Stieg Larsson - The Girl who played with Fire

She crawled from the grave with her eyes closed and didn’t stop until her shoulder hit a tree trunk. Slowly she turned her body so that she had the tree to lean on and wiped the dirt from her eyes with the back of her hand before she opened them. It was pitch-black around her and the air was icy cold. She was sweating. She felt a dull pain in her head, in her left shoulder, and in her hip, but didn’t spend any energy wondering why. She sat still for ten minutes, breathing. Then it came to her that she couldn’t stay there.

She struggled to her feet as the world swirled around her.

She felt instantly sick and bent over to vomit.

Then she started to walk. She had no idea which direction she was going. The pain in her left hip was excruciating and she kept stumbling to her knees. Each time an even greater pain shot through her head.

She didn’t know how long she’d been walking when she saw a light out of the corner of her eye. She changed direction. It was only when she was standing by the woodshed in the yard that she realized she had walked straight back to Zalachenko’s farmhouse. She swayed like a drunk.

Photo cells on the driveway and in the clearing. She had come from the other direction. They would not have noticed her.

She was confused. She knew that she was in no condition to take on Niedermann and Zalachenko. She looked at the white farmhouse.

Click. Wood. Click. Fire.

She fantasized about a gasoline can and a match.

With enormous effort she turned towards the shed and staggered over to a door that was secured with a crossbar. She managed to lift it by putting her right shoulder under it. She heard the noise when the crossbar fell to the ground and hit the side of the door with a bang. She took a step into the darkness and looked around.

It was a woodshed. There was no gasoline.

At the kitchen table Zalachenko looked up when he heard the sound of the falling crossbar. He pulled the curtain aside and peered out into the darkness. It was a few seconds before his eyes adjusted. The wind was blowing harder now. The weather forecast had predicted a stormy weekend. Then he saw that the door to the woodshed was ajar.

He and Niedermann had brought in wood earlier that afternoon. It had been unnecessary, but its purpose was to provide Salander with confirmation that she had come to the right place and to draw her out.

Niedermann had obviously not set the crossbar in place properly. He could be so phenomenally clumsy. Zalachenko glanced towards the door of the living room, where Niedermann had dozed off on the sofa. He thought of waking him, but decided not to.

To find gasoline Salander would have to go to the barn, where the cars were parked. She leaned against a chopping block, breathing hard. She had to rest. She sat there for about a minute before she heard the halting steps of Zalachenko’s prosthesis.

In the dark Blomkvist took a wrong turn at Mellby, north of Sollebrunn. Instead of getting off at Nossebro he had continued north. He realized his mistake just before he got to Trökörna. He stopped and looked at the map.

He cursed and turned back towards Nossebro.

With her right hand Salander grabbed the axe from the chopping block a second before Zalachenko came into the woodshed. She didn’t have the strength to lift it over her shoulder, but she swung it with one hand in an upward arc, putting her weight on her uninjured hip and turning her body in a semicircle.

At the same moment that Zalachenko turned on the light switch, the blade of the axe struck him across the right side of his face, smashing his cheekbone and penetrating into his forehead. He didn’t know what had happened, but in the next second his brain registered the pain and he howled as if possessed.

Niedermann woke with a start and sat up, bewildered. He heard a screaming that at first he couldn’t believe was human. It was coming from outside. Then he realized it was Zalachenko. He got swiftly to his feet.

Salander planted her feet and swung the axe again, but her body was not obeying orders. Her aim was to bury the axe in her father’s head, but she had exhausted all her strength and struck him far from the intended target, just below his kneecap. But the weight of the axe head buried it so deep that it stuck and was pulled out of her hands when Zalachenko pitched forward into the shed. He was screaming incessantly.

She bent again to grasp the axe. The earth shook as lightning flashed inside her head. She had to sit down. She reached out her hand and felt his jacket pockets. He still had the gun, and she focused her gaze as the ground swayed.

A Browning .22 calibre.

A fucking Boy Scout pistol.

That was why she was still alive. If she’d been hit with a bullet from Niedermann’s Sig Sauer or from a revolver with heavier ammo, she would have a gigantic hole through her skull.

At that moment she heard the stumbling approach of Niedermann, who then filled the doorway of the shed. He stopped short and registered the scene before him with uncomprehending and staring eyes. Zalachenko was wailing like a man possessed. His face was a bloody mask. He had an axe wedged in his knee. A bloody and filthy Salander was sitting on the floor next to him. She looked like something from a horror movie, and far too many of those had already played out in Niedermann’s mind.

He, who could feel no pain and was built like a tank, had never liked the dark.

With his own eyes he had seen creatures in the dark, and an indeterminate terror was always lurking, waiting for him. And now the terror had materialized.

The girl on the floor was dead. There was no doubt about that.

He had buried her himself.

Consequently, the creature on the floor was no girl, but a being from the other side of the grave who couldn’t be conquered with human strength or weapons known to man.

The transformation from human being to corpse had already begun. Her skin had changed into a lizardlike armour. Her bared teeth were piercing spikes for ripping chunks of meat from her prey. Her reptilian tongue shot out and licked around her mouth. Her bloody hands had razor-sharp claws four inches long. He could see her eyes glowing. He could hear her growling low and saw her tense her muscles to pounce at his throat.

He saw clearly that she had a tail that curled and ominously began to whip the floor.

Then she raised the pistol and fired. The bullet passed so close to Niedermann’s ear that he could feel the lash of the wind. He saw her mouth spout flames at him.

That was too much.

He stopped thinking.

He spun around and ran for his life. She fired another shot that missed him but that seemed to give him wings. He hopped over a fence and was swallowed up by the darkness of the field as he sprinted towards the main road.

Salander watched in astonishment as he disappeared from view.

She shuffled to the doorway and gazed into the darkness, but she couldn’t see him. After a while Zalachenko stopped screaming, but he lay moaning in shock. She opened the pistol, checked that she had one round left, and considered shooting him in the head. Then she remembered that Niedermann was still there, out in the dark, and she had better save it. She would need more than one .22 bullet for him. But it was better than nothing.

It took her five minutes to put the crossbar in place. She staggered across the yard and into the house and found the telephone on a sideboard in the kitchen. She dialled a number she hadn’t used in two years. The answering machine clicked in.

Hi. This is Mikael Blomkvist. I can’t answer right now, but please leave your name and number and I’ll call you as soon as I can.

Beep.