Copyright

Cadaver 3

Copyright © 2023 Nick Clausen

Edited by Diana Cox

Created with Atticus

The author asserts his moral rights to this work.

Please respect the hard work of the author.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or undead, is purely coincidental.

Contents

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

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31

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1

“They’re … infected?” Marit repeats, visibly digesting what Ella just told her. “But how could—”

“It doesn’t matter how,” Ella cuts her off, picking up her sports bag, which—thankfully—she didn’t unpack. “The only thing that matters is getting out of the house and away from them. They’re not themselves, all right? They’re … delirious. Aggressive. They’re trying to attack us, because they don’t recognize us.”

Marit swallows, shakes her head, blinks repeatedly. “I don’t … I don’t understand …”

“You don’t need to,” Ella says, pulling her to her feet. “Just get dressed.”

Another groan from the other side of the door. This one a lot closer—close enough that Marit hears it, too. “Was that …?”

“Yes,” Ella says, picking up Marit’s trousers and flinging them at her. “Get dressed!”

Gunnar—at least Ella assumes it’s him, since Greta probably didn’t wake back up yet—reaches the door and bumps into it. Luckily, he doesn’t go for the handle. At least not right away. Apparently, he’s forgotten how doors work.

Ella spins around, looking for something, anything, to barricade the door with. It opens in, which means a chair or something similar to pin under the handle would do the trick. But Marit only has a desk chair on wheels, and it won’t work. Instead, Ella notices the shelf right next to the doorframe. It’s wall-mounted, sitting on metal brackets, and there’s an inch of space between the wall and the shelf itself. Meaning that something can be tied around the bracket.

“D-dad?” Marit asks, her voice shaky with beginning comprehension. “Is that you?”

“Don’t talk to him!” Ella snaps. “I told you, he can’t recognize you.”

As she’s talking, Ella goes to the desk, rips Marit’s charger from the socket, and brings it to the door. She wraps it around the shelf bracket, then around the door handle, forming a loop. It’s not easy to tie into a knot, but she does the best she can. Even through the door, she can smell Gunnar. Apparently, he senses her, too, because he begins groping more eagerly, growling, snarling and snapping his teeth.

Marit says something, but Ella filters it out, focusing on the cord.

That’s when Gunnar—probably by coincidence—presses down on the handle, and the door opens.

Ella gives off a cry and instinctively pushes back.

But something is stuck—Gunnar’s foot—and she can’t get the door closed all the way. He begins pressing from the other side, squeezing his hands through, and as he gropes for her, Ella has no choice: She lets go of the door and steps back.

Staring as the door swings open another couple of inches, she’s sure the cord will give way and Gunnar will come bursting into the room. She mentally prepares herself to face him.

But the cord holds. The door can only open six inches. It’s enough for him to reach both arms inside, but not to squeeze through. Instead, he presses his face into the opening, trying to edge his entire head through.

Marit begins screaming, and Ella can’t blame her. Her father is an awful sight. Besides his greenish complexion and pitch-black eyes, most of his face is smeared in blood, and his jaw, chin and neck are one big awful mess of exposed flesh, completely cut open, skin and tendons dangling like stringy mozzarella.

He pushes against the door in rhythmical thrusts, growling and snarling, his fingers clawing at them. With each push, the cord is stretched, and the knot that Ella managed to tie is put to the test. It seems to hold, at least for now.

Get moving.

Ella pries her eyes off of her uncle, turning to Marit, who’s still screaming her lungs out. She steps in front of her, blocking her view. Marit just keeps screaming, staring right through her, and Ella instinctively does what she’s seen in movies: She slaps Marit hard.

Her cousin gasps, blinks, and begins bawling. But at least she stops screaming.

“Sorry,” Ella tells her. “But we need to get going.”

She drags her crying cousin to the window. Marit keeps trying to look back, but Ella holds her firmly by the arm. “Don’t look at him,” she instructs her. “Pretend he’s not there.”

She knows it’s futile, of course. But to her surprise, Marit actually stops trying to turn around.

This frees up Ella’s hands, and she immediately opens the window. It’s divided in the middle by a vertical post, and only the right half can be opened. Luckily, though, it works like a door, swinging out into the cold morning air. Ella leans out and looks down. There’s a steep twelve-foot drop which ends abruptly at the frozen lawn. The jump can probably be done without breaking anything, but Ella doubts she can convince Marit of that. She turns her head and sees a downspout going right by the window.

Perfect.

“Marit?” she says, pulling back inside and grabbing her cousin by the shoulders, forcing her to look Ella in the eye. “We’re going to climb down now. You go first. Come on.”

Marit nods absently, and Ella helps her climb onto the sill. She feels Marit tense up and begin to resist as soon as she sees the drop.

“Don’t look down,” Ella instructs her. “Grab hold of the pipe.”

“I can’t … I can’t reach it,” Marit whimpers. “It’s too far away.”

A bump from behind. Ella darts a look back. Gunnar is really going at it, and the knot looks like it’ll give way any second.

Marit is still crouching on the windowsill. “I don’t think I can do it, Ella …”

“Go!” Ella shouts. “Now, Marit! Or it’ll be too la—”

The cord is untied, the door swings open, and Gunnar stumbles into the room. He immediately heads for them.

“Change of plans,” Ella hears herself say. Then she shoves Marit hard in the back.

2

What am I doing here?

The question has been haunting her for hours. Ever since she got off the phone with Ella. Why hasn’t she called her back? Isn’t she safe? Did anything happen? Anne tried calling her several times, but got no answer. She should be up there in Mo. If ever Ella needed her around, now’s the time.

I should just up and leave. It’s a fifty-minute drive if I break the speed limit. I could take the patrol car, put on the flashers. That way, I wouldn’t get pulled over.

And yet, Anne finds herself bound by her duty. It’s crazy. But it’s how she was raised.

She has a feeling in her gut that this whole thing might spiral out of control. That it will do so despite their best efforts. It’s simply spreading too fast. The virus is too aggressive. They’ve never faced anything like this before. Covid seems like nothing compared to this. Not only is the incubation time much shorter, it’s also a much, much worse disease. The infected look more than sick. They look …

Diseased.

The word keeps flickering through her mind as she watches the footage on the screen mounted on the wall. The cantina smells like coffee and cleaning products. The sandwich she bought from the vending machine is still lying untouched in the cellophane wrapping in front of her.

As a society—scratch that, as mankind—this is perhaps the worst challenge they’ll ever face. The bubonic plague, the Spanish Flu, smallpox, even HIV … none of those will compare to this if it escapes the nation’s borders. Which, for every passing minute, Anne feels still more certain that it will—if it hasn’t already. Who knows if someone has crossed the border to Sweden? Someone hiding in the trunk of a car? Or worse, someone with only a mild fever boarding a plane to a destination in Central Europe, maybe someone sneaking aboard a ship headed for England?

Anne willfully shoves aside the gloomy thoughts. There’s still hope. Still a chance of stopping it. She needs to believe that.

Even though what’s going on in the news seems to contradict it. The television is showing images from Torik. They go back and forth from the studio to the reporters in the streets. All of them have serious expressions and keep using words like “disaster,” “fatality,” “panic” and even “mayhem.”

Anne tries not to listen. But she can’t help it. She also can’t help but recall her daughter’s voice.

“Gunnar was infected. He’s dead.”

She can’t believe her brother is gone. Poor Gunnar. They grew up together, and although they weren’t very close anymore, Anne finds that some deep feelings of grief are settling into the pit of her stomach, right next to the fear she feels for her daughter’s safety.

Gunnar was a tough guy, no doubt about it. And yet all it took was a tiny wound. Anne holds no illusions that this thing can be kicked. If Gunnar couldn’t, no one can. She even doubts they’ll ever find a vaccine or something else to promote immunity. The only course of action for now is to stem the flood. Contain the infected, keep them separated from the rest of society. And that’s pretty much all they’ve been doing. And so far, they’re failing. Miserably.

First Torik. The hospital is all but lost. No one can still be alive up there. Judging from the media coverage, it even seems like they’re not that concerned about keeping up the perimeter around the building. Because now the city is falling, too.

Then Mo. Gunnar was responsible for that. Anne gets how he probably felt confident he could cure himself. Still, what he did is unforgivable. Abandoning his post. Exposing others to danger—his own family—and spreading the infection way beyond the initial ground zero.

Simultaneously, it reached Trondheim, where Anne is. One of the quarantined people in Torik unwittingly brought an infected person along with them in the back of the ambulance that Anne herself apprehended. Another stupid act of—

Her phone buzzes on the table, and she realizes she was nodding off, as the sound almost makes her fall from the chair. She grabs it.

It’s not Ella. It’s a service number. She answers the call. “Nilsen?”

“Anne, it’s Bo. I need you to stay put.”

She has gotten to her feet, already striding for the door. Now she stops, frowning. “Say that again?”

“I know. It’s bad down here. We’re trying, but …” Her superior pauses briefly, and she can hear shouts in the background. “Even our own people are getting infected, for Christ’s sake. You’d think they’d give us some proper goddamn equipment, wouldn’t you? But they sent it all up north, and now we’re left to clean up this mess that no one expected would ever reach us.”

“But ... hold on, Bo.” She grabs the remote from the table and kills the sound of the television. It was set way higher than she was aware of. The silence is deafening. “You’ve still got the street, right?”

Bo scoffs, which isn’t a good sign. She’s never heard her usually levelheaded boss sound like this. “Forget Odin’s Street, Nilsen. We couldn’t even keep the quarter. For every new incident, we need to pull back, and we’re leaving people inside, healthy people, some of them ours, goddamnit … And the circle is growing exponentially. That’s why I’m calling you …”

Anne is staring at the fridge door, absently reading a handwritten note someone put up: In queso emergency … pray to cheesus. Suddenly, with the television muted, she can hear noises in the background, and not all of them are coming through the phone. She turns to look at the windows. They’re sitting too high for her to see anything but blue skies. A car honks. Someone screams. A banging sound, maybe from a door being slammed. And closer by, more subtly, she can hear low growling, which could be an angry dog warning anyone not to come near it. Except she knows the sound is coming from a human. She heard it before.

Jesus … I was just sitting here, while it’s spiraling outside …

“It’ll reach your position soon,” Bo goes on in her ear. “I’ll need you to take charge. I pulled Botten, and Thune was on his way to you when she got redirected here. So you’re it, Nilsen. Keep whoever is there with you—don’t send anyone else out to get in trouble. We don’t want—”

“No one’s here,” Anne hears herself say. “I’m the only one.”

“Well … that’s good. You don’t need to worry, then. Just make sure you’re safe. You’ve got provisions, right?”

“There’s food here, yeah. For a few weeks at least.”

“Good. I don’t think it’ll be that long, but help could take a while to reach you. Tell you the truth, I think they’ll end up clearing the area with a lot more forceful measures. But you never heard me say that.”

In a flash of vision, Anne sees jagers overhead, dropping cans of gas. Infantry driving through the streets in combat vehicles, spraying bullets at anything that moves. Drones landing with precision bombs.

“Christ,” she whispers. “All right. Thanks for the heads-up, Bo.”

“Hunker down, Nilsen. Wait it out. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t. Any news from Mo?”

“Not that I’ve heard, no. Sorry, Nilsen. I know your daughter is up there, and—” Someone shouts in the background, and Bo hisses: “Shit!” then ends the call abruptly.

Anne is left to stare at the phone in her hand. Her heart is pounding away in her chest.

The thought of being trapped here, alone, for weeks, is even worse than the thought of fighting in the streets. At least out there she could act. In here, she can only sit on her ass and hope. And what’s worse: She won’t be able to get to Ella.

I’m going, she thinks, slipping the phone into her pocket. I’m coming, Ella.

3

She hears Marit scream as she falls. Then the sound is cut off by a thud.

Ella doesn’t waste time checking if her cousin is okay. Instead, she grabs the desk chair and sends it rolling right at Gunnar. He must see it coming, but he doesn’t seem to care. Walking right into it, he does exactly what Ella hoped: He falls over.

This wins Ella the few seconds she needs to climb up onto the windowsill. She can hear Marit complain down by the lawn, and as she looks down, she expects to see her, sitting there. But Marit is crawling away, headed for the far end of the yard. This confuses Ella—until Marit darts a look back. Following her gaze, Ella sees the reason why Marit is busy getting away: Greta comes around the corner of the house.

How did she get out?

Ella doesn’t have time to ponder the question, as she picks up on a sound from behind. Gunnar is back up, and half a second before he can grab her, Ella jumps out.

She’s done gymnastics at after school, and she knows how to land properly. Yet this is by far the highest drop she’s ever done—and it’s not a mattress waiting for her, but solid, frozen ground.

She breaks the fall as best she can, collapsing and rolling. The impact is still hard enough to send jolts of pain up through her legs. But nothing breaks or dislocates, which is all she was hoping for. Jumping back up, her knees and shins hurt, but she can walk. And that’s lucky, because Greta is coming.

Seeing her aunt’s ink-black eyes and green face is awful beyond imagination—amplified by the fact that she was looking at her just minutes ago, when she was fine, normal-colored and alive. Now, she’s drooling, hissing and reaching out her hands, eager to grab Ella and eat her flesh.

Ella moves away from the house, in the direction that Marit took. Seconds later, Gunnar comes plummeting from the window. He lands like a ragdoll, arms and legs flailing, and something audibly breaks. Ella feels sick to her stomach, but she can’t help but look at Gunnar one last time. She expects—hopes—that the fall killed him. On the contrary, her uncle doesn’t even seem phased by it. He just meticulously begins getting back to his feet. His hip seems to be dislocated, and one leg is turned almost all the way around, making it hard for him to keep his balance. Still, he limps on, headed for Ella, racing his dead wife to get at the meal first.

Ella turns and runs after Marit, who’s by now reached the fence separating the lawn from the neighbor’s. It’s made of vertical planks, and there’s a thick hedge right on the other side. Looking to both sides, Ella sees no ways around or through the fence—the only way is up. Unless they want to turn back, which by now has become risky, since Greta and Gunnar are coming for them, cornering them.

“Ow, my foot,” Marit wails as she tries to stand. “I think it’s broken … it hurt so badly, I can’t—”

“We don’t have time,” Ella cuts her off. “Here, use your good foot.” She folds her hands in a classic boost offer. Apparently, however, Marit never climbed trees with other kids, because she stares at Ella’s hands like she has no idea what it means. “Step up into my hands!” Ella shouts. “Quickly!”

Marit finally catches on, lifts her unhurt leg, giving off another whine of pain as she places her weight on the bad leg. Ella catches her foot. Marit grabs hold of her shoulders, then catches the edge of fence. Ella hoists her cousin up as high as she can, prompting her to climb over. It’s enough to cause Marit to topple over, and Ella hears her land in the hedge with a shriek, the naked, frozen branches cracking like chips.

Ella doesn’t look back—she doesn’t need to, she can hear and sense Gunnar and Greta being very close now—she just jumps and grabs the fence.

Ella could never do an unsupported pull-up on the bar at gymnastics. But apparently, the threat of being eaten alive is all the motivation her muscles need. Kicking against the planks, she pulls herself up with little effort, then swings one leg over to place herself astride the fence.

Marit is hanging in the hedge, her nightclothes caught on the branches. She’s crying and yelling, fighting to get free.

Ella doesn’t get any time to plan her own landing, because Gunnar is only three steps away, reaching for her leg. So, she throws herself over, crashing into the branches. Covering her face, she winces as the skin on her arms and legs take the worst of it. She rolls clumsily onto the ground, jumping to her feet.

Marit manages to pull herself free, and Ella grabs her arm. Gunnar is tall enough that he can reach the top of the fence, and apparently dying hasn’t limited his upper-body strength, because he pulls himself up with little difficulty, crashing head-first into the hedge.

“Come on!” Ella says, hearing herself gasping for breath.

Marit follows willingly, and the girls run across the lawn.

It’s only now Ella realizes that the house next door isn’t a usual residence. It looks more like a public building, a library or something. There are a lot of windows, most of them dark, and out front is a parking lot with a few cars in it.

“What is this place?” Ella asks, stopping briefly to consider which way to take.

“It’s an … old folk’s home,” Marit says, looking back. “Oh no, he’s coming, Ella!”

“I know. Keep moving.” She makes a snap decision. Marit can’t run, so they need to get inside. She pulls her cousin around the back of the building, hoping to find a door. And they do. In fact, on this side of the building, there’s an entire row of glass doors, as every room has their own little terrace.

Even though Christmas was weeks ago, a lot of the windows still have lights and decorations. The third room has the regular lights on, and the curtains aren’t drawn, so Ella can see an old lady sitting in an armchair, knitting. She’s probably suffering from insomnia, or maybe she’s just one of those old folks who gets up very early in the morning for no good reason. Either way, Ella is relieved to see someone awake.

A movement from the side makes Ella spin around, and Marit gives a shriek of surprise. It’s only a robotic lawn mower, though, making its way slowly across the grass. Why they would have it running in the dead of winter, Ella doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care, either.

Pulling Marit to the terrace door, she’s aware that they’re basically boxing themselves in, since the terrace is closed off on both sides by wooden trellises with roses growing on them. But they must have gained at least half a minute’s lead on Gunnar, and it should be plenty for the old lady to let them inside.

She resists the urge to bang away at the glass—wouldn’t do any good to scare the old lady into a heart attack—and instead taps it gently. The lady looks up from her knitwear, squinting at them. Ella isn’t sure how visible they are due to the darkness. She waves. “Hello! Could you please open the door? We—”

“Help!” Marit cuts her off, grabbing the handle and pulling it. “Let us in! He’s going to kill us!”

“Shut up,” Ella hisses, pushing Marit back. “Goddamnit, she’ll never let us in if you scare her …”

Turning back to the door, Ella sees the old lady getting to her feet. She stands there for a moment, looking uncertain what to do.

Ella puts on the calmest demeanor she can manage. “Please. We need shelter, ma’am. Could you please open the door?”

She purposefully doesn’t mention anything about “virus” or “infection,” since that would be a surefire way for the old lady not to open. And she’s never once in her life addressed anyone “ma’am” or “sir”—that’s simply not custom in Norway—but it came out instinctively.

A grunt from the lawn.

Fuck, he’s fast …

“He’s coming!” Marit whimpers, looking like she’s about to bolt.

Ella grabs her wrist and stares in at the old lady. “Please, open the door before it’s too late!”

The old lady finally makes up her mind. She shuffles to the door, clicks the lock, and swings open the door. A gush of warm, stuffy air rolls out at them.

“What’s going on?” the lady croaks, frowning at them. She doesn’t immediately step aside, and Ella can tell it’s still not an open invitation for them to come inside. “Someone’s trying to hurt you?”

“Yes!” Ella says, nodding empathically, resisting the urge to push the old lady back. “Please let us in, so—”

Marit screams.

Ella turns around to see Gunnar come into view, shambling around the trellis, immediately honing in on them.

She hears the old lady gasp, and then Marit pushes past Ella, elbowing her in the neck as she does so. Ella is momentarily pushed off balance, and as she turns for the door, the old lady slams it in her face, clicking the lock back in place.

Ella stares through the glass at Marit and the lady, and she realizes to her horror that she made a terrible mistake. That she should have muscled her way inside the second the lady opened the door.

Now, she’s trapped like a rat.

4

They may call it observation, but to Aksel, it’s pretty clearly detention.

The door is locked, the windows can’t be opened, and some guy in a hazmat suit is sitting right outside. All that’s missing is the bars.

They’re even kept in separate rooms, with Rosa in the one next to Aksel’s, and Belinda across from them.

