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

"Should we?…"

Holmberg nodded but didn't make a move. Married, with children. Sure. Staffan pulled his gun from the holster, let his other hand rest on the door handle. It was the third time in his twelve years of service that he was entering a room with his weapon drawn. Didn't know if he was doing the right thing but no one would be likely to criticize him. A child killer. Cornered, perhaps desperate, no matter how injured.

He gave Holmberg a sign and opened the door.

The fumes overwhelmed him.

They stung so much his eyes started to water. He coughed. Took a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it over his nose and mouth. A few times when he had been assisting the fire department at a fire he had experienced something similar. But here there was no smoke, only a light mist suspended in the air.

Good God, what is this?

The repetitive, hacking sound could still be heard from the other side of the row of changing lockers in front of them. Staffan signalled for Holmberg to go around the lockers from the other side so they would be approaching from two directions. Staffan went up to the edge of the locker row and peeked around the corner with his gun held down along his side.

He saw a metal trash can kicked over on its side and next to it a prone, naked body.

Holmberg appeared on the other side, signalled to Staffan to take it easy, there didn't appear to be any immediate danger. Staffan felt a twinge of irritation that Holmberg was trying to take over command of the situation now that it didn't appear dangerous any longer. He breathed in through his handkerchief, took it away from his mouth, and said loudly,

"This is the police. Can you hear me?"

The man on the floor gave no sign of comprehension, just kept on making that repeptitive noise with his face turned down into the ground. Staffan took a few steps forward.

"Put your hands where I can see them."

The man didn't move. But now that Staffan was closer he could see that the body was twitching all over. That part about the hands was unnecessary. One arm lay curled over the trash can, the other sprawled over the floor. The palms were swollen and cracked.

Acid… what does he look like…

Staffan held the handkerchief in front of his mouth again and walked up to the man while putting his gun back in his holster, trusting the fact that Holmberg would cover him if something happened.

The body twitched spasmodically and produced a soft smacking sound every time bare skin pulled free from the tile and then reattached itself. The hand lying on the floor flopped around like a flounder on a rock. And all the time this sound issued from the mouth, directed into the floor,

"… eeiiieeeeiii…"

Staffan indicated to Holmberg to keep his distance, and crouched down next to the body.

"Can you hear me?"

The man stopped making noise. Suddenly the whole body writhed spasmodically and rolled over.

His face.

Staffan jumped back, lost his balance, and landed on his tailbone. He clenched his teeth not to cry out when the pain fanned out into his lower back. He squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them again.

He has no face.

Staffan had once seen a drug addict who, during a hallucination, had repeatedly smashed his face against a wall. He had seen a man who had welded near a gas tank without emptying it first. It had exploded into his face.

But nothing approached this.

The man's nose had completely burned away leaving only two holes in his head. The mouth had melted together, the lips sealed with the exception of a small opening in one corner. One eye had melted down over what had been his cheek, but the other… the other was wide open.

Staffan stared into that eye, the only thing that was still recognizeably human in this unshapely mass. The eye was red and when it tried to blink there was only a thread of skin that fluttered down and up again.

Where the rest of the face should have been there were only pieces of cartilage and bone sticking out between irregular shreds of flesh and blackened slivers of fabric. The naked, glistening muscles contracted and relaxed, contorting as if the head had been replaced by a mass of freshly killed and butchered eels.

The whole face, what had been the face, had its own life.

Staffan felt a retching in his throat and would probably have thrown up if his own body had not been so preoccupied with pumping pain into his lower back. Slowly he pulled his legs back in under him, stood up, leaning on the lockers for support. The red eye stared at him the whole time.

"What the…"

Holmberg stood with hanging arms and stared at the deformed body on the floor. It wasn't just the face. The acid had also run down onto the chest. The skin over the collarbone on one side was gone and a piece of the bone stuck out, glowing white like a piece of chalk in a meat stew.

Holmberg shook his head, raised and lowered one hand halfway up and down, up and down. Coughed.

"What the…"

It was eleven o'clock and Oskar lay in his bed. Slowly tapped out the letters against the wall.

E…L…I…

E…L…I…

No answer.

30 October

The boys in 6B stood lined up outside the school and waited for their gym teacher, Mr. Avila, to give them the go-head. Everyone had some kind of gym bag in his hands because God save you if you forgot your gym clothes or didn't have an acceptable reason to sit out gym class.

They stood at arm's length from each other like the teacher had told them on the first day in fourth grade when he had taken over the responsibility of their physical education from their home room teacher.

"A straight line! Arm's length distance!"

Mr. Avila had been a fighter pilot in the war. He had entertained the boys a few times with stories about airborne skirmishes and emergency landings in fields of wheat. They were impressed. They had respect for him.

A class that was considered difficult and unruly now stood lined up in a neat row an arm's length from each other even though the teacher was out of sight. If the line didn't meet his expectations he made them stand there an extra ten minutes or canceled a promised volleyball game in favor of pull-ups and sit-ups.

Like the rest of them, Oskar had a healthy respect for his gym teacher. With his stubbly gray hair, eagle nose, a still-impressive physique, and

iron grip, Mr.Avila was hardly predisposed to love or sympathize with a meek, somewhat chubby, and bullied boy. But order ruled during his class period. Neither Jonny, Micke, nor Tomas dared to do anything while Mr. Avila was around.

Now Johan stepped out of line, threw a quick glance up at the school building, then gave a heil Hitler salute, and said with a feigned Spanish accent:

"Straight lines! Today fire drill! With ropes!"

Some pupils laughed nervously. Mr. Avila had a fondness for fire drills. Once every semester he had his students practice lowering themselves out of the windows with ropes while he timed the whole procedure with a stopwatch. If they managed to beat the previous best time they would be allowed to play The Whole Sea is Raging in their next lesson. If they deserved to.

Johan quickly got back in line. He was lucky because, a few seconds later, Mr. Avila came out of the front entrance and walked briskly to the gym. He was looking straight ahead without giving the class so much as a look. When he was halfway across the school yard he made a follow me! gesture with one hand without breaking his stride, without a backward glance.

The line started moving, all the while trying to retain the arm's length distance between people. Tomas, who was behind Oskar, stepped on Os-kar's heel so the shoe slid off in the back. Oskar kept on walking.