Handling The Undead

14 August

Racksta 00.12

Angbyplan, Islandstorget, Blackeberg…

Mahler's sweating hands slipped on the steering wheel as he turned out of the space-age roundabout and took a right at the Racksta Crematorium and Cemetery.

His mobile rang. He slowed down, managed to extract it from his bag and checked the number. Editorial. Benke probably wanted to know how he was doing with the pictures, where his story was. No time. He put the phone back and let it ring as he turned into the small parking lot, turned off the engine. He opened the door, reflexively grabbing the bag, heaved himself out of the car and…

Stop.

He stood by the car, leaning against the door. Hiked up his pants.

There was no one here.

There was utter silence inside the high brick walls. A yellow early-summer moon spilled soft light onto the angular outline of the crematorium. Nothing moved.

What had he expected? To see them standing here, shaking the bars and…?

Yes. Something like that.

He walked up to the gate, looked in. The large open area in front of the chapel where he had stood only a month ago, sweating in his dark suit with his heart in shreds, had been given over to the night. The moon spread its blanket over the headstones, lit the occasional star in the gravel.

He looked up toward the memorial grove. Weak dots of light illuminated the pines from below. Memorial candles, placed there by grieving loved ones. He felt the gates. Locked. He stared up at the spikes on top. Impossible.

But he knew the cemetery by now; it was easy to get in. More difficult to see why they locked it in the first place. He walked along the wall until it gave way to a sharply inclined grass embankment where some artificially watered annuals bloomed when everything else in sight had withered.

Easy?

Sometimes his brain still believed that it inhabited his thirty-yearold body. Back then it would have been easy. Not now. He looked around. A couple of windows in the tenements on Silversmedsgrand flickered TV-blue. There were no people outside. He licked his lips and peered up at the top of the ridge.

Three metres; maybe a forty-five degree angle.

He leaned over, gripped a couple of tufts of grass and started to heave himself up. The weakened roots of the grass gave way and he was forced to dig his toes into the earth so as not to fall back. He lay with his face pressed into the ground. His belly was in the way, braking him as he dragged himself, sloth-like, foot by foot up the slope and in the midst of his misery he started to laugh, then stopped abruptly as the movement threatened to throw him off balance.

What I must look like.

At the top, he collapsed panting for a while, staring out over the cemetery. Gravestones and crosses stood in neat rows, raised out of their moon-shadows.

Most of those at rest here were cremated, but Anna had wanted

Elias to be buried. Where Mahler had felt terror at the image of his little body in the cold earth, Anna had found comfort. She had not wanted to let him go from her at all, and this was as close as she had been able to get.

Mahler had thought then that it sounded like a bad reason, something that would lead to regrets later on, but perhaps he'd been wrong. Anna went to the grave every day and said that it felt good to know that Elias was actually down there. Not just ashes, but hands, feet, head. Mahler had still not grown accustomed to it and, beyond his grief, he felt a kind of unease every time he visited the grave.

The worms. Decomposition.

Yes. Now it struck him that this was a serious question, and he hesitated before making his way down the slope.

If… if this really was happening… what would Elias look like?

Mahler had attended countless crime scenes. He'd seen body parts dug out of plastic bags, corpses removed from apartments where they'd spent a couple of weeks alone with the dog, bodies mangled in canal locks, in trawler machinery. It was never pretty.

Elias' white coffin was burned on his retina. The final goodbye, an hour before the ceremony. Mahler had bought abox of Lego that morning and he and Anna had stood together next to the open casket, looking at Elias. He was dressed in his favourite pyjamas, the ones with penguins, his teddy bear was tucked under his arm and everything was so terribly unnecessary.

Anna had gone up to the coffin and said, 'Wake up, Elias. Come on, little one, that's enough,' and stroked his cheek. 'Wake up, honey. It's morning now, time to go to daycare… '

Mahler had held his daughter and there were no words to be said, for he felt the same thing. He put the box of Harry Potter Legos that Elias had been wanting next to the teddy bear, thought for a moment it would bring him round, make him stop lying there when he was so nice and whole and only had to get up in order for this nightmare to be over.

Mahler slip-slid down the slope, entering the cemetery warily, afraid of disturbing the peace. Elias' grave lay quite a distance away and en route he passed a gravestone at the head of a relatively fresh grave:

DAGNYBOMAN

14 September 1918 – 20 May 2002

He stopped. Listened. Heard nothing. Continued.

Elias' marker came into view, the very last on the right. The vase of white lilies that Anna had placed there gleamed faintly in the moonlight. A graveyard could be so densely populated and yet it was the loneliest place on earth.

Mahler's hands trembled and his mouth was dryas he sank to his knees at the grave. The turf squares laid on top of the exposed soil had not yet had time to grow in. The seams stood out like black shadows.

ELIAS MAHLER

19 April 1996 – 25 June 2002

In Our Hearts

Always

Nothing could be heard. There was nothing to be seen. Everything was normal. No bulging ground, no-

Yes, he had thought as much

– hand that reached up, seeking.

Mahler stretched out on the ground, embracing the earth where the coffin lay buried. Pressed his ear against the grass. This was insanity. He listened down, pressing his hand against the ear that was not on the ground.

And heard it.

Scraping.

He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, pressed his head down harder, felt the grass give way.

Yes, there was scraping down there.

Elias was moving, trying to… get out.

Mahler flinched, got to his feet. He stood at the foot of the grave and hugged himself, trying to keep from going to pieces. His mind was blank. Even though this was precisely why he'd come, he'd been unable, right till the last minute, to believe it could really be true. He had absolutely no plan of action, no tools, no way of…

'Elias!'

He dropped to his knees, ripping out the clumps of grass and started to scratch away at the ground with his bare hands. He dug like a man possessed, nails breaking, dirt in his mouth, dirt in his eyes. From time to time he laid his ear against the ground, hearing the scraping more and more clearly.

The soil was dry and porous, not yet reinforced by a net of roots.

The sweat that fell from Mahler's brow was the first moisture it had tasted in weeks. After twenty minutes he had gone so deep that his arms could no longer touch the bottom, and still there was no sign of the coffin.

He worked for a long time with his head lowered over the edge and his blood surging against his skull like the clapper of a bell. Everything went dark. He was forced to pause so he would not faint.

His back screamed as he heaved himself back, landing softly in the piled earth. The scraping continued, amplified in the open hole. He thought he heard a thin wail, almost a whistle, and held his breath. The whistling stopped. He took a breath. That wail again. He snorted: dirt and mucus flying from his nose. It was his airways that were wailing. He let them wheeze on.

Dry earth.

Thank you God: dry earth.

Mummifying. Not decomposing.

He lay for a while and breathed, trying not to think. His mouth was dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. This could not be happening. And yet it was. What do you do in this situation? Either you lie down and attempt not to exist. Or else you accept, and go on.

Mahler stood up. Tried to stand up, but his back said no. He lay like a beetle, arms flailing, trying to bend unbendable joints. It didn't work. Instead he rolled over on his stomach and dragged himself up to the opening in the ground.

He shouted, 'Elias!' and pain shot down his spine toward his tailbone.

No answer. Only scraping.

How much farther to reach the coffin? He did not know, and he couldn't move any more dirt without tools. His fingers closed around the beaded necklace and he lowered his head like a penitent, praying for forgiveness. He spoke down into the hole, 'I can't. I'm sorry, buddy. I can't. You're too far down. I have to get someone, I have to…'

Scrape, scrape.

Mahler shook his head. Started to weep quietly.

'Stop it, little buddy. Grandpa is on his way. I'm just going to… get someone…'

Scraping.

Mahler clenched his teeth to hold the tears and the back pain, forced himself to his knees. Turned, sobbing, and coaxed himself down backwards into the hole.

'I'm coming, buddy. Grandpa's coming.'

He barely fit. The walls of the hole rubbed against his belly, crumbling dirt fell as he ignored the howl from his back and bent down and resumed his digging.

After only a couple of minutes his fingers reached the smooth surface of the lid.

If it breaks…

There was no noise from inside the coffin while Mahler brushed it clean, revealing the white lid that shone like a pale moon under his feet. He had one foot on the bottom end and the other at the top.

Manoeuvring for better access, he put one foot in the middle, heard the wood crack, moved the foot to the side with alarm.

His sweat-soaked shirt lay glued to his body, straining. The pressure had built up inside his skull while he'd been bent over and it felt as if the next time he lowered his head it would blow up like an overheated boiler.

His bottom rib was at ground level. He started seeing stars again as he leaned over the edge, panting, resting his head on the grass. He closed his eyes, heard the scarlet coursing of blood through his body.

God, this is hard.

When he'd started to dig, he'd imagined that although it would surely take a superhuman feat of strength to reach the coffin, all he would have to do after that would be to pull it up, open it and… be reunited.

But only the dirt they'd taken out to lower the casket had been loose. That was the earth he had managed to remove. To bring up the casket from this same hole was another matter. They didn't dig graves with that in mind.

He slipped his hands behind his head, resting on his feet. A mild breeze drifted over the cemetery, rustling in the aspen leaves and cooling his overheated body. In the stillness it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he had imagined the whole thing. His desire so intense that he had willed the sound into being. Or perhaps an animal, perhaps a…

rat.

He screwed up his eyes. A new breeze caressed his brow. He was absolutely exhausted, could feel the over-exerted muscles in his arms and legs contracting, tensing up as he stood. He did not think he would even be able to get himself up out of the grave without help.

Things are as they are.

The furrows in his brows smoothed, and he felt a strange kind of peace. Images danced faintly before his eyes. He was moving through

a field of reeds. Green, rustling stalks surrounded him, breaking under his advance. Through the curtain of reeds he glimpsed naked bodies; women playing peekaboo like Bollywood sirens.

He too was naked and the reeds scraped his body, cutting deep into his skin. It stung everywhere and a film of blood covered his body as he moved on, dizzy and goaded by the mild pain, the desire for the teasing bodies. An arm here, a breast there, a fluttering strand of brown hair. He stretched out his arms, grabbed only reeds, and more reeds.

There was a crackling and crunching under his feet, the women's laughter rose above the rustling of the reeds and he was a bull, a lumbering fleshly beast trampling the delicate vegetation to satisfy his lust…

He opened his eyes, suddenly alert.

That scraping again.

And he didn't just hear it. He felt it. The vibrations, under his feet, of nails scraping against wood. He raised his head, looked down at the coffin.

Krrrr…

Half a centimetre of wood between the fingers and his foot.

'Elias?'

No reply.

He made his way up, one vertebra at a time.

Among the trees in the memorial grove, he found a long, thick stick that he carried back to the grave. When he surveyed all the dirt that lay scattered around the gaping hole, it didn't seem possible that he could have summoned the strength.

But he kept going.

He pushed the stick down between the head of the coffin and the packed wall of earth, pressed down. The coffin tipped slightly and it felt as if his tongue was swelling in his mouth as he heard something glide, changing position inside.

How does he look, how does he look…

But not just that. There was a clatter as well. As if there were pebbles in there.

Finally he managed to raise the coffin enough so that he could get down on his stomach, grip it with both hands and pull it up.

It did not weigh much. Not much at all.

He stood there with the little box in front of his feet. It was not disfigured by rot, it looked the same as it had done in the chapel. But Mahler knew that what altered a corpse did not come from the outside, but from within.

He rubbed a hand over his face. He was scared.

Sure, he had heard fantastical stories about dead bodies, especially of dead children, exhumed many years after the funeral, which had not changed at all. Simply looked as if they were sleeping. But that was fairy tales, legends of the saints; extraordinary circumstances. He had to be prepared for the worst.

The coffin was rocked by a soft blow from inside, there was a rustling sound, and for the first time since he arrived, Mahler felt a strong urge to run away. The Beckomberga mental hospital was only a kilometre away. Run there. With his hands over his ears, screaming. But…

The Lego fort.

The Lego fort was still in his apartment. The tiny figures left in the same place as the last time they had played. Mahler could see Elias' hands manipulate the knights, the swords.

'Were there really dragons back then, Grandad?'

He bent over the coffin.

The lid was only fastened with two screws, one at the top and one at the bottom end. He managed to remove the top one with his apartment key, took a deep breath and twisted the lid to the side.

Held his breath.

That isn't Elias.

He took a step back from the body that lay nestled in the plush upholstery. It was a dwarf. An ancient dwarf-man who had been buried in Elias' place.

He involuntarily gulped for air through his mouth, his nose, and the pungent smell of over-aged cheese prompted a retching that he was able-with some difficulty-to prevent from becoming full blown vomiting.

That isn't Elias.