It looks like a mixture of a hotel room and a prison. Aksel has never been in jail or even detention, but he knows what they look like from television. There’s a bed with a blanket, a bookcase, a desk with a chair, and a television mounted high on the wall. There’s also a tiny bathroom, but no lock on the door.

“Aksel?” Rosa’s voice is muffled through the wall. “Can you hear me?”

“I can,” he tells her, sitting down on the bed and facing the wall. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, I think.”

“Feeling hot?”

“No, not particularly.”

“That’s good.” Aksel checks the clock over the door. They’ve been here for close to five hours now. She should at the very least be spiking a fever now. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he tells her.

“I sure hope so,” the girl says. “Can you hear them outside?”

Aksel can. The windows are sitting too high for him to see the street, but the sounds are unmistakable, and they’ve been growing louder ever since they got here. Cars honking. People shouting. Sirens wailing. Even what sounds like a gun going off now and then.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’m sure they’ll get it under control.”

“I don’t think they will,” the girl says evenly. “I think this might be the end of the world. Don’t you?”

She asks him in that peculiar off-hand manner that he’s slowly getting used to. Still, he can’t help but laugh at the way she just puts it out there. The thing they’re all afraid of, but no one wants to say out loud.

“What’s funny?” Rosa asks innocently.

“Nothing, sorry. It’s just … yes, I think this has the potential to become the end of the world. But it doesn’t have to.”

Shit, you sound like a school teacher now. No, worse … like a parent.

“If the police can’t stop it, then who will?” Rosa asks.

“The military,” Aksel says. “I’m sure they’re already getting involved. And we’re members of NATO, right? If it comes to that, and this turns into an international crisis, I’m sure the other nations will help us.”

“I hope so,” Rosa says. “When do you think the doctor will be back?”

“As soon as they have the test results, I guess.”

“I’m not so sure. I think they might have left.”

Aksel frowns. “What makes you say that?”

“Can’t you hear it? How quiet it is?”

Aksel listens for a moment. And as he does, he gradually realizes that she’s right. He’s been so focused on the sounds from outside, that he hasn’t even noticed how silent the building has become. There are no footsteps in the hallway. No doors opening or closing. No buzz of voices. Even the radio that was playing somewhere has stopped.

“You’re right,” he mutters, not sure if Rosa hears him.

“And the guard left too,” she goes on.

“What?” Aksel gets up and strides to the door. There’s a square window right at face-height. He presses his cheek against it to see the chair where the guard was sitting. It’s now empty, save for a coffee cup. He turns back to the wall facing Rosa’s room. “Did you see him leave? When was that?”

“I think it was half an hour ago, maybe.”

Are they … are they evacuating? Are they fucking leaving us here?

“Rosa?” Belinda’s voice.

He looks out the window in the door again, and he sees the top of her face peering out from the opposite door. She waves at him. “Aksel! Are you okay?”

“We’re both fine,” he tells her.

He hears Rosa drag what he assumes is her chair across the room. A moment later, he sees relief in Belinda’s eyes as she apparently sees her daughter’s face. “How are you holding up, sweetie?”

Before Rosa can answer, someone suddenly steps into view. It happens so abruptly, Aksel recoils and almost falls on his ass. The face is so hideous, the black eyes full of death, and it’s all he can do not to scream. The zombie—a woman in what looks like a doctor’s coat—has had a huge chunk of hair torn off along with the skin of her scalp, so she’s practically bald on one side, the white, bony dome of her cranium visible in the bloody mess.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Aksel gasps as she begins going at the door, snapping at the window. He swallows to try and get his heart back down from his throat.

Belinda screams.

“What is it?” Rosa calls. “Mom, are you okay?”

“It’s fine!” Aksel shouts. “Calm down, Belinda! Rosa, your mom is safe! It’s just a … dead woman by my door. But she can’t get in. We’re all fine!”

Belinda forces herself to stop screaming, instead breathing fast. “Oh, God … they’re inside! Rosa, don’t open the door!”

“She can’t!” Aksel shouts, hoping they can hear him over the grunts and moans of the doctor. “They’re locked from the outside, remember? Just stay calm, and we’ll …” He stops talking as the zombie woman suddenly ceases attacking the door. Instead, she turns her head to the side, snarls and disappears out of sight.

Someone gives off a scream farther down the hallway. Running footsteps. A door slams. Something tips over.

Aksel steps up to the door to look out again. He can’t see the zombie woman. Seems like she left the hallway through one of the doors.

Hope who was there got away.

“Oh, Jesus,” Belinda cries. “What’ll happen to us? Why aren’t they coming to let us out?”

Aksel shakes his head. “I’m not sure anyone’s left,” he mutters.

“What?” Belinda asks.

“I said, I think we might be on our own …”

“But … we’ll starve to death!”

“It doesn’t have to come to that. We need to stay calm. There’s gotta be a way for us to get out of here. Let me … let me just think.”

He begins pacing back and forth, going over their options. Turns out, there really aren’t that many. The walls are brick, the ceiling is way too high up to reach, and the floor is tiles. There are no grates or air ducts big enough to climb through. So, it comes down to the windows or the doors. The former looks too narrow to squeeze through, even for Rosa, which leaves them only with one option: the door.

So, I either pick the lock or break it down.

The door is solid. He noticed it when he came through it. It’ll take forever to punch a hole in it, even if he had a sledgehammer, which he doesn’t. Picking the lock will be all but impossible. First off, he has never done so, and secondly, he has nothing small enough to fit in the tiny hole.

There is one last possibility, and it may be their only shot.

“I think I got it,” he says out loud, stepping back over to the door. He taps the window. Like he expected, it’s not glass, but some sort of hardened plastic. “How we’re getting out of here.”

“How?” Belinda demands, hope in her voice.

“I’ll punch open the window in my door, then use something to reach the lock on the outside.”

“But—”

“It won’t be easy, but it’s the only thing I can think of.”

“But, Aksel …”

“What?” He looks across the hallway to see Belinda’s face in the window.

“It’s not a regular lock. I think … I think they used key cards.”

Aksel looks down at the lock on Belinda’s door, and he sees that she’s right. There’s no keyhole, only a tiny metal box. “Fuck …”

“Does that mean we can’t get out?” Rosa asks.

“No,” Aksel says, feeling his hope dwindle. “No, it just means I need to think some more …”

5

Digging his hands deep into the pockets of his puffer, Hagos braces himself for the cold morning air as he stops briefly in front of the automated doors. Just looking out at the frost-glittering parking lot, he shivers.

I’ll never get used to the climate around here.

Having spent the first twenty years of his life in his native country only a hundred miles from the equator, coming to Norway was a shock to say the least. The culture is very different too. And the people. It seems like everyone is tall, blond and pale. He often feels like a cue ball among snowflakes.

Luckily, though, in the eighteen months he’s been here so far, he’s encountered very little racism. In fact, Norwegians generally seem open-minded to foreigners. The only exception is perhaps older folks—which just makes it all the more ironic that the municipality sent him to work here, at Mo Senior Care.

But the residents here have taken to Hagos. Or at least accepted him. That is, those of them who can actually remember him from day to day.

It was tough to begin with, but once they learned that Hagos always acts friendly, professionally, and perhaps more importantly, is able to talk almost fluent Norwegian, the suspicious looks and mumbled remarks went away. It made him glad that he’d made such an effort to learn the language from the moment he landed here. It had been an easy decision, really. He wanted badly to integrate himself. There was nothing back in his country for him, expect war, atrocities and very likely death.

Just like Abeba. God rest her soul.

Hagos doesn’t want to think of his sister, so he does what he always does when the memories begin to intrude: He shoves them back down.

Realizing he’s fallen into a stupor in front of the glass doors, he looks at his own reflection. Only his eyes are visible under the thick hood. He reminds himself of Kenny from South Park. Except that his jacket is green, and the skin around his eyes is black.

He takes a deep breath, knowing that the coldness will pounce on him the moment he steps outside. He always tries to remind himself to be grateful that being cold is the worst of his problems now.

And today of all days, he should be extra thankful. Whenever he had the chance during the night, he checked the news on his phone to follow the situation up north. Those people up there, the ones who were still trapped in the hospital, fighting for their lives against some terrible contagion, they really had reason to—

Hagos blinks as a woman comes into view. She’s walking across the parking lot, and something about her movements immediately seems off to Hagos. What’s really shocking, however, is the fact that she’s only wearing what looks like nightclothes.

Hagos has often been struck by how carelessly some of the natives will dress, even when temperatures are extremely low. Especially young people. More than once, he’s seen them in only thin sweaters when it’s snowing. It’s inexplicable to him. They must simply have warmer blood running through their systems, keeping them warm from the inside.

But what this woman is doing is insane, even by Norwegian standards, and all Hagos can do at first is stare as she heads for the street.

From the opposite side comes what Hagos takes to be a man—it’s hard to tell, because the person is wearing a thick woolen scarf and ditto beanie. He’s short, heavyset and walking an almost-as-fat Dachshund on a leash. The woman seems to be headed for them.

The dog notices the woman first, and it immediately raises its shackles and begins barking shrilly.

The man slows down at the sight of the woman and apparently asks her something. He seems to have much the same reaction as Hagos to seeing the woman with barely any clothes on: that something must be wrong.

The only thing Hagos can think of is that either the woman has been in some kind of accident, or she’s delusional. Working in elder care, Hagos has dealt with people with dementia and the like several times, but this woman seems way too young, and her movements are strangely jerky, as though propelled by random electrical impulses that she can’t fully control—not at all something you usually see in dementia patients. In fact, it reminds Hagos of something else. Something he’s seen on the news.

Could that really be …?

As the woman approaches the man now standing still on the sidewalk, she comes into the light of one of the posts, and Hagos can suddenly tell she’s hurt—badly. Her neck and upper chest are all torn open, and blood has seeped down her torso, soaking the dress. He can’t see her face, but he can see the man’s face, and it’s painted with shock and horror.

The dog is still barking, and now it’s pulled its tail between its legs and is hiding behind its owner’s feet. This causes the man to get entangled in the leash as he staggers backwards, obviously wanting to get away from the approaching woman. He stumbles, falls, and lands hard on his ass. He drops the leash, and the dog bolts down the street, whimpering. The man struggles to get back up, but he’s very slow, and the woman is only a few steps away.

Hagos was always good at thinking and acting fast in situations of danger—something he’s gotten plenty of practice in already from a way too young age—and it takes his brain only seconds to conclude that the woman is in fact intent on hurting the man.

So, he steps through the doors, ignoring the cold air, and runs to help.

6

First order of business is getting her gun.

Why she was stupid enough to follow protocol and lock her service weapon in the locker room is beyond her. Probably because at the time she still thought the situation was under control.

Striding through the building, she reaches the back hallway and turns right. She’s internally planning her escape route—get the gun, leave building on the south side, get to vehicle parked one block over, exit town via the smaller roads—which is probably why she walks right past the open fire doors.

It’s the cold draft that makes her stop dead in her tracks.

She turns and stares out at the empty lot behind the building. The view is cut off by a wooden fence and a couple of dumpsters. A plastic bag tumbles by. Then, from the other side, comes a teenage boy. His lower belly is open like a fanny pack, his intestines dangling out like spaghetti. His black eyes land on Anne. He reaches out his arms and heads for the doors.

Anne shrieks and does the same. She reaches the double doors half a second before the boy and slams them in his face. Pushing against them with her shoulder, she fumbles for the lock, then realizes it’s one of those sliding things that go into the ceiling. She reaches up, snaps it into place, then steps back, ready to run if the doors don’t hold.

They hold just fine. Even though the boy goes at them pretty fiercely, there’s no chance of him breaking them down.

Anne stands there for a moment, panting, feeling her heart pound away above her collarbone.

Who the hell left the doors wide open?

Someone in a rush to get away, obviously. But it means the building is compromised. She turns and looks down the hallway. Filtering out the sounds from the boy, she listens for any noises coming from within the building. She can’t hear anything.

Perhaps I was lucky and no one got in.

Just as she begins walking again, she feels the bottom of her right shoe land in something sticky. She looks down to see a trail of blood. There are also traces of at least two sets of shoes that have stepped in the blood. They disappear in different directions. She has no way of knowing whether they were left by infected people or not.

Need to be very careful.

She presses on, senses alert, ready to run at any moment. She avoids stepping in more of the blood, and she does her best to make sure she moves quietly.

Reaching a place where the hallway splits in two, she needs to make a left turn, and then the locker room will be within sight. But she’s suddenly aware of a sound that’s very unsettling. It’s pretty clearly someone eating—she can make out clacks from teeth, chewing and slurping. In any other situation, she would have assumed the sound was from a kid eating a big slice of watermelon and making a mess of it. Right now, however, she’s pretty sure what she hears comes from something much less benign.

It’s hard to tell which direction the sounds are coming from, so she keeps in the middle of the hallway as she slips carefully forward, turning her head back and forth, trying to look both ways at once.

The sounds are coming from the right. She can’t immediately see the person producing them. A few yards down is an open door, and a pair of legs are sticking out—one of them missing a shoe. The legs jerk and move slightly, and at first Anne takes it to mean the person is still alive and conscious. But as she looks closer, she can tell the movements are aligned with the noises, and she connects the dots: Someone is eating away at the upper half of the poor bastard.

Goddamnit, Anne thinks, breathing hard through her nose to keep the dread and nausea away. It proves a mistake, though, because it brings in the smell of blood and raw flesh. What kind of disease is this? What type of virus turns people into man-eaters?

It sounded like science fiction from the moment she learned about what was happening up at Torik. And now, as she’s witnessing it firsthand, it doesn’t feel much more real—except it is. She used to watch a lot of documentaries of wildlife, animals and nature, and she recalls one about parasites and how they can do absolutely incredible things to their hosts after hijacking their nervous system. Like the one that would infect ants, then control them into climbing straws of grass so they could reach the underbelly of sheep, which was where the parasite really wanted to live. The poor ants were just a temporary vehicle.

Impressive. And there was a purpose. The parasite had to get from the ground to the woolly environment of the sheep.

What is this illness all about? What does it want? Why are the infected drawn to attacking, killing and eating away at the living?

Anne is a firm believer in cause and effect. She believes that everything in nature makes sense, even when the reasons aren’t readily apparent.

But this ... it strikes her as something beyond what’s natural. Beyond reason, even. It seems like pure evil.

Anne can’t help but shiver.

Get moving.

She turns left, heading for the locker room. She reaches the door and grabs the handle. It doesn’t budge.

Shit, I forgot …

Because of the firearms, they had to lock the room. They were all given a key card, and as Anne’s hand goes to her pocket, she finds it’s still there.

Thank God!

She pulls it out and drops it. It lands with a clatter between her feet. To Anne, it sounds like gunshots.

She looks towards the door with the legs. They’re still there. Whoever is having a feast doesn’t seem to have picked up on the noise. Or they simply don’t care. Or maybe—

“Help me …”

Anne spins around at the hoarse voice from behind. She expects to see someone there, but the hallway is empty, save for a roller table with some kind of equipment on it. It’s parked against the opposite wall, and Anne didn’t pay any attention to it. Until now. A man is sitting behind it, resting against the wall. He’s pale, sweating, and he’s clutching his bicep. He can’t quite stop the blood, and a pool of it has formed around him. Judging by his color, he’s not got a whole lot left of it in his body.

“I need … help …” he croaks.

He fights to keep his eyes open, his head lolling back and forth.

“I don’t … I don’t have anything to stop the bleeding,” Anne tells him a low voice. She’s pretty sure the guy won’t survive, and even if he does, he’s infected. It’s clear that the wound on his arm was made by teeth, seeing how the fabric is shredded. Looking closer, she notices several bloody scratches on his neck and hands. His skin is already starting to turn green.

“Please,” he says, his voice breaking. “I have a wife … I don’t want to die …”

Anne feels the knot in her stomach tighten even further. Empathy wants her to try and save the guy. But logic tells her not to. She could pull off her belt. She could compress the wound. She could tell him it’ll be all right. She could even carry him to safety.

But Anne was never one to let emotions rule. And she’s not going to now.

“What’s your name?” she tells him.

The guy just keeps pleading for help.

“What’s your name?” she asks a little louder. “Your full name?”

He blinks and looks at her like he just noticed her. “Bjørn … Svendson.”

“Bjørn, I’ll find your wife and let her know you died thinking of her. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

His expression goes from confusion back to agony, and he reaches out his good hand. “No, don’t leave me!” He leans forward, loses balance, and slumps to the floor, facedown. He doesn’t get back up. Anne can’t tell whether he’s still breathing.

She picks up the key card, checks one last time in both directions—the feast is still going on—and then she lets herself into the locker room.

7

“ Hey !” Hagos shouts. “Don’t touch him!”

He realizes he’s talking Bantu, which he only ever does in his thoughts and when he’s on the phone with some of his friends from his home country.

It doesn’t matter now, though. All he wants is to catch the woman’s attention. To distract her. To buy the man a few seconds to get on his feet.

But either the woman is deaf, or she’s too focused on whatever she’s about to do, because she doesn’t even flinch at Hagos’s voice. Instead, she throws herself on top of the man, who just managed to get up onto one knee, and, shrieking, he shields his face with both arms.

The woman pushes him back down, latching on to his side like a furious dog, thrashing and frothing, tearing the jacket to shreds. She turns her head just enough that Hagos catches sight of her eyes, and it finally drops into place for him.

He has no idea how it’s possible. But he knows without a shadow of a doubt that this woman is ill with the Torik virus. And that she’s extremely dangerous.

I can’t let her touch me.

Still, he instinctively keeps moving forward. The poor guy can still be saved, because so far, the woman has only eaten away at his jacket—the white, puffy stuff that was inside is spilling out, and the woman shakes her head to get it out of her teeth. The guy tries to defend himself by swatting away at her, but due to his thick mittens, the blows are way too soft to cause her more than slight annoyance, and she instead catches the left mitten and begins gnawing away at it.

That’s when Hagos reaches them. He places the sole of his boot on the woman’s shoulder and kicks hard. She rolls onto her side, pulling off the man’s mitten. Hagos bends, grabs the guy by the collar and pulls him away. The man obviously hasn’t seen Hagos coming, and seems convinced that it’s another infected person dragging him along. He keeps shrieking and flails his arms, trying to slap Hagos.

“It’s okay,” he groans in Norwegian. “I’m helping you.”

The man stops fighting, and Hagos stops dragging him. They’ve managed to create a little distance to the woman, but she’s now stopped chewing the mitten and has gotten back up to her feet. Hagos pulls the man up—at least he tries to. The guy is so heavy, it takes him several seconds to get up. He stares at his torn jacket, his eyes big, terrified and dazed. “What …? I don’t … Why would she …?”

“Get inside!” Hagos instructs him, shoving him towards the glass doors.

The man staggers along clumsily, almost reluctantly. Having been in life-or-death situations before, Hagos finds himself not surprised at all that the man seems to act as though he doesn’t want to be saved.

There are basically two kinds of people. Those who do well under pressure, and those who don’t. Hagos knew already that he himself belonged to the first group. He also knows that most other people fall into the second. And that they will do all kinds of irrational things, simply because their brains aren’t operating properly.

“Keep walking!” Hagos demands, pushing the man as he tries again to turn around. Hagos doesn’t want him to look back and see the woman pursuing them, as that could cause him to flip out or shut down completely.

The glass doors open and let them inside. As soon as they’re both through, Hagos steps to the right and looks at the panel on the wall. There’s an emergency button, but he’s pretty sure that will permanently open the doors, which is the opposite of what he wants. There’s a lock function, but that requires a key.

“Damnit,” he mutters, as the doors—which were just closing—now open again for the woman.

