Handling the Undead Read online

  ‘Mum! Dad! I can’t turn it off!’

  Magnus was standing in front of the television, waving the remote control. David hit the off button on the set but the screen did not go black. It was the same as the stove, but here at least the plug was easy to get at, so he pulled on it just as the newscaster announced the start of the evening current affairs show. For a moment it felt like pulling a piece of metal off a magnet, the wall socket sucking at the plug. There was a crackling sound and a tickle in his fingers, then the newscaster disappeared into the dark.

  David held out the plug. ‘Did you see that? It was some kind of…short circuit. Now all the fuses have gone.’ He flicked the light switch. The ceiling lamp went on, but he could not switch it off again.

  Magnus jumped up in his seat.

  ‘Come on! Let’s keep playing.’

  They let Magnus win Monopoly, and while he was counting his money. David packed his stage shoes and shirt, along with the newspaper. When he came out into the kitchen, Eva was pulling the stove out from the wall.

  ‘No,’ David said. ‘Don’t do that.’

  Eva pinched a finger and swore. ‘Damn…we can’t leave it like this. I’m going over to my dad’s. Fuck…’ Eva tugged on the stove but it had become wedged between the cabinets.

  ‘Eva,’ David said. ‘How many times have we forgotten to turn it off and gone to bed without anything happening?’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but to leave the apartment…’ She kicked the oven door. ‘We haven’t cleaned back there for years. Bloody thing. Damn, my head hurts.’

  ‘Is that what you want to do right now? Clean behind the stove?’

  She let her hands fall, shook her head and chuckled.

  ‘No. I got it in my head. It’ll have to wait.’

  She made a final desperate lunge at the stove and threw up her hands, defeated. Magnus came out into the kitchen with his money.

  ‘Ninety-seven thousand four hundred.’ He scrunched up his eyes. ‘My head hurts a whole lot. It’s stupid.’

  They each took an aspirin and a glass of water, said cheers and swallowed. A farewell toast.

  Magnus was going to spend the night at David’s mother’s place, Eva was going to visit her father in Järfälla, but come back in the middle of the night. They picked up Magnus between them, and all three kissed.

  ‘Not too much Cartoon Network at Grandma’s,’ David said.

  ‘Nah,’ Magnus said. ‘I don’t watch that anymore.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Eva said. ‘It’ll be…’

  ‘I watch the Disney channel. It’s much better.’

  David and Eva kissed again, their eyes telegraphing something about how it would be later that night when they were alone. Then Eva took Magnus’ hand and they walked off, waving one last time. David remained on the sidewalk, watching them.

  What if I never saw them again…

  The usual fear gripped him. God had been too good to him, there’d been a mistake, he had got more than he deserved. Now it would all be taken away. Eva and Magnus disappeared around the corner and an impulse told him to run after them, stop them. Say, ‘Come on. Let’s go home. We’ll watch Shrek, we’ll play Monopoly, we…can’t let ourselves be separated.’

  The usual fears, but worse than usual. He got a grip on himself, turned and walked toward St Eriksgatan while he quietly recited his new routine in order to fix it in his mind:

  How does this kind of picture come to be? The two women are upset, so what do they do? They go to the store and buy a case of vodka and then a stack of porn magazines. When they’ve been standing there, pouring and pouring for two hours, Putte Merkert, photographer at Aftonbladet, just happens to catch sight of them.

  ‘Hi there!’ Putte Merkert says. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘We’re pouring alcohol on porn magazines,’ the women answer.

  ‘Aha,’ the photographer thinks. A chance for a scoop.

  No, not ‘the photographer’. Putte Merkert. All the way through.

  Aha, thinks Putte Merkert. A chance for a scoop…

  Halfway across the bridge, David caught sight of something strange and stopped.

  Recently he had read in the newspaper that there were millions of rats in Stockholm. He had never seen a single one, but here there were three, right in the middle of St Erik’s bridge. A big one and two smaller ones. They were running in circles on the footpath, chasing each other.

  The rats hissed, showing their teeth, and one of the smaller ones bit the bigger one on the back. David backed up a step, looked up. An elderly gentleman was standing a few steps away on the other side of the rats, watching their battle open-mouthed.

  The small ones were as big as kittens, the bigger one about the size of a dwarf rabbit. The bare tails whisked over the asphalt and the big rat shrieked as the second small one grabbed hold of its back and a damp, black stain of blood appeared on its fur.

  Are they…its children, its little ones?

  David held a hand up to his mouth, suddenly nauseated. The big rat threw itself from side to side spasmodically, trying to shake off the smaller ones. David had never heard rats shriek, had not known they could. But the sound that issued from the big one was horrible, as if from a dying bird.

  A couple of people had stopped on the other side. Everyone was following the rat fight and for a moment David had a vision of people gathered to watch some kind of organised event. Rat fighting. He wanted to walk away, but couldn’t. In part because the traffic across the bridge was steady, in part because he could not tear his gaze from the rats. He felt compelled to stay and watch, and see what happened.

