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

No. The stuff seeping out of the man's neck was not going to coagulate under the compress. It would soak through and then spill onto the floor… and when they opened the door in a few hours…

Shit!

He pulled the key out of the ignition, thrust it angrily into his pocket, got out of the car, and headed back to the hospital.

The living room was not as empty as the hall and the kitchen. Here there was a sofa, an armchair, and a large coffee table with a lot of little things on it. A lone floor lamp sent a soft yellow glow over the table. But that was all. No carpets, no pictures, no TV. Thick blankets had been draped over the windows.

It looks like a prison. A big prison cell.

Oskar whistled, tentatively. Yes. There was an echo, but not too much. Probably because of the blankets. He put his bag down next to the armchair. The click when the bottom of it landed on the hard cork flooring was amplified, sounded desolate.

He had started to look at the things on the table when Eli came out of

the next room, now wearing her too-big checkered shirt. Oskar waved his arm, indicating the living room.

"Are you two moving?"

"No. Why?"

"I was just thinking."

You two?

Why didn't he think of it before? Oskar let his gaze travel over the things on the table. Looked like toys, every last one of them. Old toys.

"That old man who was here before. That wasn't your dad, was it?"

"No."

"Was he also?…"

"No."

Oskar nodded. Looked around the room again. Hard to imagine anyone could live like this. Except if…

"Are you sort of… poor?"

Eli walked over to the table, picked up a box that looked like a black egg, and handed it to Oskar. He leaned over, held it under the lamp in order to see better.

The surface of the egg was rough and when Oskar looked more closely he saw hundreds of complex strands of gold thread. The egg was heavy, as if the whole thing was made of some kind of metal. Oskar turned it this way and that, looked at the gold threads embedded on the egg's surface. Eli stood next to Oskar. He smelled it again… the smell of rust.

"What's it worth, do you think?"

"Don't know. A lot?"

"There are only two of them in the world. If you had both of them you could sell them and buy yourself… a nuclear power plant, maybe."

"Nooo?…"

"Well, I don't know. What does a nuclear power plant cost? Fifty million?"

"I think it would cost… billions."

"Really? In that case I guess you couldn't."

"What would you do with a nuclear power plant?"

Eli laughed.

"Put it between your hands. Like this. Cup them. And then you let it roll back and forth."

Oskar did as Eli said. Rolled the egg gently back and forth in his cupped hands and felt the egg… crack, collapse between his palms. He gasped and removed the upper hand. The egg was now just a heap of hundreds… thousands of tiny slivers.

"Gosh, I'm sorry. I was careful, I-"

"Shhh. It's supposed to be like that. Make sure you don't drop any of it. Pour them out onto this."

Eli pointed to a piece of white paper on the table. Oskar held his breath as he gently let the glittering shards fall out of his hand. The individual pieces were smaller than drops of water and Oskar had to use his other hand to wipe his palm free of every last one.

"But it broke."

"Here. Look."

Eli pulled the lamp closer to the table, concentrated its dim light on the heap of metal slivers. Oskar leaned over and looked. One piece, no bigger than a tick, lay on its own to one side of the stack, and when he looked very closely he could see that it had indentations and notches on a few sides, almost microscopic light bulb-shaped protrusions on the other. He got it.

"It's a puzzle."

"Yes."

"But… can you put it together again?"

"I think so."

"It must take forever."

"Yes."

Oskar looked at more pieces that were spread out next to the pile. They looked to be identical to the first, but when he looked closer he saw there were subtle variations. The notches were not in exactly the same place; the protrusions were at another angle. He also saw a piece was all smooth sided, except for a gold border a hair's width across… A piece of the outside.

He slouched down into the armchair.

"It would drive me crazy."

"Think about the guy who made it."

Eli rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out so she looked like the

dwarf Dopey. Oskar laughed. Ha-ha. When he stopped the sound still vibrated in the walls. Desolate. Eli sat down on the couch and crossed her legs, looking at him with… anticipation. He looked away and looked at the table, and the toys that made a landscape of ruins.

Desolate.

All at once he felt tired in that way again. She wasn't "his girl," couldn't be that. She was… something else. There was a big distance between them that couldn't be… he shut his eyes, leaned back in the armchair, and the black behind his eyelids was the space that separated them.

He dozed off, gliding into a momentary dream.

The space between them was filled with ugly, sticky insects that flew at him and when they got closer he saw they had teeth. He waved his hand to get rid of them, and woke up. Eli was sitting on the couch watching him.

"Oskar. I'm a person, just like you. It's just that I have… a very unusual illness."

Oskar nodded.

A thought wanted to get out. Something. A context. He didn't catch hold of it. Dropped it. But then that other thought came out, the terrible, frightening one. That Eli was just pretending. That there was an ancient person inside of her, watching him, who knew everything, and was smiling at him, smiling in secret.

But that can't he.

In order to have something to do, he dug around in his bag for the Walkman, took out the tape that was in it, read the title KISS: Unmasked, turned it over, KISS: Destroyer, put it back.

I should go home.

Eli leaned forward.

"What's that?"

"This? It's a Walkman."

"Is it for… listening to music?"

"Yes."

She doesn't know anything. She's superintelligent hut she doesn't know anything. What does she do all day? Sleep, of course. Where does she keep the coffin? That's right. She never slept those times she came over. She simply lay there in my bed and waited for the sun to come up. I must begone…

"Can I try it?"

Oskar held it out to her. She took it and looked like she didn't know what to do with it, but then put the headphones on and looked inquiringly at him. Oskar pointed at the buttons.

"Press the one that says 'play'"

Eli read the top of the buttons, selected play. Oskar felt a calm settle over him. This was normal; playing your music for a friend. He wondered what Eli would think of KISS.

She pushed in the button, and even from his armchair Oskar could hear the whispery, noisy jangle of guitar, drums, and vocals. She had ended up in the middle of one of the heavier songs.

Eli's eyes opened wide, she screamed in pain, and Oskar was so shocked he was thrown back in the armchair. It tipped back, almost falling over while he watched Eli tear the headphones off so violently that the cables became detached, threw them down, pressed her hands against her ears, whimpering.

Oskar gaped, staring at the headphones that had hit the wall. He got to his feet, picked them up. Completely destroyed. Both of the cords had been torn out of the earpieces. He put them on the table and sank down into the armchair again.

Eli removed her hands from her ears.

"Sorry, I… it hurt so much."

"Don't worry about it."

"Was it expensive?"

"No."

Eli took down the highest moving box, reached into it, and fished out a couple of banknotes, holding them out to Oskar.