There’s nothing I can do to keep her out, he realizes, running to the man, who’s shambling across the entrance hall, looking like he just dropped from the moon.

Hagos quickly runs over his options. He has a mental schematic of the building in his mind; it’s basically a horseshoe with two wings, and right now, he’s in the middle. He can go north or south, left or right. There are only two other staffers at work right now, one of them Louisa, the manager. She’s probably in the faculty lounge, because the morning rounds haven’t started yet. The lounge is in the north wing.

Hearing the woman enter the hall, dragging her feet, moaning and groaning, the man turns around, and this time, he sees her. He gasps and is about to shout, when Hagos grabs his upper arm and yanks him along.

They jog down the north hallway, heading for the lounge, when the door to apartment 24 suddenly flies open. Hagos jumps aside, halfway expecting an infected person to come stumbling out. Instead, it’s a young girl with red hair, not much more than fifteen—certainly too young to be a resident here. She’s obviously been through an ordeal, because she has a lot of scratches, and she’s only wearing nightclothes. Her eyes are red from crying, and as they land on Hagos, he sees how desperate the girl is.

“Help!” she yelps. “Please, we need help in here!”

Hagos automatically draws back as the girl reaches for him. “Are you infected?” he asks.

She looks confused, then shakes her head. She glances down herself. “No, this … this isn’t from … it’s from the hedge … we climbed over the—” The girl interrupts herself as she looks past Hagos and sees the woman. She shrieks, turns and runs back into the apartment.

Hagos is a natural servant. He reacts instinctively whenever someone needs help. It’s not always the best option. But it’s how he’s wired. Growing up in a dog-eat-dog society with only his nearest family to trust, he learned from a very young age that if people don’t help others in need, everyone will soon suffer the consequences.

So he makes a snap decision. He follows the girl.

8

It’s only as she steps into the locker room that she realizes someone could very well be in here. Perhaps even someone infected.

“Hello?” she asks, closing the door gently behind her. She doesn’t worry about announcing her presence. It seems preferable to walking in and surprising someone who might be armed and scared. “I’m a police officer. Anyone in here?”

Her voice reverberates between the tiled walls and the metal cabinets. There’s a shower section around the corner that she can’t see from here. The locker room seems quiet and has no alarming smells—no fever, no blood, only shampoo and aftershave.

“I’m stepping inside now,” Anne announces. “I’m not armed, and I’m not infected.”

She takes a few steps forward, which allows her to see down the rows of cabinets. A lot of clothes are left on the benches and the hangers, but she can’t see any persons. To be sure, she crouches and looks under the cabinets. They’re raised a foot above the floor on thin legs, and she can see the entire room this way. No feet in sight. The only place left to check is the showers.

Anne slips around the cabinets and peeks into the shower section. It’s empty. But by the wall is a chair which is obviously out of place. Anne looks up and sees one of the narrow windows. It’s open all the way.

Someone made a clean getaway. Good for them.

Outside, on the street, she can hear the chaos still going on—even worse now. There’s a lot of shuffling feet nearby. Meaning the window is probably not a good way to escape the building.

Anne goes back and locates her locker. She dials the combination—Ella’s birthday, the passcode she always uses for something like this—and opens it. She’s relieved to find her gun hanging in its holster. She puts it on, and she immediately feels better.

She strides back towards the door to the hallway, reminding herself to be careful, because the guy out there—Bjørn Svendson—might already be—

Anne freezes at the sight of the woman.

She’s sitting on the bench, both legs pulled up against her chest, a jacket pulled over her. Her head is leaned back, her mouth open, her eyes closed, her skin color unmistakably green. She’s relatively unscathed, save for three, nasty slices running down the side of her neck. The nails that grazed her didn’t cut open her jugular, since only a little blood has dripped from the wounds, but they obviously did allow the infection to enter the woman’s system and kill her. And now—

Before Anne can think or do anything, the woman tilts her head forward and opens her eyes. The black cue balls immediately fix on Anne—she suspects she’ll never get used to the feeling of being stared at by those dead eyes; it’s like being pinned down by a predator—no, worse, a demon—and she lets out a hungry groan. Clumsily, she stands up from the bench and comes for Anne.

Anne finds herself backing up, and her hand automatically goes to the gun.

As her back meets the wall, she raises the firearm and takes aim at the woman’s chest.

Anne never fired her gun in active service before. In fact, she never fired it once since she learned how to do so on the gun range over ten years ago. As officers of the law, they are technically obligated to keep their firearms “in working order at all times,” and to “practice firing at static and moving targets regularly,” making sure their skills don’t deteriorate.

But that is just a regulation. This is Norway. The least violent country on Earth. Where no one, not even the police, ever fires a gun. And neither Anne nor any of her colleagues ever really expected to have to shoot at anyone.

Now, however, Anne not only needs to fire her gun. She needs to kill the woman coming for her.

If she doesn’t—or if she misses—she’ll eat her alive. And she’s only three paces away now.

Anne wastes no time warning the woman. She doesn’t intend to fire any warning shots either, or shoot her in the legs. She knows from reports that it won’t work.

Instead, she braces herself to shoot to kill. She lets out one long, trembling breath.

Then she begins firing.

9

Ella could hammer away at the glass. She could scream at Marit, plead with her to unlock the door. She could even try to break the glass.

She doesn’t even consider any of them. There’s no time.

She just spins around to face her uncle.

There’s no way she’s getting around him. Not without coming into physical contact with him. The terrace is simply too small, and he’s only three paces away, headed right for her.

Ella has no weapons, either. It’s no good to begin grabbling with Gunnar—he’ll just bite or scratch her—and she can’t punch him. That’ll no doubt cause her hands to bruise, and will very likely break the skin, too. Meaning her only option is using her legs.

As Gunnar quickly closes the distance, Ella presses her back against the terrace door, lifts her right leg and coils it like a spring. Then she kicks hard at Gunnar’s midsection. He doubles over and staggers back with a grunt of surprise—like he didn’t see the kick coming at all. He bumps into the table, but manages to stay on his feet.

He then immediately comes forward again.

Ella kicks him again.

This time, Gunnar’s hands grab for her leg, his nails running all the way down the fabric, and Ella cries out in fear. He doesn’t rip open her pant leg, though, but it’s close, and he immediately comes at her a third time.

Ella prepares to kick him once again, when the door suddenly disappears behind her, and she stumbles backwards.

10

She fires four rounds, wanting to kill the woman instantly.

They all go into her chest. At least two of them must penetrate her heart.

The woman staggers backwards, arms flailing, legs wobbling, and she bumps into a cabinet, grabbing it for support.

Amazingly, though, she does not go down. Not even to her knees.

Taking a moment to regroup, she simply straightens up, shakes her head once, like someone who suffered a brief dizzy spell, then comes for Anne once more.

Anne is just standing there, her hearing wiped out, staring in horror and disbelief, when something flashes through her head. Something from her teens, way back before she became a mother or a police officer. She read a lot of books back then. Even though she preferred realistic stories set in the real world, she would go for the odd fantasy novel now and then. One of them was Dracula, and it gave her nightmares for weeks. One of the things that stuck with her was how difficult it was for Van Helsing and his helpers to kill the count. It had to be done in a very particular way. Anne learned later that according to these old myths, this holds true for every monster. Vampires need a stake through the heart, preferably while sleeping in their coffin. Werewolves are only really vulnerable to silver. And zombies …

Anne raises the gun again, closes one eye, and fires right at the space between the woman’s eyes.

The woman moves her head slightly—not to get out of the way, just due to the uncertain way she walks—so the bullet goes in at the outer corner of her right eyebrow.

It does the trick, though.

The woman collapses like a robot having its power cut. Slumping to the floor, she stays absolutely still. A thin, brownish liquid oozes from the exit wound at the back of her skull.

Anne turns around, walks back into the showers, bends over by the grate and pukes up a few mouthfuls of bile. She’s glad she left the sandwich uneaten in the cantina. It’s a strange experience—feeling and tasting the puke, seeing it spill out, but not hearing any of it. She spits, wipes her mouth, then takes a couple of steadying breaths.

They’re not zombies. They can’t be. Zombies aren’t real.

But they fit the bill perfectly. They certainly look dead. They eat the living. They obviously feel no pain. And they don’t stop for anything less than a bullet to the brain.

It doesn’t matter what they are. Now you know how to stop them.

She checks the magazine, even though she already knows how many bullets are left. But there’s no room for error or uncertainty anymore, as it could mean the difference between life and death.

Seven rounds. Assuming I’ll miss a couple of shots, let’s say I have enough to put down four, maybe five more of them. That should be enough to reach an exit.

She goes back into the locker room, her eyes going immediately to the woman on the floor. She hasn’t moved an inch.

Anne steps around her, eyeing her closely. Then she goes to the door. She listens, but she can’t hear anything except for a shrill ringing. Having only her visual sense to go by, she’ll suffer a great disadvantage. She could wait around for the tinnitus to settle down, but that could take as much as twenty minutes. And she really doesn’t want to stay here for longer than absolutely necessary. Ella needs her.

Anne places her palm on the door.

And she’s immediately glad she did. Because her suspicion is confirmed. Someone is going at the door from the other side.

Anne steadies herself. The door opens in, so all she needs to do is unlock it, turn the knob, then step back.

After twenty seconds or so, she feels ready.

Turning the knob, the door is immediately pushed open, just like she knew it would be.

The guy she left behind just minutes before comes bursting in, mouth open, foamy saliva spilling down his chin, eyes black as pearls. He’s coming faster than the woman, but Anne is better prepared. She aims carefully and puts him down with a single shot on the bridge of his nose. He slams into the doorframe, tilts sideways, then cracks his skull against the floor as he dies for real.

Anne assumes the gunshots will draw more of them, so she wastes no time, but steps right over him, panning quickly left, then right.

The legs protruding from the open door are now gone. The hallway is empty in both directions.

Nearest exit is the fire doors. But there’s probably someone waiting right outside. Perhaps the teenager is still there.

There’s another door in the opposite direction. Anne knows because it’s the one they came in through when they arrived. It’s farther away, but it’s closer to where her car is.

So, she begins moving down the hallway, keeping the gun ready and her eyes poised.

She checks every open door she passes. The first one—the one where the dead person lay just minutes ago—has a huge pool of blood with shreds of clothes in it. But no trace of either victim or perpetrator.

Anne reaches a corner and leans forward to look. Clear. And no open doors in this one. So, she ups her speed, walking briskly.

Around halfway down the hallway, she notices a monitor mounted on the wall. It shows a split screen of four rooms, three of them occupied. And she recognizes the people in there. It’s the young mother and her girl, plus the guy with the awful haircut.

They’re still here, Anne realizes. And they’re locked in.

An internal struggle begins for Anne. Her instincts want her to press on. To ignore what she’s seeing on the monitor. To prioritize getting to Ella.

But some deeper part of her can’t help but imagine it being her and Ella locked in those rooms. She was a young mother herself, and the thought of being trapped in a tiny room next to Ella as they both slowly die of thirst … that’s too gruesome.

“Shit,” Anne mutters, finding that her hearing has returned somewhat. “I can’t just leave them …”

11

Kristoffer runs his tongue across his teeth. They haven’t met a toothbrush in over two weeks. His breath must be rancid.

He’s sitting on a rock in front of the bonfire which is nothing more than smoking ashes by now. Still, it gives off enough heat to make his cheeks burn.

The day has dawned, and the sky is unusually beautiful. Not a wind is stirring, birds are chirping, and the air is fresh and crisp.

The only thing breaking the idyll are the sounds of sobbing and whimpering. They’re coming from Hans, who’s sitting on his ass next to Ingrid. It took all three of them to move the dead woman down here, onto the plateau.

Ragnar is standing with his back to the bonfire. He’s staring towards the north horizon. The lights from the complex that’s hiding just below the ridge are still visible, but only if you know to look for them. Now and then, sounds are carried across the valley. A truck braking. Someone shouting. Machinery going.

Kristoffer doesn’t want to think about it now. But he can’t help imagine the hordes of zombies being dropped off over there. How many so far? Hundreds? Thousands? What if they got out? It wouldn’t take them many hours to cross the valley. As great a place as Ragnar has built here, there’s no way it can withstand a veritable army of zombies.

And judging by the way Ragnar hasn’t spoken for several minutes, Kristoffer is sure he’s aware of it and pondering a solution.

“I don’t … I don’t get it,” Hans snivels, shaking his head. “How could this have happened? I mean, she was fine …”

“She was not fine,” Ragnar says without turning around. “She was diabetic.”

“Yeah, but that shouldn’t kill her,” Hans insists.

Ragnar shrugs. “Her body was under a lot of stress. The cold. The exertion. The lack of insulin. Not to mention the mental pressure.”

“Oh, God …” Hans breaks into a new crying fit. “You’re right … I should have seen it … the signs must have been there … I’m so freaking dense. Dense! Dense, dense, dense!” He begins slapping his head with the base of his palm, mildly at first, then harder and harder, until Kristoffer is afraid he’ll knock himself out.

“Hey!” he hears himself say. “Stop doing that.”

Hans blinks and stares at him with glassy eyes. “But it’s my fault … She’s dead because of me …”

“No, it’s not your fault,” Kristoffer tells him. “It’s no one’s fault. Even if it was, it’s no use punishing yourself.”

Hans lowers his head.

“I think Ragnar’s right,” Kristoffer goes on. “I think she just couldn’t … yeah. Couldn’t handle it. Or maybe she had some underlying condition—who knows? A heart defect or whatever.”

Hans wipes his nose with the back of his hand, leaving a trail of snot across it. “She was healthy. Besides the diabetes.”

Kristoffer isn’t going to debate the point, and certainly not right now. But he’s pretty sure Ingrid wasn’t healthy, at least not according to conventional wisdom. No one who’s overweight to the point where just walking is a challenge can be truly healthy.

Ragnar suddenly turns around. “We’ll have to deal with the body. We can’t leave her lying around here. She’ll attract predators, vermin.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Hans whimpers.

“I’m sorry,” Ragnar concedes. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but the sooner we get going, the better.”

“Do we bury her?” Kristoffer asks.

Ragnar shakes his head. “The ground is way too rocky. We couldn’t bury her deep enough anyway. Once she begins to …” Ragnar glances over at Hans, then clears his throat. “Animals would pick up the smell.”

“What about building a mound, then?” Kristoffer suggests. “With rocks and stuff?”

“That wouldn’t fix the smell problem. There are bears around here, and they could easily dig through a few stones if they caught her scent.”

Hans is following the conversation, looking like he might throw up any moment. “What then?” he croaks. “Do we … burn her? I think she would be okay with cremation …”

Ragnar chews his lower lip. “I did consider it. But there are a few drawbacks. First off, making a fire big enough to incinerate a human body would take us all day. And it would burn for days, too. We’ll lose a lot of good firewood. Not to mention how far away the smoke would be visible. And there’s again the problem of smell.” Ragnar lowers his voice slightly. “I worked as a fireman way back in the day. If you’ve ever smelled a burned corpse, you’ll never forget it. It wouldn’t only draw predators, it would also stick around for weeks.”

Hans gives off a croak and hides his face in his hands.

“What other options are left?” Kristoffer asks.

Ragnar nods east. “I say we give her a burial at sea.”

Hans looks up. “What? The ocean is 80 miles away …”

“Yes, but the stream on the other side of this cliff runs right to it. There would be no risk of contaminating the water, since it’s constantly moving, and it won’t freeze over, either. I’ve hiked along it more than once. It never gets too narrow, and there are no branches or other obstacles. I think if we wrap her up, there’s a very good chance she’ll make it right to the sea.” He shrugs, then adds: “It’s the best way that I can think of.”

Kristoffer nods and looks at Hans. “I agree. I think it sounds like … a good solution.”

Hans’s face crumbles up again as he looks down at Ingrid. “God, I can’t believe this is real … She was just … she was just alive … and now we’re considering how to … how to … oh, Jesus …”

Ragnar steps over to Hans, and for a moment, Kristoffer is afraid he’ll tell him to get a grip, perhaps even grab and shake him. But Ragnar simply places his hand on Hans’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss. You tell her goodbye, and I’ll get the tarp.”

Then he strides into the cave, leaving Hans to stare after him with teary eyes. He looks over at Kristoffer, and Kristoffer gets up. “I’ll give you some privacy,” he mutters, going after Ragnar.

12

Apartment 24 belongs to Edith, and Hagos isn’t surprised to see her up. She’s an early riser, and she usually spends the mornings knitting by the window.

Right now, she’s standing by the terrace door, staring out.

Hagos pulls the girl inside, then slams the door and twists the lock. All apartments are legally required to have locks, ensuring the residences’ privacy. Another requirement is that all doors can be opened with the staff key cards, which in Hagos’s mind defies the purpose of the privacy, but he didn’t make the rules. The door is a regular one, not impossible to kick down, but he doubts very much the infected woman has either the strength or the motor skills required to do that.

“Help!” the girl shouts again, and Hagos turns around to see her standing by the terrace door, too. She’s pointing out. “Help her, please!”

Hagos runs to them, and he sees the girl with her back pressed up against the glass door. A man is attacking her, and he’s in a very bad state. He’s basically been decapitated, his head lolling to the side. This doesn’t stop him from going at the girl, though, who’s kicking him in the gut to keep him away.

Hagos flicks the lock and pulls open the glass door. The girl is about to kick the guy again, when Hagos grabs her and pulls her inside.

The girl screams and instinctively takes a blind swing at his head. Hagos just manages to pull back far enough that she doesn’t clock him. He slams the door a split second before the infected guy clashes with it and begins scratching at the glass.

“It’s okay!” Hagos tells the girl, who’s pulling back from him. “You’re safe now.”

The girl is obviously in all-out survival mode, and she barely seems to hear him. She quickly scans him with her eyes, and Hagos can immediately tell she’s like him: She belongs to group number one. She’s scared, but she’s not panicking. She can still think.

Then she frowns and looks at the door handle. “Jesus, you didn’t lock it!” She snaps the lock into place.

Hagos blinks. He’s surprised at his own momentary lapse in focus. He realizes what did it. The girl reminds him so much of Abeba—a pale, blond, younger and taller version of her, but nonetheless. He hasn’t seen anyone with that much determination in their eyes since he looked at his sister.

Up until now, Hagos had kind of figured that people from his part of the world were hard-wired for survival in a way that others weren’t—certainly not Norwegian people. While these tall, beautiful folks were generally kindhearted and calm, they did not do well under pressure.

And yet seeing this teenage girl act like any seasoned militiaman, Hagos realizes that being a member of group one isn’t exclusive to one kind of people.

“Goodness my,” Edith exclaims. “What in the world happened to that poor man?”

Hagos thinks for a moment she’s referring to the fat guy, who’s slumped down on Edith’s bed without asking permission, and is tending to his torn jacket. But Edith is staring at the terrace door, where the guy is groping the glass, grunting and snarling.

“He’s infected,” the blonde girl says, marching to the redhead. Without warning, she slaps her so hard, she almost knocks her off balance. “What the hell were you thinking? Why’d you lock me out, you coward?”

The redhead stutters, her hand going to her cheek.

“Fuck you, Marit,” the blonde snarls. “I saved your life, and this is how you repay me?”

It looks to Hagos like another slap may be imminent, so he slips in from the side, placing himself between the girls. He’s taller than the girl and considerably broader too. Yet she looks like she’s not afraid to take him on if she has to.

“Please,” he says, holding up his palms. “Please, let’s try and stay calm …”

“You stay calm,” she spits. “You didn’t just fight for your fucking life …”

“I did, actually,” Hagos says plainly. “Not just now, but in the past. Many times.”

