Itsy Bitsy by John Ajvide Lindqvist Read Free Book Online

am I supposed to tell Magnus? He’s turning nine next week, you know. He wants pancake cake. How do you make pancake cake, Eva? You were the one who was going to make it, you bought the raspberries and everything. They’re already at home in the freezer, how am I supposed to go home and open the freezer and there are the raspberries that you bought to make pancake cake and how am I supposed to…’
    David screamed. One long sound until all the air was gone from his lungs. He pressed his lips against her knuckles, mumbled, ‘Everything’s over. You don’t exist any more. I don’t exist. Nothing exists.’
    The pain in his head reached an intensity that he was forced to acknowledge. A bolt of hope shot through him: he was dying. Yes. He was going to die too. There was crackling, something breaking in his brain as the pain swelled and swelled and he had just managed to think, with complete certainty—I’m dying. I am dying now. Thank you—when it stopped. Everything stopped. Alarms and sirens stopped. The lighting in the room dimmed. He could hear his own rapid breathing. Eva’s hand was moist with his own sweat, it slid across his forehead. The headache was gone. Absently, he rubbed her hand up and down across his skin, drawing her wedding band across it, wanting the pain back. Now that it was gone, the ache in his chest welled up in its place.
    He stared down at the floor. He did not see the white caterpillar that came in through the ceiling, fell, and landed on the yellow institutional blanket draped over Eva, digging its way in.
    ‘My darling,’ he whispered and squeezed her hand. ‘Nothing was going to come between us, don’t you remember?’
    Her hand jerked, squeezed back.
    David did not scream, did not make a move. He simply stared at her hand, pressed it. Her hand pressed back. His chin fell, his tongue moved to lick his lips. Joy was not the word for what he felt, it was more like the disorientation in the seconds after you wake from a nightmare, and at first his legs did not want to obey him when he pulled himself up so he could look at her.
    They had cleaned and prepped her as best they could, but half of her face was a gaping wound. The elk, he supposed. It must have had time to turn its head, or make a final desperate attempt to attack the car. Its head, its antlers had been the first thing through the windshield and one of the points had struck her face before she was crushed under the weight of the beast.
    ‘Eva! Can you hear me?’
    No reaction. David pulled his hands across his face, his heart was beating wildly.
    It was a spasm…She can’t be alive. Look at her.
    A large bandage covered the right half of her face, but it was clear that it was…too small. That bones, skin and flesh were missing underneath. They had said that she was in bad shape, but only now did he realise the extent of it.
    ‘Eva? It’s me.’
    This time there was no spasm. Her arm jerked, hitting against his legs. She sat up without warning. David instinctively backed up. The blanket slid off her, there was a quiet clinking and…no, he had not realised the full extent of it at all.
    Her upper body was naked, the clothes had been cut away. The right side of her chest was a gaping hole bordered by ragged skin and clotted blood. From it came a metallic clanking. For a moment, David could not see Eva, he only saw a monster and wanted to run away. But his legs would not carry him and after several seconds he came to his senses. He stepped up next to the bed again.
    Now he saw what was making the sound. Clamps. A number of metal clamps suspended from broken veins inside her chest cavity. They swayed and hit against each other as she moved. He swallowed dryly. ‘Eva?’
    She turned her head toward the sound of his voice and opened her one eye.
    Then he screamed.



 
    Welcome to Domarö.
     
    It’s a place you won’t find on any maritime chart, unless you look really carefully. It lies just about two nautical miles east of