The Dead Of Summer

GOTSKA SANDÖN, 22 JULY 1985

THE MERCILESS RAYS of the sun woke Vera as she lay tangled up like a snake in the sleeping bag. It was a moment before she was fully conscious, but the first sensation was a dull nausea in her stomach.

She blinked at the light and heard voices further down the beach. With an effort, she pulled herself into a sitting position and lifted away a corner of the windbreak. Ten or fifteen people were walking past. They were in late middle age, with rucksacks, sunhats and sensible shoes. She heard scattered laughter interspersed with their chatter. Without a care in the world, they continued on, although one person did cast a glance in her direction, but quickly looked away. They paid her no attention.

The sleeping bag next to hers was empty. She was wearing her watch, which told her it was eleven fifteen. Good God, how could she have slept so long? She peered out again. Tanya was nowhere in sight. Maybe she’d gone for a walk or a swim. But then Vera began thinking more clearly, and memories from the previous evening returned. Those boys from Stockholm. They’d had fun grilling food, swimming and drinking a lot of beer and booze. One of them had a guitar; she’d almost had a crush on him when he played. Then she’d suddenly felt sick and couldn’t sit up any longer; everything began spinning around. She had to go and lie down for a while. She told them she needed to pee and walked away. She threw up in the bushes and then crawled into her sleeping bag behind the windbreak. She’d intended to stay only until she felt better, but she must have fallen asleep.

Again she pushed aside a corner of the windbreak to peer out at the water. The boat was gone. She sank back to the ground. Her throat was parched, and she was hot and thirsty. She staggered to her feet, found a bottle of water and drank some of it. Her head was spinning and she was sick with worry. Where was her little sister? What if something had happened to her?

‘Tanya!’ she shouted, as loudly as she could.

She walked from one end of the deserted beach to the other without finding her sister. Then she went into the woods to look for her. The longer she searched, the more worried she became. The idyllic beach suddenly felt menacing and inhospitable.

By two o’clock, she had given up searching and packed up as much as she could carry. For safety’s sake, she left behind the windbreak, some food and water, and Tanya’s rucksack. She wrote a note explaining that she’d gone back to the campsite.

Before she left the beach, she turned around one last time, straining to see as far as she could.

But nothing moved.