This was obviously the right answer, because it catches the girl off guard. She blinks, then regains composure. Leaning sideways, she hisses at the redhead: “You’re welcome, Marit.” Then she strides to the bathroom, slamming the door behind herself.

The redhead begins sobbing. Hagos doesn’t know what to do—he’s good at dealing with fear, panic and rage in others, but sadness and sorrow always makes him uncomfortable … which is probably why he can’t deal with thinking of his sister.

“Goodness,” Edith says again, turning towards him. “Hagos, what is this? What in the world is going on? Who is that man?”

Hagos notices the fat guy looks up, also waiting for Hagos to come with an explanation.

“Well, I think …” he begins.

“He’s my dad,” the redhead says between sobs. “He … was up there … in Torik … he must have … he must …” She breaks into deeper crying, burying her face in her hands.

Edith shuffles to her, putting her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “There, there, sweetheart … it’s all right.”

“Torik,” the fat man on the bed mutters. It’s the first time Hagos hears him talk without sounding dazed. “Does that mean …?” He looks up at Hagos again, his forehead creased.

Hagos nods. He doesn’t need to hear the rest of the girl’s explanation. The keyword was “Torik.”

This is it, he thinks, becoming keenly aware of the sounds coming from both the terrace door and the door to the hallway. It’s happening.

13

Fuck. We’re gonna die in here.

He can’t believe he came this far. Scaling an entire hospital through the air ducts, then jumping back out from the roof, only to get placed in detention, from which he escaped.

And now, he’ll starve to death in this goddamn room. The zombies couldn’t get him, but the authorities could. It reminds him of how Al Capone kept evading the police, until finally, the IRS brought him down.

There’s still water, of course. He assumes the taps in the bathrooms will keep working for a long time. But how long can they survive on only water? Weeks? How does it feel to starve? Will they become increasingly hungry, then weaker, then finally unable to move?

He gets up from the cot and looks at it like it’s a coffin. I’m not going to go out that way. If it comes to it, I’ll fucking kill myse—

Realizing where his thoughts are going, Aksel feels a stab of dread.

Well, another thought tells him, sounding almost jovial. What was it you said to Linus? It runs in the family, right?

Aksel suddenly has trouble breathing. He forces his lungs to expand. He feels dizzy. The room begins spinning.

He lies back down on the cot. He’s cold and tired, so he pulls the blanket over himself. He can hear Rosa and Belinda talking to each other. Belinda comforting her daughter. Aksel can’t help but envy them. At least they have each other. He has no one left. No one to tell him it’ll all be all right. Only the darkness deep inside of him. The same darkness that took his grandpa and his mother and his brother and soon will rise up to swallow him.

Aksel can feel it. It’s rearing its ugly head.

It’s always been there, but now it’s waking up. He’s been running from it, keeping it away, but he’s got nowhere left to run. And it will overtake him. At some point, he’ll become too weak and desperate to fight it off. It’ll convince him that the less painful option is to end things on his own terms.

Just like it did with his grandpa when the pain from the arthritis got too severe.

Just like it did with his mother when her depression got heavy enough.

Just like it did with Jakob when he was lying in that hospital bed, missing a finger, having all the time in the world to contemplate how he’d caused the goddamn apocalypse.

Aksel saw it in his eyes, when they were standing on the roof. It was anything but a snap decision, like he’d first assumed. It was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. The darkness had been building ever since Jakob regained consciousness and realized what he’d done. Seeing Frida die in front of him was probably the final straw. It was the last excuse the darkness needed to persuade him that there were no other options left. That going on living would be too painful to bear. That death was the preferable alternative.

With the gloomy thoughts circling his mind like chunks of bile going down a drain, Aksel drifts off into a state which resembles sleep.

As he hears a beep, he lifts his head and sees the door swing open. That’s when he knows for certain he’s dreaming, because a figure steps into the room. There’s a sharp light coming from the hallway, blinding him, making it hard to make out the features of the visitor. Yet he can tell from the outline that it’s his brother.

“Hey, man,” Jakob says, stopping in front of the bed. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m pretty fucking miserable, to tell you the truth.”

“I get that. The world was already fucked up, and now that it’s ending, it’s even worse.”

“Yeah, well, how would you know?”

Jakob doesn’t answer, and Aksel regrets his harsh tone.

“I know what you mean,” Jakob says, his voice low. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t convinced the parachute would hold the both of—”

“Don’t you fucking go there. Don’t you even suggest you did it for me.”

Jakob sighs. “You’re right.” A brief pause. “I’m sorry about Frida too.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Aksel says automatically.

“I’m not. I’ve come to peace with it.”

Aksel looks at his dead brother, trying to make out his face. “You have? You always used to blame yourself for every little thing.”

Jakob shrugs. “Yeah, well, death changes you, I guess. I see now that this was all going to happen anyway. If not me and Viggo, then someone else.” He grunts. “I’m not saying that hauling that frozen guy back to town wasn’t fucking moronic. I’m just saying, this is bigger than that old geezer. It’s something ancient that’s been awakened.”

Aksel frowns. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out. But only if you don’t give up.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Aksel says, looking away. “Why the fuck should I go on when it’s a nightmare just staying alive? And don’t give me that crap about killing yourself is the easy way out. Give me a real goddamn reason.”

Jakob falls quiet for a heartbeat. Then he says softly: “Because you’re not meant to die yet. That’s all I got, Axe.”

“I don’t believe that,” Aksel says. “There’s no such thing as fate. I’m not a pawn in some divine game.”

“You’re right,” Jakob says. “This is your choice. No one else’s. And what you choose will determine everything.”

“What kind of spiritual nonsense is that?” Aksel snarls. “What are you, Jesus Christ all of a sudden?”

Jakob snorts. “Far from it. I’m just giving you my two cents.”

“You’re not even really here,” Aksel mumbles, turning his back to his brother. “You’re just a projection of my own mind. I’m talking to a memory.”

“That’s probably right,” Jakob goes on. “I guess I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“Exactly, you can’t. You’re just saying what I would want you to say.”

A moment of silence. Then Jakob says: “So, how about this? I love you, man. And I’m sorry for leaving you alone like this. It was the only choice I could make at the time. Too bad it can’t be reversed. I know better now, but it’s too fucking late, you know? If I could go back and make it right …” Jakob sighs.

Aksel finds himself tearing up, and he swallows hard to keep from crying. He keeps staring at the wall, sensing his brother standing there, looking at him.

“Well, I gotta get going now,” Jakob says, sniffing. “Hey, if you do decide to end things, then we’ll be together again.”

Aksel turns halfway around to look at his brother. “What the hell kind of thing is that to say? I thought you came to try and convince me not to kill myself?”

Jakob throws out his arms. “I am! You never wanted to spend time with me, asshole. So, I figured, the thought of me hanging around for all eternity would scare you to keep living.”

Aksel can’t help but smile. “Good point. You were so goddamn needy, spending time with you was like torture.”

“Hey, at least I didn’t jerk off to shampoo commercials.”

“It was Eva Mendes in that commercial, I couldn’t help it.”

“Yeah, well, I still have nightmares after walking in on you.”

“You should have stayed the fuck out of my room, then.”

“Guess I should. It smelled like dead dog in there anyway.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, who smells like a dead dog now?”

“Low blow, man!” Jakob laughs. The sound is so familiar, it makes Aksel almost cry again. Then Jakob snaps his fingers. “Shit, I almost forgot. I know you said I’m just a memory and all, and I’m not arguing that. But … Mom’s here, and she insisted I tell you something.”

Aksel snorts. “Really? Can’t imagine what she would have to say.”

“She told me to tell you that Dad was wrong. That the pills were already gone.”

This gives Aksel pause. “The fuck are you talking about? What pills?”

Jakob shrugs. “I don’t know, man. That’s what she said.”

“You’re just making shit up now …” But even as he says it, he’s aware of the paradox. Because either Jakob really is only a memory, in which case Aksel's mind is the one who made up what he just said. And why would it come up with something that makes no sense to himself? The other explanation is just as implausible, since that would be that Jakob really did deliver some cryptic message from beyond the grave.

“Believe whatever you like,” Jakob says, sounding in a rush now. “I really need to leave. Someone else is coming.”

“Really? Who’s that? Martin Luther King?”

“A woman, I think. See you, Axe. Sooner or later.”

Jakob turns and strides out the door, then closes it gently behind himself. As the light is cut from view, Aksel blinks, trying to adjust his vision to the sudden dimness.

Then the door opens again, and he squints, expecting to be blinded once more. This time, however, there’s no divine glow coming in, only normal light from the panels in the hallway’s ceiling. And the person standing there isn’t Jakob. It’s a woman, tall and lean, her hair pulled back in a taut bun, her grey eyes fixed on Aksel.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

It’s only at the sound of her voice that Aksel wakes up all the way. He manages to sit up and clear his throat. His head spins for a moment as it adjusts to the fact that he was just daydreaming and that the door really is open this time.

“Are you sick?” the cop asks again. She hasn’t entered the room, and her hand is still on the knob, ready to slam the door again.

“Nah,” Aksel says, glancing down himself. “I’m fine. No fever or nothing. I was just resting.”

“Good,” she says. “Because you’re coming with me.”

14

He finds Ragnar busy pulling a rolled-up tarp from one of the shelves.

“Ragnar?” Kristoffer asks.

The old guy sends him a quick look. “Yeah?”

The questions are all right there, on his tongue. Like What really happened? And How did she die again? And the most pressing one, the one he really wants to ask: Be honest, Ragnar. Did you kill her?

But something holds Kristoffer back. Whether it’s the fact that he’s got no concrete evidence, other than a dull feeling in his gut, or because Ragnar will of course deny it either way, Kristoffer isn’t sure. Maybe it’s the thought that once the questions get out, he can’t take them back, and he’ll lose Ragnar’s trust, probably for good. There’s also the fact that it simply doesn’t add up. It was Ragnar who wanted Hans and Ingrid to come out here. Why in the world would he do that only to kill her within a few hours?

Such a change of heart would be irrational. And Ragnar isn’t irrational. Weird. Paranoid even. But not crazy. His mind works just fine. In fact, he seems like he’s the type who always has a plan. He doesn’t act on impulses; he thinks things through, and he’s got a lot of discipline, too.

He’s also not a psycho, so Kristoffer finds it very hard to believe that Ragnar invited Ingrid to come out here just to murder her for the sport. If he did kill her, it’s more likely that he did so out of rage … what was the word they used on CSI? … a crime of passion. Did Ingrid say something to set him off? Something very insulting? Was she acting in a way that Ragnar couldn’t accept? Did they argue? If they had been shouting, Kristoffer would probably have heard it. Ragnar does seem like the type who can get angry, but angry enough to murder someone with his bare hands? That’s just not—

“What is it?” Ragnar asks, pausing with the tarp under his arm. “You’ve got a strange look on your face, Kris. Don’t you go blaming yourself now. It was unfortunate, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Kristoffer blinks. “I’m not blaming myself. It’s just … I can’t believe it.”

“I know,” Ragnar nods. “It’s a shame. She was way too young. Should’ve taken better care of herself.”

“No, I mean …” Kristoffer bites his lip.

Ragnar eyes him closely. “You can’t believe what? Is there something on your mind, Kris?”

He shakes his head slowly. “I’m not sure. I’m probably just shocked.”

He looks away, but Ragnar leans sideways, catching his eyes again. “Are you wondering whether I killed this young woman?”

Kristoffer feels a jolt of electricity run through his insides. He realizes he was being way too obvious, and of course Ragnar read his mind. He might as well have asked him point blank. He breathes through his nose, waiting for Ragnar to say more.

Ragnar sighs. “I get it. But you’ve got to understand, I’m a pragmatist, Kris. I only do things that I get something from.” He shrugs. “All I get from this is a headache, a 300-pound corpse to deal with, a guy out there who won’t function properly for days, and I’m losing a perfectly fine tarp. That’s not a great cost-benefit analysis if you ask me. Besides”—he nods towards the cave’s opening—“if I didn’t want her around, I could just ask her to fuck off. Seems like a lot less work to me.”

Kristoffer doesn’t know what to say. It all makes sense. And yet, he can’t seem to loosen up the knot in his solar plexus.

Ragnar slaps his upper arm. “The world’s different now, Kris. It’s about to show its real face. Civilization was always a thin lie. You need to get ready to deal with life and death, because whether we like it or not, there’s gonna be a whole lot more of it. Now, I’m going out there to send off the lady, and I could use some help.”

Then, before Kristoffer can answer, Ragnar simply walks past him and out the cave.

15

She twists the lock and turns towards the sink. She doesn’t want to look at herself in the mirror, but she needs to.

It’s not as bad as she feared. Her hair is in disarray, her shirt is torn, her hands are covered in tiny scratches from the hedge, and she has dirt marks all over from rolling around on the frozen ground. But other than that, she looks OK.

Ella is freezing. She’s also shaking all over, and she feels like crying, but she forces the urge back. Stepping into the shower, she doesn’t bother taking off her clothes at first. They’re completely ruined anyway, and there’s no way she’s putting it back on. She does remember to take out her phone and place it on the counter. She moves the plastic chair meant for old folks to sit on while showering. Then she turns on the water, waits for it to get warm, and steps under the stream. Letting it flow over her hair, face and body, it feels cleansing, comforting.

She looks down and sees mud splash to the floor and go down the drain. She pries off her clothes and drops them in the corner. Then she washes herself properly, using the body soap from the rack. The scratches on her hands sting a little, but she makes sure to clean her skin thoroughly.

Stepping out, she finds a towel in the cupboard and dries her hair, then her body. Glancing at herself in the mirror again, it’s only now she realizes she hasn’t got any new clothes. She opens the cupboard again. The old lady living here has got plenty of clothes. Ella has no choice but to pick out something which looks like it’ll fit. She goes for a pair of canvas pants, a buttoned shirt and woolen socks. The outfit is so old school, it’s almost retro, and it looks surprisingly natural on her. The sleeves and pant legs are a bit too short, but it’ll do.

Wrapping her hair in a bun, she stands in front of the mirror for a moment, listening. She can hear them talking out there. She can also hear shouts and loud noises from other places in the building.

Shit, this is spiraling …

She picks up her phone and sees several missed calls from her mom, along with five texts.

She types: I’m okay. Marit too. We’re safe. Sorry for scaring you. Will call soon.

First order of business is finding out how bad the situation is, and how the hell she gets out of here.

So, she unlocks the door and steps back out. She’s thankful to exit the steamy bathroom, as the heat is making her sweaty.

The first thing she notices is that Gunnar is still going at it outside the terrace door. The glass has been all messed up by now. The day outside has dawned, the grey sunlight showing the lawn and the row of small trees by the far end. Behind them is the town, and Ella sees a car going by.

Did anyone outside of the old folks’ home even realize what was going on yet? Ella has a bad feeling the town of Mo is about to be taken by surprise. Everyone must have heard about what’s happening up in Torik, but with several miles of distance between the towns, no one expects the infection to pop up around here.

Marit and the old lady are sitting by the small table, and the heavy guy is still slouching on the bed by the opposite wall. The black guy is striding back and forth. He does so in an almost cartoonish manner, like how Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny will do when they’re thinking stuff over. His expression is weirdly neutral, and he keeps an eye on Gunnar—seemingly being the only one in the room who’s not trying to avoid looking at him.

Seeing Ella, Marit gets to her feet. She looks like she’s about to run out of the apartment, but she obviously can’t—from in here, the sounds coming from the rest of the building are even more noticeable, despite Gunnar’s grunts and bumps against the glass.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Marit says. “I panicked …”

Ella sighs and nods. “I get it. Sorry I slapped you. I shouldn’t have done that. You just lost both your … I’m sorry.”

Marit breaks into new tears and comes over to hug Ella. She returns the embrace, squeezing her cousin.

“You’re shivering,” Marit sniffs, letting go of her. “Are you okay?”

“It’s just the adrenaline, I guess,” Ella mutters. She hadn’t noticed it until now, but Marit is right: the muscles in Ella’s arms and legs are twitching slightly. No wonder, with the strain she just put them through. Add to that the fact that she hasn’t slept for over twenty-four hours. She turns to the black guy. “Thanks for helping me out.”

He sends her a brief smile. “Don’t mention it.”

She looks from the old lady to the man on the bed. Even though they’re the seniors in the room, none of them seem to want to take charge. So, Ella looks at the black guy again. “How do we get out of here?”

“We don’t,” he says, still pacing the floor. “Not right now at least. I called 911. They already knew about the situation. They were sending people to help us.”

“Good,” Ella says. She’s not really reassured by this. First off, her mother already called the cops, and look what good it did. Second, judging by how it’s going in Torik, she’s not at all convinced the police will be a help—they might even make it worse, if they rush in here without the proper precautions. Ella is a hundred-percent certain by now that the infected aren’t just infected—they’re walking dead people, and they should be treated as such. Yet she could hardly imagine Norwegian police officers opening fire on what they no doubt consider to be sick individuals in need of medical assistance—even if they are attacking them.

She recalls an incident from Trondheim a few years back. Her mother wasn’t on duty that day, and Ella is still grateful for it. A psychotic guy had taken a knife to a café and was threatening to kill everyone in there, including himself. The police showed up and tried to talk him out of it. The guy came out into the street, and they had several chances to shoot him. They could have even just put a bullet in his leg. But they didn’t. And he ended up running at one of them, an older officer, killing the poor guy. Only then was the guy put down—but with blows from batons and handcuffs. Not a single shot was fired, even as the guy wrestled the officer to the ground and repeatedly stabbed him. Later it turned out he had stabbed a woman to death inside the café as well—while the police were hesitating outside.

Ella had asked her mother why on earth the officer hadn’t defended himself by opening fire when the guy came at him.

Her mother said simply: “That’s not as easy as you’d think.”

Ella had gathered from this that the officers were not only not allowed to shoot at someone unless they absolutely had to, but they also really didn’t want to. And this seems to be exactly what’s going on in Torik.

So, even if the police coming to the old folks’ home were allowed to use their guns, they probably wouldn’t.

Ella goes towards the door that she assumes leads to the hallway—the only other one appears to be a closet, and the kitchen area is an extension of the main room, with no doors separating it.

“Don’t go out there, Ella!” Marit calls after her.

“I won’t,” Ella mutters, stopping in front of the door. She listens, tries to picture what’s going on out there. It doesn’t sound nice. She can hear things being knocked to the floor, doors slamming, footsteps running. There are also people screaming, some in pain, some in fear, some trying to warn others. Many of them sound like old folks. Then there are the even more disturbing sounds. Growls. Grunts. Shuffling feet. Ripping. Tearing. Teeth snapping.

Then, suddenly, someone bumps into the door.

Ella gasps and draws back, as the handle bobs violently.

“Let me in,” a man’s thin voice comes. It’s out of breath, weak and terrified. “Dear heaven, open the door, please! Please, don’t let them—no, you get away!”

A growling snarl drowns out the man’s shaky voice, and a scuffle ensues. A hoarse scream, bodies hitting the floor. The scream turns into a gurgle. Then wet, slurpy chewing.

Ella feels sick to her stomach. She walks back to the others.

Marit has taken a seat next to the old lady again. They both look at her.

“It’s bad out there, isn’t it?” the woman asks. “For once, I’m glad I don’t hear so well …”

“I’m sure a lot of the other residents have locked themselves in their rooms,” Ella hears herself say. “They’ll be fine. Just like we will.”

“I certainly hope so,” the woman says. Then she seems to notice something. “What’s happened to your wrist, darling?”

Ella glances down. “It’s just from a chain. It’s nothing.”

