Let The Right One In aka Let Me In

"These days this is my only chance to say my piece…"

– Bob Hund, "Struggling Against the Current"

"Let the right one in; Let the old dreams die,

Let the wrong ones go; they cannot do what you want them to do."

– Morrissey, "Let the Right One Slip In"

From The Daily Update 16:45, Monday, 9 November, 1981

The so-called Ritual Killer was apprehended by police on Monday morning. He was tracked down in a basement office in Blackeberg, in west Stockholm.

Police spokesman Bengt Larn:

"A person has been apprehended. That is correct."

"Are you sure that it is the same man you have been looking for?"

"Quite sure. Certain factors, however, complicate a positive identification at this time."

"What kind of factors?"

"Unfortunately I can't go into further details at the moment."

After the man was apprehended he was transported to the hospital. His state was described as critical.

Together with the suspect, the police also found a sixteen-year-old boy. The boy was physically unharmed but is said to be in a state of severe shock and has been taken to the hospital for further monitoring.

The police are searching the area in order to gather further information regarding the chain of events.

His Royal Highness Carl Gustaf today opened the new bridge over the Almo sound in Bohuslan. During the opening speech…

From diagnostic notes made by the surgeon Professor T. Hallberg, copied for police files

… preliminary investiga- erto unobserved… severely

tion complicated by… spasmodic muscle action… unlocalized stimulation of central nervous system… heart function suspended…

Muscle movement stops at 14:25… autopsy yields hith-

deformed inner organs…

Like the eel that dead and butchered jumps in the frying pan… never before observed in human tissue… ask to retain the cadaver… sincerely…

From the newspaper Western Suburbs, week 46

WHO KILLED OUR CATS?

"The only thing I have left is her collar," says Svea Nordstrom, pointing to the slushy

field where her pet and eight others belonging to neighboring homeowners were found…

From the television news program Current Events, Monday, 9 November, 21:00

Earlier this evening police occupied, although there are

entered the apartment believed to belong to the so-called Ritual Killer, who was apprehended this morning.

A call from a member of the public helped police to finally locate the apartment in Blackeberg, some fifty meters from the place where the man was apprehended.

We have our reporter Folke Ahlmarker at the scene:

"Emergency technicians are right now carrying out the body of a man found in the apartment. The man's identity is not known at this time. It appears the apartment is un-

certain indications that people have been in the apartment recently."

"What are the police doing right now?"

"They have been going door to door all day but if they have gained any further information in the process they have made no announcement to that effect."

"Thank you, Folke."

The Tjorn bridge, which was finished six weeks before the estimated completion date, was opened today by His Royal Highness, Carl Gustaf…

Monday

9 November

Pulses of blue light across the bedroom ceiling.

Oskar is lying in bed with his hands behind his head.

Under his bed there are two cardboard boxes. There is money in one, masses of bills, and two bottles of T-Rod; the other is filled with puzzles.

The box of clothes was left behind.

In order to conceal the boxes Oskar has placed his hockey game at an angle in front of them. Tomorrow he'll carry them down into the basement, if he has the energy. His mom is watching TV, shouting out something about how their building is on the screen. But he only has to get up and go to the window to see the same thing, from another angle.

He threw the boxes from Eli's balcony over to his own while it was still light, while Eli was washing himself. When he came out of the bathroom the wounds on his back had healed and he was slightly intoxicated from the alcohol in the blood.

They lay in bed together, held each other. Oskar told him what had happened in the subway. Eli said:

"I'm sorry. About starting this."

"No, it's alright."

Silence. For a long time. Then Eli asked, hesitantly:

"Would you want to… become like me?"

"… no. I would like to be with you, but…"

"No, of course you don't. I understand."

In the evening they finally stood up, put their clothes on. They were standing with their arms around each other in the living room when they heard the saw. The lock was being removed.

They ran to the balcony, jumped over the railing, landing fairly softly in the bushes below.

From inside the apartment they heard someone say:

"What in the world…"

They curled up under the balcony. There was no time.

Eli turned his face to Oskar's, said:

Closed his mouth. Then pressed a kiss on Oskar's lips.

For a few seconds Oskar saw through Eli's eyes. And what he saw was… himself. Only much better, more handsome, stronger than what he thought of himself. Seen with love.

For a few seconds.

Voices in the apartment next door.

The last thing Eli had done before they got up was remove the piece of paper with the Morse code. Now strange feet are clomping around in the room where Eli once lay and tapped on the wall to him.

Oskar holds his hand up against the wall.

"Eli…"

TUESDAY

10 November

Oskar did not go to school on Tuesday. He lay in his bed and listened to the sounds through the wall, wondered if they would find anything that would lead them to him. In the afternoon it grew quiet and they had still not come by.