The moonlight was strong enough so he could see what had happened to the body. The tiny hands that were now fumbling in the air were desiccated, blackened, and the face… the face. Mahler closed his eyes, clapped his hands over them, whimpered.

He realised now how much he had still believed, against all odds, that Elias would look the same as in life. Why not, given that all of this was impossible anyway?

But he didn't.

Mahler clenched his lips, sucked them into his mouth, and removed his hands from his eyes. He had seen so many terrible things in his work, he knew the trick of making himself blank, empty, not present. He did this now as he went up to the casket and lifted Elias in his arms.

The penguin pyjamas were silky to the touch. Underneath he could feel hardened skin, stiff as dried leather. The entire abdomen was swollen from gases that had formed in the intestines and the smell of rotting protein was worse than he could have imagined.

But Mahler was not here. The person here was a man carrying a child. A very light child. He cast a last glance into the coffin to see if he forgotten anything. Yes, he had. The Legos.

That was what had made the clattering sound. Elias had opened the box of Legos that had been placed with him, and the plastic pieces were now lying in a pile at one end, together with the ripped cardboard.

Mahler stopped short, seeing it in his mind. Elias had lain there and…

He screwed his eyes shut. Erased. Stood there one crazy moment and hesitated, wondered if he should put Elias down and put the Lego pieces in his pocket.

No, no, I'll buy new ones, I'll buy the whole store… I…

With short strides and ragged breaths that did not seem to be enough to oxygenate his blood, he started to walk towards the exit, whispering, 'Elias… Elias… everything will be fine. We're going home… to the Lego fort. All this is over. Now we're… going home… '

Elias twisted slowly in his arms, as if sleepy, and Mahler sawall the times he had carried the sleeping little body from the car or from the couch to the bed. In the same pyjamas.

But this body was not soft, nor warm. It was cold and unyielding, stiff like a reptile. Half-way to the exit he dared to peek at the face again.

The skin was orange-brown, drawn taut so the cheekbones were sharply outlined. The eyes were just a couple of slits and the whole face looked vaguely… Egyptian. The nose and lips were black, shrunken. There wasn't much that resembled Elias except for the brown curly hair tumbling down over the wide forehead.

And yet, it was a stroke of luck.

Elias had started to mummify. If it had been damp in that earth he would most likely have rotted away.

'You were lucky, my boy. That it's been such a warm summer. Yes, you wouldn't know, but it has been…lovely and warm every day. Like the time we went fishing for perch… do you remember? When you felt so sorry for the worm and we fished with gummy worms instead…'

Mahler kept on talking the whole way until he was back at the gates again. They were still locked. He had forgotten about that.

Exhausted, unable to take another step, he sank into a heap next to the wall by the gates with Elias in his arms. He couldn't smell him anymore. The world smelled like this.

He held Elias pressed against his chest, looked up at the moon.

It looked back down at him, kind and yellow, approving. Mahler nodded, allowed his eyes to shut, stroked Elias' hair.

His soft hair.

Danderyd Hospital 00.34

'How are you feeling now?'

A microphone was stretched in toward his chin and David almost

grabbed hold of it out of habit.

'How I… feel?'

'Yes. How do you feel right now?'

He did not understand how the Channel-s reporter had tracked him down. After having been turned out of Eva's room he had gone and sat down in the waiting room and fifteen minutes later this reporter had turned up, wondering if he could ask some questions. The man, who was close to his own age, had a shiny look about his eyes that was either due to sleep-deprivation or makeup. Or excitement.

David pulled up the corners of his mouth into a grin that looked horrible on camera, answered, 'It feels good. I'm already looking forward to the semis.'

'Pardon?'

'The semi-finals. Against Brazil.'

The reporter glanced at the cameraman and they exchanged a silent code: re-take. The reporter changed his tone, as if he was saying his line for the first time.

'David, you are the only person who was actually present at an awakening. Can you describe what happened?'

'Yes,' David said. 'After we nailed that first penalty I just felt the game swung our way…'

The reporter frowned and put the microphone down, waved the cameraman over and leaned close to David.

'Forgive me, I know this must be hard for you, but you have been through something that the public…I mean, you must understand. Lots of people are interested in hearing this.'

'Go away.'

The reporter threw his arms out wide. 'I get it. Sure. Here I am attaching myself to your pain like a kind of parasite, in order to make entertainment out of it, I know it feels that way to you, but… '

David looked the reporter straight in the eye and babbled mechanically, 'I think a lot of it's due to the fact that we've shaken loose a bunch of people who don't ordinarily come home to Sweden for these events I'm not saying we don't normally have a strong team but it's true that when you've got Mjallby covering you from behind and Zlatan in the kind of form he showed today… '

He grabbed his head in his hands, fell and curled up on the couch, closing his eyes as he went on, '… well you know it's almost impossible to win no sorry I mean not to win of course I felt it from the moment we ran onto the pitch… '

The reporter stood up, signalling to the cameraman to film David as the latter continued his recitation in the empty room, curled up in a ball.

'… and I said to Kimpa Now let's take them and he just nodded like this and I thought about that how he'd nodded when he passed me that long ball and I sent it on to Henke… '

They drew back, zooming out. It was a good shot.

David stopped at the moment he heard the door glide shut, but remained in the same position. He was never going to be human again. This is what the darkness looked like from the inside. The famines, torture victims, massacres. The other half of the world, the one the comfortable people sighed over, racked their conscience over and had no way into. The darkness that he flirted with in his routines sometimes. Hypothetically, with no knowledge.

The reporter was living in the sunlit world, and speech with him was meaningless. There were no words. David pressed his palms against his eyes until red flowers bloomed. The worst thing was that Magnus was still there. He was sleeping at his grandmother's and knew nothing. In a couple of hours David would have to go there and let in the darkness.

Eva, what should I do?

If he could only ask her advice about this one thing: how he should tell Magnus.

But there were other people asking her questions right now. About other things.

After the initial burst of chaos waned, the doctors had become extremely interested in the fact that Eva could talk. Apparently she was one of the few who could. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she had died so close to the awakening, perhaps it was something else. No one knew.

David had not been particularly surprised to hear about what was happening in the morgue. It seemed to him as abhorrent, implausible-and as logical-as everything else. The world had been thrown into darkness tonight: why shouldn't the dead come back to life as well?

He got up after an immeasurable length of time, walked out into

the corridor and turned the corner on his way to Eva's room. He stopped. A throng of people had gathered outside the closed door, he spotted a couple of television cameras, microphones.

My only love…

Each time he saw a shooting star, every time he played a game where he got a silent wish, he had wished this:

Let me always love Eva, let my love for her never fade.

For him, she was the one who dominated the heavens and made the world a place it was possible to live in. For the people in the corridor she was an object, a novelty, a source of information. But they were the ones who owned her now. If he approached them, they would throw themselves upon him.

He found a waiting room further down the corridor where he sat down and stared at a Mira poster until the figures in the artwork started to crawl, move along the edges of the frame. At that point he approached a doctor who knew nothing, could give no news but the word itself: no. No visitors allowed.

He walked back to Mira. The longer he stared at the figures, the more evil they looked. He stared at the wall instead.

Taby Municipality 00.52

When Flora got off the telephone she looked, for the second time this night, as if she had seen a ghost. She walked over to the bedroom door, listening for something from inside.

'How did it go?' Elvy asked. 'Did they believe you?'

'Yes,' Flora said. 'They did.'.1

'Are they sending an ambulance?'

'Yes, but… ' Flora sat down next to Elvy on the couch, knocking her teaspoon against her cup, 'it may take a while. They have a lot to do… right now.'

Elvy gently took hold of her hand to make her stop clinking.

'Why is that? What did they say?'

Flora shook her head, turning the spoon in her fingers.

'It's happening all over. There's several hundred that have woken up. Maybe thousands.'

'No.'

'Yes. She said that every ambulance is out at the moment… picking them up. And that we shouldn't try to do anything, that we shouldn't… touch him or anything.'

'Why not?'

'Because there could be a danger of contagion or something. They don't know.'

'What kind of contagion?'

'I haven't the faintest. That's just what she said.'

Elvy sank back on the couch, staring at the crystal vase on the coffee table that she and Tore had been given by Margareta and Goran on their fortieth wedding anniversary. Orrefors, Heinous; probably very expensive. A couple of withered condolence-roses hanging from it doubled-over.

It started with a twitch at the corners of her mouth, a trembling in the lips. Then she felt her mouth tugged back, irresistibly back and up, until a grin wide enough to strain her cheeks covered Elvy's face.

'Nana? What is it?'

Elvy wanted to laugh. No. More than that. She wanted to jump out of her seat, do a few dance steps and laugh. But Flora's head drew back ten centimetres, as you might draw away from an uncertain phenomenon, and Elvy used her right hand to wipe the smile mechanically from her face. The corners of her mouth wanted to turn up again, but she kept them in place by sheer force of will. She didn't want to cause alarm.

'It's the Resurrection,' she said with suppressed glee. 'Don't you see? It is the Resurrection. The raising of the dead. What else could it be?'

Flora tilted her head. 'You think?'

There weren't words for it. Elvy could not explain. Her joy and anticipation were too great to be contained in mere language, so she said, 'Flora, 1 don't want to talk about this right now. 1 don't want to discuss it. I just want to sit undisturbed for a little while.'

'Why? What for?'

'I just want to be alone. A little while. Can you do that for me?'

'Yes. Sure.'

Flora walked to the window, stood looking out either at the faint outline of the fruit trees outside, or at Elvy's reflection in the glass.

Elvy savoured her bliss in silence. After a while Flora smacked the metal wind chimes hanging in the window, opened the french doors and walked out. The sound of her steps mingled with the clanging of the chimes, but after several seconds both had died away.

The heavenly kingdom. And on the last day ye shall all…

Euphoria. There was no other word to describe what was bubbling in Elvy's breast.

As if it were the last evening before a long, long trip. You've got a ticket in your pocket and at last everything is packed. And you can simply sit and feel the nearness of distant lands…

Yes. Like that. Elvy tried to visualise the distant land she would soon be travelling to, that everyone would soon be travelling to, but here there were no travel brochures to pore over, everything was up to her and she couldn't see. It slipped away, defied description.

But she sat there and felt that … soon… soon…

A couple of minutes went by in this way, and then some drops of guilt began to drip into her goblet of joy. Flora was with her. Here. Now. Where had the girl got to? As she stood up out of the couch in order to go and look, she caught sight of the armchair pushed up against the bedroom door and had time to think why is that there? before she remembered why. Because Tore was sitting in there. At his desk. Shuffling papers. As in life. Elvy stopped in the middle of the floor and a dark suspicion trickled in.

If this is the way it is.

When Flora had returned from the telephone and told her what she wanted to know, Elvy had imagined that silent army of the resurrected, hundreds, thousands striding in dignity down the streets, a beautiful sign of what was to come. Even though she'd known better. She walked over to the bedroom door. Paper sliding, being turned. Unclipped toenails on bare feet, the icy hands, the smell. No exalted host of angels, but flesh and blood bodies forcing their way all over the place, creating problems.

But the ways of the Lord…

·… are mysterious, yes. We know nothing. Elvy shook her head, said it out loud, 'We know nothing', and that would have to suffice. She walked out on the verandah to look for Flora.

The August night was dark and not a breeze was moving the leaves. It is night but so still that the light burns without flickering. When Elvy's eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, she picked out Flora's dark silhouette leaning against the trunk of the apple tree. She walked down the stairs and over to her.

'You're sitting out here?' she said.

It wasn't really a question; Flora didn't reply. 'I've been thinking,' she said and got to her feet, picking a half-ripe apple from the tree and tossing it back and forth between her hands.

'What have you been thinking?'

The apple went up into the air, hung for a moment in the light from the living room and then fell back into Flora's hand with a slap.

'What the hell will they do?' Flora said, and laughed. 'Everything is different now. Nothing makes sense. You know? Everything they've based all their shit on… pfff! Gone! Death, life. Nothing makes sense.'

'No,' said Elvy. 'That's true.'

Flora's bare legs took a few prancing steps across the lawn.

Suddenly she sent the apple high and far into the air. Elvy watched it fly in a wide arc across the hedge and heard it thud onto the neighbour's roof, roll across the brick tiles.

'Don't do that,' she said.

'Or what? Or what?' Flora threw her arms wide as if she wanted to embrace the night, the world. 'What will they do? Call in the National Guard, arrest someone? Call the Pentagon and ask them to bomb the place? I want to see…I really want to see how they fix this one.'

Flora picked a new apple, threw it in the other direction. This time it didn't hit a roof.