“But your skin,” Marit says, frowning. “It looks—”

There’s a bump from the other end of the room, and they all turn their attention in that direction.

The fat guy has slumped to the floor. Ella’s first thought is that he simply fell asleep. But from the way he’s lying—face down, ass up—he looks more like someone passed out drunk. Or worse ... passed out sick.

The black guy rushes over there. “Mister? Mister? Are you okay?”

The fat man tries to answer, but all he manages is a strained mumble. The black guy helps him onto his back as gently as he can. The man’s arm flops onto the floor, and it’s only now that Ella notices the side has been torn open. He was sitting with his arms pressed against his stomach the whole time, almost like he was hiding it. The white, woolly stuff is visible, and in it, Ella sees dark stains that can only be blood.

“Fuck, he’s been bitten!” she hears herself exclaim.

16

“Hold on,” the cop says, holding up her hand as Aksel gets to his feet. “Just one moment.”

She checks the hallway in both directions, then opens the door all the way, revealing the gun in her other hand.

Aksel automatically shows his palms. “Hey, there’s no need for that …”

“I’m not here to threaten you,” the cop says calmly. “But I will give you an offer. If you come with me and help me, I will do my best to bring you to safety.”

“Help you,” Aksel repeats. “With what, exactly?”

“Getting to my daughter. She’s up north, and she needs—”

“I’m not going back to Torik,” Aksel says immediately.

“No, not Torik. Not that far north.” She checks in both directions again, then looks back at Aksel. “Are you coming with me or not?”

“Aksel?” Belinda asks from the adjacent room. “What’s going on?”

“It’s okay!” Aksel calls out loud. Then, addressing the cop: “Can they both come? Or is the offer just for me?”

“If they’re not sick, they’re free to join.”

“And if I say no? Are you going to lock that door again and leave us?”

“Of course not,” the cop says, frowning as though the suggestion revolts her. She takes a key card from her pocket and flings it at Aksel. He catches it clumsily. “You guys can try and make it on your own. But I honestly think we’ll all stand a better chance together. My brother has … had a boat, and I know where it is anchored and how to sail it. We can head for Britain or some other safe destination. As long as we go get my daughter first.”

Aksel bites his lip. “Do I get a gun?”

The cop considers briefly. “I only have my own. I think I know where we can get you one, though.” She points at him with a long finger. “But that offer is only if you agree to help me.”

“I think that’s a pretty good deal,” Aksel says. “I’ll do it.”

The cop nods once, then is about to say something, when there comes a noise from the left. “Shit,” she mutters. “Cover your ears!” She takes up position with her feet apart, raising the gun with both hands, tilts her head slightly and closes one eye.

Aksel clasps his hands over his ears, squinting as he anticipates the shot. But the woman doesn’t shoot, not right away. Aksel picks up a muffled groan and shuffling footsteps approaching. Still, the woman just stands there, frozen. She moves the gun slightly back and forth, and Aksel realizes she’s waiting until the zombie is close enough to—

The shot comes unexpectedly and is way louder than he thought, even with his ears covered. He can literally feel the sound slam against the walls, then hit his face and body.

The cop lowers her gun forty-five degrees, still holding the aim, apparently waiting to see if she needs to fire one more time. Then she relaxes, lets out a long breath through pursed lips, and looks in at Aksel. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

She disappears out of sight, and as Aksel leaves the room, he pauses briefly to look at the female doctor who came by earlier. She’s lying face down, a brownish puddle forming around her head.

Then, apparently out of nowhere, a thought comes to him, clear as anything. I won’t quit. I won’t do what Jakob did. I’m gonna survive this. Whatever it takes.

He runs to Rosa’s door with the keycard.

17

“Okay,” Ragnar says, straightening his back with a groan. “That’ll do.”

Kristoffer steps back and takes in the improvised mummy in front of them. Ingrid was harder to wrap than he thought. He tried not to touch her bare skin, but even through her clothes, he could feel how cold she was—almost frozen. Her joints were also weirdly stiff, and she seemed even more heavy than she looked.

Guess that’s why they call it dead weight …

Less grueling to look at, Ingrid now resembles a giant, green burrito. Ragnar tied her feet and neck with a rope, and he instructed Kristoffer that they place her on a couple of large pine branches he’d brought around.

“We can slide her to the stream,” Ragnar says, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. “That way, we won’t have to roll her.”

A sound from behind makes Kristoffer turn around.

Hans comes out onto the plateau. He’s been walking around aimlessly since they began the wrapping process. His complexion is very pale, his eyes red from crying. “Are you … are you done?” he asks.

“Yeah, we’re about to leave,” Ragnar says. “You want to tell her goodbye one last time?”

Hans looks at the mummy and swallows. “I did that already. But I think we should say a prayer.”

“Oh. Sure.” Ragnar folds his hands in front of his crotch, and Hans copies the gesture.

Kristoffer lowers his head as Hans begins muttering. It sounds like the Lord’s Prayer, which Kristoffer remembers from elementary school.

When he’s done, he begins sobbing again.

Ragnar clears his throat. “All right, let’s get going. Kristoffer, you grab that branch, I’ll take the other.”

“What about me?” Hans asks, sniffing. “How can I help?”

Ragnar hesitates. “If you’re sure you want to help, you can push.”

The big guy nods, looking determined despite the tears.

“You guys ready?” Ragnar asks, as they take up positions. “Just follow my lead.”

It’s easier than Kristoffer feared. He can feel Hans really putting his back into it—the guy is obviously not just fat, but also quite strong—and he’s grateful that he’s helping, or he and Ragnar would have had their work cut out.

They manage to stay on flat, rocky ground pretty much all the way. Ragnar steers them clear of any bushes, cliffs or holes. It’s obvious how familiar the area is to him. Within ten minutes, they reach the stream.

As they pause to catch their breath, Ragnar opens the top buttons of his shirt, Hans slumps down on a rock, and Kristoffer just stands there, looking into the glittering water, pondering the journey that Ingrid is about to embark on. Something by the opposite bank catches his eye. It’s bronze-colored and reflects the sunlight. Moving a bit to the left, Kristoffer can tell it’s a rusted metal plate, big as a torso, with rugged edges. It’s lodged between a couple of big rocks. There’s something written on it, in black paint that’s almost been worn off. Kristoffer can just make it out.

“Fallschirmjäger, Regiment Drei,” he reads under his breath.

“Excellent pronunciation,” Ragnar remarks, standing suddenly right next to him, making Kristoffer jolt. “Didn’t know you spoke German.”

Kristoffer shrugs. “I picked up a few phrases in school. What’s shrapnel from a Nazi paratrooper plane doing up here?”

“It’s from the battles of Narvik, of course,” Ragnar says. “Tons of shit is still littering these mountains.” He glances around, then mumbles in almost perfect German: “Goddamn shame.”

“I didn’t know you spoke German either?”

Ragnar begins unrolling another rope that’s been hanging on his hip. “I was stationed there during the Cold War. Gimme a hand here, Kris.”

Kristoffer helps tie the rope around Ingrid’s feet. Ragnar makes sure it’s safely secured.

“So, how do we get her down there?” Hans asks, gazing into the water. From where they’re standing, there’s a few feet drop to the stream.

“We’ll have to throw her in,” Ragnar says simply. “Lowering her will be too difficult.” As Hans is about to protest, Ragnar goes on: “You don’t need to be here for this. You neither, Kris. I can roll her myself.” He points downstream. “The first hundred yards or so is a little winding, so I’ll follow her along, makes sure she gets sent off properly. The ground here is tricky, so I don’t want any of you to come along. If you should step on a loose rock and fall in the water, you’ll turn hypothermic in seconds, and we could be sending off two bodies instead of one.”

Hans sniffs. “Okay. Thanks, Ragnar.”

“Don’t thank me. Go back and get some rest.”

Hans nods and turns around. Kristoffer looks at Ragnar one last time. Then he follows Hans.

18

“Get away from him!”

The black guy hesitates, obviously torn between heeding Ella’s warning and helping the guy. Then he too notices the blood, and that seems to settle the matter in his mind. “Damnit, I didn’t think he was hurt.” His eyes seem particularly big and white, as he looks from the man on the floor to Ella. “I should never have brought him in here.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Ella says, stepping closer, finding herself acting with barely knowing what she’s about to do. It’s like her instincts are calling the shots. “And now we need to get him out again …”

“You shouldn’t touch him!” Marit shouts.

“How else are we gonna get him out?” Ella snaps back at her. “Come on, gimme that blanket …” She points to the bed, and the black guy immediately catches her drift. He grabs it and throws it over the guy, then wraps it around him.

Ella is relieved to find that the black guy isn’t afraid to dig in. The last thing she needs in a situation like this is more people like Marit, who become useless under pressure.

He looks up at her, raising his eyebrows. “Bathroom?”

She nods. “I think that’s our only option, yeah.”

“Wait,” the old lady interjects. “You can’t just—”

“We can and we’re going to,” Ella cuts her off. “He’s infected, and he’ll turn in a matter of minutes. We still need to be careful. If they can bite through a parka, they can bite through a blanket.”

“This is my home,” the old lady protests, getting to her feet. “That’s my bathroom. You already took my clothes without asking permission. I honestly think you ought to think a little about other people, young lady …”

Ella tunes out the sermon. She can’t believe the woman is actually concerned about clothes right now. It’s like she hasn’t caught on to the fact that this is a life and death situation. Then again, Ella realizes, she might not be all there. A lot of the people here are probably suffering from dementia and the like.

“Come on,” she says to the black guy. “Let’s get moving.”

He comes around the wrapped-up man who’s still grunting and muttering below the blanket. Ella and the guy both grab a booted foot and begin dragging the guy across the floor. It’s linoleum, so he slides easily enough. There’s a threshold at about two inches to the bathroom, and they need to pull hard to get the man over it. He moans, as though it hurts his back.

The bathroom is so small, the man takes up most of the floor. Still, they need to get him all the way in if they want the door to close. So, the black guy jumps out and crouches down to push at the man’s shoulders, while Ella pulls his leg. Just as they manage to get him far enough into the room, the man gives a yelp and sits up.

It looks like a scene from an old-school horror movie, where a corpse in a morgue suddenly wakes up on the gurney.

“No, don’t!” he shouts, sounding hazy, as he begins pulling the blanket off his head. “What are you doing? Get this off of me …”

“Get out,” the black guy mouths at Ella, who’s effectively blocked in by the fat man.

She steps around him, and his elbow catches her hard on the knee, causing her leg to buckle. She stumbles and grabs for the cupboard to break her fall. As she manages to get back up, she turns to see the man sitting there, glaring at her. His hair is ruffled, his mouth open, his eyes angry but alive.

“What the hell are you doing? You’ve got no right to—were you trying to lock me in here?”

“You’re infected,” Ella hears herself say. Her mind is racing, looking for a way to get past the man without him grabbing her. But she’s trapped.

He grunts and begins getting to his feet. “I’m most certainly not. I just nodded off. I’ll have you know I suffer from sleep apnea, which is a very serious—”

Ella makes a dash for the door. The guy is focused on getting up, which at the best of times seems like a challenge. But he sees her move, and slams his hand into the doorframe. Ella ducks to dive under it, but he moves sideways, squeezing her, leaving her no choice but to back up.

“Please,” she says, holding out her hands. “You’re going to die. And I don’t want to be trapped in here with you when you do …”

The man shakes his head, causing his jowls to flap. “I’m not dying. Why in the world would you think—”

“You’re bleeding.”

The man glances down at his torn jacket. Then he looks back up at Ella. “No, I’m not.”

He’s in shock, Ella thinks. He can’t even see the blood.

“Mister, you were attacked,” the black guy informs him from behind the man. “I was there. I saw it. The lady. Outside, as you were walking your dog. Remember?”

“Yes, of course I remember,” the man says, not moving from the doorway. “But I was not hurt. It’s only my parka which is—”

“Just look at it,” Ella almost shouts, pointing at the jacket. “There’s blood!”

The man looks again, pulling open the hole in the jacket even more, revealing the blood. And as he does so, Ella finally sees that he’s actually right: It’s not blood. The lights in the bathroom are better than they were in the living room, and she can tell the red stuff is way too shiny red and thick to be blood.

“Is this what you mean?” the man asks, sticking his fingers into the hole and holding them up. “It’s ketchup!” He zips down the parka, goes into his inner pocket, then pulls out two small plastic bags with pictures of tomatoes on them—the kind you get at the McDonald’s drive-thru. They’ve both been torn open.

“Come on,” Ella grunts. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Who the hell walks around with ketchup in their pocket?”

The man doesn’t seem to hear the remark. “I’ll show you I’m not hurt, if that’s what you want,” he goes on, taking the jacket off. He’s wearing a grey, buttoned shirt underneath, and the side is intact. To prove his point still further, he pulls it up and reveals his fat belly. The skin on the side is pink and unbroken.

“Gosh,” the black guy mutters, as the man turns around to show him. “I’m sorry, mister. I was certain that you—”

“Well, you were wrong,” the man snaps. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you very much. If anyone here looks sick …” He sends Ella a look, then lumbers back to the living room.

The black guy looks in at Ella. There’s suddenly something in his eyes which Ella cares very little for.

“What?” she asks, noticing a drop of sweat roll down her temple. “What is it?”

Marit steps in from the side. She looks like she’s about to cry again. Her hand goes to her mouth at the sight of Ella. “God, Ella, I’m so sorry. I tried to tell you …”

“Tell me what?” Ella demands.

Marit begins crying. The black guy gestures to the side. Ella turns her head. She sees herself in the mirror. Her face is all red, her forehead beading.

Comprehension finally dawns. She notices now just how bad she feels—she’s burning up, she’s dizzy and exhausted, and her wrist feels like it’s on fire. She’s been shoving it to the back of her awareness in order to keep going, to deal with the situation. Now, as she pulls up the sleeve, what she already knew on a deeper level comes rushing to the front of her mind.

“Oh, no,” she mutters. “I’m infected …”

19

“There,” the cop says, pointing ahead. “That’s our exit.”

Aksel is right behind her, and he sees the glass doors. It looks like a staff entry. Outside is a parking lot with a few vehicles. One of them, a blue MPV, is parked in the middle, and there’s a dead guy—at least Aksel assumes he’s dead, since he’s lying by the front tire, his legs hidden under the car. Farther away, two zombies, a man and a young girl, are crossing the parking lot, seemingly in either pursuit or search of someone.

Aksel glances back at Belinda and Rosa. They’re holding hands, both staring at the glass doors.

“It’s going to be okay,” he assures them. “They’re not very fast. We can easily outrun them if we have to. Just make sure you stay close.”

Since they left the detention rooms, they haven’t met a single undead—though they did pass a dead guy. But now, as they’re about to exit the building, that can no longer be avoided, and Aksel has no idea how Belinda and Rosa will react. What he saw back at the house gives him hope, though. Both of them seemed to do all right, even when facing the zombie woman from the ambulance. Rosa even managed to escape single-handedly and seek refuge inside the vehicle.

“How far away is your car?” Belinda asks the cop.

“It’s parked one block over.”

“And we don’t have the keys for any of the cars out there?” Aksel asks.

The cop shakes her head. “We could go back to the locker rooms, but we’d have to break open the lockers, and it’d still be like a lottery to find a matching key. As far as I know, dozens of people worked at this place. I’m sure not all of them drove here.”

Another zombie comes into view, this one from the opposite side. It’s an old guy, and he’s got company: Two female zombies are on his heels. They split up and wander off in different directions.

“It looks like there’s a lot of them out there,” Belinda says. “Are you sure there are no other ways?”

“This side of the building is the least crowded, as far as I can tell,” the cop says. She’s sounding hesitant, too. “I only have six rounds left, so we can’t shoot our way through. We’ll have to make a run for it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Aksel says.

The cop turns her head to send him an icy stare. “Like I said, this is our best option.”

“And I’m telling you, it’ll be fucking suicide,” Aksel says, pointing. “Look, there’s three more … the street is crawling with them. We’ll get boxed in before we can even get past the parking lot.”

“If we stay close together, we’ll be fine,” the cop says. “We’ll just have to keep moving and not let them pin us down.”

“I think Aksel is right,” Belinda says, rubbing her arm. “I think we should reconsider this … maybe wait till it dies down a little.”

“This won’t die down,” the cop says. “And even if it did, we don’t have time to wait. My daughter is still alive—I just got a text from her. But every minute I waste standing around, she might get attacked and—”

“And that’s not our problem right now,” Aksel says. “Look, we want to help you get to her, but if we rush it, we’ll get bitten. I’ve seen tons of people do stupid shit these past few days, and they’re all fucking dead now!”

The cop—obviously not used to getting told off—bites down hard. She looks from Aksel to Belinda, and then she says in an icy voice: “I’m leaving now. Through those doors. With or without you. It’s as simple as that. You either follow me, or you stay. It’s all the same to me.”

“So much for working together,” Aksel scoffs. “You wanted our help, but only if we do as you say, is that it?”

“Let’s get this straight,” the cop says, leaning closer to Aksel. She’s an inch taller than him, and her eyes are shooting fire now. For a moment he’s afraid she might punch him. “You guys are not my responsibility. My daughter is. Nothing else matters to me. Now if you—”

“Rosa!?”

Aksel jolts, then turns to Belinda. She’s looking back down the hallway. It’s only now Aksel realizes he was so wrapped up in arguing with the cop that he didn’t notice Rosa slipping away. She’s crouching by the dead guy who’s lying on his back, arms splayed out. It looks like someone stomped on his face several times. The color of the skin on his hands reveals that he was a zombie when it happened.

“No, don’t touch him!” Belinda shrieks, running for her daughter. “What are you doing?”

“It’s okay, Mom,” the girl says, standing back up. “He’s already dead. His brain has been destroyed, see? That means he’s really dead.”

“Jesus,” Belinda breathes, grabbing the girl and hauling her back. “You can’t touch them, and you can’t wander off like that!”

“I wasn’t wandering off,” Rosa mutters.

“What were you doing, then?” Aksel asks as Belinda brings the girl back.

Rosa shrugs. “I was feeling for car keys in his pockets, of course. He didn’t have any on him.”

There’s a moment of silence. Aksel, Belinda and the cop all exchange looks.

“Damnit,” Aksel snorts. “The kid is the only one thinking constructively here.”

“That … was a good idea, Rosa,” Belinda concedes. “But please, next time, tell us about it first, okay?”

“Okay, sure.” The girl points. “I’d like to go check that guy out there now. I think there’s a good chance he’ll have keys on him, don’t you? I mean, he was probably headed for his car when he got hit.”

“No way,” Belinda says. “You’re not going out there.”

“But he’s pretty close to the doors,” Rosa argues. “I can reach him in, like, three seconds. I’ll be back inside before any of them even see me.”

“I said no!” Belinda almost shouts.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Aksel mutters. Belinda glares at him, and is obviously about to give him an earful, so Aksel quickly adds: “I’m not saying Rosa should do it. I’ll do it. I’m probably the fastest of us anyway.”

“You’re also the biggest,” Rosa points out. “They’ll see you right away. I’m a lot smaller. They might not even notice me.”

“I told you, there’s no way in hell you’re doing it,” Belinda scolds her, grabbing hold of her shirt, as though she’s afraid Rosa might suddenly make a run for the door. “You’re staying right here with me.”

Rosa looks up at her mother, and for the first time, Aksel sees defiance in her eyes. “It was my idea, Mom. I should be the one to do it.”

“No. No way.”

“My hands are smaller, too. They can slip inside the pockets easily, and—”

“I said no!”

“What if I go with her?” the cop suggests.

