Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist Read Free Book Online Page A

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    It was as if a radio had spun through hundreds of frequencies, filling their heads with voices; only staccato half-sounds, but nonetheless they could hear that the voices belonged to people in a state of panic. The strength drained from Elvy's legs, she fell on her knees on the lawn and mumbled, 'Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we ... '

    'Grandma?'

    ' .. .forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil . .'

    'Grandma!'

    Flora's voice trembled, and with an effort Elvy pulled herself away from her faith, looked around. Flora was sitting wide-eyed on the lawn, staring at her. A beam of pain pierced Elvy's mind, so sharp that she feared she might be having a stroke and she whispered, ' ... yes?'

    'What was that?'

    Elvy grimaced. Everything hurt. It hurt to move her head, it hurt to open her mouth. She tried, and failed, to form the words inside her head and then ... it was gone. She closed her eyes, breathed. The ache simply switched off, the world fell back into place, took on its normal colours. She could read her own relief in Flora's face.

    A deep breath. Yes. It was gone. Over. She reached out her hand, took hold of Flora's.
    'I'm so glad,' she said. 'That you are here. That I was not the only one who ... experienced this.'

    Flora rubbed her eyes. 'But what was it?' 'Don't you know?'

    'Yes. No.'

    Elvy nodded. Of course. In a way it was a matter of faith.

    'It was the spirits,' she said. 'The souls of the dead. They have been let out.'

    Danderyd Hospital 23.07

    She was his wife, how could he be afraid of her? David took a step closer to the bed. It was that eye, the one eye, and how it looked.

    It's impossible to describe a human eye; all expectations end up ghost-like, paintings and photographs acceptable only because we know they are frozen moments of time. A living eye cannot be described or recreated. But we know all too well when it is not there.

    Her eye was dead. It was covered by a microscopically thin grey membrane, and it might as well have been a stone wall. She was not switched on, not.. .present. David leaned over, whispered, 'Eva?'

    He had to hold onto the steel bed rail in order to keep himself from recoiling when she looked straight at him-

    there are diseases that do that to the eye
     
    -and opened her mouth, but there was no sound. Only a dry clicking. David ran over to the sink and filled a plastic cup of water, held it up to her. She looked at it but made no attempt to take it.

     'Here, my love,' David said. 'A little water.'

    Her hand swung up and knocked the cup out of his hand. Water splashed over her face and the cup landed on her stomach. She looked at it, put her hand over it and scrunched it up with a crackle.

    David stared at the hole in her chest, the clamps dangling inside like Christmas decorations from hell, and finally came out of his paralysis. He pressed the button at her bedside and when no one had turned up after five seconds he rushed out into the corridor and shouted, 'Hello! Help!'

    A nurse responded quickly from a room further down the corridor. Before she had reached him David was screaming, 'She's woken up, she is alive she ... I don't know what I should ... '

    The nurse gave him a look of bewilderment before she squeezed past him, into the room and stopped at her first step inside the room. Eva was sitting in the bed and stiffly picking at pieces of the plastic cup. The nurse clapped her hand over her mouth and turned to David, shaking her head, said, ' ... it ... it ... '

    David grabbed her by the shoulders. 'What? What is it?'

    The nurse turned half-way into the room again, gestured with her hand and said, 'It ... isn't possible ... '

    'Do something, then!'
    The nurse shook her head again and ran without another word back toward the nurses' station. When she