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

He tried to think, forced himself to create a sphere of light inside the black, whirling insanity. And envisioned himself in the pool of light, holding the stick in his hand.

Yes.

Eli squeezed the handle of the broom, locking his fingers around the delicate savior while Hakan kept pushing, poking, trying to enter.

The point. The point has to be on the right side.

He turned his head to the stick and saw it was lying the right way.

A chance.

Everything went quiet inside Eli's head as he visualized what he had to do. Then he did it. In one movement he raised the stick from its prone position and thrust it up toward Hakan's face with all his might.

His underarm brushed against the side of his thigh and the stick formed a straight line that… stopped a few centimeters from Hakan's face when Eli, because of his position, could not manage to bring his arm further.

He had failed.

For one second Eli had time to think that maybe he possessed the ability to will his body to die. If he turned off all…

Then Hakan thrust himself forward and at the same time dropped his head down. With the soft sound of a wooden spoon pushed down into thick porridge, the sharp end of the stick went into his eye.

Hakan did not scream. Perhaps he did not even feel it. Maybe it was simply surprise over not being able to see that made him loosen his grip around Eli's ankles. Without feeling anything from his damaged legs, Eli wriggled his feet free and kicked straight out at Hakan's chest.

The soles of his feet met skin with a moist smacking sound and Hakan fell back. Eli pulled his legs under him and with a wave of cold pain from his back he got to his knees. Hakan had not fallen, only been folded up, and like an electric doll in a ghost house he now straightened up again.

They faced each other, on their knees.

The stick in Hakan's eye was pulled downward in stages, inching down with the regularity of a second hand and then fell out, drummed out a few beats on the floor and then it lay still. A translucent fluid started to seep out of the hole where it had been, a teary flood.

Neither of them moved.

The fluid from Hakan's eye trickled down onto his naked thighs.

Eli concentrated all of his strength into his right arm, made a list. When Hakan's shoulder jerked to life and his body made an effort to stretch out to Eli, to pick up where it had left off, Eli hit his right hand straight into the left side of Hakan's chest.

The ribs cracked and the skin was stretched to its limit for a moment, then gave way, broke.

Hakan's head bent down to see what it couldn't see as Eli fumbled inside his chest cavity and found his heart. A cold, soft lump. Unmoving.

It's not alive. But it has to…

Eli squeezed the heart until it went to pieces. It gave way too easily, allowed itself to be broken like a dead jellyfish.

Hakan only reacted as if a particularly persistent fly had settled on his skin. He moved his arm up to remove the irritating element and before he had time to grip Eli's wrist Eli pulled his hand out with remnants of the heart quivering in the clenched fist.

Have to get away from here.

Eli wanted to get up but his legs would not obey him. Hakan was groping blindly with his arms in front of him, trying to find him. Eli rolled over on his stomach and started to crawl out of the room, his knees whispering on the concrete. Hakan turned his head in the direction of the noise, put his arms out, and got a hold of the dress, managed to tear off one sleeve before Eli reached the door, got up on his knees again.

Hakan stood up.

Eli had a few seconds of reprieve before Hakan found his way to the door. He tried to order his broken joints to heal enough to enable him to stand, but when Hakan reached the door his legs were only strong enough to allow Eli to stand braced against the wall.

Splinters from the rough planks punctured the tops of his fingers as he scratched with his hand along them in order not to fall. And he knew now. That without a heart, blind, Hakan would pursue him until… until…

Must… destroy… must… destroy him.

A black line.

A vertical, black line in front of his eyes. It had not been there before. Eli knew what to do.

"Aaaaa…"

Hakan's hand around one edge of the door frame and then the body that came staggering out of the storage unit, his hands groping the air in front of him. Eli pressed his back into the wall, waiting for the right moment.

Hakan came out, a few tentative steps, then stopped exactly in front of Eli. Listened, sniffed.

Eli leaned forward so that his hands were the same height as Hakan's shoulder. Then he braced himself against the wall, rushed forward, and put everything into throwing Hakan off balance.

He succeeded.

Hakan took a mincing step to the side and fell against the door to the shelter. The crack in the door that Eli had seen as a black line widened as the door opened inwards and Hakan tumbled into the darkness, his arms waving for help, while Eli started to fall headlong into the corridor, managed to stop himself before the floor met his face, then crawled to the door, and grabbed the lower of the two locking wheels.

Hakan lay still on the floor inside as Eli pulled the door shut and turned the wheel, locked it. Then he crawled out to the cellar office, got the stick, and threaded it in between the locking wheels so that it could not be unlocked from the inside.

Eli continued to concentrate his energy on healing his body and started to crawl out of the basement. A rivulet of blood snaked out of his ear. At the door out of the cellar he was healed enough to be able to stand up. He pushed the door open and managed to go up the stairs on wobbly legs.

rest rest rest

He pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and stepped out into the hall lamp. He was beaten, humiliated, and the sunrise threatened just under the horizon.

rest rest rest

But he had to… exterminate. And there was only one way he knew to do that. Fire. Staggering, he made his way across the yard, heading to the only place he knew where he could find it.

7:34, Monday morning, Blackeberg:

The burglar alarm at the ICA grocery store on Arvid Morne's Way is set off. The police arrive at the scene eleven minutes later and find the store window broken. The store owner, who lives next door, is there. He says that from his window he saw a very young dark-haired person leave the place running. But upon searching the store nothing is found to be stolen.

7:36, Sunrise.

The hospital blinds were much better, darker, than her own. There was only one place, where the blinds were damaged, where they let in a thin ray of morning light that made a dust-gray slash in the dark ceiling.

Virginia lay outstretched, stiff, in her bed, staring at the gray slice of light that trembled when a gust of wind made the window vibrate. Reflected, weak light. No more than a mild irritation, a grain of sleep in her eye.

Lacke snuffled and wheezed in the bed next to her. They had stayed awake for a long time, talking. Memories, mostly. Close to four in the morning Lacke had finally fallen asleep, with his hand still in hers.

She had had to disentangle her hand from his an hour later when a nurse had come in to check her blood pressure, found it satisfactory, and left them with a glance, actually a tender look at Lacke. Virginia had heard how Lacke pleaded to stay, the reasons he had given. Thus the tender glance, she supposed.

Now Virginia lay with her hands strapped at her sides, fighting her body's desire to… turn off. Fall asleep was not an adequate expression for it. As soon as she did not consciously concentrate on her breathing, it stopped. But she needed to stay awake.