Belinda rounds on her. “How would that make it any safer?”

“I can cover her,” the cop goes on. “If they spot us and come for us, I’ll put them down. It shouldn’t take her more than thirty seconds to check all the pockets. It could be done.”

“No,” Belinda says, crossing her arms. “Absolutely no way.”

“I’m going with her, too,” Aksel joins in. “I’ve fought them off before, I know how to do it. And with two bodyguards, Rosa will be safe. If shit gets too hot, we can always abandon and run back inside.”

Belinda shakes her head. “It’s not happening. I’m not letting her out there.”

“But, Mom—”

“I’ll do it,” Belinda cuts her off. “You guys cover me. Rosa stays here. How’s that?”

The cop glances sideways at Aksel, as though asking without words what his assessment of Belinda is.

“Hold up your hand, please,” Aksel tells Belinda.

She frowns. “What? Why?”

“Like this.” He holds his hand at chest-level, palm down. “Please, just do it.”

Belinda hesitantly mimics his gesture. Her hand is trembling badly.

“Now you, Rosa.”

The girl—seemingly having caught on—immediately places her hand next to her mother’s. It’s completely steady.

“That’s what I thought. You’re way too scared, Belinda.” Aksel tries his best to not sound accusatory. “You’ll fumble. You’ll take longer. You might even drop the keys if you do find them. I think it’s better Rosa does it. And I really think it’s our best shot of getting out of here alive.”

Belinda lets out a sound that’s halfway a sigh, halfway a “shit!” She runs both hands through her hair. Then she takes hold of Rosa’s shoulders and looks her daughter in the eye. “Are you positive … are you absolutely certain you can do this?”

“Absolutely, Mom.” Seeing that her mother is still on the fence, the girl goes on: “It was scary back at Helen’s place. When I found the zombie woman in the ambulance. But I also learned how slow they are. Aksel’s right, we can easily run from them. I’m still scared of them, but not nearly as much as I was. I froze up back then, but I won’t do that again.”

Aksel is once again struck by the strange way the girl talks. It’s like she’s a news reporter reading off a prompter. There’s hardly any emotion behind the words, but somehow that makes them seem more convincing. Perhaps because she’s not trying to convince her mother; she’s simply stating facts.

Belinda shakes her head again, but then she mutters: “Okay.” She looks up at Aksel. “But if anything happens to her, I’ll kill you.”

Aksel doesn’t smile. “That’s a very fair deal.”

20

“Oh, Ella …” Marit sobs. She reaches out her hands as though she’s about to step into the bathroom and embrace her.

Ella points at her. “No. Stay back.” Her voice is firm. “Don’t touch me.”

Marit flinches. “Jesus,” she whispers, hiding her face in her hands. “Not you too … I’ve lost everybody …”

The old lady comes shuffling into view, wrapping her arm around Marit’s shoulders. She looks in at Ella, a mixture of empathy, disgust and trepidation on her face. “I’m sorry,” she says stiffly. “You should lock yourself in there.” Then she gently pulls Marit from view.

Ella blinks and looks at the black guy, who’s the only one still standing there, looking in at her. “Guess I should,” she mutters, wiping her forehead. Her palm comes away all wet. “Fuck, how couldn’t I have noticed?”

“I didn’t see it, either,” the guy says in a low voice. “I was so focused on him.”

Ella suddenly feels like a stranger in her own body. It’s like her mind is getting ready to leave it. Like it never really belonged there in the first place, but was only renting the space, and now it’s just received an eviction notice: You are hereby notified that you must vacate the premises before the end of the day …

Except she won’t have till the end of the day.

How fast will I go? It took Gunnar a couple of hours. Greta only a few minutes.

“Okay,” Ella says, taking a deep breath. She’s still surprised at how calm she feels. Shouldn’t she be freaking out? She’s probably in a state of shock. “Okay,” she says again. “I suppose … I suppose this is it, then. Could you … would you let me …?” She’s not really sure what she wants to ask the guy for. “Can I see the sky one more time?”

The black guy discreetly gives her the elevator look, ending back up at her face. Then he nods once. “Sure. Come on.”

“No!” the old lady caws, as Ella steps out of the bathroom. “No, you stay in there! What are you doing, letting her out? She’s contagious!”

“I won’t touch any of you,” Ella hears herself say. She feels like an alien that’s just landed from her spaceship. That’s how they’re all looking at her. The lady, the man, Marit—who’s still bawling and muttering how sorry she is. Surprisingly, Ella finds that she feels sorry for her. She’s the one who just lost both her parents—Ella is sure that’s the real reason she’s crying anyway—and she’s also the one who’ll have to go on being afraid and fleeing and fighting for her life. Ella, on the other hand, finds that she has nothing left to fear.

Apparently, when you’re already dead, nothing is a threat to you.

She steps to the windows facing the terrace. Gunnar is still going at the door, and an old woman with most of her chin gone has joined him. Ella expects them to step sideways towards her. But they don’t. Ella goes to stand right in front of Gunnar. She waves her arm in front of his face, but it’s like he’s looking right through her. His black eyes are fixed on the others.

“Well,” Ella murmurs, lowering her arm again. “There’s the final proof, I guess. I’m no longer interesting to him.” She sends the black guy a look, then goes back to the other end of the room to look out. She studies the sky for a minute or so. It’s blue and beautiful. A flock of doves flies by. She was expecting to cry or at the very least feel sentimental. But she doesn’t really feel anything at all.

The old lady clears her throat sharply. “I think you should go now.”

Ella sighs. “Yeah, you’re right.” She turns and walks back to the bathroom. She’s suddenly very aware that these are the last steps she’ll ever take. Like an inmate on death row on her way to the electric chair.

She stops in front of the open bathroom door. Suddenly, the room feels very small and crammed. As a kid, Ella suffered from claustrophobia. It started one summer, when she was playing in the street with the neighbor’s boy. His parents had just gotten a new refrigerator, and the old one was sitting in their back garden, waiting to get taken to the dump. They were playing around, pretending the fridge was a safe full of gold bars they had to break into, and Ella climbed inside it to get at the treasure. Somehow, the door got stuck, and she was caught in complete darkness for five minutes or so, screaming and kicking at the door, until finally, the boy fetched his dad who let her out.

Ever since that, tight, dark places have been troublesome to Ella. She hasn’t felt claustrophobic for years, but suddenly, now, it comes rushing back, and she finds herself unable to step inside the bathroom.

“What are you waiting for?” the old lady barks. “You need to get in there, before you—”

“You want company?” The black guy is suddenly next to her. “I can go with you in there. At least for a couple of minutes.”

Ella tries to smile, but her lips begin to quiver instead. “Thank you,” she whispers. “I’d like that very much.”

They step into the bathroom together, and the guy gently closes the door.

21

“Wait,” Aksel says. “I need some kind of weapon.”

The cop and Rosa both look at him as he scans the hallway. The only thing there is the table. He goes and tips it onto its side. The top is wood, but the legs are metal. They’re secured with four thick screws. He has nothing to unscrew them with, so he simply kicks the leg hard. After four tries, it breaks off. Aksel picks it up, pulls the screws out and weighs the metal bar in his hands. It’s hollow and not quite as heavy as he would have liked. It’s also varnished, which makes it slightly slippery. But it can certainly do the job.

“Okay,” he says. “This will work.”

“Are you sure about this?” Belinda asks as they all move closer to the glass doors.

Aksel isn’t sure whom exactly she’s addressing, so he’s about to answer, when Rosa beats him to it.

“We can’t give any guarantees, Mom,” the girl says, not even looking back. She seems zeroed in on the task. “It’s not like we’re selling used cars, you know? But I promise to be as quick and careful as I can.”

“Jesus,” Belinda mutters.

The cop reaches the glass doors and leans forward to look in both directions. “We’re clear. The nearest ones are those two, in the street.” She nods, and Aksel follows her gaze to see a man and a woman staggering aimlessly about.

“Okay,” he breathes. “You guys ready? I say we go for it, before we get too nerv—”

Rosa pushes open the door and bolts.

Aksel jolts into action as he follows her, and the cop is on his heels.

The girl really is quick. As Aksel steps out into the pale, blue daylight, she’s already halfway there. He squints as he follows her, jogging while scanning his surroundings, keeping the metal bar ready to swing. Even though no zombies are near, and despite the fact that the parking lot is actually very open and easy to survey, he still immediately feels like a sitting duck. His adrenaline was already firing up, and now he finds himself back in all-out survival mode. Surprisingly, he feels more comfortable with it this time.

I’m getting used to this shit. It must be how soldiers deal with going into combat over and over again.

Rosa almost throws herself on the guy, plunging her hands into his pockets. She goes for the jacket first, inner and outer, then, as they don’t produce anything but a pack of paper handkerchiefs, a cell phone and a wallet, she dives under the car, going for his pants. As Rosa squeezes under the car, she inadvertently kicks him on the shoulder, then on the side of his head. He’s wearing one of those bomber hats Aksel always found stupid, and surprisingly, it’s stayed on his head even as he was run over. Now, Rosa’s shoe kicks the hat off his head, revealing a balding scalp underneath.

Aksel immediately sees the greenish color of the skin on the guy’s head, and it makes him freeze.

In a flash, he realizes the flaw in their plan.

The one thing they overlooked.

They were all so focused on the zombies prowling the parking lot, that they never really paid attention to the guy under the car.

Aksel just assumed he was dead. Really dead. He didn’t look closer, didn’t check to see if the guy was still moving. And maybe he wasn’t. Still, they should have thought of it.

Apparently roused by the kick to his head, the guy comes to life. He tries to sit up, then, finding himself unable to do so, due to his arm being pinned under the tire, he instead grabs for Rosa’s legs with the other hand. The girl screams in surprise. From some place farther away, Belinda screams, too.

Aksel is only five paces away. He moves swiftly, closes the distance and takes a running swing at the guy’s head. The table leg connects right above his ear, giving off a loud, meaty CLONG and sends painful jabs through both his wrists. Aksel hardly notices. He swings again, from the other side this time. Another crushing blow to the cranium of the guy. It would be more than enough to knock out a live person. Yet the weapon isn’t heavy enough to actually crack the skull, so the bald guy simply shakes it off and keeps clawing at Rosa’s legs.

Aksel strikes him again, this time right in the face. The guy’s nose is audibly crushed, and a mixture of pinkish blood and yellow snot explodes all over his face. This time, the guy doesn’t even seem to notice—he’s so focused on pulling Rosa’s kicking legs to his mouth. One of her shoes comes loose, and she screams again.

Aksel raises the table leg for yet another blow, biting down hard. “You stop that, you fucking piece of—”

A bright flash from the side. A tiny hole appears on the crown of the guy’s head. He jerks once, then slumps back down.

Aksel blinks, realizing his hearing is gone. Turning his head, he sees the cop standing there, still with the gun aimed at the guy. She looks to the side, then directly at Aksel, and says something he can’t hear.

Following her gaze, Aksel turns to see five undead coming right at them. Staggering eagerly, arms outstretched, they’re quickly closing the distance.

Out of the corner of his eye, Aksel notices Rosa’s legs disappear under the car. Then the cop starts firing. She does so meticulously, aiming carefully, taking down the zombies one at a time. But the shots are drawing more of them. They’re coming from the other direction too now.

The cop turns to send Aksel a significant look. She shouts something. All he hears is a piercing ringing. Reading her lips, however, he catches the last word: “… run!”

Aksel has no other choice. He turns and bolts for the glass doors.

22

Ella keeps looking at the clock on her phone. Only five minutes have passed since they got in here. It feels like five hours.

She knows she needs to make one last phone call. She promised. And she will. But she dreads it. She’s fine with postponing the awful conversation. It’ll break her mother’s heart. Ella wants to give her a few more minutes of ignorant bliss.

Outside, Marit is sobbing. The old lady and the fat man exchange a few words now and then, but mostly, they’re quiet. Ella can still hear Gunnar and the woman going at the terrace door. She can also hear fighting, shouting, screaming going on all around them. But less so. If she had to guess, not many people in the building are still alive. The sounds of grunts and groans and shuffling feet are more prominent. Most of the residents are probably zombies by now. From farther away, she can hear sirens.

It’s spreading like crazy. They won’t be able to contain it.

Ella doesn’t want to worry about that now. She can’t do anything about it. She tried her best to stop it, but it isn’t her fault that it got out here in Mo. It was Gunnar. He should have never left Torik.

She sighs deeply. She’s sitting on the toilet. The black guy has slumped to the floor, resting his back against the door. He’s staring at the wall. As Ella’s fever has gotten worse, the fear has also come creeping. It’s settling in her solar plexus, forming an icy ball, and she’s begun shivering all over.

“Never imagined I’d die so young,” she mutters, breaking the silence. “Or on the toilet.”

The guy looks up at her. “I don’t think any of us can foresee our own death.”

Ella studies him for a moment, as he seems to slip back into thought. “Thank you for doing this,” she says. “It’s nice to not be alone right now.”

“Of course,” he says simply.

“I don’t even know your name,” she goes on. “I’m Ella.”

“Hagos,” he says.

“Are you an immigrant?”

“Uh-huh. Been here for almost two years now.”

“I figured when you told me you’d fought for your life before. Was there a war in your country?”

He nods. “For as long as I can remember.”

“I’m sorry. Glad you could come here, then.”

“Me too.”

A moment of silence.

“You know,” Ella says thoughtfully. “I think I would have been good at this. Survival, I mean. I never really thought about it, because … why would I? I’ve never been in a real life or death situation before. Not until last night. And sure, it was scary and all, but … I still knew what to do, and I was able to do it. I mean, I fought off a grown soldier. He was feverish, but still.”

Hagos nods slowly. “I think you would have been good at it too.”

Ella looks up to the ceiling and lets out a long sigh. “It doesn’t really hurt. Not yet at least. But I’m getting really scared.”

“Do you want to pray?”

The question catches her off guard. “I think that would be weird … praying to a god I never believed in.”

“He won’t mind, trust me.”

“Are you a Muslim?”

“Christian.”

“I wish I believed in heaven. It must be a great comfort, knowing that we’ll be going somewhere pleasant once we die. “

“That’s not really how it works.”

“How so?”

“Heaven is not a place, and death is not an event.”

Ella raises her eyebrows. “I don’t think I follow.”

Hagos wets his lips. “Heaven is what we are. And death … well, it’s just an illusion that comes to an end. The body, that is.”

“Wait, so, the body isn’t real?”

“No.”

“Come on, you can’t really believe that …” Ella holds up her hand. “I can see my fingers. I can feel them.”

Hagos shrugs. “We can see and feel plenty of things that aren’t real.”

“Yes, but … the body is a physical thing. It’s made of stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Muscles, bones. Matter.”

“And what is matter made off?”

“Molecules and atoms, I guess.”

“Did you know that atoms are 99 percent nothing? The stuff making up your body is no more physical than the air around you. You just perceive it differently.”

Ella chews on this. “So, you’re saying we’re not real? Us? Humans?”

“Oh, no, we are very much real. But our bodies are not.”

Ella is reminded of the acute sense of being a visitor in her own skin that she suddenly felt when realizing she would die. “I guess it makes sense,” she admits. “So, what does it mean that I am heaven?”

“It means you are complete. You can never be anything else.”

Ella considers this. While the words don’t really make any sense to the logical part of her mind, and the concepts seem to collide with each other, like pieces from different puzzles that were never meant to fit together, something feels like it’s falling into place on a deeper level. An understanding that’s below the level of words, even thoughts.

“I guess the concept of a god just never really made sense to me,” she goes on, realizing she’s enjoying the conversation—it keeps the fear at bay. “I mean, with all the different religions all over the world, believing in so many different gods … how do you know which one is true?”

“There’s only one true god.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And that happens to be yours? The Christian god?”

“Yes. And all the others.”

“So they’re all true?”

“They are all one.”

“How can that be? How can, say, the Muslim and Christian gods be the same? They have different books and everything.”

Hagos considers this for a moment. “Think of it as the sun. A lot of people have worshipped it throughout history, yes? The Egyptians called it Ra. The Greeks named it Helios. Your ancestors thought of it as a goddess by the name of Sol. Do you really think the sun cares what names we give it? It shines on all of us, regardless. It cannot do anything else. It is light. God can only love, because that is what He is.”

The guy talks in a matter-of-fact way, like he’s explaining how to make an omelet or get from here to the airport. Perhaps that’s why the words seem to hit home with Ella in a way that she’s never felt before. Like basically every other Norwegian, she was baptized, confirmed and generally raised a Protestant. She goes to church on Christmas, and in school she was taught the Lord’s Prayer. But it was all lip service. She never took any of it seriously.

And yet, the way Hagos phrases it now, it’s all suddenly very clear to her. Perhaps facing death plays a part in it too. Either way, she feels a sense of comfort deep inside, knowing that it’s the truth. That she’s already safe.

“So,” she says, clearing her throat as her voice breaks. “What does happen then? When I die? If I’m not my body, and if I’m already in heaven … what’ll become of this thing that people call Ella? The one who’s thinking and talking and feeling stuff?”

The guy tilts his head. “What happens to a wave when it crashes?”

“It … goes back to being water, I guess.”

“And what was it before it became a wave?”

“I don’t know … water?”

“And was it ever anything else?”

“No, I … I guess not.”

Hagos smiles. “Then there’s your answer.”

Ella takes a deep breath through her nose. Then she says quietly: “I think I’m ready to pray now.”

23

It feels like one of those nightmares where you try to run, but you’re moving painfully slow.

The glass doors seem a lot farther away than just a moment ago. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the zombies closing in from both sides. The parking lot, which was all but empty thirty seconds prior, is now crawling with them. They’re obviously either drawn by the sound of the gun being fired, or the fact that three living prey are suddenly available. Maybe both. Aksel doesn’t have time to worry about it. He just sprints for safety.

Belinda comes bursting out of the doors just as he reaches them. They collide, and he pushes her back. She screams and thrashes and tries to get free. Aksel can’t hold her, and she’s about to slip past him and run for certain death, so he grabs her around the waist and lifts her off the ground. Carrying her through the open doors, she writhes and claws at his arms. Aksel drops her on her ass, then spins around and slams the glass doors half a second before the closest zombie bumps into it.

Locking the doors requires a key card, perhaps the one the cop has in her pocket, but luckily, they only open out, which means the zombies probably won’t figure it out. Already, three of them are pressing up against the glass, and more are joining in. The push from the crowd of bodies is enough to pin the doors shut, but not to break the glass.

Aksel backs away, breathing fast, trying to understand what just happened.

Belinda comes from the side, raining slaps and punches on him, screaming like an Amazon, her hair whipping around her head. “You piece of shit! You fucking asshole! You killed her! You killed my little girl!”

Aksel catches her wrists, which only makes her try and kick him in the nuts, so he shoves her back. “Hold on!” he tells her, his own voice tinny in his ears. “Please, stop!”

Belinda glares at him, wildfire in her eyes, her lips quivering uncontrollably. “You left her out there! You ran like a fucking coward and left her to die!”

Aksel looks out the glass doors. It’s difficult to see anything because of the crowd on the other side, but standing on his toes, stretching his neck, he can make out the MPV. Behind the wheel sits the cop. She looks out of breath, but she doesn’t seem hurt. She’s staring at the zombies crowding the car. Some of them are trying to get at her, clawing at the window. Others, Aksel notices, have dropped to their hands and knees and are reaching under the car. The space below seems narrow—perhaps too narrow for them to actually squeeze in there, like Rosa did. And judging by how eager they seem to get in there, he can only assume the girl is still under the car. And alive.

She could be fine. Maybe they can’t get to her.

