and poured out a number of erasers from a plastic cup. Took the cup back with him into bed and held the open end against the wall, the closed end against his ear.

The only thing he could hear was a distant clanking, hardly from the room next door. What were they doing? He held his breath. Suddenly there was a loud bang.

A gun shot!

He had taken out a gun and-no, it was the front door, slammed so hard the walls were ringing.

He jumped out of bed and walked over to the window. After a few seconds a man emerged. Eli's dad. He was carrying a bag in his hand and walked with quick, angry strides toward the exit, and disappeared from sight.

What should I do? Follow him? Why?

He went back to bed. It was only his imagination working overtime. Eli and her dad had argued, like Oskar and his mom sometimes. It even happened that his mom stepped out like that afterward if it had been really bad.

But not in the middle of the night.

His mom sometimes threatened to move out when she thought Oskar was being bad. Oskar knew she would never do it, and she knew he knew. Maybe Eli's dad had simply taken this game of threats a step further. Took off in the middle of the night with a bag and everything.

Oskar lay in his bed with his palms and forehead pressed against the wall.

Eli, Eli. Are you there? Has he hurt you? Are you sad? Eli…

There was a knock on Oskar's door and he flinched. For a terrible moment he thought it was Eli's dad coming in to take him on as well.

But it was his mom. She tiptoed into his room.

"Oskar? Are you asleep?"

"Mmm."

"I just have to say… about these new people… what neighbors. Did you hear them?"

"No."

"You must have heard them. He was screaming and banged that door like he was crazy. Good god. Sometimes I'm so relieved I don't have a man in my house. Poor woman. Have you seen her?"

"No."

"I haven't either. Well, I haven't seen him either for that matter. Blinds drawn all day. Probably alcoholics."

"Mom."

"Yes?"

"I want to sleep now."

"Yes, sorry, honey. I just got so… Good night. Sweet dreams."

"Mm."

His mom walked out and closed the door carefully behind her. Alcoholic? Yes, that seemed probable.

Oskar's dad drank too much from time to time. That was why he and mom weren't together anymore. Dad could have tantrums like that when he got too drunk. He never hit anyone but could scream so he got hoarse, bang doors, and break things.

Something in Oskar was cheered by this thought. Ugly, but still. If Eli's dad was an alcoholic then they had something in common, something they shared.

Oskar leaned his forehead and hands against the wall again.

Eli, Eli. I know how it is for you. I'm going to help you. I'm going to save you.

Eli…

The eyes were wide open, staring blindly toward the arched ceiling of the underpass. Hakan brushed a few dry leaves away, revealing the thin pink sweater Eli usually wore, now discarded on the man's chest. Hakan picked it up, at first intending to hold it up to his nose to smell it, but he stopped when he felt that the sweater was sticky.

He dropped it back onto the man's chest, then pulled out his hip flask and took three big swallows. The vodka shot down his throat in fiery flames, licking his stomach. The leaves crunched under his rear end as he sat down on the cold stones and looked at the dead man.

There was something wrong with his head.

He dug around in his bag, found his flashlight. Checked that no one was coming along the path, then turned on the flashlight and directed it toward the man. His face was a pale yellow-white in the beam of light, the mouth hung half-open as if he was about to say something.

Hakan swallowed. The thought that this man had been allowed closer to his beloved than he ever had revolted him. His hand fumbled for his flask, wanted to burn away his anguish, but he stopped himself.

The neck.

There was a wide red mark running around the man's neck like a necklace. Hakan leaned over him and saw the wound Eli had opened in order to get at the blood.

Lips against his skin.

– but that didn't explain the neck… lace…

Hakan turned the flashlight off, drew a deep breath, and involuntarily leaned back in the tight space so that the cement walls scraped against the bald spot in the back of his head. He clenched his teeth together in response to the stinging pain.

The skin on the man's neck had split because… because the head had been rotated 360 degrees. One full rotation. The spine had snapped.

Hakan closed his eyes, breathed slowly in and out to calm himself and to stop the impulse to get up and run far, far away from… all this. The cement wall pressed against his head, the stones underneath him. To the left and right, a path where people who would call the police could come walking along. And in front of him…

It is only a dead body.

Yes. But… the head.

He didn't like knowing that the head was loose. It could fall back, perhaps come off if he lifted the body. He curled up and rested his forehead on his knees. His beloved had done this. With bare hands.

He felt a tickle of nausea in the back of his throat when he imagined the sound it had made. The creaking when the head was twisted around. He didn't want to touch this body again. He would sit here. Like Belacqua at the foot of the Mountain of Purgatory, waiting for dawn, waiting for…