'Flora…'

Elvy tried to lay her hand on Flora's arm, but the girl pulled away.

'I don't get it,' she said. 'You think this is Armageddon, don't you? I don't know the story, but the dead come to life, the seals are broken and the whole deal and then it's all over-that it?'

Elvy felt a strong resistance to this description of her beliefs, but said, 'Well… yes.'

'OK. I don't believe it. But say you did believe it, then what the hell does it matter if an apple gets on a neighbour's roof?'

'Show some common courtesy. Please Flora, pull yourself together.'

Flora roared with laughter, but not meanly. She hugged Elvy, rocking her side to side as if she were a foolish child. Elvy could take that. She allowed herself to be rocked.

'Nana, Nana,' Flora whispered. 'You think the whole world is about to end and you're telling me to pull myself together.'

Elvy snorted. It actually was quite funny. Flora let go of her, took a step back and held her palms pressed together in front of her, bobbing in an Indian greeting.

'Like you said before, I don't share your beliefs. But what I believe, Nana, is that there is going to be a fucking incredible amount of mayhem. You should have heard the woman's voice, at the call centre; It was as if the zombies were panting down her neck. It is going to be chaos, it is going to be something else, and damn if I don't think that's good.'

The ambulance arrived like a thief in the night. No sirens; not even the emergency lights. It glided up the street in front of the house, the front doors opened and two paramedics in light blue shirts stepped out. Elvy and Flora walked out to meet them.

The one who had come out of the driver's side nodded to Elvy and pointed at the house.

'Is he in there?'

'Yes,' Elvy said. 'I…I locked him in the bedroom.’

'You're not the only one, believe me.'

They pulled on rubber gloves and continued up the stairs. Elvy didn't know what to do. Should she follow them in and help or would she be in the way?

She stood there, rocking on her feet, when the backdoors of the ambulance opened and yet another man stepped out. He was quite unlike the paramedics; older, rounder. His shirt was black. He stood for a moment outside the ambulance and took stock of his surroundings. Or rather, enjoyed them. Perhaps he had been shut in too long.

As he turned to the house, Elvy saw the white rectangle in his collar, and she wiped her hands on her robe preparing herself to greet him. Flora whistled, but Elvy paid her no attention. This was senous.

The man arrived swiftly at house – his gait was surprisingly energetic for someone so rotund – and stretched out his hand

'Good evening. Or good morning, perhaps. Bernt Janson.'

Elvy took his hand, which was warm and firm, curtsied and said, 'Elvy Lundberg.'

Bernt shook hands with Flora as well, and went on 'Yes, I'm a hospital chaplain at Huddinge normally, but tonight I’m out riding around in an ambulance.' His expression became more grave. 'How are you coping with this, then?'

'Fine,' Elvy said. 'We're doing fine’.

Bernt nodded and kept silent to let Elvy continue. When she didn't, he said, 'Yes, it’s an extraordinary situation, this. Many people are finding it extremely disturbing.’

Flv y had nothing to add. She really had one question, which she now posed.

'How can this be happening?'

'Well,' Bernt said, 'that's something everyone's wondering, naturally. And unfortunately I can only say: we don't know.'

'But surely you must know!'

Elvy's voice took on a more forceful note and Bernt looked surprised.

'How… do you mean?'

Elvy glanced at Flora, forgetting that her grandchild was not

the person from whom to seek support. Even more irritated, she stamped her foot into the paving and said loudly, 'Are you standing here in front of me, a minister of the Church of Sweden, and telling me that you do not know what this means? Do you have a Bible on you, shall I look it up for you?'

Bernt raised his arm to placate her. 'I see, you mean…'

Flora left them and walked into the house. Elvy didn't notice.

'Yes, I do. You can't seriously mean that this is just an unusual

occurrence, like… snow in June. Can you? "On the last day the dead shall rise from their graves"… '

Bernt made a calming gesture. 'Yes, well, perhaps it's a little early to comment on… these matters.' He looked up and down the street, scratched the back of his neck and lowered his voice, 'But of course these things may turn out to have a greater significance.'

Elvy did not give up. 'Don't you believe it?' she asked.

'Yes…' Bernt looked at the ambulance, took half a step closer to Elvy and said, right next to her ear, 'Yes. Yes, I do.'

'Well then, say so.'

Bernt resumed his earlier posture. He looked somewhat more

relaxed now, but still spoke in a low voice. 'Yes, that opinion is not completely comme it faut, so to speak. That is not why I am here. It wouldn't be acceptable for me to go around in this kind of situation

and… preach.'

Elvy understood. She may have felt it was cowardly, but of course most people would not want a doomsday preacher on a night like this.

'So you do believe,' she said, 'that this is the Second Coming. All of that. That it will be as it's written?'

Now Bernt could no longer retain his composure. His face broke out in a wide, joyous grin and he whispered, 'Yes! Yes, I believe it will!'

Elvy smiled back. At least now there were two of them.

The paramedics returned with Tore between them. Both wore expressions of controlled revulsion. As they came closer, Elvy understood why. The front of Tore's shirt was damp, spotted with a yellowish fluid, and a stench of rotting organic matter enveloped him. He had started to defrost.

'Well, now,' Bernt said. 'Here we have…' 'Tore,' Elvy said.

'Tore, I see.'

Flora came after him. She had been in the bedroom and collected her clothes, her bag. She walked up to Bernt, looking him up and down. Bernt did the same; his eyes locked for one second with Marilyn Manson's, and Elvy clasped her hands in front of her chest, tried to send Flora a telepathic signal that this was not the right moment for a theological discussion. But Flora's question was of a more practical nature.

'What are you doing with them?' she asked.

'We… For now we're taking them to Danderyd.'

'And then? What will they do?'

Tore had been led into the ambulance and Elvy said, 'Flora, they are very busy…'

Flora turned to Elvy. 'Aren't you interested? Don't you want to know what they'll do with Grandpa?'

'It is, of course…' Bernt cleared his throat, 'a very natural question. And the fact is that we do not know. But I can assure you that no one will do anything with them, so to speak.'

'What do you mean?' Flora asked.

‘Well…’ Brent frowned. ‘I didn’t know what you meant, but I assumed…'

'How can you be so sure, then?'

Bernt shot Elvy a look, these young people, which Elvy returned half-heartedly. One of the paramedics had stayed with Tore, but the other came over to them and said, 'Loaded and ready to go.' Bernt made a faint grimace and the man grinned and said, 'You done?'

'Yes,' Bernt turned to Elvy, 'Perhaps you'd like to accompany us?' When Elvy shook her head, he said, 'No, no. But someone will be in touch as soon… as soon as we know something.'

He shook Elvy's hand goodbye. When he stretched his hand out to Flora, she took it and said, 'I'll come with you.'

'Well,' Bernt said, looking at Elvy, 'I'm not sure that's appropriate.'

'Just into town,' Flora said. 'A lift. I've already asked.'

Bernt turned toward the ambulance driver who confirmed this with a nod. Bernt sighed, turned to Elvy. 'If that's all right with you.'

'The girl can do as she likes,' Elvy said. 'I bet she can,' Bernt said.

Flora walked over and hugged Elvy. 'I have to go talk to a friend.'

'Now?'

'Yes. As long as you're going to be OK, that is.'

'I'll be fine.'

Elvy stayed at the gate and watched Flora climb into the back of the ambulance with Bernt. She waved, and thought about the smell. The doors were closed. The ambulance engine started, the flashing lights were turned on for an instant, then immediately switched off. Slowly, the ambulance backed up into the driveway of the house opposite, turned and-

Elvy's fingers splayed, her eyes widened and an ever-intensifying feeling drove through her body like a stake: Tore. She staggered slightly, bracing herself against the fencepost. Tore was here. The same trace impression that had lingered in his room, slowly receding, was in her head at full force. He filled her and in her head she heard his voice:

Mum, help me! I'm stuck… I don't want to go away… I want to

stay home, Mummy…

The ambulance turned out of the driveway.

Mum… she's coming, she…

And Tore's voice was on its way out of her, shedding her like a skin. But if his voice had been strong, as if amplified, she could now discern Flora's weaker voice through the din.

Nana… can you hear it? Are you the one he…

Elvy perceived physically how the field dissolved and her body became her own again, and only had time to send-

I hear

– before it was gone and she was just Elvy, leaning up against the fencepost. The ambulance accelerated down the street and she only glimpsed it as a white blotch before her head fell down, forced down by the whining of a thousand mosquitoes pressing in through her ears and the headache flaring up like red suns on the inside of her eyelids.

But she had seen it.

She squeezed the post to stop herself from falling to the asphalt. Her head pressed down, she was unable to open her eyes in order to get a better view. She was not allowed to. It was forbidden.

The pain only lasted a few seconds, then disappeared immediately. She lifted her head, looking at the point where the ambulance had been a moment before.

The woman was gone.

But Elvy had seen her. The second before the ambulance had disappeared from her field of vision, she had seen-out of the corner of her eye-a tall slender woman with dark hair, emerge from behind the vehicle and stretch her arms toward it. Then the pain had forced Elvy to look away.

She gazed up the street. The ambulance was just up at the bend by the big road. The woman was gone.

Is she… inside the ambulance now?

Elvy put her hand against her forehead and thought as hard as she could:

Flora? Flora?

No answer. No contact.

What had the woman actually looked like? How had she been dressed? Elvy was unable to visualise her. When she tried to conjure up the face, the body that she had seen for a split second, her mind could gain no purchase on the image. It was like trying to recapture a memory from early childhood; you could snare a certain detail, something you had latched onto. Everything else lay in shadow.

She could not see the face, the clothes. They were gone. She could only say one thing with any certainty: something had been sticking out between the woman's fingers. Something that gave off a faint reflection in the streetlamp. Something thin, something metallic.

Elvy ran into the house in order to try to reach Flora by conventional means. She dialled her mobile.

'The person you are trying to reach is unavailable…'

Racksta 02.35

Mahler was awakened by voices, the clatter of metal.

For a moment he was disoriented. He sat up. There was something in his lap. His body ached. Where, and why?

And then he remembered.

Elias was still lying across his knees, unmoving. The moon had wandered as Mahler sat there, was now more or less obscured by the tops of the spruce trees.

How long? One hour? Two?

There was a squeaking sound as the gates opened and a number of shadows slipped into the open area in front of the chapel. Flashlights were turned on and beams of light danced over the flagstones. Voices.

'… too early to answer at this stage.'

'

But what will you do if that turns out to be the case?'

'First we'll listen and try to determine how… widespread it is, then… '

'Are you planning to open the graves now?'

Mahler thought he recognised the voice of the person asking the uestions. Karl-Erik Ljunghed, one of his colleagues from the paper. He didn't hear the reply. Elias lay still in his arms, as if dead.

As long as they didn't shine their lights toward the wall they wouldn't spot him. He was sitting in almost total darkness. He shook Elias gently. Nothing happened. Terror blossomed in his chest.

All this, and then…

He found Elias' dry, hard hand, put his index and middle finger in it, and pressed. The hand closed, squeezing his fingers. Five flashlights moved in toward the cemetery, with the shadows in a line.

His body was stiff as a board after this period of sitting, and while he had been unconscious his spine had been replaced with a red-hot iron rod. Why didn't he let his presence be known? KarlErik could have helped him. Why didn't he call out to them?

Because…

Because he shouldn't. Because it was them. The others.

'Elias…Ihave to put you down.'

Elias didn't answer. With a feeling of loss, Mahler drew his fingers out of his grip and softly coaxed him onto the ground. By tensing his back against the wall and only using his thigh muscles, Mahler was able to get to his feet.

The lights were dancing along toward the grave area like excited spirits, and Mahler listened for sounds from new visitors. The only thing he heard was the distant voices of the recent arrivals, and very faintly the sound of 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik' from the phone in his car. The hint of a morning blush coloured the sky.

'Elias?'

No reply. The little body lay stretched out on the stonework, a child-shaped condensation of darkness.

Can he hear me? Does he see me? Does he know that it's me?

He crouched down, got his hands in under Elias' knees and neck, stood up and walked toward the car.

'We're going home now, buddy.'

There were now three more cars in the parking lot. An ambulance, an Audi with the newspaper's logo on it as well as a Volvo with a strange licence plate. Yellow numbers on a black background. It took a moment before Mahler made the connection: a military vehicle.

The military? Is it that widespread?

The presence of the military car strengthened him in his belief that he had done the right thing not to reveal himself. When the military comes into the picture, something else goes out the window.

