Daniel Åberg - Virus - Stockholm - S2

Amanda and Dano rush out into the dark passage way – the well-known store logos bring back memories as Amanda and Dano move forward – they are all so terribly familiar, it’s hard to take in the fact that they have the smell of death all around them. Amanda knows that the owner of the shopping centre had started to use scent in some of their temples of merchandise to encourage people to buy more, but she doubts this particular scent is part of their marketing strategy.

Most of the retail units are shutttered up but in some places the doors are still wide open, as if no-one had enough strength to close them properly last Tuesday. When they pass a clothes shop that is still open, the sweet macabre scent immediately intensifies, and Amanda gives Dano a sideways glance. He grimaces but neither of them says anything and they simply keep going. Amanda is almost hoping that the door to the book shop will be pulled shut and locked, even if it makes their job more difficult. She can’t handle seeing any more death.

Iris has stopped in front of the book shop. She leans her head against one of the two glass windows beside the entrance. The entrance itself consists of a lightweight metal roller front. There are no bars on the side windows – they’ll be able to get in. Amanda feels hope rising in her chest.

“They must have a map in there. If not, I can’t handle it any more”, says Iris with a low sigh.

“Now don’t you just lie down and give up – ever”, retorts Amanda, defiantely. She turns to Dano:

“Give me the spider wrench. And you, Iris – move out of the way.”

All of these glass windows in my way, thinks Amanda, as she takes a swing with the wrench and shuts her eyes.

The bang is almost silent, and the wrench practically bounces back. The window is rocking a little but otherwise unperturbed by the hit. She takes another swing, this time using both arms and trying to hit the same spot in the hope that the glass will have weakened, but to no avail. She has a third, fourth and fifth go at it.

“What the fuck”, she mutters, in both frustration and surprise. “There’s not even a real dent. I smashed the newsagent’s window with a briefcase the other day – how is this possible?”

Amanda gives it a whack a few more times with the same result, and then goes over to the glass on the other side of the entrance. The result is the same – not a scratch.

“Fucking arsehole book shop, why don’t you just die!” she shouts, before making one last desperate lunge towards the glass pane. But the only thing that happens is that she loses her grip on the wrench and it bounces across the floor with a metallic clatter. In pure frustration, she marches after it, picks it up and smacks it as hard as she can into the back of a chair by the café in the courtyard outside the book shop. The chair crumples.

Meanwhile, Iris is beginning to hyperventilate with exhaustion. No, thinks Amanda – no, no, no – don’t bail on me now.

But Iris looks so tired. She’s an empty shell that can barely hold herself upright. She’s alive but lifeless.

Amanda looks around. There has to be a way. There has to be. But how?

Iris suddenly stops panting and complete quiet descends on the shopping centre. Then they see her run back to where they came from, without saying a word.

“What the hell…where are you going?” Amanda shouts after her. “Iris – what are you doing?”

But she has already disappeared from view. They hear the sound of crunching glass and some murmured words that Amanda can’t decipher, followed by a shrill but clear:

“Come and help me then!”

Amanda and Dano rush back down the passage way. They hear scraping noises mixed with crunching glass and once they’re inside the store, they see her pushing a low bench filled with shoes.

“Dano, help me clear the floor of furniture and then go back into the shopping centre and push all those weird sofas and flower arrangements we passed out of the way. And you Amanda – get in the car. Don’t you see – the hand grenade practically ripped open the entire entrance wall. We’re going to do a smash and grab!”

Iris forcefully pushes away a rack of summer dresses. It slams into a cash desk and topples over; she repeats the procedure with a rack of t-shirts.

She shoves aside a low table, making it slam into a high set of shelves, inducing a cascade of scented soaps from the force of the movement. She kicks headless mannequins to one side and turns canvas footrests upside down.

It’s good she’s venting all her rage on home decor that no longer serves any purpose, but she would rather direct her pain at the people who deserve it.

Dano tries to remove the one thing that is actually blocking their ability to drive the car in: a part of the frame of the shop’s burglar alarm. He pushes against it and bends it backwards and forwards several times to weaken the metal down by the floor attachment, and eventually it breaks and hits the ground. The floor attachment remains but is so low that the Volvo can easily roll over it without damaging the chassis.

“Okay”, he says to Amanda. “Drive.”

A minute later, Amanda has steered the car through the opening, veered to the left and within a hair’s breadth managed to get past two supporting pillars to reach the sliding doors facing the central courtyard of the shopping centre. Having driven with the lights off, she switches them on once she’s some way in – the headlights cast a ghostly beam of light along the row of shops but it shouldn’t be visible from outside.

Amanda slowly nudges the car forwards so that Iris and Dano can go in front of her and clear the way. They push aside benches, rubbish bins and chairs that are lined up beside the bar of a sushi restaurant in the middle of the corridor. Once they’ve roughly come half way, they pass a small play area, and Iris holds her breath as she topples a big flower arrangement towards it. From what she can see in the dark, there are no signs of any kids bodies being left among the play things.

Arriving at the bookshop , Amanda has to drive past Iris and Dano and then get out and help then clear the chairs and tables by the café outside the entrance. They push everything towards the store on the other side of the central walkway. After quite a bit of manoeuvring as Amanda manages to turn the car so that the bonnet is finally pointing towards the large left-hand side window of the shop. She leaves the engine running and gets out again.

“Right”, she says, in a slightly hesitant tone. “Shall I... yeah, just drive right in now, or what?”

“Put your seatbelt on”, says Iris. “You shouldn’t have to drive that fast. The book shelves inside look like they’re on wheels, so shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What about the airbag?” asks Dano. “Won’t that pop out?”

“We’ll see”, says Amanda, getting back in the car. They see her fasten her seatbelt, put the car in gear, press the accelerator a couple of times and then release the clutch.

The distance from the bumper to the shop window is no more than three metres from the start, so the Volvo can’t pick up any speed before crashing into the window, but Iris can still see Amanda’s head jerk forwards as the car hits a shelf of paperbacks, half a metre inside the shop. The glass wall is pushed in first, looking almost elastic, before pulling away from the ceiling strip and falling heavily onto the bonnet and smashing to pieces. Iris and Dano shield themselves with upheld arms, Iris unfortunately doing so with her broken arm, which makes the pain flare up again.

“Wow”, exclaims Dano, once the echo of falling glass shards has died away. Amanda switches off the engine but keeps the lights on, the rays flooding the rows of bookshelves and lighting up one best seller after another. She opens the driver’s door and looks down at the floor.