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

There wasn't much traffic at this time of day, particularly not on a Sunday morning. The subway had stopped running for the night and the occasional drivers who passed by were either longing for their beds or to return to their beds.

Benny Molin was an exception. Sure, he was looking forward to his bed at home but he was probably too happy to be able to sleep.

Eight times now he had met with various women through the personal ads, but Betty, whom he had arranged to meet on Saturday night was the first… that he had clicked with.

This was going to be something. Both of them knew it.

They had doubled over with laughter at how ridiculous it sounded: "Benny and Betty." Like a comedic duo, but what can you do? And if they had kids, what would they call them? Lenny and Netty?

Yes, they had had a lot of fun together. They had sat in her place in Kungsholmen, talking about their worlds, trying to fit their puzzle pieces together, with pretty good results. Toward morning there were sort of only two alternatives for what to do next.

And Benny had chosen what he thought was the right one, even though it was hard. He had said good-bye, with the promise of meeting up again Sunday night, then got into his car and driven home to Bromma while he sang "Can't Help Falling in Love" out loud.

So Benny was not someone who had any energy to spare for complaining about, or even noticing, the miserable state of the Traneberg Bridge this Sunday morning. For him it was simply the bridge to paradise, to love.

He had just arrived at the end of the bridge on the Traneberg side and started in on the refrain for perhaps the tenth time when a blue figure turned up in the beam of his headlights, in the middle of the road.

He had time to think: Don't jump on the brakes! before he took his foot off the accelerator and jerked the steering wheel to the side, swerving to the left when there were only about five meters between him and the person. He caught a glimpse of a blue coat and a pair of white legs before the corner of the car banged into the concrete barrier between the lanes.

The scraping sound was so loud it deafened him as the car was pressed up against and forced down along the barrier. The side view mirror was torn off and fluttered away, and the car door on his side was pushed in until it touched his hip before the car was flung out into the middle of the road again.

He tried to ward it off, but the car skidded over to the other side and hit the railing of the pedestrian walkway. The other side view mirror was knocked off and flew away over the bridge railing, reflecting the lights of the bridge up into the sky. He braked carefully and the next skid was less violent; the car only nudged up against the concrete barrier.

After approximately a hundred meters he managed to stop the car. He exhaled, sat still with his hands in his lap and the engine running. He had a bloody taste in his mouth, had bitten his lip.

What kind of lunatic was that back there?

He looked up into the rearview mirror and in the yellowish light of the street lamps he could see the person stagger on down in the middle of the lane as if nothing had happened. That made him angry. A nutcase, sure, but there were limits, damn it.

He tried to open the door on his side, but couldn't. The lock must have gotten smashed in. He took off his seat belt and crawled over onto the passenger side. Before he wriggled out of the car he turned on the hazard lights. He stood next to the car, his arms folded, waiting.

Saw that the person making his way across the bridge was dressed in some kind of hospital gown and nothing more. Bare feet, bare legs. Would have to see if it was possible to talk any sense into him.

Him?

The figure got closer. The slush splashed up around the bare feet; he walked as if he had a thread attached to his chest, inexorably pulling him along. Benny took a step toward him and stopped. The person was maybe ten meters away now and Benny could clearly see his… face.

Benny gasped, and steadied himself against the car. Then he quickly wriggled back into it through the passenger side, put the car in first gear and drove away so fast the slush sprayed out from his back wheels and probably hit… that thing on the road.

Once he was back in his apartment, he poured himself a good-sized whisky, drank about half. Then he called the police. Told them what he had seen, what had happened. When he had drunk the last of the whisky and started to lean towards hitting the hay after all, the mobilization was in full swing.

They were searching all of Judarn forest. Five police dogs, twenty officers. Even one helicopter, unusual for this type of search.

One wounded, dazed man. A single canine unit should have been able to track him down.

But the stakes were raised in part because of the high media profile of the case (two officers had been assigned simply to handle all the reporters crowding around Weibull's nursery next to the Akeshov subway station) and they wanted to demonstrate that the police were putting in the maximum effort even on a Sunday morning.

And in part it was because they had found Benke Edwards.

That is to say, they assumed it was Benke Edwards, since they had found a wedding band with the name Gunilla engraved on it.

Gunilla was Benke's wife; his coworkers knew that. No one could bring themselves to call her. Tell her that he was dead, but that they still could not be completely sure it was him. Ask her if she knew of any defining bodily characteristics on, say… the lower half of his body?

The pathologist who had arrived at seven o'clock in the morning in order to work on the body of the ritual killer found himself with a new case. If he had been presented with Benke Edwards' remains without knowing any of the circumstances he would have guessed that the body had lain outside for one or two days in severe cold, during which time it would appear the body had been mutilated by rats, foxes, perhaps wolverines and bears-if "mutilate" is even the appropriate word to use in the context of animals. At any rate, larger predators could have torn off pieces of flesh in this way, and rodents could have been responsible for damage to protrusions such as nose, ears, and fingers.

The pathologist's hasty, preliminary assessment that went out to the

police was the other reason for the considerable mobilization on their part. The offender was determined to be extremely violent, in official terms.

Completely fucking crazy, in other words.

That the man was still alive was nothing short of a miracle. Not a miracle of the kind the Vatican would want to wave their incense at, but a miracle nonetheless. He had been a vegetable before the fall from the tenth story. Now he was up and walking and worse.

But he couldn't exactly be in great shape. The weather was a little milder now, of course, but it was only a few degrees above freezing and the man was dressed in a hospital gown. He had no accomplices as far as the police knew, and it was simply not possible for him to remain hidden in the forest for more than a few hours.

The telephone call from Benny Molin had come in almost an hour after he had seen the man on the Traneberg Bridge. But a few minutes later they had received an additional call from an older woman.

She had been out for a morning walk with her dog when she had spotted a man in a hospital gown in the vicinity of the Akeshov stables where the King's sheep were housed in the winter. She had immediately gone home and called the police, thinking the sheep were potentially in danger.

Ten minutes later the first patrol car had turned up and the first thing the officers did was check the stables, nervous, their guns out and ready.

The sheep had become restless and before the officers were done combing the building the whole place was a seething mass of anxious, woolly bodies, loud bleating, and an inhuman screeching that drew even more police.