Elias was light, light in his arms. Unnaturally light in view of how…large he had become. His stomach protruded so far that the bottom buttons of his pyjamas had been torn off. But Mahler knew that inside there was only gas, created by the decomposition of the intestinal bacteria. Nothing that weighed anything.

He laid Elias carefully in the back seat and laid back the driver's seat as far as it would go so that he could sit with his back outstretched, almost lying down himself, as he drove out from the parking lot. He wound the windows down on both sides.

His apartment was only a couple of kilometres away. He talked to Elias the whole way, but got no answers.

He placed Elias on the couch in the dark living room, leaning over and planting a kiss on his forehead.

'I'll be right back, love. I just have to…'

He found three painkillers in the medicine drawer in the kitchen, swallowing them with a gulp of water.

And now… and now…

The touch of Elias' forehead was still on his lips. Cool, hard unyielding skin. Like kissing a stone.

He didn't dare turn on the lamps in the living room. Elias was lying absolutely still. The satin material of his pyjamas shimmered in the first light of dawn. Mahler rubbed his hands over his face and thought:

What am I doing?

Yes, what the hell was he doing? Elias was gravely ill. What do you do with an acutely sick child? Carry it home to your apartment?

Wrong. You call an ambulance, you see to it that the child goes to hospital-

morgue

– that it is looked after.

But that was the thing about the morgue. What he had seen there. The dead, held fast, struggling. He didn't want to see Elias in that picture. But what could he do? There was no way for him to care for Elias, to do… whatever it was that was required.

You think the hospitals can do it?

The pain in his back was starting to let up a little. Reason returned. Of course he would call an ambulance. There was nothing else to do.

The little darling. My darling little boy.

If only the accident had occurred a month later. Yesterday. The day before yesterday. If Elias hadn't had to lie in the earth so long, had escaped what death had changed him into: a desiccated, lizard-like creature with blackened extremities. However much Mahler loved him, his eyes saw that Elias no longer resembled anything human. He looked like something you kept behind glass.

'Buddy, I'm going to call a doctor. Someone who can help you.' His mobile rang.

The display showed the newspaper office number. This time he took the call.

'This is…'

Benke sounded close to tears when he interrupted, 'Where have you been? First you get all this shit started and then you go up in a puff of smoke!'

Mahler couldn't help smiling.

'Benke, it wasn't me who "got all this started". I'm completely innocent.'

Benke fell silent. Mahler could hear people speaking in the background, but could not identify their voices.

'Gustav,' Benke said. 'Elias. Is he…?'

What clinched it for him was not the fact that he trusted Benkewhich in fact he did-but the realisation that he needed some form of connection to the outer world. Mahler drew a deep breath and said, 'Yes. He's here. With me.'

The background noises changed and Mahler knew that Benke had taken the phone and gone somewhere no one else could hear him.

'Is he… in bad shape?'

'Yes.'

Now everything was quiet on Benke's end. He had probably slipped into an empty office.

'OK, Gustav. I don't know what to say.'

'You don't have to say anything. But I want to know what they are doing. If I'm doing the right thing.'

'They're collecting them, taking them all to Danderyd. They've started opening graves all over. The armed forces have been called in. They're citing some regulation about mass epidemics. No one knows anything, really. I think…' Benke paused. 'I don't know. But I have grand kids too, as you know. Maybe you are doing the right thing. There's a general feeling… of panic.'

'Does anyone know why this is happening?'

'No. And now, Gustav… to my other point.'

'Benke, I can't. I'm completely done in.'

Benke breathed into the receiver; Mahler sensed the effort it cost him to remain calm, not to start haranguing him. 'Do you have the photos?' he asked.

'Yes, but…'

'In that case,' Benke said, 'they're the only independent photos available from the inside. And you are the only journalist who managed to get in before they closed. Gustav… with all due respect for your situation-which I cannot even imagine- I am trying to put together a newspaper. Right now I'm talking to my best writer who is sitting on incomparably the best material. You, on the other hand, can probably imagine my situation.'

'Benke, you have to understand that…'

'I understand. But please, please, please Gustav, can't you just… anything? The pictures, a little text in the present tense, straight on? Please? And, if nothing else, then the pies? Just that?'

If Mahler had been able to laugh, he would have. Now all that came out of him was a groan. During the fifteen years that they had worked together he could not recall a single instance when Benke had actually begged for something. The word 'please' with a question mark after it had not been in his vocabulary.

'I'll try,' he said.

As if this was what he had expected the whole time, Benke said,

'I'll hold the centre spot. Forty-five minutes.'

'Jesus Christ, Benke…'

'Yes. And thanks, Gustav. Thanks. Get cracking now.'

They ended the call. Mahler glanced at Elias who had not moved. Walked over and placed a finger in his hand, which closed. He wanted to sit down next to him, fall asleep with his finger in his hand.

Forty-five minutes…

Insanity. Why had he agreed?

Because he couldn't help himself: he had been a reporter his whole adult life, and he knew what Benke had said was true. He was in possession of potentially the best material anyone had, of the biggest story… ever. He couldn't not do it. In spite of everything.

He sat down at the computer, took the film out from inside his head, and his fingers started to move across the keyboard.

The elevator starts with a jerk. I can hear screams through the thick concrete. The morgue level comes into view through the door glass…

Overview

00.22: The Minister of Health and Social Affairs arrives at the department. Under his supervision, a provisional command unit is formed consisting of representatives of various departments and the police, as well as eminent physicians from a number of disciplines.

A conference room at the department has been set up as a temporary command centre. It will quickly come to be known as the Dead Room.

00.25: The Prime Minister is informed of the situation, in Cape Town. The situation is deemed to be so extraordinary that a planned meeting with Nelson Mandela the next day is cancelled and the state plane is made ready for take-off. The flight takes eleven hours.

00.42: The first reliable report about awakenings at cemeteries reaches the Dead Room. The calculations have already been made. It is a matter of around 980 people. The police report that they do not have the resources to manage the exhumations.

00·45: Public pressure for a press statement from the Dead Room increases. A certain confusion about terminology abounds. After a brief meeting the term 'reliving' is unanimously adopted to refer to the awakened dead.

00.50: The task of exhumation is transferred to the military.

As collaboration between the police and the armed forces is forbidden by law, no military representatives can be included in the command unit. The military is given the same authority as in a state of emergency and has to address the matter as best they can.

01.00: Danderyd reports that 430 reliving have now been admitted to the Clinic for Infectious Diseases and work is underway to clear the wards in order to make more room. Only two ambulances at each hospital have been set aside for emergency dispatches, the rest are being used for transportation. Additional assistance is requested.

01.03: There is a discussion in the Dead Room about allowing funeral homes to help transport their former clients. It is decided, however, that this may be perceived as inappropriate, and instead all available taxi cabs are called in to transport patients from Danderyd to other hospitals.

01.05: A statement issued to the press by General J ohan Stenberg-who has been appointed head of the military emergency action-reaches the Dead Room. 'At present we view the corpses largely as a logistical problem,' the general has apparently said. A press secretary from the department agrees to take on the task of informing the general of the correct terminology.

01.08: Two emergency technicians and a chaplain are threatened with a rifle when they try to pick up a reliving woman in Tyreso. Police are dispatched to the scene.

01.10: CNN becomes the first foreign television station to carry reports on the events in Stockholm. Their images are limited to the chaos outside Danderyd and in the report, those patients who are being moved to other hospitals are erroneously referred to as 'the living dead'.

01.14: Pressure on the Dead Room from foreign media increases after the CNN report. A media spokesperson from the Foreign Ministry is given the task of fielding the telephone calls.

01.17: The first military exhumation division sets off, comprising mine-clearing experts as well as personnel with UN experience opening mass graves in Bosnia. While waiting for further similar groups to be dispatched, they set off to the Stockholm Forest Cemetery in order to start there.

01.21: The man in Tyreso who had refused to hand over his reliving wife opens fire at the police. No one is injured.

O1. 23: The Minister of Health and Social Affairs decides in consultation with judicial experts to apply to this situation those laws relating to mass epidemics, which affords the police corresponding interim authority before the results of the medical analysis. A plea is dispatched to the Medical Examiner to hurry up the work.

01.24: The police in Tyreso are given permission to use teargas, but decide not to since the armed man is elderly and may be seriously injured.

A police negotiator establishes telephone contact with the man as he is making his way to the scene.

01.27: An initial medical report indicates that the reliving apparently do not employ respiratory or circulatory organs. Hasty cell tests indicate, however, that some kind of metabolic function may be present. According to the specialist in internal medicine who is spear-heading the investigation, 'Everything is completely impossible, but we are doing what we can.'

01.3°: At Danderyd they have now admitted 640 reliving and ask for additional reinforcements from other hospitals. For unknown reasons, conflicts constantly erupt among members of the staff, which makes cooperation more difficult.

01.32: After significant pressure from the national and international media, the Dead Room's press secretary now announces a planned press conference in City Hall at 06.00.

01.33: Psychiatric clinics and emergency rooms are overwhelmed with family members in various states of hysteria. The internal psychiatric unit of the police force starts to see psychologically burnt out officers.

O1·3 5: The search for those reliving who are at large is more or

less ended. Reinforcements are, however, called out to the shelter of the City Mission, where clients have resisted police attempts to remove a homeless man-dead for two weeks-who has returned.

01.40: The first reliving at the Forest Cemetery is freed. The man is reported to be in the 'most miserable state imaginable' as he has been lifted out of a deep-lying area where the ground is waterlogged.

01.41: The facilitator arrives in Tyreso, The last thing the armed man says on the phone is, 'I'm going to her now' whereupon he shoots himself. The emergency technicians fetch his wife while police cordon off the area. The man shows no signs of awakening.

01.41: There is a request to the general public from the Forest Cemetery for 'people with strong stomachs'. The exhumed man makes an attempt to get away.

01. 4 5: Danderyd starts to lose control. 715 reliving have now been admitted and a number of disputes and several cases of fistfights have erupted among staff members in direct contact with the reliving.

01.50: The military calls in members of the Army Corpswithout consultation with the Dead Room-in order to erect a temporary holding facility for the reliving until they can be transported.

01. 55: Questioning of Danderyd staff members reveals that their conflicts have arisen due to a claimed ability to read one another's thoughts.

02.30: Reliving of particular significance to gaining a greater understanding of the phenomenon are moved to the Medical Examiner's office at Karolinska Medical Institute in Solna. Among these is Eva Zetterberg, who has the power of speech, as well as Rudolf Albin-the one who has been dead the longest before awakening.

02.56: Tomas Berggren, professor of Neurology, conducts an initial interview with Eva Zetterberg.

Interview 1

The following is a transcript of my first interview with patient Eva Zetterberg. The patient is of particular interest as a very short period of time elapsed between the cessation of her life-sustaining functions and her subsequent awakening without the support of said functions.

The patient's ability to speak has shown continuous improvement since the awakening.

This interview was conducted in Solna, Wednesday the 14th of August 2002 at 02.56-03.07.

TB: My name is Tomas. What is your name?

EZ: Eva.

TB: Can you tell me your whole name?

EZ:No.

TB: Can you tell me your last name?

EZ:No.

[Pause]

TB: Can you tell me your first name?

EZ:No.

TB: What is your name?

EZ: Eva.

TB: Eva is your first name.

EZ: Eva is my first name.

TB: Can you tell me your first name?

EZ: Eva.

[Pause]

TB: Do you know where you are right now?

EZ:No.

TB: What does it look like around here?

EZ: Where is here.

TB: Here is the place where Eva is.

EZ:No.

TB: Where is Eva?

EZ: Eva is not here.

TB: You are Eva.

EZ: I am Eva.

TB: Where are you?

[Pause]

EZ: Hospital. A white man. His name is Tomas.

TB: Yes. Where is Eva?

EZ: Eva is not here.

[TB touches EZ's hand]

TB: Whose hand is this?

EZ: Hand. I's hand.

TB: Who is I?

EZ:Tomas.

[Pause]

TB: Who are you?

EZ: I am Eva.

[TB touches EZ's hand]

TB: Whose hand is this?

EZ: Eva…'s hand.

TB: Where is Eva?

EZ: Eva is here.

[Pause] No.

TB: What does it look like where Eva is?

EZ:No.

[Pause]

TB: Can I speak with Eva?

EZ:No.

TB: What do your eyes see?

EZ: A wall. A room. A man. His name is Tomas.

TB: What do Eva's eyes see?

EZ: Eva has no eyes.

TB: Eva has no eyes?

EZ: Eva cannot see.

[Pause]

TB: What can Eva hear?

EZ: Eva cannot hear.

TB: Does Eva understand what I say?

