Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

‘What the hell just happened?’ he gasps.

He feels his nose and bleeding forehead with trembling hands.

‘Dad?’ he says, noticing that his foot is stuck in the door.

His ankle feels broken, but strangely enough it doesn’t hurt. He pulls, and realises he hasn’t got any feeling in his toes.

Confused, he looks up at the ceiling and sees the spiral of flypaper swaying above him. He hears thuds from inside the kitchen and pushes himself up on to his elbows, but can’t see anything through the crack in the door.

He fumbles and manages to pull his torch from his belt, and points it into the kitchen. His dad is lying on the floor with his mouth open, staring at him.

Suddenly his head rolls over a few times when the woman shoves it aside with her foot. It rolls and spins on the bloody linoleum floor.

George is seized by utter panic, lets out a loud scream, drops the torch and tries to move backwards, kicking at the door with his free foot, but it’s like he’s caught in a man-trap. He fumbles for his pistol but can’t manage to pull it out. He needs to take his glove off first, and puts his hand to his mouth to use his teeth, when the door suddenly opens and he’s free.

Panting, he shuffles backwards and hits his back against a small desk, and a bowl of coins falls to the floor, scattering money around him.

He manages to get his glove off and pulls his pistol from its holster as the woman in the yellow raincoat comes out into the hall. She raises the axe above her head, striking the lamp and bringing the coil of flypaper down. The heavy blade hits his chest with terrible force, cutting straight through the thin protective vest and his ribcage, down into his heart.

Erik stretches out through the mesh of the cage to reach Jackie, but she’s too far away from him, his fingertips flail at the air behind her back. Without knowing if she can hear him, he keeps talking to her the whole time, saying she needs to get up and make her way out through the tunnel.

Nelly has already been gone several minutes.

At first he didn’t even know if Jackie was alive, she just lay slumped on the floor without moving, but when he lay on the floor against the mesh of the cage he could hear her breathing.

‘Jackie?’ he says again.

He knows she’d be dead now if the doorbell hadn’t rung. In spite of the silence, he knows it’s the police, it must be the police, they did hear his phone call.

As long as they realise how serious it is, he thinks. As long as they’ve sent enough officers.

He picks the stick up from the ground, reaches out with it and gently pokes Jackie with the blunt end.

‘Jackie?’

She slowly moves one leg, turns her face and coughs weakly.

Once again Erik explains what’s happened, what Nelly has done, how he got the blame, but that Joona knows the truth.

She lifts one hand tiredly to the superficial wound on her neck.

Erik has no idea how much she understands of what he’s saying, but he repeats that she needs to get away, that she needs to hurry.

‘You need to fight now, you won’t survive otherwise,’ he says.

She doesn’t have long, he’s been listening for pistol shots, for voices, but can’t hear anything.

‘Jackie, try to stand up now,’ he pleads.

Finally she sits up. Blood is running from her eyebrow, down over her cheek, and she’s gasping for breath.

‘Can you hear me?’ he says again. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying? You need to run, Jackie. Can you stand up?’

He says nothing about calling the police, doesn’t want to give her false hope. She needs to get away, because he doesn’t trust the police not to fall for Nelly’s lies.

Jackie stands up, groans and spits blood on the floor. She lurches forward but stays on her feet.

‘You need to get away from here before she comes back,’ he repeats.

Jackie stumbles towards his voice, breathing heavily, with her arms outstretched.

‘Go in the other direction,’ he says. ‘You have to get out of the ruins and away across the fields.’

She makes her way carefully past the tins on the floor and reaches the cage with her hands.

‘I’m locked in a cage,’ he says.

‘Everyone’s saying you killed four women,’ she whispers.

‘It was Nelly... You don’t have to believe me, as long as you get away from here...’

‘I knew you didn’t do it,’ she says.

He strokes the fingers clinging to the cage, she leans forward and rests her forehead on the rusty metal.

‘You’ve got to keep going a bit longer,’ he says, stroking her cheek. ‘Turn round, so that I can take a look. You’ve been wounded... Jackie, you’re seriously hurt, you need to get to a hospital. Hurry up and—’

‘Maddy’s still at home,’ she whimpers. ‘Thank God, she was hiding in her wardrobe when—’

‘She’ll be fine,’ Erik says. ‘She’ll be fine.’

‘I don’t understand any of this,’ Jackie whispers, and her face crumples with anxiety.

‘How does it feel when you breathe?’ Erik asks. ‘Try to cough... You’ll be OK, your pleural cavity is probably damaged, but you were lucky, Jackie. Listen, there’s a little torch on the table, you can feel its warmth, you’ll know where it is.’

She wipes her mouth, nods and tries to pull herself together.

‘Can you fetch it? There’s nothing between you and—’

He breaks off when he hears a loud thud from upstairs. It’s the kitchen door slamming shut, thanks to the powerful spring.

‘What was that?’ she whispers, her lips quivering.

‘Hurry up, you can walk straight towards the torch, there’s nothing on the floor between you and the table.’

She turns and walks towards the tiny source of heat, feels across the tabletop, picks up the torch and returns to Erik with it.

‘Do you know where the opening to the tunnel is?’ he asks.

‘More or less,’ she whispers.

‘It’s fairly narrow, it’s a small brick opening, no door,’ he explains as he hears someone scream up above. ‘You need to run away, get as far away as you possibly can... Take this stick, you can use it to feel your way.’

She looks as if she’s about to break down. Her face is drained of colour, her lips already white with the shock to her circulation.

‘Erik, it won’t work—’

‘Nelly will kill you when she comes back... Listen, there’s a passageway... I don’t know what it looks like further along, it could be blocked, but you have to try to get out... the whole area is surrounded by ruins, and you’ll... you’ll be able to—’

‘I can’t,’ she whimpers, twisting her head back and forth in an anxious, repetitive pattern.

‘Please, just listen to me... When you reach the cellar with no ceiling, you’ll have to climb up to reach ground level...’

‘What are you going to do?’ she whispers.

‘I can’t get out, Nelly’s got the key round her neck.’

‘But... how am I going to find my way?’

‘In the darkness, the blind man is king,’ he says simply.

Her faces trembles as she turns round and starts to walk, feeling the ground in front of her with the stick.

He holds the torch up and tries to guide her. The angled light makes the shadows stretch and shrink.

‘There’s a load of roof tiles on the floor ahead of you,’ he says. ‘Move a little to your right and you’ll be heading straight for the opening.’

Then the pair of them hear the bar being lifted from the cellar door, as it jolts and scrapes back against the wall.

‘Hold your hand out now,’ Erik whispers. ‘You’ll be able to feel the wall on your left... just follow that...’

Jackie walks into something that clatters, a tin of paint rolls away, and Erik sees her shrink with fear.