At that point he got up, put his clothes on, and walked over to Eli's building. The door to the apartment was sealed. No one was allowed in. While he stood there looking a police officer walked by on the stairs. But Oskar was only a curious boy from the neighborhood.

When the sun went down he carried the boxes into the basement and put an old rug over them. Would decide later what he would do with them. If some thief decided to break into their storage unit he would hit the jackpot.

He sat in the darkness of the basement for a long time, thought about Eli, Tommy, the old guy. Eli had told him everything; that he hadn't meant for things to turn out the way they did.

But Tommy was alive and would be fine. That's what his mom had told Oskar's mom. He was going to be coming home tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow Oskar would go back to school.

To Jonny, Tomas, to… We'll have to start training him again.

Jonny's cold hard fingers across his cheeks. Pressing the soft flesh against his jaws until the corners of his mouth were unwillingly forced up. Squeal like a pig.

Oskar interlaced his fingers, leaned his face against them, looked at the little hill that the rug over the boxes made. He got up, pulled the rug away and opened the box of money.

One thousand kronor notes, one hundred kronor notes, all mixed up, a few bundles of bank notes. He dug around with his hand among the bank notes until he found one of the plastic bottles. Then he went up to the apartment and got some matches.

A lone spotlight cast a cold, white glow onto the schoolyard. Outside its circle of light you could see the outlines of playground structures. The Ping-Pong tables that were so cracked you couldn't play on them with anything other than a tennis ball, were covered in slush.

A few rows of school windows were illuminated. Evening classes. For this reason one of the side doors was unlocked.

He made his way through the darkened corridors to his homeroom. Stood for a while looking at the desks. The classroom looked unreal at night like this, as if ghosts silently whispering were using it for their school, whatever that would look like.

He walked over to Jonny's desk, opened the lid, and sprayed a few quarts of T-Rod onto it. Tomas' desk, same thing. He stood without moving for a second in front of Micke's desk. Decided not to. Then he went and sat at his own desk. Letting it soak in, like you do with charcoal. I'm a ghost. Booo. .. booo…

He opened the lid and took out his copy of Firestarter, smiled at the title and slipped it into his bag. The exercise book where he had written a story he liked. His favorite pen. They all went into the bag. Then he stood up, made a final round of the classroom and enjoyed simply being there. In peace.

Jonny's desk gave off a chemical smell when he raised the lid again, took out the matches. No, wait…

He went and got two rough-hewn wooden rulers from a shelf at the back of the classroom. Rigged up Jonny's desk with one so it would stay open, Tomas' with the other. Otherwise they would stop burning the moment he let the lids drop.

Two hungry prehistoric animals gaping for food. Dragons.

He lit one match, held it in his hand until the flame was large and clear. Then dropped it. It fell from his hand, a yellow drop, and-

WHOOSH

Damn…

His eyes stung when a purple comet's tail shot up out of the desk, licked his face. He sprung back; had expected it to burn like… charcoal, but the desk was fully lit, one big bonfire reaching up to the ceiling.

It was burning too much.

The fire danced, flickered across the classroom walls, and a garland of large letters made of paper, hanging over Jonny's desk, broke off and fell to the floor, the P and Q burning. The other half of the garland swung in a large arc and fell onto Tomas' desk which immediately burst into flames with the same

WHOOSH

a searing explosion while Oskar ran from the classroom with his schoolbag bouncing on his hip.

What if the whole school…

When he reached the end of the corridor the bells started to ring. A metallic clatter that filled the building and it was only when he was a good ways down the stairs that he realized it was the fire alarm.

Out in the schoolyard the large bell rang fiercely to assemble students who were not there, gathered up the school's ghosts, and followed Oskar halfway home.

Only when he reached the old Konsum grocery store and he no longer heard the bell did he relax. He walked calmly the rest of the way.

In the bathroom mirror he saw that the tops of his eyelashes were rolled up, singed. When he touched them with his finger they broke off.

Wednesday

11 November

Home from school. Headache. The phone rang around nine. He didn't answer. In the middle of the day he saw Tommy and his mom walk past outside the window. Tommy walked bent over, slowly. Like an old person. Oskar ducked down under the windowsill as they went by.

The phone rang every hour. Finally, at twelve o'clock, he picked it up. "This is Oskar."