[Pause]

EZ:Yes.

TB: Can I speak with Eva?

EZ:No.

TB: Why can't I talk to Eva?

EZ: Eva has no… mouth. Eva afraid.

[Pause]

TB: Why is Eva afraid? [Pause]

Can you tell me why Eva is afraid?

EZ: Eva stay.

TB: Does Eva want to stay where she is?

EZ:Yes.

TB: What is Eva afraid of?

EZ:No.

[EZ shakes her head violently.]

After this EZ refuses to answer any further questions.

The Heath 03.48

On the night bus to Tensta, Flora checked her voicemail and saw that Elvy had called five times. She immediately dialled her number.

'Hi, it's me… '

A strong exhalation on the other end hissed in Flora's ear.

'My dear child! Is everything all right?'

'Yes. Why?'

'I don't know, I just thought… I've been trying to call.'

'I wasn't allowed to have my mobile on in the ambulance.'

'No, of course… ' Flora could imagine Elvy slapping her forehead lightly, 'of course not. How silly of me.'

There was silence for a couple of seconds. The dark floors of Rissnes apartment buildings glided by outside the window.

'Nana? You heard him too, didn't you?'

'Yes.'

'The minister didn't notice anything. And you couldn't see it on Gramps. He was just lying there.'

Silence again. Flora took her walkman out of her bag. It was such an ancient model that you had to take the cassette out and turn it to switch sides. She flipped the tape over from Holy Wood to Antichrist Superstar. Then she waited.

'I…thought I saw something,' Elvy said finally.

'What?'

Elvy hesitated for two seconds and then said, 'I just wanted to hear that everything was all right with you. Are you on a bus?'

'Yes.'

Flora didn't add anything, and Elvy had run out of questions. They ended the conversation with a promise to be in touch the next day. Flora curled up in the corner of one of the seats, put the earpieces in and pushed play, leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes.

We hate love… we love hate… we hate love…

After the bus let her off at Tensta centrum she had to walk a kilometre. The Akalla path brought her almost the whole way, but on the last bit across the jarva field there were no trails other than those that the construction machines had left behind ten years earlier, and even they were returning to nature now.

She came up on a hill and looked out across the Heath. A hint of dawn brought the grey buildings out in sharp relief. She had been here at night once before, this spring. In the full dark she hadn't been able to make out the city at all from this vantage point. It had been present only as suggestion, a change in the soundscape.

There were no street lights, no lamps on in any windows, neither power, water nor drains had been laid all the way. They had never gotten that far.

As Flora walked down the slope with 'Tourniquet' winding through her ears, dawn slowly turned up its light and glinted in the few windows that remained unbroken. Until a few years ago the area-in theory still a construction site-had been enclosed by a fence but since the residents of the Heath created new entrances for the umpteenth time it had finally been left as it was. Large parts of the fence had had other uses found for them, and what was left lay fallen, scattered in the grass.

The graffiti clean-up crews had given up long since and the lower

portions of the buildings were a.profusion of spikes and real art. The court case to determine the party responsible for the demolition of the Heath had been underway for five years. Until it was resolved no one was going to do a thing. The Heath was a blot of shame on the city; a failed and slightly dodgy construction project, now a gathering place for those displaced from the rest of the city. From time to time the police went in and cleaned the place out, but since there were no resources for dealing with the results, they really didn't want to know.

Flora stepped from grass to asphalt. The sign on the building next to her indicated that she was now on Ekvatorvagen. A graffiti design around the sign made it look like a naked, laughing devil with dreadlocks holding an enormous erection in his hand.

Flora turned off her walkman in the pause between 'Tourniquet' and 'Angel with Scabbed Wings'. In order to have room for the album on the tape she had been forced to weed out some tracks and the choice had been simple. She took the earpieces out and turned her deafened eardrums toward the silence, chiding herself for the fear that whimpered in her stomach-

middle-class loser

– because the only thing you could hear in the area were the sounds of people. They had never got as far as planting trees and bushes, and therefore there were no birds, no rustling leaves. Only people; voices, cries. She turned with rapid steps from Ekvatorvagen onto Latitudvagen and came to Peter's courtyard.

Broken glass crunched underfoot and the sound was magnified, bouncing back and forth between the bare concrete walls. All of the buildings around were three storeys high and the courtyard was dominated by the large structure in the centre. According to Peter it had been planned as a combined laundry, social space and refuse centre. However, there was no water to wash with, no garbage collection, and no desire for social gatherings.

Flora gingerly made her way across plastic bags and strips of

cardboard, but could not help stepping on the glass. She was noticed. Someone who had been slumped against the iron door to the laundry room stood up and started to approach her. Flora kept moving, a little faster now.

'Hey there… babe…'

The man placed himself directly in front of her on the narrow path. Flora's eyes scanned the surroundings. There was no one else around. The man, who was a head taller than she, had a Finnish accent. A smell she could not identify wafted from him. When the man raised his hand and she saw the bottle, she recognised the smell: T-rod. He held it out to her; a juice bottle with something, maybe bread, stuffed down the neck like a filter.

'Hey Pippi Longstocking, do you want a drink?'

Flora shook her head. 'No, I'm good.'

Her voice appeared to spark some thought in the man. He leaned over, studied her face. Flora stood still.

'Jesus…' the man said. 'You're just… a kid. What are you doing here?'

'I'm here to see a friend.'

'Ah.'

The man stood swaying, thinking this over. He placed the bottle carefully on the ground next to him. Flora watched him closely, prepared to jerk into action if necessary. The man spread out his arms.

'Can I get a hug?'

Flora didn't move. Admittedly, the man did not look mean, just pathetic. But the bad guys only look bad in children's movies. The lowest buttons on his shirt were either unbuttoned or missing, revealing a white belly. His face looked too small for the swollen body and even in the weak light you could see the veins on his cheeks and nose. The man let his arms sink down.

'I have a daughter… had a daughter… she is alive, but… she is your age now, I think.' He reflected. 'Thirteen. Haven't seen her for eight years. Kajsa. That's her name.' He motioned to his pants' pocket, then let the motion die in a not-there gesture. 'Had a picture, but…'

He hunched his shoulders and Flora thought he was going to start crying. When she walked past him he stayed put, muttering something to himself.

Peter's window was at ground level and the glass was intact. Since his rooms were originally intended to serve as bicycle storage-and did actually function as such-the window was made of reinforced glass and it would take some determination to smash it. Flora crouched down and knocked.

She heard dragging steps behind her, turned and saw the Finn towering up above her. His arms were outstretched again and an image worthy of Manson flashed through Flora's mind-

crucified broiler

– then the Finn pouted and said in a baby-voice, 'Can I get a wittle hug?'

Flora stood up and moved out of reach. The Finn stayed where he was, arms spread, dog-eyed. Flora narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. 'Don't you get how disgusting you are?'

A flashlight went on behind the glass and she heard Peter's voice, 'Who is it?'

Without taking her eyes off the Finn, Flora said, 'It's me.'

She walked down the small stairs in the bike ramp and came to a locked metal door, decorated with a spray-painting of a summer landscape. It was one of the few doors in the area that had a lock, since Peter had put it in himself. The lock rattled and the door opened. Peter was holding a thin sleeping bag around himself with one hand; in the other he had a flashlight.

'Come in.'

Flora cast a final glance at the Finn who was still standing there, swaying, still with his arms outspread to the night and the memories. Once Peter had closed the door behind them and his flashlight swept across the room she could have been in any residential area. The bicycles were neatly

lined up along one side of the room while another wall was reserved for Peter's delivery moped.

Peter continued down toward the far end of the room, the divided section he had built himself, and opened the door hidden in the wall mural. He had managed to avoid eviction every time the police came in; they never noticed his hideaway in their cursory searches.

The room behind the wall was only six metres square. There was room for the bed that Peter had found in a skip and driven home on his moped, a chair, and a table where food items were arranged, a kerosene stove and a container of water-nothing more. On the floor next to the bed he had a boombox connected to a car battery. As if he was playing with the constraints of his environment, Peter used an electric toothbrush and razor. He had a Gameboy and an alarm clock, a mobile phone. The flashlight was an exception, of course. Flora usually brought batteries as a gift.

Peter locked the door and jumped into bed, unzipping the sleeping bag so it became a blanket. Flora took off her shirt and pants, curling up next to him and leaning her head against his shoulder.

'Peter… '

'Mm?'

'Do you know what's happened? Tonight?'

'No.'

She told him the whole story. From the part where she woke up at Elvy's to where she rode into town in the ambulance. When she finished Peter said, 'Strange,' and nestled his arm around her head. After a couple of seconds she heard his breaths deepen, asleep.

Dawn had made a light grey rectangle of the only window by then and Flora lay staring at it for so long that it hovered on her retina for a long time after she closed her eyes.

She, could tell by the pressure in her head that she had only been sleeping for a few hour, when she was woken by noise in the next room. She sat up in bed and looked through the peep hole. A man of Arab appearance-unusually well-dressed by the area's standards_ Was coaxing a bike out. Flora wasn't certain, but she thought she recognised him: he had a regular gig holding up one end of a protest banner on Drottninggatan.

The man took his bike and left, locking the door behind him. Peter had only given out keys to those who rented space there. It Cost twenty kronor a month to keep a bike in the locked and guarded space. Naturally, the deal came with no guarantee that the police wouldn't confiscate everything if they made a raid.

Flora lay dawn again but could not fall back to sleep. She alternated between '''ring" the ceiling, the golden-yellow rectangle and Peter’s pimply face on the pillow. After an hour she got up and started to heat water for tea on the kerosene stave.

The hissing from the kitchen area woke Peter. He sat up, looking at the window to judge the time of day, rather than the dock, said, 'Early' and slumped back dawn on the bed.

When Flora had let the two tea bags sit long enough in the simmering water, she poured out two cups heaped two teaspoons, of sugar in each and took them with her into bed. When they had downed a few sips Peter said, 'Those things, you told me when you got here…’

'Yes?'

'Is it true?'

'Yes.'

He nodded, giving the tea cup a shake, then said, 'Good.' He got up and poured one more teaspoon of sugar in and came back to bed. There were, periods, when be lived exclusive1y on tea and sugar.

'You think it's good?' Flora asked.

'Of Course.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. Is there more tea?'

'No. The water's finished.'

'We'll get more later.'

Peter got up to pee. His ribs jutted out sharply, as if he had much thinner skin than other people. He removed the wet rag from the pee bucket, got on his knees and tilted it in order to get the right angle. A faint rumble could be heard as the stream hit the metal side. Flora couldn't handle all that. When she was here she dealt with her needs in one of the portaloos outside the area. Even though the county did not want to acknowledge the existence of the Heath, they had brought in the portaloos several years ago and had them emptied regularly after the patch of forest around the corner had become a shit-smelling litter of toilet paper and urine-burned plants.

'It's good if the police have something else to do,' Peter said. 'And it's good if this kind of thing happens. It has to happen.'

'But don't you think it's strange?' Flora said.

'I think it's strange it hasn't happened before. Should we go get more water?'

They put their clothes on and Peter took out the moped. It had taken him half a year to restore and repair the pile of scrap that he had found abandoned and stripped in the woods. Basically, he had only been able to salvage the frame and the wheels. But with found and bartered parts he had managed to make it roadworthy, mounted a cargo tray, sprayed it metallic silver and written 'The Silver Arrow' on the tank in black letters. It was the only possession he cared about. If Flora pictured Peter as Snuffkin from the Moomin books, then the moped was his harmonica.

Flora brought the water container along, sat down on the flatbed. They made a round of the area, helping themselves to three containers that were outside the gates. This was Peter's entire business; he guarded bicycles and fetched and carried-water, among other things. He kept himself alive on food bought from the surplus store with the thousand or so kronor this brought in. Sometimes the market traders in Rinkeby let him have a box of left-over vegetables at the end of the day.

They drove, bumping across the field, onto Akallavagen, and Peter filled up the water containers at the Shell station. It was shortly before nine o'clock and the headline screamers were out.

The dead awaken.

2000 Swedes came back from the grave last night.

The dead awaken.

Exclusive pics of the Fright-Night.

The paper that promised the pictorial spread had a snapshot of what looked like a fistfight on the billboard screamer. People in white were fighting with naked old people between metal Counters. The other one looked more like a classic horror film poster; a number of old people in shrouds among gravestones.

'Check that out,' Flora said.

'Yes,' Peter said. 'Can you help me with the containers?'