  Suddenly the big one stiffened, its tail pointing straight out from its body. The small ones writhed, scrabbling their claws over its belly and their heads moved jerkily back and forth as they tore at the skin. The big one shuffled forward until it reached the edge of the bridge, crept under the railing with its burden and toppled over.

  David had time to peer over the railing in time to see it land. The noise from the traffic masked the splash when the rats landed in the dark water and a plume of drops glittered for an instant in the street lamps. Then it was over.

  People continued on their way, talking about it.

  ‘Never seen anything like it…it’s this heat…my dad once told me that he…headache…’

  David massaged his temples and kept walking across the bridge. People from the other direction met his gaze and everyone smiled bashfully, as if they had all taken part in something illicit. When the older gentleman who had been standing there from the beginning walked past, David asked, ‘Excuse me, but…have you got a headache too?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man answered, and pressed his fist against his head. ‘It’s terrible.’

  ‘I was just wondering.’

  The man pointed at the dirty grey asphalt spotted with rat blood and said, ‘Maybe they had one too. Maybe that was why…’ He interrupted himself and looked at David. ‘You’ve been on television, haven’t you?’

  He continued on his way. A muted panic hovered in the air. Dogs were barking and pedestrians walked more quickly than usual, as if trying to escape whatever was approaching. He hurried down Odengatan, took out his cell phone and dialled Eva’s number. When he was level with the subway station, she answered.

  ‘Hi,’ David said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’ve just got in the car. David? It was the same thing at your mum’s place. She was going to turn the television off when we arrived, but she couldn’t.’

  ‘That’ll make Magnus happy. Eva? I…I don’t know, but…do you have to go see your father?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well…do you still have a headache?’

  ‘Yes, but not so I can’t drive. Don’t worry.’

  ‘No. It’s just that I have a feeling that…it’s something horrible. Don’t you feel it too?’

  ‘No. Not like that.’

  A man was standing inside the phone booth at the intersection of Odengatan and
Sveavägen, jiggling the hook. David was about to tell Eva about the rats when the line went dead.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’

  He stopped and redialled the number, but couldn’t get through. Just the crackle of static. The man in the phone booth hung up, cursed and walked out of the booth. David turned off the cell phone in order to try again but the phone refused to turn off. A drop of sweat fell from his brow onto the keypad. The phone felt unusually warm, as if the battery was heating up. He pressed the off button, but nothing happened. The display continued to glow and the battery indicator actually increased by one bar. The time was 21.05, and he half-ran down to Norra Brunn.

  Even from outside the club, he could hear that the show had started. Benny Lundin’s voice was thundering out onto the street, he was doing his thing about the difference between guys’ and girls’ bathroom habits and David pulled a face. Was pleased not to hear any laughter at the punchline. Then there was silence for a moment just as David reached the entrance, and Benny started on his next thread: about condom dispensers that stop working when you need them the most. David paused in the entrance, blinked.

  The whole room was fully lit. The house lights, normally turned off to isolate the spotlight on stage, were up full bore. The people seated at the tables and at the bar looked pained, staring down at the floor and the tablecloths.

  ‘Do you take American Express?’

  That was the punchline. People usually laughed until they cried at Benny’s story about how he had tried to buy black-market condoms from the Yugoslavian mafia. Not this time. Everyone just suffered.

  ‘Shut your face, asshole!’ a drunk man at the bar yelled, grabbing at his head. David sympathised. The microphone volume was on way too high and was distorting. With the ubiquitous headache, it amounted to mass torture.

  Benny grinned nervously, said, ‘They let you out of the asylum for this?’

  When no one laughed at that either, Benny put the microphone back in the stand, said, ‘Thanks everyone. You’ve been a fantastic audience,’ and walked offstage toward the kitchen. There was a general moment of paralysis since everything had been cut off so abruptly. Then the microphone started feeding back and an atrocious ear-splitting squeal cut through the dense air.

  Everyone in the room put their hands over their ears and some started to scream along with the feedback. David clenched his teeth, ran up to the mike and tried to disconnect the cord. The weak current shot trails of ants through his skin, but the plug stayed put. After a couple of seconds, the feedback was a butcher’s saw hacking through the flesh of his brain and he was forced to give up, press his hands to his ears.

  He turned in order to make his way to the kitchen, but was obstructed from doing so by people who had stood up from their tables to throng towards the exit. A woman without much respect for the club’s property pushed him aside, wound the microphone cord once around her wrist and yanked. She only managed to knock the stand over. The feedback continued.

  David looked up at the mixing booth, where Leo was pushing every button in sight, to no effect. David was about to shout at him to cut the power when he felt a shove and fell on the low stage. He lay there, hands still clapped over his ears, and watched as the woman swung the microphone over her head and dashed it into the concrete floor.

  There was silence. The audience stopped, looked around. A collective sigh of relief went through the room. David clawed himself up to standing and saw Leo waving his hands, pulling his index finger across his throat. David nodded, cleared his throat and said loudly, ‘Hello!’

  Faces turned toward him.

  ‘Unfortunately we have to interrupt tonight’s show due to…technical difficulties.’

  A few laughs in the audience. Jeering.

  ‘We would like to thank our major sponsor, the Vattenfall Power Company, and…welcome you back another time.’