"Hi. My name is Bertil Svanberg and I am, as you may know, the principal of the school that you…"

He hung up. The phone rang again. Oskar stood there for a while, looking at the ringing phone, imagining the principal sitting in his checkered sport coat, fingers drumming on the desk, making faces. Then he put his clothes on and went down into the basement. Picked at the puzzles, poked at the little white wooden box where the thousand pieces of the gold egg glittered. Eli had only taken a couple of thousand and the Cube. He closed the lid of the puzzle box, opened the other, mixed up the rustling bank notes with his hand. Took a fistful of them, threw them on the ground. Pushed them down into his pockets. Took them out one by one, played "The Boy with the Gold Pants" until he grew tired of it. Twelve wrinkled thousand kronor and seven hundred kronor bills lay at his feet.

He gathered up the thousand kronor notes into a pile and folded them up. Put the hundred kronor notes back, closed the box. Walked up into the apartment, found an envelope that he stuffed the money into. Sat with the envelope in his hand and wondered what he should do. Didn't want to write, someone could recognize his handwriting.

The phone rang.

Stop it. Understand that I don't exist anymore.

Someone wanted to have a long talk with him. Someone wanted to ask him if he realized the gravity of what he had done, which he did. As did Jonny and Tomas probably. Quite well, in fact. Nothing more to talk about.

He walked over to his desk and took out his rubber letters and ink set. In the middle of the envelope he stamped a'T' and an 'O.' The first 'M' went askew, but the second one was straight, like the 'Y.'

When he opened the door to Tommy's building with the envelope in his coat pocket he was more nervous than he had been at his school the night before. His heart thumping, he gingerly eased the envelope through the mail slot in Tommy's door so no one would come to the door or catch sight of him through the window.

But no one came and when Oskar was back in his apartment he felt a little better. For a while. Then it sneaked up on him again.

I won't… be here.

At three o'clock his mom came home, several hours earlier than usual. At that point Oskar was sitting in the living room with the Vikings' album. She walked into the room, lifted the needle, and turned off the record player. By her face he sensed that she knew.

"How are things with you?"

"Not so good."

"No…"

She sighed, sat down on the couch.

"The principal called me. At work. He told me that… there was a fire there last night. At your school."

"Really. Did it burn to the ground?"

"No, but…"

She closed her mouth, her gaze getting stuck in the hooked rug for a few seconds. Then she lifted her eyes and met his.

"Oskar. Was it you?"

He looked straight back at her and said:

"No."

Pause.

"No. It's just that it seems that although much of the classroom was destroyed, that… that Jonny's and Tomas' desks… that it was there it had started."

"Oh."

"And they were apparently quite sure that… that it was you."

"But it wasn't."

His mom sat on the couch, breathing through her nose. They sat a meter apart, an endless distance.

"They want to… talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to them."

It was going to be a long evening. There was nothing good on TV.

That night Oskar couldn't sleep. He got up out of bed, tiptoed to the window. He thought he saw something in the jungle gym down on the playground. But it was just his imagination, of course. Nonetheless he continued to stare at the shadow down there until his eyelids grew heavy. When he got back into bed he still couldn't sleep. He gently tapped on the wall. No answer. Just the dry sound of his own fingertips, knuckles against the concrete, knocking on a door that was closed forever.

THURSDAY

12 November

Oskar threw up in the morning and was allowed to stay home another day. Despite the fact that he had only slept a few hours the night before he was unable to rest. There was a gnawing anxiety in his body that forced him around the apartment. He picked things up, looked at them, put them back.

It was as if there was something he had to do. Something absolutely necessary, but he simply couldn't think of what it was.

At the time he had thought he was doing it while he set fire to Jonny's and Tomas' desks. Then he had thought it was giving the money to Tommy. But that wasn't it. It was something else.

A great theater performance that was now over. He paced back and forth on the emptied, darkened stage and swept up that which had been left behind. When it was something else…

But what?

When the mail arrived at eleven there was only a single letter. His heart made a somersault in his chest as he picked it up, turned it over.

It was addressed to his mom. "South Angby School District" was printed in the upper right-hand corner. Without opening it he ripped it into pieces and flushed them down the toilet. Regretted it. Too late. He

didn't care what was written in it, but there would be even more trouble if he started messing around with this, than if he just let it be. But it didn't matter.

He undressed, put on his bathrobe. Stood in front of the mirror in the hall, studied himself. Pretended he was someone else. Leaned over to kiss the glass. At the same time that his lips met the cold surface the phone rang. Without thinking he lifted the receiver. "Hi. It's me." "Oskar?" "Yes."

"Hi. Fernando here." "What?"

"Avila. Mr. Avila." "Oh. Yeah. Hi."

"I just wanted to ask… are you coming to the training tonight?" "I'm… a bit sick."

Silence on the other end. Oskar could hear Mr. Avila's breaths. One. Two. Then "Oskar. If you did. Or did not. I do not care about this. If you want to talk; we talk. If you do not want to talk; we don't. But I want you to come to the training." "Why?"