As though picking up on his thoughts, the cop looks right over at him. Their eyes lock, and she makes a gesture. Raising her hand, she first points down, then forms a circle with her thumb and index finger. The universal signal for “OK.”

“You piece of shit!” Belinda wails, attacking him again, this time with less determination. Her knees buckle, and Aksel catches her as she collapses and begins bawling. “You fucking … asshole! Oh, God, Rosa! My little girl!”

“She’s okay!” Aksel says. “Rosa’s okay!”

Belinda doesn’t seem to hear him. Aksel holds her firmly by the shoulders and ducks down to catch her eyes. “Listen to me, Belinda! Rosa is alive! She’s safe!”

Belinda blinks, gasps for breath, and seems to try and understand the words. “She’s … she’s not dead?”

“No, she’s fine! She’s under the car, and they can’t get to her.”

Belinda blinks again, frowning, then looks towards the glass doors.

“You can’t see it, but the cop—” Aksel cuts himself off as he sees the cop holding up an open notebook. She presses it against the car window. Across the pages, crudely written, he can just make out: SAYS SHE’S NOT HURT – Z CAN’T REACH HER. Aksel points. “Look!” Then, realizing Belinda can’t see it: “She’s holding up a sign saying that Rosa is fine, that they can’t get to her!”

Belinda stops crying, and her expression instead morphs into one of fear. “Are you … are you sure?”

“Yes,” Aksel nods, looking out again, as the cop holds up the notebook again, having turned a page over to a new message.

ROSA HAS KEY — NOW WHAT?

24

“Thank you,” Ella whispers as Hagos stops talking.

She opens her eyes only to find that tears have spilled down her cheeks.

“You’re welcome,” he says quietly, getting to his feet. “I think it’s time for me to …” He gestures at the door.

Ella wipes her eyes in her sleeve and nods. “I know. It’s fine. I need to call my mother anyway.”

He turns, takes out the key, and is about to open the door.

“Hagos? I have one more question.”

He looks back. “Sure?”

“What are they? The zombies?”

Hagos looks her in the eye for a long moment. “I thought about that. They’re definitely dead.”

“Yeah, I know, but … what does that mean? Are they just bodies walking around? Are they nothing?”

Hagos runs the tip of his tongue over his lips. “All I know is, God cannot create sickness or evil. Only we can. So whatever they are, they are man-made.”

Ella scoffs. “That makes sense. Of course we had to fuck it up for ourselves.”

Hagos doesn’t smile. “It’s good news.”

“How so?”

“Because God’s creations can never perish.”

He says it like it’s supposed to answer her question. It takes a moment to realize that it does. “They can be stopped,” she whispers. “It can be fixed.”

Hagos nods. “There is hope.”

Ella takes another deep breath. Then she says: “Good luck.”

Hagos sends her one last look before closing the door gently.

Ella holds up her phone. It’s only got 9 percent power left. Enough for one last call. She doesn’t really feel ready to call her mom. But at least she’s less fearful now. The prayer and the crying alleviated a lot of it.

You can get through it. Stay strong for her one last time.

Ella makes the call.

25

“Goddamnit,” Ragnar hisses, pulling his hands from the freezing water.

He tucks them under his armpits. He tried his best to make it quick, yet just a few seconds down there was enough to turn his fingertips blue. He really didn’t want to do it, but the fat bitch of course had to make life difficult for him, even after her death, getting herself turned the wrong way around, so he had no choice. Luckily, though, it’s now been fixed, and he can return to the cave.

He pulls his gloves back on and is about to turn around, when he once again picks up a sound from across the valley. He looks in the direction of the military facility. From here, he has a clear view of the place where the ridge over there meets the sky. He pulls out his binoculars. He can see thin streams of white smoke rising. Truck, probably. Or generators of some kind.

Of all the places they could have chosen …

Ragnar never trusted the government, the military, the police, politicians or any other form of authorities. Growing up with his stepdad—who had little love for anyone, especially his illegitimate son, whom he only reluctantly accepted responsibility for after Ragnar’s mother died tragically in a car accident—Ragnar was taught very early on that no one who’s imposing rules or restrictions on you is to be depended on for any kind of protection or affection.

Being raised by a hardened veteran, Ragnar himself turned hard and made independence his number one concern. He knew the world humans had built wasn’t meant to last, and he for one would be ready for the collapse when it came.

It was really nothing more than history repeating itself. The Mayas, the Egyptians, the Romans—all of these great civilizations which spanned centuries and which everyone thought would last forever had crumbled to dust.

This current so-called civilization, the West, may only be centuries old, but it’s already rotten through-and-through. Those who choose not to see it are willfully blind. Ragnar has seen it since his childhood, and he always knew it was a matter of time before the whole overripe structure came crashing down.

And now, it’s finally begun.

He lowers the binoculars and chews on his tongue. He holds no illusions that the makeshift concentration camp they’ve set up over there will be safe. Someone will fuck up, abandon their post, or maybe even sabotage something on purpose. And then all hell will break loose.

Need to get ready. Need to figure out a defense strategy.

Ragnar always likes to prepare for the worst. Hope is for idiots, and not having a plan will get you in trouble. So far, ever since he heard about the infection on the news, everything has played out pretty much according to how he wanted. With the sole exception of the curveball that was Kristoffer’s insistence that they help out the fat couple back at the car. That, too, however, Ragnar had managed to incorporate into his planning, even turning it into an unforeseen advantage, one they’ll benefit from for weeks to come, maybe even—

A vibration from his chest pocket cuts his train of thought abruptly.

He yanks out the transmitter. The red diode is on. But only for a couple of seconds—then it begins blinking. Which is bad news. A constant light means one of the sensors has been triggered. The blinking, however, means that one of the sensors has been disconnected. And since they’re all well hidden, animals can’t get to them. Only humans can do that.

Another curveball. Ragnar hates curveballs.

“Fuck,” he mutters, spinning on his heel and running back up the hill, praying he won’t be too late.

26

“Oh, Rosa … oh, my sweet girl … she must be scared out of her mind …”

Belinda sits by the wall, shaking her head, constantly running her hands through her hair.

Aksel strides back and forth, chewing his knuckle, trying to think. “Okay, listen,” he mutters, speaking more to himself than Belinda. “Rosa has the key. But she’s trapped under the car. It’s simple, really. It comes down to three options. We either lure them away, shoot our way through, or find some way of shielding or camouflaging ourselves so we can walk right out there.”

Belinda looks up at him with eyes red and puffy. “We have no guns, so that’s only two options.”

“You’re right. The cop told me she knew where there might be a gun, but I assume it’s not inside this building, or she would have taken us to—”

A noise from down the hallway makes Aksel spin around. From around the corner comes a tall, skinny dude. He looks like he used to work in a postal office. His uniform has been torn open in several places, most notably around his groin, and Aksel can make out the crater where his inner thigh used to be. Whoever ate away at him apparently didn’t have a taste for anything too exotic, because the guy’s cash and price are both still there, dangling next to the open wound.

“Oh, Jesus,” Aksel exclaims, as the guy heads for them, limping eagerly.

Belinda screams and jumps to her feet. She begins running for the glass doors, then thinks better of it, as the crowd of zombies are still out there.

Aksel goes for the table leg, which he placed against the wall. Picking it up, he tells Belinda: “Stay back! Let me handle him!” The message seems redundant, because Belinda obviously isn’t intent on getting into a fight with the zombie.

Aksel goes to meet the guy. It’s not that he’s eager to get cracking, it’s more so that he can create as much distance to Belinda as possible. He has no idea how many blows it’ll take to bring the guy down, but he needs all the room he can get.

As the guy comes within swinging distance, Aksel takes the first shot. Just as he does, the guy trips over his own feet and lunges forward. It happens so fast, Aksel doesn’t have time to adjust the swing. The table leg connects with the side of the guy’s head, but way too close to Aksel’s hands, and there’s barely enough force behind it to send him sideways. Only because the guy was already falling does he actually keel over. On his way down, his left hand catches Aksel’s sleeve, and he almost yanks him off balance.

“Fuck!” Aksel grunts, managing to rip free and step back, as the zombie immediately goes for his legs instead. He crawls after Aksel, but now Aksel has a way better shot at his head, and this time there’s no risk of the guy falling.

He puts all his strength into the swing, and the table leg connects perfectly. There’s an audible crack, almost like dry wood breaking, and the guy collapses onto his side. He begins jerking with both arms and legs. It looks like a toy robot with faulty wiring trying to get up. Aksel delivers one more blow to the already-broken skull, and it makes the spasms end abruptly.

Breathing heavily, Aksel steps back. The smell of blood and something else—brain-matter, perhaps?—is almost rich enough in the air to cause him to retch. He swallows and turns to Belinda. “You all right?”

She’s staring at the dead guy, disgust and fear on her face. Then she looks at Aksel, closes her mouth, and nods once.

“Good,” he pants. “It’s really whipping me into shape, this constant taking full-force swings … I guess baseball players have an advantage now that the world is ending, huh?” Belinda doesn’t answer, so he goes on: “Okay, now, where were we?”

“No … no guns,” she says, fighting to keep her eyes off the dead guy.

“Right. So that leaves either luring them away from the car, or we find some armor that they can’t bite through. I’m not entirely sure what this place was used for before, but I think they could have some medical equipment, perhaps hazmat suits of some kind.”

Belinda shakes her head with a grave expression. “That won’t be enough. They tear right through fabric. They warned about that on the news. Even leather jackets and stuff.”

“Yeah, I know,” Aksel mutters, glancing at the awful crater between the guy’s legs. The thick denim did little to keep out the set of teeth that attacked the poor dude. “Unless they kept proper riot gear lying around, I think that option is out, too. And we have no way of knowing whether camouflage will work.”

“What do you mean by camouflage, exactly?”

“You didn’t watch The Walking Dead?” Aksel asks, genuinely surprised. “It’s in one of the first episodes.”

“No,” Belinda says, shaking her head. “I hate all that stuff.”

“Well, they smeared themselves in the rotten intestines of deceased zombies. That meant the living zombies couldn’t smell them, and took them to be their kind.” Aksel shrugs. “Why they never used that trick again always bothered me, but—”

“There’s no way I’m doing that,” Belinda says, utter disgust painted on her face.

“No, I figured. Then we’re down to some sort of diversion. Getting them away from the car.”

“But how are we going to do that?” Belinda says. “We can’t even get out there.”

“Not through that exit, at least,” Aksel says, nodding towards the glass doors. “But maybe we …” He trails off as he takes in the view of the parking lot. The MPV is right in the center, facing east. The cop is still behind the wheels—she’s on the phone with someone, and she has a blank expression in her eyes. Then Aksel notices something out there he didn’t pay any heed to before.

“What?” Belinda says, sounding immediately alarmed. “What is it? What’s wrong? Do you see Rosa?”

“No,” Aksel says, stepping closer. “That wire up there ... you think that’ll hold both of us?”

Belinda follows his gaze.

There’s a metal wire running from the building, across the parking lot, to the nearest light post. The wire is there to escort a thick cord. They’re strapped together for every yard or so. They pass right over the MPV.

“That’s not happening,” Belinda says. “You’ve got to be insane to attempt a stunt like that.”

“I’ve done more insane stunts these past few days,” Aksel mutters. “I think this is doable. And I think it’s our best bet.”

“So, you want to brachiate over there, drop down onto the car, and climb in through the sunroof? All the while surrounded by those infected people trying to grab us? And if we slip, we’re dead?”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

Belinda shakes her head. “Then what? Assuming we succeed, we’ll just be trapped inside the car too, and Rosa, my poor girl, she’ll still be … oh, God … this is just awful …” She begins sobbing again.

Aksel tunes out the sound. He’s suddenly lost in thought. It’s a good question she just posed. About what the next step will be once they’re all inside the car. Because Rosa will still be underneath it, along with the key. To even start the car, they’ll need to …

Absently, his hand goes to his pocket. His own keys are still in there. The one to his bike, the one to his apartment, and the spare one to his dad’s truck. He’ll probably never use any of them again, but …

Taking out the bundle, he looks at them. They’re kept together with the chain Jakob gave him as a birthday present a few years back. It’s a black aluminum ball which can be screwed open. Inside is a magnet on a string that unrolls. On the outside of the ball is the text: FISHING FOR METAL. It’s the name of a trash rock band Aksel was into at the time. The magnet is obviously just a gimmick, but he tested it back then, and it worked just fine. Will it still work?

He opens the ball, pulls out the magnet, picks up the table leg and places them close to each other. The magnet grabs onto it eagerly. “Fuck … this might just work.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Belinda spouts. “Are you playing with magnets?”

Aksel beams at her. “I just figured it out. You’re gonna love this …”

Explaining his plan to Belinda, she doesn’t look at all like she shares his excitement. In fact, she looks even more skeptical. “That’s … a real long shot, you know that, right?”

“It’s our best shot.”

“No. I told you, there’s no way I’m doing it. Can’t you see you’re putting us all in danger? This whole thing was your idea, and—”

“No, it wasn’t. It was Rosa’s. And it was a good idea. We just … forgot to cover all bases.”

“Well, you condoned the idea!” She stares at him, visibly angry, but also on the verge of tears again.

“Listen,” Aksel says. “I know this looks bad. But we can fix it. I’m not trying to place any of us in danger. I’m not suggesting this just for the thrill of it. Sure, I take chances. That’s just who I am. But I honestly think this is the way to go. Because I don’t believe help is on its way. And it won’t stop or die down, either. What’s going on out there”—he points through the glass doors—“it’s only getting worse. If you and I don’t do anything, then Rosa will be trapped out there for a long time. I don’t want that. I want us all to get the hell out of here, unharmed. Now, if you have a better plan, I’m all ears. If not, then I’m going. And I think you should come to, because if you stay here, you’ll be on your own, and I don’t see how we’ll get you safely into the car.”

Belinda stares at him, breathing through her nose. He can tell she’s internally fighting herself. Then she sighs. “I don’t have a better plan …”

Aksel touches her shoulder. “Then let’s get going. Let’s go save Rosa.”

27

“Ella?”

She thought she was ready to hear her mom’s voice. But the mixture of hope and relief is so strong, it’s almost palpable, and it immediately makes her throat constrict.

“Are you there, honey?”

“I am,” Ella croaks, swallowing painfully. “Are you okay, Mom?”

“I’m fine. God, am I glad to hear from you.”

Ella squeezes her lips together. Don’t celebrate just yet … “I, uhm …”

“Are you safe?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“You don’t sound fine. You sure you’re not in danger?”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m perfectly safe now.”

“Good.” Cautious relief in her voice.

Ella picks up on noises in the background. Grunts, groans, scraping fingers. She frowns. “Are you okay, Mom? I can hear infected people on your end.”

“I’m not in danger. I’m in a car. They’re outside, but they can’t get in here. No need to worry about me. Where are you?”

“I’m at the old folks’ home. The one next door from Greta and Gunnar.”

“Oh. Yeah, I remember. Marit there with you?”

“Yeah.”

“So, what happened?”

“Well, it’s a long story …” Ella rubs her temple. Sweat it pouring off her, making her hair cling to her head, drenching the borrowed clothes. “I guess I should tell you everything. Are you ... do you have the time?”

“Sure. What’s happened, Ella? Tell me.”

Ella lets out a long, quivering breath. She can taste the fever now. “Okay, listen. Here’s what happened …” And she tells everything. She tries to do so as objectively as she can, simply reporting the events. Her mom listens without interrupting a single time.

“So, now … now I’m going to die, unfortunately,” Ella ends, almost breaking into nervous laughter. “I’m sorry, Mom. I tried to be careful, I really did. I should have just left when I had the chance, I guess. I shouldn’t have given a damn about Gunnar and Greta and Marit, and just bolted. But I didn’t. I messed up.” She can’t hold back the laughter anymore, and as it begins to seep out, she realizes it’s not laughter at all, but tears. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I really am. Please forgive me.”

“For… forgive you?” Her mom’s voice is weaker than she’s ever heard it before. “I’m the one who … I should have been there … I can’t … I don’t know … what to say …”

Ella wipes her nose. “You don’t have to say anything. Don’t blame yourself. No one could have known how serious this was.”

“How … how far along …? Do you think I can …? We’re still an hour away ...”

Ella closes her eyes. “It’ll be too late. But that’s probably best. I don’t want you to be here when I … I wouldn’t recognize you, Mom. And I could hurt you.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then she hears something she can’t immediately place, because she’s never heard it before. Listening, it dawns on her little by little that it’s her mother crying.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she says again. “You know I love you, right?”

“I love you too, honey. More than anything.”

Ella smiles. “I know.”

They each cry softly for half a minute or so.

“Are you … are you scared?” her mother asks.

“A little. Not nearly as much as I thought I’d be.”

“God, I wish I was there for you, honey.”

“Yeah, me too. But it’s okay. Just talking to you helps a lot.”

Another moment of silence.

Ella begins to feel very tired. “Listen, Mom, I think I should go now …”

“No, Ella, please …”

“I’m sorry, but it’s best. My phone is almost out of battery anyway. I think I’ll try and go to sleep.”

Her mother is all out crying now. “This is all … this is all happening so fast …”

“I know. I thought I had so much time, you know? I was gonna become an architect. Get married. Maybe even have kids. I was always healthy. I thought I’d live to be a hundred.” She scoffs. “Imagine my surprise.”

“Oh, honey … I wish I’d been a better mom for you.”

“What are you talking about? You made me who I am, Mom. You made me strong. You’re the reason I can do this without crumbling. Sure, I’m scared, but … I have this center of gravity, just like you have.”

Her mother sniffs. “I know what you mean, honey. You’re so brave.”

“You taught me that too. I couldn’t have asked for a better mom. Seriously. Remember that, Mom. Please.”

Her mother says weakly: “I will. God, I love you, Ella.”

“Love you too, Mom. Goodbye.”

One last, trembling inbreath, then her mother whispers: “Bye, honey.”

Ella lowers the phone and ends the call.

She closes her eyes and leans sideways. The wall is pleasantly cool against her cheek. The tears and the sweat are both rolling down her face, as she feels a soft darkness rise up inside of her.

This is it. These are my last thoughts. I’m going now.

Then, she’s gone.

28

They move carefully back down the hallway, turn the corner, then another one.

Aksel keeps the table leg ready, and Belinda walks right behind him.

“I think this is the way,” he whispers, nodding towards a door marked STAIRS.

He reaches out his free hand and pushes it open. An empty stairwell. Empty, except for a woman lying at the foot of the stairs, facedown. Her neck is obviously broken, and she seems to have suffered a normal death. Her eyes, which are staring up at nothing, are normal.

Belinda gives off a muffled groan.

“It’s okay, don’t look at her,” Aksel mutters, checking both up and down the stairs.

Down seems to lead to a basement—which is the last place they want to be right now. There’s also a fire escape door right across the landing, but lots of hands are eagerly going at it from the outside.

“Come on,” he says over his shoulder, stepping around the woman. “We’re almost there.”

They slip up the steps. Though they try to walk as quietly as possible, the sounds from their shoes cast echoes in the stairwell.

Reaching the next landing, Aksel notices immediately two things. One, the door to the hallway is open—in fact, it seems to have been kicked open, and is hanging from just the top hinge. And second, on the floor is a huge pool of almost-dry blood. Someone was here before, and they were bleeding profusely. The trail seems to continue up the steps toward the third floor. The hallway, or what they can see of it, is empty.

“Okay, you keep your eyes and ears open,” Aksel whispers, pointing towards the hallway. “And I’ll open the window.”

Belinda nods, looking like she wants to run away, but she stays put.

