Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

The air fills with dust and plaster.

Nelly tries to yank the axe free, but Joona hits her from below across the face with the butt of his pistol.

Her head flies back and saliva sprays from her mouth. She lands crookedly on her back and the floor seems to rock beneath her as black smoke billows from the gaps between the floorboards.

Joona stumbles backwards from the force of his own blow, and knocks over a chair holding some plastic hangers.

Nelly sits up and is suddenly beside Madeleine. Joona can’t understand how it happened in less than a second.

The bed has moved.

Then he realises that he’s been looking at a large mirror. The reflection made him think that Maddy was in the middle of the room, at a safe distance.

The fire crackles and hisses as it absorbs oxygen.

Holding his pistol by his side, Joona tries to get a grip on the room again. Large fragments of mirrored glass are leaning against the walls and furniture, throwing the perspective and making the room look very different.

Nelly’s nose is bleeding, she’s pulled the girl towards her and is clutching her tight. Smoke is swirling around them and Joona can’t see if she’s armed.

‘Let the girl go,’ Joona calls, moving cautiously closer.

Above the closed door to his left oily black smoke is filtering into the room. Pictures of Erik on the floor are curling up in the heat from below.

‘Will you let the girl go?’ Joona repeats.

‘Yes,’ she replies softly, but carries on holding her in her arms.

Madeleine opens her tired eyes and Nelly kisses her on the head.

‘Nelly, we have to get out... all of us. Do you understand?’

She nods weakly and looks into his eyes.

The door ahead of Joona flares up in a bright blue glow, and is suddenly surrounded by billowing flames that lap at the ceiling, leaving black marks behind them. The room beneath them is roaring and the entire house is creaking, as if great rocks were rubbing against each other.

‘Can you help me?’ she asks, without taking her eyes off him.

‘Yes, I can,’ he replies, trying to see what she’s hiding by her hip.

She smiles at him oddly, almost devotedly, as if she were suddenly full of reassuring certainty.

Sparks and sooty smuts are drifting upwards on the hot-air currents and the cooler air is being sucked down towards the floor, closer to the fire. The dirty curtains in front of the window flare up as the flames coil around the fabric.

‘What does the fire say?’ she mutters, getting to her feet.

With unthinking harshness she pulls Madeleine up from the floor by her hair. The girl is frightened, there are tears running down her cheeks.

‘Nelly,’ Joona says again. ‘We have to get out. I’ll help you, but I—’

With a crash a large panel of the wall to the next room collapses on to the floor between them, plasterboard, torn wallpaper and wooden laths, all enveloped in black smoke. Tiny glowing sparks flicker in the grey fog above their heads.

‘But I won’t let you hurt the girl,’ he finishes his sentence.

In one of the mirrors Joona sees that Nelly has pulled out a knife. She’s holding Madeleine by the hair with her other hand, pulling it so hard that the girl is having to stand on tiptoe.

The floor is vibrating beneath their feet.

Heat is flooding in from the side now, and the collapsed door frame catches fire. Black smoke fills the room and the flames climb greedily towards the ceiling.

‘Drop the knife — you don’t have to do this,’ Joona cries, aiming his pistol towards the shape behind the flames.

He tries to move sideways, but can only just make out the yellow oilskin through the smoke and fire.

‘It’s never enough,’ a very high child’s voice says.

Joona’s thoughts switch in a fraction of a second. At first he thinks it’s Madeleine speaking, then the realisation that her mouth is taped shut makes him squeeze the trigger of his pistol instead.

He fires through the flames three times.

The bullets hit Nelly in the middle of her chest, and in the mirror off to one side behind her Joona sees blood spurt out between her shoulder blades. The large mirror collapses beneath her and shatters on the floor.

Madeleine is standing perfectly still, with her hand on the wound to her neck. Blood is running between her fingers, but she’s alive.

Nelly’s high-pitched voice has been a foreboding of death every time.

Joona rushes over to the girl, kicks the knife from Nelly’s hand even though he knows she’s dead, picks Madeleine up and backs away through the smoke.

Nelly is lying on her back among the fragments of broken mirror, her mouth open. She’s lost one of her boots and her foot is twitching in her filthy nylon stocking.

A plastic bottle topples over and paraffin splashes out across the floorboards, there’s a hiss and then the fire leaps up through the floor.

They’re hit by a wave of heat. Joona stumbles backwards with the girl, just making it through the doorway as the floor of the bedroom gives way under Nelly’s weight.

She’s sucked down and vanishes into a shaft of raging flame.

Joona’s trouser leg catches fire as he shuffles backwards with the girl in his arms.

The flames are reaching up with a howl all the way from the cellar, striking the bedroom ceiling. Burning pieces of the lamp fall in a cloud of swirling sparks. The windowsill is ablaze and the glass shatters with a bang.

Joona pulls Madeleine with him further into the girl’s bedroom. The walls covered with pictures of Erik are on fire.

‘I’m going to take this off,’ Joona says, and pulls the tape from her mouth. ‘Did that hurt?’

‘No,’ she whispers.

A tall cupboard collapses through the floor of the bedroom and disappears into the shrieking inferno.

‘Let’s try to get out,’ he says, wrapping his leather jacket around her. ‘The smoke’s dangerous, so I want you to breathe through the lining. Can you do that?’

She nods, and he picks her up and starts to carry her down the stairs. The glow from the fire is flickering across the walls. Sparks are drifting up between the steps. From somewhere deep in the basement there’s a screech of twisting metal.

The fire is climbing the wall then pulling back, leaving sooty traces across the wallpaper.

Joona breathes hot air into his lungs and begins to cough.

There’s a crash in the room beneath them as the heat blows out all the windows at the same time. Glass rains down onto the floor and air streams in, making the flames leap up towards the ceiling with a roar.

The burning lampshade spins on its cable.

The girl coughs and Joona shouts to her to keep breathing through the lining of his jacket.

In the living room below the bedroom the walls are burning from floor to ceiling. The heat forces him towards the television room. Parts of the ceiling are collapsing and the girl screams as burning dust rains down on them.

Joona coughs again and puts his hand down on the hot floor to steady himself. His lungs are burning, and smoke-poisoning is making him dizzy and tired. He knows he doesn’t have many seconds left, so holds his breath and gets to his feet again. With the girl in his arms he takes a few faltering steps forward, then carries on through the thick smoke in the next room.

His eyes are streaming and he’s having trouble seeing. The sofa catches alight and sparks swirl up into his face on the hot wind.

There’s a thunderous roar behind their backs, like a lashing sail, and the fire throws itself at them.

He steps over a smoking bundle of carpets and shoves the door open.

The kitchen is ablaze, and burning sections of the ceiling are crashing down. An explosion sends splinters of glass and fire across the room.