"Because Oskar, you cannot sit like caracol, how do you say… the snail. In the shell. If you aren't sick, you will get sick. Are you sick?" "… Yes."

"Then you need physical fitness training. You will come tonight." "What about the others?"

"The others? What are the others? If they are stupid I will say boo, they stop. But they are not stupid. This is training." Oskar didn't reply. "OK? You'll come?" "Yes…"

"Good. See you later."

Oskar put the phone down and everything was quiet around him again. He didn't want to go to the workout session. But he wanted to see Mr. Avila. Maybe he could go there a little earlier, see if he was there. Then go home again when the session started. Not that Mr. Avila would accept that, but…

He completed another round of the apartment. Packed his workout things, mainly to have something to do. Lucky he hadn't started the fire in Micke's desk, since Micke would be going to the gym. Although maybe it got destroyed anyway because it was right next to Jonny's. How much had actually been destroyed?

Something to ask…

The phone rang again around three o'clock. Oskar hesitated before picking it up, but after the flicker of hope he had felt after seeing the lone envelope he couldn't resist answering it.

"Hello, this is Oskar."

"Hi. It's Johan."

"Hi."

"What's up?"

"Nothing much."

"Want to do something tonight?"

"When… what?"

"Oh… about seven, or something."

"No, I'm going to… the gym."

"Oh. OK. Too bad. Catch you later."

"Johan?"

"Yeah?"

"I… heard there was a fire. In our classroom. Did… a lot get destroyed?"

"Naw. Just a couple of desks."

"Nothing else?"

"Naw… some… papers and that."

"Oh."

"Your desk is fine."

"Oh. Good."

"OK. Bye."

"Bye."

Oskar hung up with a strange feeling in his stomach. He had thought that everyone knew it was him. But that's not how Johan had sounded. And his mom had said that a lot had been destroyed. But she could have been exaggerating, of course.

Oskar chose to believe Johan. He had seen it, after all.

Oh, for Christ's sake…"

Johan hung up, and looked around, hesitantly. Jimmy shook his head, blew smoke out of Jonny's bedroom window. "That was the worst I've heard." In a meek voice Johan said: "It's not so easy."

Jimmy turned to face Jbnny, who was sitting on the bed rubbing a tassle from the bedspread between his fingers.

"What happened? Half the classroom burned down?" Jonny nodded. "Everyone in the class hates him." "And you…" Jimmy turned toward him again, "you say that… what was it you said? 'Some paper.' Do you think he'll go for that?" Johan lowered his head, embarrassed.

"I didn't know what to say. I thought he would… get suspicious if I said that…"

"Yes, yes. Done is done. Now we just have to hope he turns up." Johan's gaze flew back and forth between Jonny and Jimmy. Their eyes were empty, lost in images of the coming evening. "What are you guys going to do?"

Jimmy leaned forward in his seat, brushing away a little ash that had fallen on his sweater, and said slowly:

"He burned it. Everything we had from our dad. So what we're going to do is something that… that doesn't concern you. Understand?"

His mom came home at half past five. The lies, the distrust from the night before still hung like a cold cloud between them, and his mom went straight to the kitchen, started making an unnecessary amount of noise with the dishes. Oskar shut his door. Laid on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

He could go somewhere. Out into the yard. Down into the basement. To the square. Take the subway. But there still wasn't any place… no place where he… nothing.

He heard his mom walk to the phone and dial a lot of numbers. His dad's probably.

Oskar shivered a little.

He pulled the blankets over him, sat up with his head against the wall, listening to the sound of his mom and dad's conversation. If he could talk to dad. But he couldn't. It never happened.

Oskar pulled the blanket around himself, pretending to be an Indian chieftain, indifferent to everything as his mom's voice rose. After a while she started to yell and the Indian chieftain fell down on the bed, pressed the blanket, his hands over his ears.

It's so quiet inside your head. It is… like outer space.

Oskar made the lines, colors, dots in front of his eyes into planets, distant solar systems that he traveled through. Landed on comets, flew for a while, jumped off and hovered freely in weightlessness until something pulled on his blanket and he opened his eyes.

Mom was standing there. Her lips twisted. Her voice abrupt and sharp as she talked:

"So. Now your father has told me… that he… on Saturday… that you… where were you? Tell me. Where were you? Can you tell me that?"

His mom pulled on the blanket up by his face. Her throat tensed to a hard, thick sinew.

"You're never going there again. Never. You hear me? Why didn't you say anything? I mean… that bastard. People like him shouldn't have children. He is not going to see you anymore. And then he can sit there and drink as much as he likes. You hear me? We don't need him. I am so…

His mom twirled abruptly away from the bed, slammed the door so hard the walls shook. Oskar heard her rapidly dial the long number again, swearing when she missed a digit, had to start over. A few seconds after she finished dialing she started to yell.

