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

He had them sitting on pins and needles.

Tommy's mother was dating Staffan, who worked in the Vallingby police department. Tommy didn't like Staffan very much, quite the opposite, in fact. A know-it-all, oily-voiced kind of guy. And religious. But from his mom Tommy got to hear this and that. Things Staffan wasn't really allowed to tell his mom and things that his mom wasn't really allowed to tell Tommy, but…

That was how, for example, he had heard about the state of the police investigation into the radio store break-in at Islandstorget. The break-in that he, Robban, and Lasse had been responsible for.

No trace of the perpetrators. Those were his mom's exact words: "No trace of the perpetrators." Staffan's words. Didn't even have a description of the getaway car.

Tommy and Robban were sixteen years old and in the first year of high school. Lasse was nineteen, something wrong with his head, and he worked at LM Eriksson in Ulvsunda, sorting metal parts. But he had a driver's license. And a white Saab-74. They had used a marker to alter the plates before the break-in. Not that it mattered, since no one had seen the car.

They had stored their bounty in the unused shelter room across from the basement storage area that was their meeting place. They had removed the chain with metal cutters, supplied it with a new lock. Didn't really know what to do with all the stuff since the job itself had been the goal. Lasse had sold a cassette tape to a friend at work for two hundred but that was it.

It was best to lay low with the goods for a while. And not let Lasse handle any selling since he was… a little slow, as his mom put it. But now two weeks had gone by since the caper and the police had something else to occupy them.

Tommy kept turning the pages of the magazine and smiling to himself. Yup, yup. A whole lot of something else to occupy them. Robban was drumming his fingers against his thigh.

"Come on, let's hear it."

Tommy held up the magazine again.

"Kawasaki. Three hundred cubic. Fuel injection and-"

"Get a grip, man. Tell us."

"What… the murder?"

"Yes!"

Tommy bit his lip, pretended to think it over.

"How did it happen?"

Lasse leaned his tall body forward, folding in the middle like a jackknife.

"Uh. Let's hear it."

Tommy put the magazine away and met his gaze.

"Sure you want to hear it? It's pretty scary."

"Phft. So what."

Lasse looked all tough, but Tommy saw a flash of concern in his eyes. You only had to make an ugly face, talk in a funny voice, and not agree to cut it out to make Lasse really scared. One time Tommy and Robban had used Tommy's mom's makeup to make themselves look like zombies, unscrewed the light bulb, and waited for Lasse. It had ended with Lasse shitting himself and giving Robban a black eye under his dark blue eye shadow. After that they had been more careful about scaring Lasse.

Now Lasse was sitting up in his seat and crossing his arms, as if to show he was ready to hear anything.

"OK, then. So… this wasn't your usual murder, you understand. They found the guy… strung up in a tree."

"What do you mean? Was he hanged?" Robban asked.

"Yeah, hanging. But not by his neck. By his feet. So he was hanging upside down in the tree. By his feet."

"What the fuck-you don't die from that."

Tommy looked long at Robban as if he had made an interesting point, then he continued.

"No, you're right. You don't. But his neck had been cut open. And that'll kill you. The whole neck, sliced open. Like a… melon." He pulled a finger across his neck to show the path of the knife.

Lasse's hand went up to his neck as if to protect it. He shook his head slowly. "But why was he hanging like that?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"I don't know."

Tommy pinched his bottom lip and made a thoughtful face.

"Now I'll tell you the strange part. First you slice someone's neck open so they die. You'd expect to see a lot of blood, right?" Lasse and Robban both nodded. Tommy paused for a while in the midst of their expectation before he dropped the bomb.

"But the ground underneath… w'here the guy was hanging. There was almost no blood at all. Just a few drops. And he must have gushed out several liters, hanging up like that."

The basement room was quiet. Lasse and Robban stared straight ahead with a vacant look until Robban sat up and said, "I know. He was murdered somewhere else and then brought there."

"Mmmm. But in that case why did the killer bother to hang him up? If you've killed someone you normally want to get rid of the body."

"He could be… sick in the head."

"Yeah, maybe. But I think it's something else. Have you ever seen a butcher's shop? What they do with pigs? Before they butcher them they drain all the blood. And do you know how they do that? The hang them upside down. From a hook. And cut their throats."

"So you mean… what, the guy… that he was planning to butcher him?"

"Aaaah?" Lasse looked uncertainly from Tommy to Robban to Tommy again to see if they were pulling his leg. He found no indication of this, and said,

"They do that? With pigs?"

"Yeah, what did you think?"

"That it was some kind of machine."

"And that would be better, in your opinion?"

"No, but… Are they alive then? When they're hanging up like that?"

"Yeah, they're alive. And kicking around, screaming."

Tommy made a noise like a stuck pig, and Lasse sank back into the couch staring at his knees. Robban got up, walked a few steps back and forth, and sat down again.

"But it doesn't make sense. If the murderer was going to butcher him there would be blood everywhere."

"You're the one who said he was going to butcher him. I don't think so.

"Oh. And what do you think, then?"

"I think he was after the blood. That's why he killed the guy, in order to get the blood. I think he took it with him."

Robban nodded slowly, picked away at the scab of a large pimple in the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, but why? To drink it, or why?"

"Maybe. For example."

Tommy and Robban sank into their respective inner reenactments of the killing and what had happened thereafter. After a while Lasse raised his head and looked at them. He had tears in his eyes.

"Do they die fast, the pigs?"

Tommy met his gaze with equal seriousness.

"No, they don't."

I'm going out for a while."

"No."

"Just out into the courtyard."

"And nowhere else, do you hear?"

"Sure, sure."

"Do you want me to call for you when…"

"No, I'll be back in time. I have a watch. Don't call for me."

Oskar put on his jacket, his hat. He paused as he was putting his boot on. Went quietly back to his room and took out the knife, tucked it inside his jacket. Laced up the boots. He heard his mom's voice again from the living room.

"It's cold out there."

"I've got my hat."

"On your head?"

"No, on my feet."

"This is no joking matter, Oskar, you know how it is…"

"See you in a while."

"… your ears."

He walked out, looked down at his watch. A quarter past seven. Forty-five minutes until the program started. Tommy and the others were probably down in their basement headquarters but he didn't dare go down there. Tommy was alright, but the others… They could get strange ideas, especially if they had been sniffing.

So he went down to the playground in the middle of the yard. Two big trees, sometimes used as a soccer goal, a play structure with a slide, a sandbox, and a swing set consisting of three tire-swings suspended from chains. He sat down in one of the tire-swings and rocked gently to and fro.

He liked this place at night. Hundreds of lighted windows all around him on four sides, himself sitting in the dark. Safe and alone at the same time. He pulled the knife out of the holster. The blade was so shiny he could see windows reflected in it. The moon.