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

But now the Russians were here. They didn't know much about the Russians. There once was a German, a Russian, and a Bellman-or so the joke went. The Russians were best in the world at hockey. They were called the Soviet Union. They and the Americans were the ones who flew in outer space. The Americans had made a neutron bomb to protect themselves against the Russians.

Oskar talked it over with Johan during the lunch break.

"Do you think the Russians have it too-the Bomb?"

Johan shrugged. "Sure. Maybe they've even got one on that submarine."

"I thought you had to have an airplane to drop it?"

"Nah. They put them in rockets that can be fired from wherever."

Oskar looked up at the sky. "And a submarine can have those?"

"That's what I said. They can put them anywhere."

"The people die but the houses are left standing."

"Exactly."

"Wonder what happens to the animals."

Johan pondered this for a moment.

"They must die too. At least the big ones."

They sat down on a corner of the sandbox, where none of the smaller kids were playing. Johan picked up a large rock and threw it so the sand whirled up around it. "Pow! Everyone dead!"

Oskar picked up a smaller rock.

"No! One person survived. Pshiuuuu! Missile in the back!"

They threw rocks and gravel, exterminating all the cities of the world, until they heard a voice behind them.

"What the hell are you doing?"

They turned around. Jonny and Micke. Jonny was the one who had spoken. Johan tossed the rock he had in his hand.'

"Uh-we were just…"

"I wasn't talking to you. Piggy? What were you doing?"

"Throwing rocks."

"Why were you doing that?"

Johan drew back a few steps, was busy retying his shoes.

"Just-no reason."

Jonny looked at the sandbox and then thrust his arm out so suddenly that Oskar flinched.

"The little kids are supposed to play here. Don't you get it? You're wrecking the sandbox."

Micke shook his head sadly. "They could trip and hurt themselves on the rocks."

"You're going to have to clean this up, Piggy."

Johan was still busy with his shoes.

"Did you hear me? You're going to have to clean this up"

Oskar stood still, unable to decide what to do. Of course Jonny didn't care about the sandbox. It was just the usual. It would take at least ten minutes to clear away all of the rocks that they had thrown and Johan wouldn't help. The bell was going to go off at any moment.

No.

The word came to him like divine inspiration. Like when someone says the word "god" for the first time and really means… God.

An image of himself picking up rocks after the others had gone back to class, only because Jonny had told him to do so, had flickered past inside his head. But something else had too. In the sandbox there was a jungle gym like the one in Oskar's courtyard.

Oskar shook his head.

"What's this?"

"No."

"What do you mean 'no'? You seem to be a little slow today. I'm telling you to pick this up and that means you do it?

"NO."

The bell rang. Jonny stood there looking at Oskar.

"You know what this means, don't you? Micke."

"Yes."

"We'll have to get him after school."

Micke nodded.

"See you, Piggy."

Jonny and Micke went in. Johan got up, finished with his shoes.

"That was pretty dumb."

"I know."

"What the hell did you do that for?"

"Because…" Oskar looked at the jungle gym. "Because I did, that's all."

"Idiot."

"Yes."

Oskar lingered at his desk after school was over. Took out two blank pieces of paper, got the encyclopedia from the back of the room, started turning the pages.

Mammoth… Medici… Mongol… Morpheus… Morse

Yes. Here it was. The dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet took up a fourth of a page. He started to copy down the code in large, legible letters on the first piece of paper.

A=.

B= -…

C= -.-.

and so on. When he was done he wrote it out again on the second sheet of paper. Wasn't satisfied. Threw the piece of paper away and started over, making the symbols and letters even neater.

Of course it was only important that one of the pages came out well: the one for Eli. But he liked the work and it gave him a reason to stay there.

Eli and he had been meeting every evening for a week now. Yesterday Oskar had tried knocking on the wall before he went out and Eli had answered. Then they went out at the same time. That was when Oskar had the idea of developing this communication through some kind of system, and since the Morse alphabet already existed…

He scrutinized the finished pages. Nice. Eli would like it. Just like him she liked puzzles, systems. He folded the pages, put them in his school bag, rested his arms on the bench. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach. The clock on the classroom wall showed twenty past three. He took out the book he had in his desk, Firestarter, and read it until four.

They couldn't have waited for him for two hours, could they?

If he had just picked up the rocks like Jonny had said, he would have been home by now. Been OK. Picking up rocks was certainly not the worst he had been asked to do, and done. He regretted it.

And if I do it now?

Maybe the punishment tomorrow would be milder if he told them he stayed after school and…

Yes, that's what he would do.

He gathered up his things and went out to the sandbox. It would only take him ten minutes to fix this. When he told them about it tomorrow Jonny would laugh, pat him on the head and say "good little Piggy" or something like that. But that was better, all things considered.

He glanced at the play structure, put his bag down next to the sandbox, and started to pick up the rocks. The big ones first. London, Paris. While he was picking them up he imagined that he was now saving the world. Cleaning up after those terrible neutron bombs. When the stones were lifted the survivors crawled out from their ruined houses like ants out of an anthill. But weren't the bombs supposed to not hurt the houses? Oh well, there were probably some atom bombs too.

When he walked to the edge of the sandbox in order to dump out a load of rocks, they were just standing there. He hadn't heard them coming, had been too busy with his game. Jonny, Micke. And Tomas. They held three long thin hazel branches. Whips. Jonny used his whip to point at a rock.

"There's one."

Oskar dropped the rocks he was holding and picked up the rock Jonny was pointing at. Jonny nodded. "Good. We waited for you, Piggy. We waited a long time."

"And then Tomas came along and said you were here," Micke said.

Tomas' eyes remained without expression. In elementary school Oskar and Tomas had been friends, played a lot in his yard, but after the summer between fourth and fifth grade Tomas had changed. He had started to talk differently, more grown up. Oskar knew that the teachers thought Tomas was one of the most intelligent boys in the class. You could tell from the way they talked to him. He had a computer. Wanted to be a doctor.

Oskar wanted to throw the rock he was holding straight into Tomas' face. Into the mouth that now opened and talked.

"Aren't you going to run? Get going now. Run."

There was a whistling sound as Jonny whipped the branch through the air. Oskar squeezed the rock harder.

Why don't I run.

He could already feel the stinging pain on his legs when the whip hit its mark. If he could only make it out to the park road where there would maybe be grown-ups around, they wouldn't dare to beat him up.

Why don't I run.

Because he didn't have a chance. They would have him on the ground before he had taken five steps. Let me go.