Oskar crept out from under his blanket, grabbed his workout bag, and walked into the hall where his mom was so preoccupied with yelling at his dad that she didn't notice the fact that he had slipped on his shoes and walked up to the front door without tying them.

It was only when he was standing in the stairwell that she saw him.

"Wait a second! Where do you think you're going?"

Oskar banged the door shut and ran down the stairs, kept running, the soles of his shoes pattering, on his way to the pool.

Roger, Prebbe…"

With his plastic fork, Jimmy jabbed in the direction of the two guys emerging from the subway station. The bite that Jonny had just taken from his shrimp sandwich lodged halfway down his throat and he was forced to swallow again in order to get it down. He looked quizzically at his brother but Jimmy's attention was directed at the guys on their way over to the hot dog stand, greeted them.

Roger was thin and had long, straggly hair, a leather jacket. The skin in his face was punctured by hundreds of small craters and appeared shrunk since the cheekbones stood out sharply and his eyes seemed unnaturally large.

Prebbe had a denim jacket with the arms cut off and a T-shirt under that, and nothing else, even though it was only a couple of degrees above zero. He was a big guy. Spilling out over the edges, cropped hair. An out-of-shape paratrooper.

Jimmy said something to them, pointed, and they took off in the direction of the transformer-station above the subway tracks. Jonny whispered:

"Why… are they coming?"

"To help out, of course."

"Do we need it?"

Jimmy sniffed and shook his head as if Jonny didn't know the first thing about how these things worked.

"How were you planning to get around the teach?"

"Avila?"

"Yeah, you think he would just let us walk on in and… you know?"

Jonny had no answer for this, so he just followed his brother in behind the little brick house. Roger and Prebbe were standing in the shadows with their hands in their pockets, stamping their feet. Jimmy took out a metallic cigarette case, flicked it open, and held it out to the other two.

Roger studied the six hand-rolled cigarettes inside, said: "My, my, pre-rolled and everything, why thank you," and used two thin fingers to nab the thickest one.

Prebbe made a face so he looked like one of the old balcony guys on The Muppet Show. "They lose their freshness if they sit around."

Jimmy wiggled the case in an inviting way, said:

"Quit your whining, you old woman. I rolled them an hour ago. And this isn't any of that Moroccan shit you run around with. This is the real thing."

Prebbe sucked in his breath and helped himself to one of the cigarettes. Roger helped him light it.

Jonny looked at his brother. Jimmy's face was sharply silhouetted against the light from the subway station platform. Jonny admired him. Wondered if he would ever be someone who dared to say "you old woman" to someone like Prebbe.

Jimmy also took one of the cigarettes and lit it. The rolled-up paper at the tip burned for a moment before it simply glowed. He inhaled deeply and Jonny was enveloped by the sweet smell that always clung to Jimmy's clothing.

They smoked in silence for a while. Then Roger held out his joint to Jonny.

"You want a drag, or what?"

Jonny was about to hold his hand out for it, but Jimmy hit Roger on the shoulder.

"Idiot. Want him to turn out like you?"

"That so bad?"

"OK for you, maybe. Not for him."

Roger shrugged, took back his offer.

It was half-past six when everyone was done smoking, and when Jimmy spoke it was with an exaggerated articulation, every word a complicated sculpture he had to get out of his mouth.

"OK. This… is Jonny. My brother."

Roger and Prebbe nodded knowingly. Jimmy took hold of Jonny's chin with a slightly clumsy movement, turned his head so the other two saw it in profile.

"Check out his ear. That's what this squirt did. That's what we're going to… take care of."

Roger took a step forward, squinted at Jonny's ear, smacked.

"Shit. It looks bad."

"I'm not asking for an… expert… opinion. You just listen. Then this will be…"

The steel gates in the corridor between the brick walls were unlocked. The echo from Oskar's footsteps went ka-ploff ka-ploff as he walked over to the door of the swimming pool, pulled it open. A damp warmth wafted over his face and a cloud of vapor billowed out into the cold corridor. He hurried in and shut the door.

He kicked his shoes off and kept going into the locker room. Empty. He heard the sound of running water from the shower room, a deep voice singing:

Besame, besame mucho

Como sifuera esta noche la ultima vez…

Mr. Avila. Without taking off his jacket, Oskar sat down on one of the benches, waited. After a while both the splashing and the singing stopped and the teacher came out of the shower area with a towel around his hips. His chest looked completely covered in black, curly hair with splashes of gray. Oskar thought he looked like something from another planet. Mr. Avila saw him, smiled broadly.