Together they loaded up the four ten-litre containers. Flora looked around and couldn't help being disappointed. Everything looked normal. The sun shining sleepily on people filling up their cars, walking along the footpath. She went into the station and bought both newspapers. The clerk took the money in silence. When she came back outside there was a guy crouched beside his car filling the tyres.

As if nothing…

Peter started the moped, and she squeezed on holding onto the containers as they drove back across the rutted field. There were no signs anywhere that the world had gone over the edge last night.

She had seen Romero's zombie trilogy and even if that wasn't what she had expected, then… something. Anything, other than the newspapers getting a new story to feast on. Peter didn't ask anything, was not getting worked up. That was why she had sought him out; to get away from it. But now as she sat on the shaking flatbed, hugging the containers, she almost longed to get back to the city, to her school, to the hysteria she assumed must be in full bloom there.

What if that's the end of it? Something to talk about for a week and then… gone.

She punched her fist into one of the containers and blinked as the rising tears stung her eyes. She boxed the container again. Peter did not ask why.

Industrigatan 07.41

'How are you, dear? Are you sick?'

'No, I'm just… I just slept badly.'

'How did things go at Norra Brunn?'

'That ended up being cancelled. That thing with the power. I think I have to get going now.'

David reached past his mother for Magnus, who smiled broadly and said, 'I watched TV until ten-thirty! Didn't I, Grandma?'

'Yes,' she said with a sheepish smile. 'It wouldn't turn off, and my head was hurting so much… '

'Mine was too, actually,' Magnus interrupted. 'But I watched anyway. It was Tarzan.'

David nodded mechanically. A lava flow was welling up inside his head, behind his eyes. If he stood here one more second he was going to erupt in some way. He had not slept at all. It wasn't until six o'clock in the morning that someone had told him Eva had been moved to the Medical Examiner's department. He had tried in vain to get more information, then gone home and splashed cold water in his face, listened to messages on the answering machine.

Nothing from the hospital. Only reporters, and Eva's father who was wondering what had happened to her. David couldn't bring himself to talk to either him or his mother. Luckily she had not heard anything.

When Magnus took his hand, he pulled him along somewhat too forcefully. His mother wrinkled her brow and asked, 'And how are things with Eva?'

'Fine. We have to go now.'

They said goodbye and David hurried Magnus down the stairs. On the way to school, Magnus told him about the episode of Tarzan he had seen and David nodded, grunting without listening. Half-way there, he guided Magnus to a park bench.

'What is it?' Magnus asked.

David let his hands rest on his knees, stared down into the pavement. He tried to will the glowing heat inside his head to cool off, to calm down. Magnus fussed with his backpack.

'Dad! I don't have any fruit!'

He displayed his empty backpack as evidence and David said, 'We'll buy an apple at the newsstand.'

The everyday words, the normal actions brought a stillness. A sliver of light opened and through it he saw his eight-year-old examine the bottom of his backpack; maybe there was an old apple hidden in there somewhere after all? The morning sun shone on the thin hair at the back of his head.

I'll never let you down, little man. Whatever happens.

The panic ebbed away, replaced by an enormous grief. If only it were this simple: it was a beautiful morning, the sun was pleasantly warm, throwing misty shadows on tree trunks and concrete. Here he was, sitting on a park bench with his son who was on his way to school and needed an apple for his snack. And he was the dad, who could walk into a store, fish out a couple of kronor and buy a large, red apple, and give it to his son, who would say 'nice one' and tuck it into his bag. If that was only the way it was.

'Magnus…’ he said.

‘Yeah, I’d rather have a pear’

'OK. But Magnus… '

A great deal of the night had been passed thinking about this moment. What he should say, what he should do. Eva was the one who was good at this stuff. Eva handled the conversations about how Magnus should act if the big kids were mean, if he was scared, or anxious about something.

David could be supportive, could follow Eva's guide, but he didn't know where to start. What was right.

'It's just that… Mum was in an accident last night. And she's in the hospital.'

'What accident?'

'She was in a car crash. With an elk.' Magnus eyes grew wide.

'Did it die?'

'Yes. At least I think so. But it's… Mum will be gone for a few days so that they can… make her better again.'

'Can't I see her?'

A lump grew in David's throat, but before it had time to dissolve into tears he stood up, took Magnus by the hand and said, 'Not right now. But later. Soon. When she's better.'

They walked for a while in silence. When they were almost at the school Magnus asked, 'So when will she be better?'

'Soon. Do you want a pear?'

'Mm.'

David ducked into the newsagents and bought a pear. When he came out, Magnus was staring at the newspaper headlines.

The dead awaken.

2000 Swedes came back from the grave last night.

The dead awaken.

Exclusive pics of the Fright-Night

.

He pointed, and asked, 'Is that true?'

David glanced at the black letters, screaming on a yellow background. He said, 'I don't know', and put the pear in the backpack. Magnus asked more during the last little bit before school, and David told some more lies.

They hugged at the school gates and David stayed crouched there for a while-saw Magnus walk in through the tall doors with his large bag thumping against his back.

He picked up snippets of a conversation between two parents

standing next to him, '…like a horror film zombies… you can

only hope they manage to round them all up think of what the

children… '

He recognised them as parents of children in Magnus' class. He was gripped by a sudden rage. He wanted to throw himself at them, shake them and scream that this wasn't some movie, that Eva wasn't a zombie, that she had just died and then come back to life and soon everything was going to be fine.

As if she had felt his anger streaming toward her, the woman turned around and noticed David. Her hand flew up to her lips and immediate pity altered the expression in her eyes. She walked up to David with nervously fluttering fingers and said, 'I'm so sorry…I heard… how awful.'.

David glared at her. 'What are you talking about?'

This was apparently not the reaction she had been expecting, and her hands swung up in front of her as if to ward off his animosity.

'Well,' she said, 'I understand… it was on the news this morning, you see…'

It took several seconds until David made the connection. He had completely forgotten the exchange with the reporters, had experienced it as something so meaningless that it couldn't possibly carry any meaning in the outer world. Even the man now came forward.

'Can we do anything?' he asked.

David shook his head and walked away. Outside the newsagents he

stopped in front of the headlines.

Magnus…

Had any of the parents who had watched the morning news said anything to their children, so that Magnus would find out that way? Were people really so stupid? Should he go get Magnus?

He couldn't summon the energy to think. Instead he walked in and bought both papers, then sat down on a bench to read them. When he was done he was going to go out to the Medical Examiner's department and figure out what the hell they were up to.

He had trouble concentrating on the text. The words he had overheard from the other parents kept running through his head.

Horror film… zombies…

He never watched horror movies, but this much he knew: zombies were dangerous. Something that people had to protect themselves against. He rubbed his eyes firmly and focused on the photographs, the text.

The elevator starts with a jerk. I can hear screams through the thick concrete. The morgue level comes into view through the door glass…

The article's rigorous tone of reportage gave way to a plea at the end that made David sit up a little. The writer-Gustav Mahler, David read-had completely inappropriately inserted his own voice in closing.

… we must nonetheless ask ourselves: Is it not for the family members to say what should be done? Can the state authorities alone decide a matter that in the final analysis is about love? I do not think so, and I think others feel the same.

David lowered the paper.

Yes, he thought. Ultimately this is about love.

He folded the newspaper into his pocket like a silent support and hailed a taxi to take him to Solna, where they were keeping Eva prisoner.

Vallingby 08.00

Mahler thought he had just closed his eyes for a few seconds when the alarm went off, but he had slept for three hours, sitting up in the armchair. His body felt like part of the chair, hard to dislodge. Elias was lying on the couch with his head right next to him. He stretched out his arm and placed his finger in Elias' palm; it responded.

He had a memory of writing something for the paper, and it made him anxious. Had he mentioned Elias? In some way he had, but he couldn't recall what. Composing it had been a forty-fiveminute rush of letters and cigarettes. Then he had retreated to the armchair, and switched off.

Enough. There were too many other things to consider. He heaved himself up out of the chair and went out on the balcony, lit a cigarette and leaned over the railing. It was a beautiful morning. A clear blue sky and not yet warm. A soft breeze set the cigarette glowing, caressed his chest. His whole body was sticky with dried sweat, and his shirt was stiff, oily. The smoke he was sucking into his lungs tasted of thick heat.

He looked across the courtyard at Anna's window.

I have to tell her.

At around ten o'clock she would visit the grave and see what had

happened. He had to spare her that shock, but he was afraid; did not know how she would react. Since Elias' death, only a thin membrane had kept her from tumbling into the final darkness. Maybe it would break now. There was one thing that spoke against this: she had not chosen cremation. She had wanted to have Elias' skin, face, bones to think of, down in the earth. Had wanted to keep him present. Perhaps it even meant that she would get through this. Perhaps.

He put out the cigarette, drew a couple of deep breaths, as deep as he could with his wheezing pipes, and went back in.

Now, with the outside air as a point of comparison, he could tell how bad the room smelled. Stale cigarette smoke mixed with dust and behind this, penetratingly, a strong smell of-

what is it called

– Havarti. Aged cheese. That smell that stayed on your fingers, in!

scent-memory, hours after you opened the plastic packaging. While 1

he stood still and drew in air through his nose it grew stronger. Elias'

belly was swollen like a balloon, yet another button had come off

during the night and now his pyjama top was fastened only by a

button at the neck.

She can't see him like this.

He half-filled the bathtub, then carried Elias to the bathroom and undressed him. Soon he would be used to it. Soon there would be no more surpnses.

Elias' skin was dark green, olive-coloured, and appeared thinMahler could clearly make out the blood vessels underneath. There were small fluid-filled blisters scattered across his chest as if he had chickenpox. If he could only eliminate the gas that was inflating his belly. It would make Elias appear less deformed, it would be possible to view him as… as if he had severe burns or something like that.

Elias' face was unmoving as his clothes were removed. Mahler did not know if he could see anything. The eyes were only visible as two drops of dried sap under the sunken eyelids.

Mahler gently lowered him into the bathtub. Elias did not protest. As the water closed around his body he let out a sigh of fetid air. Mahler filled his tooth-brushing glass with water and held it up to the blackened lips. Since Elias made no move to drink it, Mahler tilted the glass so that a little liquid ran into his mouth. It ran out again.

Then he remembered something. Something he had read about Haiti, about the risen dead.

He resisted the impulse to go to the bookshelf and check, he daren't leave Elias alone in the bathtub. He painstakingly sponged off every bit of his body. The worst was the fingers, toes, the penis that were all blue-black with some kind of gangrene and completely bereft of life.

He finished by shampooing Elias' hair. As he slowly rubbed his scalp, Mahler closed his eyes and was able to pretend for a moment. It was basically no different than when he had washed Elias' hair before. But when he opened his eyes and was going to rinse he saw that tufts of hair were hanging from his fingers.

No, no…

He scooped water over the hair, not daring to dry it for fear that more would fall out. The water in the bathtub was brown and Mahler pulled out the plug, then rinsed Elias off with warm water from the hand-held shower.

The belly… that belly…

He laid his hand on Elias' stomach and pressed lightly. When nothing happened, he pressed a little harder. It gave way with a farting sound. He pressed more. The farting continued, as when you let air out of a balloon; a light-brown fluid trickled out of the anus, ran down toward the drain and a smell rose up out of the tub that forced Mahler to turn away, open the lid to the toilet and vomit.

This will be fine… this will be fine…

Yes. Elias looked a little better now, he decided when he turned back. The body had lost its look of starvation, but his skin…

Mahler rinsed Elias off once more, then lifted him out of the tub, swept him up in a white bath towel and carried him to his bed. He fetched a tube of body lotion and rubbed it into every centimetre of his leathery skin. To his elation he saw that after one minute the skin looked as dry as before.

That must mean it was absorbing it. He went over the body with lotion again and again until the tube was empty.

When he pinched the skin on Elias' armpit with his thumb and forefinger it was less hard than before. Less like leather, more like rubber. But just as dry. He would have to buy more lotion.

The work granted him a measure of relief. Softening his skin was the first thing he had been able to do for Elias, the only improvement he had been able to achieve.

Haiti…

He did not need to read; he remembered.

In the kitchen he half-filled a glass with water, then poured in a teaspoon of salt and mixed it until it was fully dissolved. He tasted it. Super salty. He filled the glass to the top, mixed it and tasted again. Poured out half and filled it up again. Yes. Now it tasted more or less like sea water.

He hesitated when he came back into the bedroom. The very sick were often given glucose, a sugar solution. He only had superstition to lean on in order to justify this.

But surely it can't actually be… dangerous. Can it?

Elias' life flame was so terribly weak. It felt as if it wouldn't take much to extinguish it completely. But surely a mouthful of salt water wouldn't…?

