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

During their search of the sheep pen, a number of sheep escaped into the walkway in the middle, and when the police finally determined that the place was clean and left the building-their ears ringing-a ram managed to slip out the front door. An older officer with farmers in the family threw himself over the ram and grabbed him by his horns, dragging him back to the pen.

It was only after he had finished coaxing the animal back that he realized some of the bright flashes he had seen out of the corner of his eye during his quick action had been photoflashes. He had made the erroneous assumption that the matter was too serious for the press to want to

use such a picture. Shortly thereafter, however, they managed to erect a base for the media, outside the perimeter of the search area.

It was now half past seven in the morning and dawn was creeping in under dripping trees. The search for the lone lunatic was well-organized and in full swing. The police felt assured of a resolution before lunchtime.

Another couple of hours would go by with negative results from the infrared camera of the helicopter, and from the secretions-sensitive noses of the dogs, before the speculation started that the man was no longer alive. That they were searching for a corpse.

When the first pale dawn light trickled in through the tiny gaps in the blinds and struck Virginia's palm like a burning hot light bulb, she only wanted one thing: to die. Even so she instinctively pulled her hand away and crawled further back into the room.

Her skin was cut in more than thirty places. There was blood all over the apartment.

Several times during the night she had sliced her arteries in order to drink but had not had time to suck or lick everything that ran out. It had landed on the floor, on the table, chairs. The large rug in the living room looked like someone had butchered a deer on it.

The degree of satisfaction and relief lessened each time she opened a new wound, each time she drank a mouthful of her own rapidly thinning blood. Towards morning she was a whimpering mass of abstinence and anguish. Anguish because she knew what had to be done if she was to live.

The realization had come to her gradually, grown to certainty. Another person's blood would make her… healthy. And she couldn't manage to take her own life. Probably it was not even possible; the cuts she made in her skin with the fruit knife healed with unnatural swiftness. However hard and deep she cut, the bleeding stopped within a minute. After an hour the scar tissue was already visible.

And anyway…

She had sensed something.

It was toward morning, when she was sitting on a kitchen chair and sucking blood from a cut in the crook of her arm-the second one in the same spot-that she was suddenly pulled into the depths of her body and caught sight of it.

The infection.

She didn't really see it, of course, but suddenly she had an ever-increasing perception of what it was. It was like being pregnant and getting an ultrasound, looking at the screen showing you how your belly was filled with, in this case, not a child but a large, writhing snake. That this was what you were carrying.

Because what she had realized at that moment was that the infection had its own life, its own force, completely independent of her body. That the infection would live on even if she did not. The mother-to-be could die of shock at the ultrasound but no one would notice anything because the snake would take control of the body instead.

Suicide would make no difference.

The only thing the infection seemed to fear was sunlight. The pale light on her hand had hurt more that the deepest cut.

For a long time she sat curled up in a corner of the living room, watching how the dawn light through the slats of the blinds laid a grate over the soiled rug. Thought about her grandson Ted. How he had crawled over to that place where the afternoon sun shone in onto the floor and fallen asleep in the pool of sunlight with his thumb in his mouth.

The naked, soft skin, the tender skin that you would only have to…

What am I thinking!

Virginia flinched, staring vacantly into space. She had seen Ted, and she had imagined that she…

No!

She hit herself in the head. Hit and hit until the picture was crushed. But she would never see him again. Could never see anyone she loved ever again.

I am never again to see anyone I love.

Virginia forced her body to straighten up, crawled slowly over to the sun-grate. The infection protested and wanted to pull her back, but she was stronger, still had control over her own body. The light stung her eyes, the bars of the grate burned her corneas like glowing-hot steel wire.

Burn! Burn up!

Her right arm was covered in scars, dried blood. She stretched it into the light.

She could not have imagined it.

What the light had done to her on Saturday was a caress. Now a blowtorch started up, directed at her skin. After one second the skin was chalk-white. After two seconds it started to smoke. After three seconds a blister formed, blackened, and burst with a hiss. The fourth second she pulled her arm back and crawled sobbing into the bedroom.

The stench of burnt flesh poisoned the air. She didn't dare look at her arm as she slithered up into her bed.

Rest.

But the bed…

Even with the blinds drawn there was too much light in the bedroom. Even if she pulled the covers over her she felt too exposed on the bed. Her ears perceived every smallest morning noise coming from the house around her, and every noise was a potential threat. Someone walked over a floor above her. She flinched, turned her head in the direction of the sound, listened. A drawer was pulled out, the clinking of metal one floor up.

Coffee spoons.

She knew from the delicateness of the sound that it was… coffee spoons. Saw before her the velvet-clad case with silver coffee spoons that had been her grandmother's and that she had been given when her mother moved into the nursing home. How she had opened that case, looked at the spoons, and realized that they had never been used.

Virginia thought about that now as she slid down out of bed, pulled the covers off with her, crawled over to the double closet, opened its doors. On the floor of the closet there was an extra duvet and a couple of blankets.

She had felt a kind of sadness, looking at the spoons. Spoons that had been lying in their case for perhaps sixty years without anyone ever picking them up, holding them, using them.

More sounds around her, the building coming to life. She didn't hear them anymore when she pulled out the duvet and the blankets and wrapped them around her, crawled into the closet and shut the doors. It was pitch black in there. She pulled the duvet and blankets over her head, curling up like a caterpillar in a double cocoon.

Never ever.

On parade, standing at attention in their velvet bed, waiting. Fragile little coffee spoons of silver. She rolled over with the fabric of the blankets tight over her face.

Who will get them now?

Her daughter. Yes. Lena would get them, and she would use them to feed Ted. Then the spoons would be happy. Ted would eat mashed potatoes from the spoons. That would be good.

She lay completely still, like a stone, calm spreading through her body. She had time to formulate one last thought before she sank into rest. Why isn't it hot?

With the blankets over her face, wrapped in heavy cloth, it should be hot and sweaty around her head. The question floated sleepily around a large black room, finally landing on a very simple answer.

Because I have not been breathing for several minutes.