"Oskar! So you crawl out of your shell after all."

Oskar nodded.

"It got a bit… stuffy."

Mr. Avila laughed, scratched his chest; the tips of his fingers disappeared in the fuzz.

"You are early."

"Yes, I was thinking…"

Oskar shrugged. Mr. Avila stopped scratching himself.

"You were thinking?"

"I don't know."

"To talk?"

"No, I just…"

"Let me take a look at you."

Mr. Avila took a couple of rapid strides up to Oskar, studied his face, nodded. "Aha. OK."

"What?"

"It was you." Mr. Avila pointed to his eyes. "I see. You have burned your eyebrows. No, what is it called? Underneath. Eye…"

"Lashes?"

"Eyelashes. Yes. A little in the hair as well. Hm. If you don't want anyone to know for sure you have to cut your hair a little. Eye… lashes grow fast. Monday it is gone. Gasoline?"

"T-Rod."

Mr. Avila expelled air through his lips, shook his head.

"Very dangerous. Probably…" Mr. Avila touched Oskar's temple "… you a little crazy. Not a lot. But a little. Why T-Rod?"

"I… found it."

"Found? Where?"

Oskar looked up at Mr. Avila's face: a damp, kindly stone. And he wanted to tell him, wanted to tell him all of it. He just didn't know where to start. Mr. Avila waited. Then he said:

"To play with fire is very dangerous. Can become a habit. Is no good method. Much better physical exercise."

Oskar nodded, and the feeling disappeared. Mr. Avila was great but he would never understand.

"Now you get changed and I show you a little technique with bench press. OK?"

Mr. Avila turned to go back to his office. Stopped outside the door.

"And Oskar. You don't worry. I say nothing to nobody if you don't want. Sound good? We can talk more after the training session."

Oskar changed his clothes. When he was finished Patrik and Hasse came in, two guys from 6A. They said hi to Oskar, but he thought they looked at him a little too long, and when he walked into the gym he heard them start whispering to each other.

A sense of despondency settled in the pit of his stomach. He regretted having come here. But shortly thereafter Mr. Avila came in, now in a T-shirt and shorts, and showed him how you could get a better grip on the bench press bar by allowing it to rest against the tips of your fingers, and Oskar managed twenty-eight kilos, two kilos more than last time. Mr. Avila noted the new record in his notebook.

More guys came in, among them Micke. He smiled his usual, cryptic smile that could mean everything from that he was about to give you a nice present, to he was about to do something terrible to you.

It was the latter that was the case, even if Micke himself did not understand the full extent of it.

On the way to the training session Jonny had come running up to him and asked him to do something, since he was planning to set Oskar up. Micke thought that sounded cool. He liked pranks. And anyway Micke's complete collection of hockey cards had burned up Tuesday night, so paying Oskar back was something he was more than happy to participate in.

But for now he smiled.

The session went on. Oskar thought the others were looking at him strangely, but as soon as he tried to meet their eyes they looked away. Most of all he would have liked to go home.

… no … go…

Just go.

But Mr. Avila was watching over him, bolstering him with peppy comments, and there was kind of no possibility of leaving. And anyway: to be here was at least better than being at home.

When Oskar was done with the strength training he was so exhausted he didn't even have the energy to feel bad. He walked off to the showers, lagging a little behind the others, showering with his back facing the room. Not that it mattered. You still showered naked.

He stood for a while by the glass divide between the shower room and the pool, used his hand to make a small peephole in the condensation covering the glass, looked at the others jumping around in the pool, chasing each other, throwing balls. And it came over him again. Not a thought formulated in words, but as a virulent feeling:

I am alone. I am… completely alone.

Then Mr. Avila caught sight of him, waved for him to enter, to jump in. Oskar shuffled down the short staircase, walked over to the edge of the pool, and looked down into the chemically blue water. He had no spring left in his body, so he climbed in from the ladder, one step at a time and let himself be enveloped by the rather cold water.

Micke sat down on the edge of the pool, smiled, and nodded at him. Oskar took a few strokes in the other direction, toward Mr. Avila.

"Orre!"

He saw the ball come flying in the corner of his eye, a moment too late. It landed in the water exactly in front of him and splashed chlorinated water into his eyes. They stung as if from tears. He rubbed his eyes and when he looked up he happened to see Mr. Avila looking at him with a… pitying?… look on his face.

Or disdainful.

Perhaps it was only his imagination, but he hit away the ball floating in front of his face and sank. Let his head glide down under the surface of the water, his hair billowing out and tickling around his ears. He stretched his arms out from his body and floated with his face under the surface, bobbing with the water. Pretended he was dead.

That he could float here forever.