He sat on the edge of the bed with the glass in his hand.

Haiti was the only place in the world with a widespread belief in zombies. And what the dead need when they return to the world of the living is sea water. In all mythology there is some kernel of truth, otherwise it would not survive. So therefore…

He cupped his hand behind Elias' neck. Drops from the wet hair ran down over the back of his hand as he lifted Elias into a sitting position and

brought the glass to his lips, tilted it and let a small quantity pour in. Elias' throat moved up in a short spasm. And down. He swallowed.

Mahler had to put the glass down on the bedside table and scoop Elias into his arms. He was careful not to use too much force, and risk injuring something in the frail body.

'You can do it, bud, you can do it!'

Elias did not move, his body was as stiff as before, but he had done something. He had drunk something.

Maybe Mahler's happiness was not so much to do with the sign of life in Elias, as with the fact that he was able to do something for him. He did not have to stand there at a loss and simply look at him. He could apply lotion to his body, he could give him something to drink. Maybe there were more things he could do, time would tell. Now…

Heady with his success, he took the glass again and brought it to Elias' lips. But he poured it too fast and it ran out again. Elias' throat did not move.

'Wait… wait…'

Mahler ran out into the kitchen and found a small plastic syringe that had come with a bottle of medicine he had bought the last time Elias had a fever. He filled the syringe with salt water from the glass and slowly squeezed ten mils of liquid between Elias' lips. He swallowed. Mahler continued until the syringe was empty. Then he refilled it. After ten minutes Elias had drunk the whole glass and Mahler lowered his wet head against the pillows.

There was no visible difference, but whatever Elias was now, it had a will, or at least an impulse to take something in from the external world…

Mahler tucked Elias into bed, and lay down beside him.

Elias still stank, but the bath had removed the worst of it. The remaining smell was now mixed up with the scent of soap and shampoo. Mahler

leaned his head against the pillow and narrowed his eyes, trying to see his grandchild, but it didn't work. The soft profile was competely altered by the jutting cheekbones, the sunken nose, the lips.

He isn't dead. He exists. It will be fine…

Mahler fell asleep.

The clock on the bedside table said half past ten when he was awakened by the telephone. His first thought was: Anna!

He hadn't spoken with her; maybe she had already had time to go to the graveside. He glanced quickly at Elias who was lying exactly as he had left him, then grabbed the phone on his side of the bed.

'Yes, this is Mahler.'

'It's me. Anna.'

Fucking hell. Idiot. How could he have slept? Anna's voice sounded shredded, trembling. She had been out to Racksta, Mahler lowered his legs over the side of the bed, sat up.

'Yes… hi there. How are you?'

'Daddy. Elias is gone.' Mahler drew in air in order to tell her, but did not get a chance before Anna continued, 'Two men were just here and asked me if I… if I had… Daddy, there has…last night… there are dead people who have come back to life.'

'What kind of men?'

'Daddy, do you hear what I'm saying? Do you hear what I'm saying!' Her voice was hysterical, about to escalate into a scream. 'Dead people have come back to life and Elias… they said that his grave… '

'Anna, Anna. Calm down. He is here.' Mahler looked at Elias' head resting on the pillow, touched his forehead with his hand. 'He is here. With me.'

There was silence on the other end. 'Anna?'

'He… is alive? Elias? Are you saying that… '

'Yes. Or rather… ' there was a rattling sound on the line. 'Anna?

Anna?' Through the receiver, in the distance, he heard a door open and close.

Damn it…

He got up, groggy. Anna was on her way over. He had to…

What did he have to do?

Lessen, soften…

The blinds in the bedroom were lowered, but that was not enough to conceal Elias' appearance. Quickly, Mahler took a blanket out of the closet and hung it over the curtain rod. Some light came in through the crack on the side, but it was significantly darker.

Should I light a candle? No, then it will be like a wake.

'Elias? Elias?'

No reply. With trembling hands, Mahler drew up the very last water from the glass into the syringe, brought it to Elias' lips. Perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him now that it was so dark, but Elias did not only swallow, Mahler even thought he moved his lips a little in order to take in the syringe.

He had no time to reflect on this because the front door opened at the bottom of the stairs and he walked out into the hall in order to meet Anna. Ten seconds during which his thoughts whirled, then the doorbell rang. He breathed in and opened.

Anna was only dressed in a T-shirt and panties. No shoes.

'Where is he? Where is he?'

She forced her way into the apartment but he got hold of her, restrained her. 'Anna…listen to me for a moment… Anna…'

She squirmed in his grip, cried, 'Elias!' and tried to free herself. With all the strength he could muster he shouted:

'ANNA! HE IS DEAD!'

Anna stopped struggling, stared at him in confusion. Her eyelids

twitched and her lips quivered.

'Dead? But… but… you said… they said… '

'Can you just listen to me for one second?'

Anna suddenly went limp, would have fallen down in a heap on the floor if Mahler had not caught her and set her down in the chair next to the phone. Her head turned from side to side as if by an invisible power. Mahler placed himself in front of her, blocking the way between her and the bedroom, leaned down and took her hand in his.

'Anna. Listen to me. He lives… but he is dead.'

Anna shook her head, pressed her hands to her temples.

'I don't understand I don't understand what you are saying I don't…'

He took her head between his hands, twisting it with some force to meet his eyes.

'He has been in the ground for a month. He doesn't look like he did before. Not at all. He looks… pretty awful.'

'But how can he… he must…'

'Anna, I don't know. No one knows anything. He doesn't speak.

He doesn't move. It is Elias, and he is alive. But he is very changed. He is… as if dead. Maybe there is something that can be done, but… '

'I want to see him.'

Mahler nodded. 'Yes, of course you do. But you have to prepare yourself for… try to prepare yourself for… '

For what? How can one prepare oneself for something like this?

Mahler took a step back. Anna remained seated.

'Where is he?'

'In the bedroom.'

Anna pressed her lips together, leaning forward a little so she could see the bedroom door. She had collected herself. Now she seemed afraid instead. Fumbling with her hand in the direction of the door, she asked, 'Is he… broken?' Her eyes looked at Mahler, pleading. He shook his head.

'No. But he has… dried up. He is… blackened.'

Anna clasped her hands tightly in her lap.

'Was it you who… '

'Yes.'

She nodded, said flatly, 'They were wondering,' and stood up, walking toward the bedroom. Mahler followed, half a step behind. In his thoughts he went through the contents of the medicine drawer, if he had anything tranquilising in case Anna… No. He had nothing like that. Only his words, his hands. Whatever help they might be.

She did not collapse. She did not scream. She quietly approached the bed and looked at what was lying there. Sat down on the bed. After sitting there for a minute looking without saying anything, she asked, 'Would you please go out for a while?'

Mahler backed out and shut the door on them. Stood outside, listening. After a while he heard something that sounded like an injured animal. A drawn-out, monotone whimper. He bit his knuckles, but did not open the door.

Anna came out after five minutes. Her eyes were red, but she was calm. She closed the door gently behind her. Now Mahler was the one getting nervous. He had not expected this. Anna walked out and sat down on the couch. Mahler followed, sitting down next to her and taking her hand.

'How is it?'

Anna stared at the dark television screen. Her gaze was without expression. She said, 'It isn't Elias.'

Mahler did not answer. A pain that started in his heart region radiated out along his shoulder, the arm. He leaned back against the cushions, trying to will his heart to be still, stop fluttering. His face was contorted in a grimace of pain when a hot hand gripped his heart, squeezed and…let go. His heart took up its usual rhythm. Anna had not noticed anything. She said, 'Elias doesn't exist any longer.'

'Anna… I,' Mahler panted.

Anna nodded at her own statement, adding, 'Elias is dead.'

'Anna, I'm… sure that it is… '

'You misunderstand me. I know that it is Elias' body. But Elias no longer exists.'

Mahler did not know what to say. The pain in his arm subsided, leaving behind a peace, the calm after a successful battle. He closed his eyes, said, 'What do you want to do?'

'Take care of him, of course. But Elias is gone. He lives in our memories. That's where he should be. Nowhere else.'

Mahler nodded, said, 'Yes… '

Meant nothing by it.

Solna 08.45

The taxi driver had spent the night transporting patients from Danderyd and was talking about how stupid people were. Scared of the dead in the way they'd be scared of ghosts, when that was not the problem. The problem was bacteria.

Take a dead dog in a well. After three days the water is so toxic that you'd be risking your life to drink it. Or take the war in Rwanda: tens of thousands dead, sure, but that in itself wasn't the great tragedy. It was water. Corpses had been tossed into the rivers and then even more had died from lack of drinking water, or from drinking what was there.

The bacteria the corpses brought with them. There was the real danger.

David noted that the driver had a box of tissues attached to the control panel under the meter. He did not know if what the man was saying was true, but the very fact that he believed it…

He stopped listening when the man started to talk about the meteorite from Mars that had landed four years ago. The guy was clearly obsessed, and David paid no attention to the rigmarole about secret test results that had been concealed from the public.

Were they planning to perform an autopsy on her? Had they already done it?

When they arrived at the Karolina Institute campus the driver asked for a more specific address, and David said, 'The Medical Examiner's Department.'

The driver looked at him. 'Do you work there, or what?'

'No.'

'Lucky for you.'

'Why?'

The driver shook his head and said in the tone of one confiding a secret, 'Let me put it this way… they're a fairly cuckoo lot, some of them.' When David stepped out of the car outside a mundanelooking brick building, the driver looked at him and said, 'Good luck' before driving away.

David went up to the reception and explained his business. The receptionist, who did not appear to have the least idea what he was talking about, made various calls and eventually found the right person. She asked David to have a seat and wait.

The waiting room consisted of a couple of vinyl-covered chairs.

These surroundings conjured up a feeling of anxiety in him and just as he was about to get up and wait in the parking lot, someone came through the glass doors that led to the inner region.

Without having thought about it, David had expected a giant of a man in a blood-spattered apron. But it was a woman who came toward him. A small woman in her fifties with short, greying hair, and blue eyes behind enormous glasses. No blood on the white coat. She stretched out her hand.

'Hello. Elisabeth Simonsson.'

David took her hand. Her grip was firm and dry. 'David. I… Eva Zetterberg is my wife.'

'Oh. I see. I am terribly… '

'Is she here?'

'Yes.'

Despite his determination, David grew nervous under the

scrutinising gaze she directed at him, as if searching his innards for the trace of a crime. He crossed his arms over his chest to shield himself.

'I want to see her.'

'I'm sorry. I understand how you must-feel. But it's out of the question.'

'Why?'

'Because we are in the process of… examining her.'

David grimaced. He had caught the brief pause in front of the word 'examining'. She had been planning to say something else. He balled his hands into fists, said, 'You can't do that to her!'

The woman tilted her head. 'What do you mean?'

David waved his arms toward the doors the woman had come out of, towards the… wards. 'You can't bloody do an autopsy on someone who is still alive!'

The woman blinked and then did something that David had not been expecting. She burst into laughter. Her little face unfolded in a network of laugh lines that quickly disappeared again. The woman waved her hand, said, 'Excuse me,' pressed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose arid went on, 'I understand that you are… but you shouldn't be concerned.'

'Oh really, then what are you doing?'

'Exactly what I said. We are examining her.'

'But why are you doing it here?'

'Because… well, for example, I'm a toxicologist, that is, a specialist in detecting foreign substances in dead bodies. We are examining her under the assumption that something has, so to speak, been introduced. Something that should not be present. Exactly as we do in the case of suspected murder.'

'But you… cut people up here. Under normal circumstances.'

The woman wrinkled her nose at this description of her place of work, but nodded and said, 'Yes, we do. Because we have to. But in this case… we also have access to equipment that does not exist elsewhere. That can be used even when we are not… cutting people up.'

David sat down on the vinyl chair, cradled his head in his hands.

Foreign substances… something that has been introduced. He did not understand what they were looking for. He only knew one thing.

'I want to see her.'

'In case it's any comfort to you,' her voice softened somewhat, 'you should know that all of the reliving have been isolated. Until we know more. You are not the only one.'

The corners of David's mouth twitched. 'The bacteria, right?'

'Among other things, yes.'

'And if I don't give a damn about the bacteria? If I say I want to see her anyway?'

'It doesn't matter. You will have to excuse me. I understand how you… '

'I don't think so.' David stood up and walked toward the door. Before he left, he turned back. 'I may be wrong, but I don't believe you have any right to do this. I'm going to… I'm going to do something.'

The woman did not reply. Just looked at David with a pitying, owl-like gaze that made him furious. The door banged mutely against the doorstop as he flung it open and stormed out into the parking lot.

