I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Marlaine Delargy Read Free Book Online Page A

opens the door, gets out of the car and gasps when he looks around. Only now is he able to appreciate the depth of the vacuum in which he finds himself. He holds up his hands in front of his face. They are there. He is real, even though he is so incredibly small. Hepats the roof of the car, feeling the metal against his palm. The car is there too.
    He screws up his eyes and peers in the direction from which he has come, but he can no longer make out any caravans. Peter and the car are in the middle of a vast green disc, suspended in a sea of blue. He spins around, and lets out an involuntary yell: ‘Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?’
    *
    Lennart and Olof have moved their caravan a short distance, stripped and folded up their bed so that it has become two narrow sofas and a table. They are now sitting opposite one another at this table, contemplating a sparse breakfast: crispbread, fish paste and a tub of margarine that has gone runny in the refrigerator, which has stopped working. The gas cylinder is empty, and they have been running on electricity for the past few days. Electricity which is no longer available.
    No coffee. This is a disaster. Neither Lennart nor Olof are particularly keen on breakfast; they are happy with a slice of bread cheered up with something out of a tube—soft cheese or fish paste. But they must have coffee. Always.
    ‘Is there any way of mixing it with cold water?’ Lennart wonders, waving at the pack of ground coffee.
    ‘I doubt it. Maybe if we had instant.’
    ‘Hang on, didn’t we have a camping stove? One of those little ones?’
    ‘Maybe, somewhere. Although I don’t really feel up to looking for it at the moment. Do you?’
    ‘No. Later, perhaps.’
    ‘Okay.’
    Lennart looks doubtfully at his rectangle of crispbread, with melted margarine dripping over the edge. ‘How are we for food?’
    ‘Not too bad,’ Olof replies. ‘We’ll be all right for a few days. We’ve got plenty of potatoes.’
    ‘Which means we have to dig out the camping stove.’
    ‘Right. We can’t live on raw potatoes.’
    They carry on eating; the sound of crunching is animalistic in the silence. They look at one another and smile, with crumbs at the corners of their mouths. They are like two horses. Two horses chomping their way through their nosebags. The milk they are drinking to wash down the unappetising lumps of food is lukewarm.
    ‘I’m not too keen on all this,’ Olof says when they have finishing chewing and swallowing.
    ‘No,’ Lennart replies as he wipes crumbs off the table. ‘Then again…I don’t know.’
    Olof waits. He can tell from Lennart’s hesitant movements that he is trying to put something into words. When Lennart has tipped the crumbs into the bin and draped the dishcloth over the tap, he leans back against the cupboard, folds his arms and says: ‘But this is just the way things are, somehow.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You know what I mean. This is how things are. It’s just been… clarified.’
    ‘Right. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.’
    ‘Is there another way?’
    Olof frowns and concentrates on the situation in which they find themselves. It’s difficult. His thoughts refuse to grow, because they have nowhere to take root. There is only emptiness. Eventually he shrugs and says: ‘You’re going to have to give me some thinking time, Lennart.’
    ‘Take as much time as you want.’
    Lennart picks up their current crossword magazines and places Olof’s in front of him, along with his glasses and a pen. Similarly equipped, Lennart sits down opposite him and places his glasses on the end of his nose.
    Olof manages to concentrate on the mega-crossword for only a minute before his thoughts run away with him. He looks up at Lennart, who is chewing on his pen, totally absorbed in the trickiest crossword of them all.
    ‘What about the cows?’ Olof says.
    Without looking up, Lennart replies: ‘I’m sure Ante and Gunilla will cope.’
    Ante is