That he would never have to get up and meet the gazes of those who in the final analysis only wanted to hurt him. Or that when he finally lifted up his head the world would be gone. Just him and all this blue.

But even with his ears under the water he could hear the distant sounds, banging sounds from the world above, and when he pulled his face out of the water it was there: echoing, noisy.

Micke had left his place at the edge of the pool and the others were engaged in some kind of volleyball. The white ball flew into the air, clearly defined against the darkness of the frosted windows. Oskar paddled into a corner of the deep end of the pool, stood there with only his nose above the water and watched.

Micke came walking rapidly from the shower room at the other end of the hall, shouted, "Teacher! The phone in your office is ringing!"

Mr. Avila muttered something and stomped away along the edge of the pool. He nodded to Micke and disappeared up into the shower rooms. The last Oskar saw of him was a blurry contour behind the fogged-up glass.

Then he was gone.

As soon as Micke had left the changing rooms they had taken up their positions.

Jonny and Jimmy slipped into the exercise gym; Roger and Prebbe pressed up against the wall next to the door post. They heard Micke call out from inside the swim hall, prepared for action.

Soft barefooted footsteps that approached, passed through the gym, and a few seconds later Mr. Avila walked in through the doors to the changing rooms and over to his office. Prebbe had already wound the double tube socks filled with small change one time around his hand in order to get a better grip. As soon as the teacher reached the door and stood with his back to him, Prebbe stepped out and swung the weight at the back of his head.

Prebbe was not particularly coordinated and Mr. Avila must have heard something. Halfway into the swing he turned his head to the side and the blow caught him right above the ear. The effect was nonetheless the desired one. The teacher was thrown forward and to one side, hit his head on the doorpost, and fell to the floor.

Prebbe sat on his chest and tucked the heavy ball of coins into his palm so that he would be able to deliver a more controlled blow if needed. Didn't seem like it. The teacher's arms were trembling slightly, but he didn't put up the slightest resistance. Prebbe didn't think he was dead. Didn't look like it, was all.

Roger came over, leaned over the prone body as if he had never seen anything like it.

"Is he Turkish or what?"

"Damned if I know. Get the keys."

While Roger was fumbling for the keys in the teacher's shorts he saw how Jonny and Jimmy walked out of the gym and toward the pool hall. He got out the keys, tried one after another in the office door, shot a look at the teacher.

"As hairy as an ape. He's got to be a Turk."

"Oh, come on."

Roger sighed, kept trying the keys.

"I'm only saying it for your sake. Probably feels a little better if…"

"Fuck it. And come on."

Roger found the right key and unlocked the door. Before he walked in he pointed to the teacher and said:

"You probably shouldn't be sitting like that. Probably can't breathe if you do."

Prebbe slid off his chest, sat down next to the body with his weight at the ready in case Avila tried something.

Roger searched through the pocket of the coat he found inside the office, pulled out a wallet with three hundred kronor. In a desk drawer that, after a short search, he found the key in, there were also ten unstamped subway cards. He took them as well.

Not much in the way of bounty. But that wasn't what this was about. Pure payback.

Oskar was still in the corner of the pool blowing bubbles in the water when Jonny and Jimmy walked in. His first reaction wasn't fear, but annoyance.

They were wearing their outdoor clothes.

They hadn't even taken their shoes off, and Mr. Avila who was so concerned about…

When Jimmy stopped at the edge of the pool and started looking out over the pool, the fear came. He had met Jimmy a few times, briefly, and thought he seemed horrible even then. Now there was also something about his eyes… the way he was moving his head…

Like Tommy and those guys when they have…

Jimmy's gaze found Oskar's and he realized with a shiver that he

was… naked. Jimmy had clothes on, armor. Oskar was in the cold water and every centimeter of his body was exposed. Jimmy nodded to Jonny, made a semicircular movement with his hand and, one on either side of the pool, they started to walk toward Oskar. While he walked Jimmy screamed to the others:

"Get out of here! Everyone! Out of the water!" The others were standing still or treading water, indecisive. Jimmy placed himself at the edge of the pool, took a stiletto out of his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and held it like an arrow directed at a group of boys. Thrust it in the direction of the other end of the pool.

Oskar was pressed up into the corner, watching shivering while the other boys quickly swam or waded their way to the other end and left him alone in the pool.

Mr. Avila… where is Mr. Avila…

A hand gripped him by the hair, fingers taking hold so firmly that his scalp stung and his head was forced back all the way into the corner. Above him he heard Jonny's voice. "That's my brother, you fucker."

Oskar's head was banged backward a couple of times against the tile ledge and water splashed up into his ears while Jimmy walked over to the corner of the pool and crouched down with the stiletto in his hand. "Hi there Oskar."