Attachment 1

Newspapers

[From Aftonbladet, 14 August 2002]

Corpses dug up,

try to flee Military open graves

It is six weeks since the 87-year-old died, and his body is in an advanced state of decomposition. But he lives, and early this morning he tried to elude the military cadets who were opening his grave. Shocking scenes such as this were enacted as the military began their work of examining at least 200 graves at the Stockholm Forest Cemetery.

'It is abominable, the worst thing I have ever experienced,' said a young national serviceman.

At half past one this morning, their fears were realised: the buried were alive. Aftonbladet was on the scene when the military began their operation at the Stockholm Forest Cemetery. An 87-year-old man was the first to be uncovered. He lived, although six weeks have passed since his burial. His body was in an advanced state of decomposition. The man attempted to flee the scene, but was restrained. Sections of the man's flesh peeled away at the touch. With the aid of the burial shroud, soldiers were finally able to force the man to the ground. Two people were needed to restrain him.

Tried to flee

'There is no alternative, but it is only a temporary measure,' Colonel Johan Stenberg said about the fence that the cadets had just started to construct. In order to restrain the dead the army engineers erected an enclosure. Meanwhile others were digging up coffins without opening them.

'It isn't pleasant, but what can we do?' Colonel Stenberg said, shrugging. The enclosure was finished at two-thirty in the morning and the cemetery was fiIIed with military personnel. No hospital transports were to be seen. The opening of the coffins was begun and a horrifying sight awaited.

The dead attempted to find their way out, fumbling, uncertain. Many tried to elude the military but were quickly brought back.

Psychological pressure

'This is hell on earth,' a cadet said, sitting apatheticaIIy next to the enclosure. Behind him stood fifteen of the dead, pressed up against the fence. They stared toward us with their empty eye sockets. The cadet threw himself headlong onto the ground, holding his hands over his ears.

'We assumed this would happen,' johan Stenberg said. 'That is why we have so much personnel. I feel sorry for the kid. Psychological pressure.'

It was obvious that the colonel did not mean what he was saying.

The ambulances arrive

Three more corpses were dug up before the ambulances arrived. Quarrels erupted in several quarters. Commanding officers had to intervene in several fights. As we went to press, the situation at the Forest Cemetery had basicaIIy been reduced to chaos. A few of the dead may have escaped. Nearby residents are urged to keep their doors locked. Today the rest of the graves are scheduled to be opened and then the work wiII continue at the rest of the eighteen city cemeteries.

[Editorial, ExpressenJ

The impossible happened last night. Two thousand Swedes, either declared dead or buried, returned to life. How this is possible and what will happen remains to be seen, but even now a fundamental question may be posed: after this, can we regard death as the end?

Probably not.

One of the definitions of man is that he is an animal who is conscious of the fact that he will die. Perhaps the only one. The events of last night will force us to reformulate the conditions of our own existence.

Death is another word for the cessation of metabolism. If we rule out religious or paranormal explanations, then only one alternative remains: the biological mechanism that is our body has the capacity to restart the process of metabolism. At this point there is no definitive research, but there are many indications.

None of the classic signs of death are valid now. We no longer have a way to declare someone dead. Everyone may come back.

During the 1980s a trend began called cryogenics. Wealthy individuals stipulated in their wills that their bodies should be frozen after death. In the USA, in particular, there are thousands of people resting in this state.

It would not be surprising if the much-maligned cryogenics now experiences an upswing. A solution that allows us to preserve our dead body must at least be discussed.

In all likelihood, researchers will be able to determine what

has caused the dead to become reliving. Possibly they will be

able to repeat the results. A serum against a certain disease can be produced from the blood of a patient who has overcome it. Tonight we have seen thousands of people overcome death. What will we be able to learn?

Our present method of handling the corpse of a human being is basically organised around destroying it. Either quickly, through cremation, or slowly by way of decomposition in the ground. In the future it must be up to each individual to decide what is to be done. In a month, a year, or perhaps ten years-we may find ourselves with a cure for death.

Who will want to be cremated then?

Radio

[From Morning Echo 06.00]

According to military sources this morning, there are around one hundred and fifty graves left to be opened. All of Stockholm's cemeteries will, however, remain closed to the public for the rest of the day…

Twelve people are still missing. In three of the cases, the graves have been found dug up, and the deceased removed…

Press conference currently underway in the Stockholm parliamentary building…

[From Morning Echo 07.00]

Family members of the reliving have gathered outside Danderyd Hospital. Head physician Sten Bergwall tells an Echo reporter that at present they cannot allow visitors.

'We still don't know enough. The reliving have been isolated but are receiving the best possible care. As soon as the situation is considered safe we will let in visitors. That could be today, that could be in one week.'…

…from the press conference just ended:

Minister of Social Affairs: At the parliamentary meeting this evening we have decided to prohibit all burials and cremations for an indeterminate amount of time. The four people who have passed away in the Stockholm area during the night have admittedly not shown any signs of awakening, but…

Journalist: Is there room to store so many bodies?

Minister: Yes, for the moment at least. The morgues have never been this empty.

Journalist: But down the track?

Minister: Down the track… we will have to think of something. As you can imagine, there is quite a lot that must be… thought of in this kind of situation.

… the police have now found two of the reliving who were missing. In both cases, family members had concealed them in their

homes…

[From Morning Echo 08.00]

Staff at Danderyd Hospital with whom Echo news teams have spoken say that the situation has been chaotic throughout the night. In certain wards cooperation has been impossible.

At a crisis meeting earlier this morning it was decided that staff from all wards would be shifted around in order to offset further conflicts…

Even military sources report certain phenomena breaking out in cases of direct contact with large gatherings of the reliving…

Sten Bergwall discusses the practical difficulties of caring for

the reliving, particularly those who have been retrieved from the ground, 'Well, technically they are dead, with all the resulting consequences for the human organism. In order to put this more simply, we have had people here all night with equipment in order to change our ordinary rooms to cold storage… on ethical grounds we would rather not use the morgue, but… we are talking of close to two thousand people… '

The funeral home Fonus says that they will naturally comply with the government's recommendations, but they request a swift notification on technical grounds…

Television

[TV4 morning news 08.30]

In the studio: STEN BERGWALL (SB), head physician at

Danderyd. JOHAN STENBERG US), Colonel. RUNO

SAHLIN (RS), PhD in Parapsychology.

Interviewer: If we could start with practical matters. How many reliving are currently at Danderyd?

SB: One thousand nine hundred and sixty-two. A few more may have been admitted as we are sitting here.

Int: From what I've heard there have been several reliving who have… died again during the night.

SB: That is correct.

Int: Do we know why?

SB: Not really, no. But primarily this involves a few reliving who were… in a very bad state to begin with.

Int: How do you know they've died?

SB: [smiling] I could say 'you just know' because that is the case, but more concretely there is a certain… electrical activity in the cerebral cortex that can be measured with an EEG, and when this ceases, there is death. According to current definitions. And the EEG that has been taken on the reliving shows that a certain rudimentary brain function has restarted.

Int:]ohan Stenberg, there has been talk of telepathic phenomena?

JS: Yes.

Int: Is it true that those of you who have been in direct contact with the reliving have been able to read their thoughts?

JS: No, the phenomena that have been reported have exclusively involved the living.

Int: Can you tell me about the conflicts that have broken out?

[JB looks at SB, passing the question over to him.]

SB: Well, I don't know what has occurred at the cemeteries, but it is true that we have experienced some… differences of opinion at the hospital.

Int: Because you've been able to read each other's thoughts?

SB: There are conflicts in all staff teams and in a stressful situation they have a tendency to come to the fore. We have no reliable evidence that it really is… mind-reading that is the basis for this.

Int: Runo Sahlin…

RS: I think it's remarkable to see two grown people deny evident facts only because it happens not to fit their world view, and the facts are as follows: when a large group of the reliving assembles a kind of force field arises that makes it possible for people around them to read each other's thoughts. I have been to Danderyd myself and experienced this.

Int: Sten Bergwall. How do you explain this?

SB: [sighing] The electrical activity in their brains… the amplitude is at most half a microvolt and the frequency of the alpha waves alternates between one and two Hertz. The frequency can therefore be compared to that of a newborn and the amplitude, that is, the strength of the electric current, is so weak that… what would be the comparison? Someone who is going to die in a few seconds. That weak.

RS: You're trying to explain this field not by the fact that their electrical activity is so strong, but that it's so weak?

SB: What I'm saying is that we have never seen patterns like this

in living, fully grown humans. It is not impossible that certain kinds of… side effects could arise. We are still waiting for the RMV's results in order to be able to say anything about how it is biologically possible that these bodies can live. [Sarcastically, to RS] But maybe you already have an explanation?

RS: Yes. I think their souls have returned. [Laughing] If I had been sitting here yesterday morning, telling you that 'tonight the dead will awaken in their graves' I think you would regard me as not simply-ridiculous but completely off my rocker. The idea of the soul is ancient and is still cherished by many. There is evidence for the possibility of thought transmission…

SB: Evidence.

RS: Weak, I admit. But it is a possibility. It is not completely out of the question. As opposed to, say, the dead coming back to life. That is impossible. Well. And now they have come back to life. And yet you still regard telepathy and the existence of the soul as an absurdity.

Int: Johan Stenberg, what do you say about all this?

JS: I don't believe it is the role of the military to speculate in questions of theology. [Looks at RS] There are others better qualified.

RS: Well, then. If there is a soul it would consist of energy. Some form of energy. The source of this field-which we have all experienced-can't be traced to the brain. No. Why not accept the existence of something outside the body that nonetheless belongs to the body, a transcendent substance that…

JS: Forgive a simple soldier, but I have never heard that the soul is located anywhere but inside the body.

RS: When we're alive, yes. But it's accepted that the brain is functioning in a hitherto unknown way in this… state of reliving. Why couldn't the same be true of the soul? If a large number of souls were hovering, so to speak, outside their bodies, could that not give rise to… how can I put this…

Int: Our time is almost up. To wrap up: why do you think this has happened?]ohan Stenberg?

]S: If I had an opinion on that subject I would keep it to myself.

Int: Sten Bergwall?

SB: As I said, we're waiting for the results of the tests.

Int: Runo Sahlin?

RS: A mistake has occurred. Something has gone wrong that has… interrupted the normal order.

Int: And that's something I think we can all agree on. Now for the weather. Camilla?

Camilla: The high pressure fronts that have dominated the Stockholm weather for the past few weeks will give way tonight to low pressure coming in from the west. There will be plenty of rain this evening. In the satellite picture we can see…

[CNN World News, 08.30 Swedish time]

… are now searching for explanations of the bizarre events in the Swedish capital. So far none have been found, but the simultaneous awakenings in different locations hint at a driving force. A military commander said this morning that a connection with terrorist activity cannot be ruled out…

[Long shot of the Stockholm Forest Cemetery. The fence with the dead behind it, the military among the graves.]

[Spanish television 08.30]

… mucha gente han esperado por la misma cosa a suceer en pueblos espafioles, Pues, el fen6meno parece aislado a Estocolmo, donde los revividos durante la noche han crecido al total de dos mil personas. Ni los medicosni los sacerdotes tienen explicaci6nes a dar al multitud de los parientes que se han reunido al frente del hospital de Danderyd esta manana…

[Shot of hundreds of people outside Danderyd, a minister gesticulating dejectedly.]

[Ard Tagesschau 09.00]

… die Forscher, die heute nacht damit beschaitigt waren, das Ratzel zu losen. Auf der Presskonferenz heute wurdc mitgcteilt, dass einige Enzyme, die in den toten Korpern norrnalcrweise zerstort sind, es in den Wiederlebenden nicht seicn. 1m Moment untersucht man ob diese Enzyme tatsachlich dicselbcn sind, die lebendigcn Korpern ihre Nahrung zuhihrcn…

[Stock footage of a Swedish laboratory; a number of test tubes lined up in a stand.]

[TF! Journal 13.00]

… qui sont sortis des cirnetieres et des morgues cette nuit, L'Office du Tourisme Francais deconseille a tout le monde d'aller a Stockholm pour le moment. D'autres villes suedoises ne semblent pas etre atteintes de ce phenomene et la il n'y a pas de restrictions. Quand les habitants de Stockholm se sont reveilles ce matin, ils out VlI leur rcalitc changcc. Pourtaint la vie a la surface semble etre rctou rIlt'e J Ia normalc,

[Cross cutting between images of the Forest Cemetery, the dead behind the fence, as well as the strolling pedestrians on Drottninggatan]