Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist Page B
Authors: John Ajvide Lindqvist
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Gothic, Romance - Gothic, Media Tie-In - General, Media Tie-In, Horror, Occult fiction, Vampires, Occult & Supernatural, Fiction - Romance, Ghost, Horror Fiction, Horror - General, Sweden, Neighbors - Sweden, Swedish (Language) Contemporary Fiction
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but then ..." "Make sure you start to love me, then."
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Friday night at the Chinese restaurant. It's a quarter to eight and the whole gang is there. Everyone except Karlsson who's at home watching the TV quiz show Nutcrackers and just as well. No great loss there. He's the sort who'll probably roll in when everything's over and tell you how many questions he knew the answers to.
In the corner table for six nearest the door there's Lacke, Morgan, Larry, and Jocke. Jocke and Lacke are talking about what kinds of fish can live in both fresh and salt water. Larry is reading the evening paper and Morgan is swinging his leg in time to some song other than the Chinese Muzak softly piped in through the hidden loudspeakers.
On the table in front of them are some more or less full glasses of beer. Their faces are hanging on the wall above the bar.
The restaurant owner was forced to flee China in conjunction with the cultural revolution, on account of his satirical caricatures of people in power. Now he has instead transferred his talents to his regulars. On the wall there are twelve tenderly drawn felt-pen sketches of them. All the guys. And Virginia. The pictures of the guys are close-ups, where the irregularities of their physiognomies have been exaggerated. Larry's lined, almost hollowed-out face, and a pair of enormous ears that stick straight out from his head, make him look like a friendly but starving elephant.
In Jocke's picture it is his large eyebrows that meet in the middle that have been emphasized and transformed into a rose bush and a bird, perhaps a nightingale. Because of his style, Morgan has been given features from the young Elvis. Big sideburns and a "Hunka hunka burnin looooove, baby" expression. The head is perched on a small body holding a guitar, in Elvis-pose. Morgan is more pleased with this picture than he wants to admit.
Lacke looks mostly worried. Here the eyes have been enlarged and given an intensified expression of suffering. He has a cigarette in his mouth and its smoke has gathered into a rain cloud above his head. Virginia is the only one who appears in full body. In an evening gown, shining like a star in her sparkling sequins, posed with outstretched arms, surrounded by a flock of pigs gazing at her in bewilderment. At Virginia's request the restaurant owner has made a duplicate of this picture that Virginia has taken home.
Then there are a few others. Some who aren't part of the gang. Some who have stopped coming. A few who have died.
Charlie fell down the stairs in his building on his way home from the restaurant one night. Cracked his head on the mottled concrete. The Gherkin got cirrhosis of the liver and died of an internal hemorrhage. One evening a few weeks before he died he had pulled his shirt up and showed them a red spider's web of blood vessels branching out from his navel. "Damn expensive tattoo," he said, and he died soon thereafter. They had honored his memory by putting his picture on the table and making toasts to it all evening.
There is no picture of Karlsson.
This Friday night is going to be the last one they will ever have all together. Tomorrow one of them will be gone forever. One more picture will be nothing more than a memory. And nothing will ever be the same.
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Larry lowered the newspaper, put his reading glasses on the table and sipped some beer from his glass. "I'll be damned. What's going on inside the head of a person like that?"
He showed them the paper with the headline CHILDREN IN SHOCK above a picture of the Vallingby school and a small inset of a middle-aged man. Morgan glanced at the paper, pointed.
"Is that the guy?"
"No, it's the principal."
"Looks like a murderer to me. Just the type."
Jocke stretched a hand out for the paper. Let me see.
Larry gave him the paper and Jocke held it at arm's length, studied the snapshot.
"Looks like a conservative politician to me, guys." Morgan nodded.
"That's what I'm talking about."
Jocke held up the
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Friday night at the Chinese restaurant. It's a quarter to eight and the whole gang is there. Everyone except Karlsson who's at home watching the TV quiz show Nutcrackers and just as well. No great loss there. He's the sort who'll probably roll in when everything's over and tell you how many questions he knew the answers to.
In the corner table for six nearest the door there's Lacke, Morgan, Larry, and Jocke. Jocke and Lacke are talking about what kinds of fish can live in both fresh and salt water. Larry is reading the evening paper and Morgan is swinging his leg in time to some song other than the Chinese Muzak softly piped in through the hidden loudspeakers.
On the table in front of them are some more or less full glasses of beer. Their faces are hanging on the wall above the bar.
The restaurant owner was forced to flee China in conjunction with the cultural revolution, on account of his satirical caricatures of people in power. Now he has instead transferred his talents to his regulars. On the wall there are twelve tenderly drawn felt-pen sketches of them. All the guys. And Virginia. The pictures of the guys are close-ups, where the irregularities of their physiognomies have been exaggerated. Larry's lined, almost hollowed-out face, and a pair of enormous ears that stick straight out from his head, make him look like a friendly but starving elephant.
In Jocke's picture it is his large eyebrows that meet in the middle that have been emphasized and transformed into a rose bush and a bird, perhaps a nightingale. Because of his style, Morgan has been given features from the young Elvis. Big sideburns and a "Hunka hunka burnin looooove, baby" expression. The head is perched on a small body holding a guitar, in Elvis-pose. Morgan is more pleased with this picture than he wants to admit.
Lacke looks mostly worried. Here the eyes have been enlarged and given an intensified expression of suffering. He has a cigarette in his mouth and its smoke has gathered into a rain cloud above his head. Virginia is the only one who appears in full body. In an evening gown, shining like a star in her sparkling sequins, posed with outstretched arms, surrounded by a flock of pigs gazing at her in bewilderment. At Virginia's request the restaurant owner has made a duplicate of this picture that Virginia has taken home.
Then there are a few others. Some who aren't part of the gang. Some who have stopped coming. A few who have died.
Charlie fell down the stairs in his building on his way home from the restaurant one night. Cracked his head on the mottled concrete. The Gherkin got cirrhosis of the liver and died of an internal hemorrhage. One evening a few weeks before he died he had pulled his shirt up and showed them a red spider's web of blood vessels branching out from his navel. "Damn expensive tattoo," he said, and he died soon thereafter. They had honored his memory by putting his picture on the table and making toasts to it all evening.
There is no picture of Karlsson.
This Friday night is going to be the last one they will ever have all together. Tomorrow one of them will be gone forever. One more picture will be nothing more than a memory. And nothing will ever be the same.
+
Larry lowered the newspaper, put his reading glasses on the table and sipped some beer from his glass. "I'll be damned. What's going on inside the head of a person like that?"
He showed them the paper with the headline CHILDREN IN SHOCK above a picture of the Vallingby school and a small inset of a middle-aged man. Morgan glanced at the paper, pointed.
"Is that the guy?"
"No, it's the principal."
"Looks like a murderer to me. Just the type."
Jocke stretched a hand out for the paper. Let me see.
Larry gave him the paper and Jocke held it at arm's length, studied the snapshot.
"Looks like a conservative politician to me, guys." Morgan nodded.
"That's what I'm talking about."
Jocke held up the
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