Daniel Åberg - Virus - Stockholm - S2

“Eat more”, says Amanda sharply, when she sees Iris has only managed to consume one of the protein bars they shoved into a bag from an abandoned pop-up shop in the shopping plaza – they didn’t seem that appealing but hopefully they would give them a little more energy than an ordinary Snickers bar.

“We have to eat and drink if we’re going to get through this.”

Iris gives Amanda a vacant look and takes a few gulps from a bottle labelled Wellness Nutrition. Iris’s mechanical and sleepwalker-like behaviour makes Amanda uneasy. She’s exhausted too and feels like slumping over the steering wheel and weeping or fainting. But she forces her body to obey and hopes her brain will have the stamina to at least signal correctly…well, how long do you think this can take? It mustn’t take too long, regardless of Sigrid’s status – they’ll collapse.

“Look”, mumbles Dano, from the middle of the backseat, his mouth full of oat crunchies.

Damn, thinks Amanda.

They’ve come a few kilometres down the motorway towards Saltsjöbaden. Significantly more people seem to have tried to leave the southeast corner of Nacka than chosen to drive here, and the two lanes on their side of the road have been spared traffic jams and accidents – until now.

Around a hundred metres in front of them, they glimpse the beginning of a queue. Amanda presses the clutch and lets the car roll forward silently for the last bit of the approach.

Further off in the darkness, they can make out a shape stretching the whole width of the road, but their view is largely blocked by the vehicle in front, so it’s hard to see what it is.

Amanda chooses to drive in the left lane, which succeeds in taking them forward a few hundred metres before they have to stop abruptly. They take their things and walk the last bit.

It’s a fuel tanker with a trailer that has been parked across both lanes. It’s so long that the front part with the driver cab is down in the ditch to the right of the road.

With Amanda in the lead, they zig-zag their way between the vehicles and up to the front of the fuel tanker. Not everyone left their cars once they got stuck in the queue, and a heavy scent of death hangs over the place.

Their jaws drop at the sight of what remains of the driver cab.

“It’s them”, says Iris. “The military. It’s their way of stopping people from coming down to their territory. Look – the driver cab hasn’t just burnt out – they’ve blown it up, all to make sure the tanker can’t be moved.”

Amanda just nods. It certainly is their work: a barrier intended to protect them in a bubble of peace and quiet while the world outside falls apart. It’s physically impossible to continue in a vehicle: metre-high concrete blocks prevent driving across to the lanes headed into town, and the junction on the right is blocked, unless you happen to be in a military tank that can tackle the steep embankment.

“We’ll continue by foot. We’ll find a new car to take soon enough”, she says, as decisively as possible.

They climb over the concrete barrier to the other side of the road and walk. Amanda has the automatic weapon across her back – she’s got used to it. Dano carries the spider wrench. Iris has a hard grip on the unloaded pistol and the bag of clothes over her good shoulder. Amanda has the food and drink in a bag.

They say nothing, just search their way forward. After barely a kilometre, they reach an abandoned car. It’s empty and locked, so they move on. Shortly afterwards, they spot a small grey car at the junction. It’s one of those with a front seat and not much more, and there’s someone sitting in it.

Shit, thinks Amanda.

She can smell it even before her hand grasps the door handle. After hesitating for a second, she gathers herself mentally and opens the door.

It’s worse than she could have imagined. The stench that hits them makes Dano throw up, his food consumption of the last half hour spattering down on the asphalt. Even Amanda is close to having everything she’s managed to consume leave her. After quickly removing herself to a few metres away, her stomach calms down and she stands with her head between her knees, taking deep breaths of fresh air.

After all, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t the air still unusually fresh? No exhaust fumes for several days, no emissions from industrial chimneys, no airplanes spewing carbon dioxide over the globe. Just the natural, good-natured rotting of millions of bodies, she thinks. The planet must be jumping for joy.

“Come on”, says Iris in a harsh, impatient tone – one that would usually irritate Amanda. But she’d rather handle a pissed-off Iris than a laconic one.

Amanda glances at the car. The driver’s seat is now empty and Amanda can see a pair of low-heeled shoes sticking up from the side of the road junction. While she has been avoiding throwing up, Iris has pulled out and dragged off the dead woman all by herself.

“It’s not that bad if you only breathe through your mouth”, says Iris, climbing into the passenger seat.

A couple of minutes later, they are back on track with the headlights turned off and the backlights smashed. The windows are down and Amanda is sitting on a sweater that Iris threw at her from her bag as she gave her a knowing look at the urine and fecal stains left by the owner of the car.

“Well it certainly looks dry but it might soften with your body heat.”

Dano is sitting on the adjustable armrest between the seats. He is still pale, and despite the din of rushing wind in the car as they shoot forwards with open windows, Amanda can hear Dano has taken Iris at her word: he’s breathing through his mouth, with his lips practically shut to filter the incoming air, if possible.

Dano had presence of mind enough to take the adapter from the abandoned Volvo, so now both he and Iris are charging their mobile phones in the 12-volt power point. Dano tries to check his map app to see how much further they have to drive.

“Unfortunately, we don’t really know where we’re going”, he says, with minimal mouth movement, making his English extremely difficult to understand. “But anyway, there’s a fair bit to go until we have to start guessing.”

They drive into a forest and the road around them becomes darker. Amanda slows down, and they roll forward at scarcely forty kilometres an hour.

“Stop! Stop!” exclaims Dano, after they drive past a barrier where the Saltsjöbanan rail track comes out of a tunnel beneath them. Amanda brakes and Dano almost bangs his head straight into the dashboard.

He points to a sign immediately in front of them to the right.

“Wasn’t that the name of the farm?”

Erstavikbadet station, Amanda reads.

Dano looks at his phone for a few seconds.

“I thought we should go all the way to that place and drive through the housing area to get…er, there”, he says, pointing his finger at the glass screen.

“But that was only because it looks closest on the map. Perhaps this is where people usually go to reach that swimming lake?”

The sign points to the left, where a footpath disappears between the trees. The train station is probably over there. To the right, however, there’s a proper road, a P sign also testifying to the presence of a car park.

“What d’you think?” Amanda looks at Iris, who has once again closed herself off in her own bubble. These constant mood changes worry Amanda. After letting off steam by dragging out the woman’s stiff corpse, Iris has just been staring apathetically out into the dark night.

Or is it in fact the opposite? Is this the look of steadfast resolve?

“We’ll walk from here”, says Iris after a few seconds of silence. “It will be more difficult to discover us on foot.”