Oskar took in a mouthful of water and started to cough. Every shaking motion of his head that the cough induced made his scalp, which Jonny had grasped even more firmly, burn more. When his coughing spell was over Jimmy clinked the blade against the tiled edge.

"You know what? I was thinking like this. That we should have a little competition. Now don't move…"

The stiletto passed right above Oskar's forehead as Jimmy handed it over to Jonny, taking over the grip on Oskar's head. Oskar didn't dare do anything. He had looked into Jimmy's eyes for a few seconds and they looked completely crazed. So filled with hate he couldn't look at them.

Oskar's head was pressed into the corner of the pool. His arms were helplessly fumbling in the water. Nothing to grip. He looked for the other boys. They were standing at the shallow end of the pool. Micke was in front, still smiling, in anticipation. The others looked mostly scared.

No one was going to help him.

"So here's the deal… it's pretty easy, see. Easy rules. You stay under the water for… five minutes. If you can do that we'll just put a little scratch in your cheek or something. A keepsake. If you can't do it… well, then when you come up I'll take out one of your eyes. OK? Understand the rules?"

Oskar got his mouth above the surface. Water was spurting out of his mouth as he said, shivering:

"… can't do it…"

Jimmy shook his head.

"That's your problem. You see that clock. We'll start in twenty seconds. Five minutes. Or your eye. Better take a breath now. Ten… nine… eight… seven…"

Oskar tried to push away with his legs, but he had to stand on tiptoe to even get his whole head above the water and Jimmy's hand was holding him by his hair, making all movement impossible.

If I pull my hair away… five minutes…

When he had tried it on his own he had managed three at most. Almost.

"Six… five… four… three…"

Mr. Avila. Mr. Avila will come back before…

"Two… one… zero!"

Oskar only managed to take half a breath before his head was pushed down under the water. He lost his foothold and the lower half of his body slowly floated up until he lay with his head bent toward his chest a few decimeters under the surface, his scalp burning like fire as the chlorinated water came into contact with the rips and tears in the skin.

No more than a minute could have gone by before the panic came.

He opened his eyes wide and only saw light blue… veils of pink that swirled from his head past his eyes when he tried to take hold with his body, although it was impossible, since there was nothing to hold onto. His legs were kicking up at the surface rippling the pale blue in front of his eyes, refracted in light waves.

Bubbles rose from his mouth and he threw his arms out, floating on his back, and his eyes were pulled to the white, to the swaying halogen tubes' glow in the ceiling. His heart was throbbing like a hand against a glass pane, and when he happened to draw water in through his nose a

kind of calm started to spread in his body. But his heart was beating harder, more persistently, wanted to live, and again he thrashed desperately, tried to get a grip where there was no grip to be had.

And his head was pushed down further. And strangely enough he thought:

Better this. Than an eye.

After two minutes Micke started to feel really uncomfortable.

It seemed like… like they really wanted to… He looked around at the other boys, but no one seemed prepared to do anything, and he himself only said a half-muffled: "Jonny… what the hell…"

But Jonny didn't seem to hear him. He was absolutely still on his knees next to the pool with the tip of the stiletto directed into the water, at the refracted white shape moving down there.

Micke looked up at the shower rooms. Why the hell wasn't the teacher back yet? Patrik had run up to get him; why wasn't he coming? Micke pulled further up into the corner, next to the dark glass door that looked out onto the night, folded his arms across his chest.

In the corner of his eye he thought he saw something fall down from the roof outside. Something banged on the glass door so hard it rattled in its frame.

He stood on tiptoe, peeked out of the window of regular glass at the very top, and saw a little girl. She lifted her face up to his. "Say'Come in!'" "W… what?"

Micke looked back at what was happening in the pool. Oskar's body had stopped moving but Jimmy was still leaned over the edge, holding his head down. Micke's throat hurt when he swallowed. Whatever happens. Just make it stop.

A banging on the glass door, harder this time. He looked out into the darkness. When the girl opened her mouth and shouted at him he could see… that her teeth… that there was something hanging from her arms. "Say that I can come in!"

Whatever happens.

Micke nodded, said almost inaudibly:

"You can come in."

The girl pulled back from the door, disappeared into the darkness. The stuff that was hanging from her arms shimmered for a moment, and then she was gone. Micke turned back to the pool. Jimmy had pulled Os-kar's head out of the water and taken the stiletto back from Jonny, moving it down to Oskar's face, aiming.

A speck of light was visible in the dark middle window and a split second later it shattered.

The reinforced glass didn't shatter like regular glass. It exploded into thousands of tiny rounded fragments that landed with a rustle at the edge of the pool, after flying out into the hall, over the water, glittering like myriad white stars.