  Boos from around the room. David held out his hands in a gesture that was supposed to mean, So fucking sorry for something that’s not remotely my fault, but people had already lost interest in him. Everyone was moving toward the exit. The place was empty in a matter of minutes.

  When David reached the kitchen, Leo looked grumpy.

  ‘What was that thing about Vattenfall?’

  ‘A joke.’

  ‘I see. Funny.’

  David was about to say something about captains and sinking ships since Leo was the boss of the place—and OK, next time he would make sure he had a routine prepared for a reverse power cut—but he held back. In part because he couldn’t afford to get Leo’s back up, and in part because he had other things to think about.

  He went into the office and dialled Eva’s cell phone number from the landline. This time he got through, but only to her voicemail. He left a message asking her to call him at the club as soon as possible.

  Someone brought some beers in and the comedians drank them in the kitchen, amid the roar of the kitchen fans. The chefs had turned them on to mitigate the heat from the cooking ranges that couldn’t be turned off, and now they had the same problem with the fans. They could barely talk but at least it was cooler.

  Most of them left, but David decided to stay put in case Eva called. On the ten o’clock radio news they heard that the electrical phenomenon appeared to be confined to the Stockholm region, that the current in some areas could be compared to an incipient lightning strike. David felt the hairs on his arms stand up. Maybe a shiver, maybe static electricity.

  When he felt a vibration against his hip he thought at first it was to do with the electrical charge in the air as well, but then realised it was coming from his cell phone. He didn’t recognise the number that came up.

  ‘Hello, this is David.’

  ‘Am I speaking with David Zetterberg?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Something in the man’s voice generated a clump of anxiety in David’s stomach and set it wobbling. He stood up from the table and took a couple of steps into the hall toward the dressing room in order to hear better.

  ‘My name is Göran Dahlman and I am a physician at Danderyd Hospital…’

  As the man said what he had to say, David’s body was swept into a cold fog and his legs disappeared. He slithered down the wall to the concrete floor. He stared at the phone in his hand; threw it away from him like a venomous snake. It slid along the floor and struck Leo’s foot. Leo looked up.

  ‘David! What’s wrong?’

  Afterwards David would have no real memory of the half hour that followed. The world had congealed, all sense and meaning sucked out of it. Leo made his way with difficulty through the traffic; it was following the most rudimentary road rules now that all the electronics had been knocked out. David sat curled up in the passenger seat and looked with unseeing eyes at the yellow-flashing traffic lights.

  It was only in the entrance of Danderyd Hospital that he was able to pull himself together and refuse Leo’s offer to come up with him. He couldn’t remember what Leo said, or how he found the right ward. Suddenly he was just there, and time started making its slow rounds again.

  Actually, there was one thing he remembered. As he walked through the corridors to Eva’s room, all the lamps above the doors were blinking and an alarm sounded continuously. This felt entirely appropriate: catastrophe eclipses everything.

  She had collided with an elk and died during the time it took David to reach the hospital. The doctor on the phone had said that there was no hope for her, but that her heart was still beating. Not anymore. It had stopped at 22.36. At twenty-four minutes to eleven her heart had stopped pumping the blood around her body.

  One single muscle in a single person’s body. A speck of dust in time. And the world was dead. David stood next to her bed with his arms by his sides, the headache burning behind his forehead.

  Here lay his whole future, everything good that he could even imagine would come from life. Here lay the last twelve years of his past. Everything gone; and time shrank to a single unbearable now.

  He fell to h
is knees by her side, took her hand.

  ‘Eva,’ he whispered, ‘this won’t work. It can’t be like this. I love you. Don’t you understand? I can’t live without you. Come on, you have to wake up now. It doesn’t make sense without you, none of it. I love you so much and it just can’t be like this.’

  He talked and talked, a monologue of repeated sentences which, the more times he repeated them, felt more and more true and right until a conviction took root in him that they would start to take effect. Yes. The more times he said it was impossible, the more absurd it all seemed. He had just managed to convince himself of the feeling that if he simply kept babbling the miracle would happen, when the door opened.

  A woman’s voice said, ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine. Fine,’ David said. ‘Please go away.’

  He pressed Eva’s cooling hand against his brow, heard the rustling of cloth as the nurse crouched down. He felt a hand at his back.

  ‘Can I do anything?’

  David slowly turned his head to the nurse and drew back, Eva’s hand still held in his own. The nurse looked like Death in human form. Prominent cheekbones, protruding eyes, pained expression.

  ‘Who are you?’ he whispered.

  ‘I’m Marianne,’ she said, almost without moving her lips.

  They stared at each other wide-eyed. David took a firmer hold of Eva’s hand; he had to protect her from this person who was coming to get her. But the nurse made no move towards him. Instead she sobbed, said, ‘Forgive me…’ and shut her eyes, pressing her hands against her head.

  David understood. The pain in his head, the ragged pulsating heartbeat was not only his. The nurse slowly straightened up, momentarily lost her balance, then walked out of the room. For a moment, the outside world penetrated his consciousness and David heard a cacophony of signals, alarms and sirens both inside and outside the hospital. Everything was in turmoil.