The window is the size of a big mailbox—large enough that they can climb through. The glass is covered with that non-transparent film that’s often used in bathrooms, so Aksel can’t see the parking lot. He unhinges the lock and turns the handle. The window only swings open a couple of inches, then stops as it meets some sort of safety restriction. The sounds from outside immediately becomes louder.

Aksel pulls the window a little harder, trying to figure out where the problem is. There’s a fixed stay at the top. It’s brass and not very thick. Aksel grabs it and tugs at it cautiously. Then he yanks it hard, and it breaks free. He drops it to the floor, then opens the window all the way.

“Aksel,” Belinda whispers. “I think I heard something …”

“Hold on,” he says, leaning out. From up here, he has a clear view over the parking lot. The MPV is still completely surrounded on all sides. He can see the cop behind the wheel, but not her face, and she doesn’t appear to have noticed him. The scene is even more disheartening from up here. He counts at least twenty undead in the parking lot alone, and a dozen more in the street. For as far as he can see, there are cars abandoned or crashed, bodies lying around, and zombies shambling around, looking for someone to attack.

He checks the wall outside the window. There’s nothing to stand on, no fire escapes, ledges or even rain gutters nearby. The only thing within reach is the wire and cable. They’re secured to the wall right above the window, running up a few yards before reaching an electrical box of some kind. What’s holding the wire is a simple eyebolt drilled into the bricks. It looks sturdy enough, though it was hardly meant for climbing. Yet Aksel feels pretty confident it’ll—

“Aksel!”

“What?” he says, looking back.

Belinda doesn’t need to tell him, because he sees for himself. Down the hallway, walking briskly towards them, comes two people. Both of them alive, and seemingly unhurt. One is an older guy, the other—a chubby dude in a tight shirt—is around Aksel’s age. The old guy has a bread knife, and the younger man carries a broom with a flimsy-looking plastic handle—which is just about the poorest choice of weapon Aksel can think off. They’ve obviously spotted Belinda and Aksel and the open window, and seem intent on reaching them, probably eager to escape the building as well.

“Fuck,” Aksel mutters. “I think four is a crowd. The wire won’t carry all of us.”

He considers briefly trying to barricade the door to the stairwell, but it’ll probably be no use. He also has nothing to threaten the men with—on the contrary, they are the ones with the most lethal weapon. The knife, that is. Not the broom.

“Come on,” Aksel whispers, reaching over to grab Belinda’s arm. “We’re going.”

“Wait, I can’t … how do I …?”

Aksel pulls her to the window, wanting her to grab hold of the wire, but she resists.

“It’s easy,” he tells her. “You just wrap your legs around it, then begin climbing.”

“But—”

“Hey!” the old guy shouts. “Wait up!”

“Sssh,” the young guy shushes. “You’ll draw the infected!”

The men have upped the speed and now reach the stairwell. Belinda is still hesitating, and Aksel realizes he’ll have to deal with the men.

“Glad to see someone else alive,” he says, forcing a smile. “You guys okay?”

“We’re fine,” the old guy says, barely looking at Aksel. “Is that a way out? Is it safe?”

“It’s pretty much impossible, to tell you the truth,” Aksel says. “We wanted to jump, but there are too many of them down there.”

“Damnit,” the young guy spits. He keeps darting looks back down the hallway, as though afraid someone is following them. “I told you, man. There’s no getting out of here until the police clear the area …”

“The police,” the old guy snarls. “They’ve up and left, those cowards.” He seems to notice something outside the window. “That wire there … will it hold if we try to climb it?”

“What, that one?” Aksel asks, pretending like he just noticed. “I really don’t think so.” He feels Belinda staring at him, and he sends her a quick look, hoping she’ll catch his drift.

“Move,” the old guy commands them, waving the knife. He’s not doing it in a threatening manner, and Aksel isn’t even sure he’ll use the knife if they disobey him, but there’s no good reason to run that risk. So, he and Belinda step aside and let the guy step over to the window. He looks up at the wire, then follows it across to the parking lot, his eyes stopping by the MPV. “Huh,” he says. “You guys were going to climb it, weren’t you?”

Aksel bites the inside of his cheek.

“There’s someone down there,” the old guy goes on, not waiting for an answer. “You know the person in the car?”

“Not per se, no,” Aksel says.

“Why aren’t they driving away?” the younger guy asks, peering over the shoulder of his partner. “Is something wrong with the car?”

“I think they’re waiting,” the old guy says, glancing at Aksel and Belinda. “Waiting for these two.” He then looks at the young guy. “This is our way out of here. We’ll climb to the car, jump down, enter through the sunroof, and then we’ll drive the hell away.”

The young guy looks less than thrilled at the thought. “I can’t make that climb …”

“Sure you can. And you know why? Because your goddamn life depends on it, that’s why!”

“Look, we’d love to bring you guys along,” Aksel begins. “But—”

“We’re not asking for an invitation,” the old guy snarls, rounding on him. “We’re coming.”

“But I’m seriously afraid the wire won’t hold all of us,” Aksel finishes.

“We’re going one at a time, obviously.”

“Yeah, well … no offense …” Aksel gives the young guy the elevator look, then shrugs. “I think you’re heavier than us.”

The young guy splutters, “Fuck you, asshole.”

“Nah, he’s right,” the old guy mutters, glancing at the other guy’s gut. “You’re too fat, buddy.”

“What the fuck are you saying?” the young guy blurts out, his voice turning shrill. “You want me to stay here?”

“No, but I want you to go after me. Then, if the wire holds, you guys can come along …” He nods to Aksel and Belinda.

“That’s very kind of you,” Aksel says through gritted teeth. For every passing second, he regrets more that they didn’t leave before these guys came along.

The guy wags the knife at Aksel’s nose—this time, the gesture is slightly threatening. “Look, you just praise yourselves lucky I haven’t gutted you and left you here. I could do it, you know. No one in the world would know what happened …”

“Please,” Belinda says, speaking for the first time. “My daughter’s down there.”

The old guy gives a look. “We’re not monsters. We just want to get to safety as much as you guys do.”

“Then please, let us—” Belinda begins, then cuts herself off with a gasp.

Aksel sees what she sees. Behind them, down the hallway, a policeman has appeared. Half of his face is gone, and the skin on his scalp has been torn mostly off, revealing the bone underneath. His boots are gone, yet his legs seem unhurt, and he moves fast for an undead guy.

“What is it?” the young guy asks, immediate alarm in his voice.

“I heard it, too, Belinda,” Aksel says, stepping in front of her to block her view—and also to make sure the young guy can’t follow her gaze. Instead, Aksel looks up the stairs, frowning. “I think someone’s coming down …”

The young guy looks up and listens. “I can’t hear anything …”

Luckily, because the zombie cop has bare feet, he’s moving very quietly. He’s also not uttering any grunts or groans—something Aksel noticed before with others. It’s almost like they’re actually capable of sneaking up on victims when they sense they haven’t been spotted yet. They move faster, more determined, and awfully silent.

“Well, we’re leaving either way,” the older guy says, slipping the knife down the back of his belt. “Gimme a hand, will you? You two, step back. No funny business!”

Aksel is more than happy to oblige. He takes Belinda’s arm and pulls her along. They squeeze into the corner, then watch as the young guy helps the other climb onto the windowsill. The older man—while he looks strong—is obviously not particularly agile, and his knees pop loudly as he crouches like Spiderman, then leans out to grab hold of the wire.

They still haven’t seen the cop, Aksel thinks. He can’t help but feel a little bad, not warning them. On the other hand, they did not only threaten to kill him, they’re also very likely about to ruin his and Belinda’s only chance to get out of here alive. He can hear Belinda breathing fast. She’s all tense, and she’s staring at the broken door to the hallway. It’s obvious she wants to cry out, but she’s restraining herself.

“All right, I think it’ll hold,” the old guy says over his shoulder. “I’m going now. Wait until I reach the car, then you can—oh, fuck! Look out!”

The cop has just entered the stairwell. Up close, he’s an even more awful sight. Having been made, he ups his speed, crosses the landing in five staggering paces, then throws himself at the younger guy. He just manages to turn around and grab the wrists of the zombie. Screaming, his voice fills the stairwell, hurting Aksel’s ears, as the guy begins a macabre dance with the zombie cop, who’s eagerly snapping at his face and neck.

The old guy, not even worrying about helping his partner, disappears out the window. From up here, Aksel can see the wire bob, but it doesn’t break.

The young guy pushes the zombie back with a shriek, then goes for the window. He dives out headfirst, twisting around and grabbing the wire. It’s an impressive stunt for a guy his size, and he actually manages to catch hold and hang on. But the cop is in pursuit, reaching the open window two seconds later. He leans out, grabs the guy’s shirt, then pulls him back to try and bite him. The guy screams again, writhes and kicks as he dangles from the wire. The older guy shouts something. The zombie’s legs lift off the ground as gravity pulls them out the window. Latching on to the guy’s shirt, they both hang for a moment. The guy screams, but the sound is weak now, because of how he’s out of breath and struggling to cling on. Aksel sees his fingers slip, and then he drops.

He doesn’t want to see, but he can’t help it. Stepping over to the window, he first sees the old guy still hanging on the wire. He’s managed to pull up his legs and wrap them around it. His face is red as blood has rushed to it, but he’s making steady headway, approaching the car.

Below, the young guy has landed on top of three other undead people, who apparently were drawn by the commotion overhead. Being rattled by the drop, but seemingly not having broken anything, he tries to get to his feet, but it’s a losing battle. Hands grab him from all sides, and the zombies overwhelm him in a matter of seconds. Like wild dogs that haven’t eaten for days, they throw themselves at him and begin eating him alive with vigor. Slabs of skin and flesh are torn off like clothes from a stripper, and the guy’s scream turns even shriller before it quickly becomes dying croaks.

“God,” Belinda whispers over Aksel’s shoulder. “We didn’t warn them …”

“No,” Aksel hears himself say. “We didn’t.”

29

“Get off me!”

The pain is intense as Hakon digs into her shin. Luckily, the old guy has dropped his fake teeth, but still has a couple of ragged stumps left, and they rip open her pant leg and pierce her skin.

Louisa screams again and tries to pull free. But she’s sitting on her ass, and Hakon is lying on all fours, clamped onto her leg like a playful puppy. All she manages is to drag him along as she scooches backwards across the floor. She slaps him hard, and he growls with annoyance and adjusts his bite, trying to rip off a chunk. He only gets a piece of fabric, and it gives Louisa the chance to raise her other leg and kick him hard under the chin.

Hakon goes sprawling, and she jumps to her feet, then almost falls back down. Hakon did a worse number on her leg than she thought. It hurts like hell. And he’s already coming for her again.

“Screw you, you old bastard!”

Louisa sends a soccer kick at his head. She hits him instead in the chest, but it’s enough to knock him back over.

Having been the manager of Mo Senior Center for close to nine years, Louisa knows everyone that’s ever lived here intimately, and Hakon is no different. She, like everyone else on the staff, has her favorite residents and her not-so-favorite ones. Hakon falls into the latter category. He’s one of those proud old guys who never accepted the fact that he can’t take care of himself. To show his spite, he’ll fart on purpose, loud and smelly, often shitting himself a little in the process. He’s also blatantly chauvinistic, and has often slapped Louisa’s ass if she comes within reach.

So, she kicks him again before he can get up, just for good measure. This time, her shoe catches his throat, and he gives off a hoarse, gurgly sound as he doubles over. She can’t help but feel a surge of satisfaction. But still, he’s coming for her.

There’s no stopping them, Louisa thinks, moving around Hakon to reach the door to the hallway.

She was sitting here, in the lounge, finishing up next week’s schedule, when Hakon came bursting in. It’s her special forty-five minutes, the least stressful part of her day, and she was listening to that stupid mindfulness recording her therapist recommended to her. Because of the heavy headphones, she didn’t hear Hakon enter the lounge until he fell on her.

That’s just typical of my luck. I try to get rid of stress, and look what it got me!

She was suspicious of the meditation practices, but she had to try something, because just talking about her divorce was doing no good. Ever since Osmond left her six months ago, she’s been feeling more and more depressed and uptight. Her therapist seems to think the divorce has triggered some dormant feelings of abandonment from her childhood, where her mother would often walk out on her if she didn’t behave, which made Louisa into a spineless pleaser—that wasn’t exactly the way he phrased it, but it was the gist of it.

So now, every morning, she’s listening to affirmations like “I am exactly where I am meant to be” and “I am grateful for all I have” and “I have everything I desire already within me,” and not only does it help squat, it has now sealed her fate.

Finally able to move around Hakon, she heads for the door. It’s one of those without lock or handle, and it can be pushed either way. As she’s about to run through it, another resident comes into the lounge—this one Estrid, one of the nicer people. She’s still wearing her nightgown, or what’s left of it. It’s been torn open, revealing both her saggy, veiny breasts. One of them has been chewed right off. The blood has splattered down the front of Estrid, and her bare feet are making slurpy noises with each step.

“Fuck!” Louisa hisses, dodging to the side. On the counter right next to the door is the coffee she put on over twenty minutes ago. It’s now sitting in the pot, black and scalding hot, and Louisa grabs it. As Estrid makes a move for her, she smacks the pot into the side of her head.

Louisa has seen this move plenty of times in action movies. It seems to be a classic tactic, especially for women trying to escape male attackers. She fully expects it to work. At the very least, to knock Estrid down in a rain of burning coffee and shattered glass.

But amazingly, the pot doesn’t even break. It just connects with a dull clang, and a gush of the coffee splashes out. Most of it goes to the floor, but some of it backfires and hits Louisa’s stomach.

“Ouch! Goddamnit!”

The painful singe for a moment drowns out her throbbing shin.

Estrid only takes a couple of seconds to regroup, then she comes for Louisa again. She instinctively flings the rest of the coffee in the face of the old lady, but Estrid hardly seems bothered by it, despite how much it must hurt.

Hakon comes in from the side, and Louisa throws the pot at him. Hitting him squarely in the forehead, it still doesn’t break—what the hell do they make those things of? Bulletproof glass?—but it does cause him to stagger backwards a few paces, which is all Louisa needs to slip between the two old people and burst out the door.

Stopping for a moment to take in the chaos—cursing once more the stupid recording—she’s taken aback at how much has gone down without her hearing it. People are literally eating each other.

Louisa knew right from the moment she saw Hakon that this is the Torik virus. Like everyone else, she’s been following it on the news, and she’s seen footage shared on Facebook of just how awful the infected look up-close. And judging by the state of the hallway, the entire goddamn facility has been infected.

Running down the hallway, she dodges those trying to grab her. Several people have been wrestled to the ground and are being torn apart. Louisa doesn’t even consider stopping to help. Most of the doors are open, revealing more mayhem going down inside the apartments. The old geezers were probably drawn by curiosity as they heard the noises.

Reaching the entrance hall, Louisa stops abruptly. The glass doors are all but blocked. Infected people are everywhere.

“Fuck!”

Someone snarls right behind her. Louisa runs on down the south wing, but finds that completely crowded as well. Soon, she’s caught between two groups of infected. A man named Gustaf—one of the newest residents—comes for her with a growl, his black eyes reflecting the lights in the ceiling.

This is it.

Louisa is pinned down. Backing up, she bumps into a door. Spinning around, she grabs the handle. The door is locked. She realizes her key card is still around her neck. She beeps the lock just as Gustaf grabs her by the shoulders. “Get off me! Let go of me!” she hisses, trying to elbow Gustaf in the face. But she misses, and as he bites down on her shoulder blade, he shoves her forward, and they both burst into the room.

30

“I had no idea it would feel like this.”

Kristoffer was lost in gloomy thoughts. As Hans breaks the silence, he looks up. They’re once again sitting across from each other, close to the fire, which Kris has gotten going again by throwing on a couple of knots.

The big guy has stopped crying. He’s staring deep into the flames. “I’ve never lost anyone I loved before, so I had really no way of knowing what to expect.” He blinks and glances at Kristoffer. “You ever lost someone?”

Kristoffer nods. “Both my parents died when I was little.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, but I can’t even remember them, so I wasn’t really grieving or anything.”

“So you’re like Batman?”

The remark makes Kristoffer snort. “Never thought of it that way. Guess I should be fighting crime at night.”

Hans smiles, then looks back into the fire.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to make it about me, man,” Kristoffer says.

“No, that’s fine. I asked. Who raised you then?”

“My grandma. She died a few years back. I felt that loss. But at the same time, I was kind of prepared for it, you know? She was eighty-eight, so it didn’t exactly come as a surprise.”

“Still, it must have hurt?”

“Sure, it did.”

“How did you deal with it?”

Kris realizes Hans is looking for some kind of reassurance. Maybe he hopes to hear that the loss of his fiancé won’t hurt forever. Kristoffer doesn’t want to lie to him, but he also doesn’t want to cause him anymore pain than he’s already in. He chooses his words carefully. “Well, I cried a lot. That helped take the edge off. Other than that, I mostly kept busy. I was actually thankful she left me a whole house to take care of. We had chickens in the backyard. So even those days where I felt down, I had responsibilities. That’s definitely what got me through it.”

Hans nods again. He frowns, as though pondering a riddle. “I thought we’d grow old together, you know? I really did.”

Kristoffer swallows. “Yeah, I know.”

Hans darts a look towards the stream. Then he lowers his voice. “Can I ask you something, Kristoffer?”

“Sure.”

“Do you trust him?”

Kristoffer knew it was coming. He knows what Hans is really asking. Still, he finds himself at a loss. He opens his mouth, but no answer comes. “I just don’t know, man,” he says finally. “I can’t figure it out. There’s something that doesn’t add—”

A sharp, brief whistle makes them both jolt and whip around. The sound is obviously produced by human lips, and Kristoffer takes it to be Ragnar who’s returned. But it’s coming from the wrong direction.

Kristoffer can’t see anyone at first. Then he notices the barrel of a rifle pointed at them. It’s protruding from around the corner of a cliff. Half a head is sticking out, too, one eye fixed on them. It’s a young guy, around twenty-five, and he’s wearing the unmistakable military helmet meant for winter.

“Don’t move a muscle,” the soldier tells them in an even voice. “If either of you try to stand up, that’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

31

“Please keep an eye on the hallway, Belinda. Make sure no one else sneaks up on us.”

Belinda turns away from the window, breathing fast. “God, this is just awful …”

Aksel agrees. He keeps staring at the old guy, who’s now reached the car. He’s hanging upside down, around fifteen feet above the ground. Even if he swung down to hang from his hands only, it’s still a steep drop. Steeper than Aksel calculated.

It won’t be easy sticking that landing …

The old guy is huffing and puffing. It’s obviously a strain on him, hanging there. He looks down, apparently planning out the drop.

“We better get ready,” Aksel says over his shoulder. “He’s about to make the jump, and we should follow.”

He’s already begun considering what to do if the guy makes it into the car. He doesn’t assume the cop will fight him off, even though she has the gun. Which means he’ll join them. But with Aksel having led him into an ambush, causing his partner’s death and almost his as well, there probably won’t be any trust left, and he assumes the guy will be even less pleasant to be around.

“I’m not sure I can make the climb,” Belinda says. “I don’t have that much arm strength.”

“You’ll be fine,” Aksel assures her. “I know a few tricks, don’t worry.”

He genuinely isn’t worried that she’ll make it to the car. That’s the easy part. The much harder part is getting from the wire and safely onto the roof of the MPV. Which is the challenge the old guy is now facing. He’s still hanging there, looking down, trying to decide how to best make the jump. The zombies are standing around the vehicle, reaching up with greedy hands. Luckily, the car is tall enough that even the tallest of them can’t reach the center of the roof where the sunroof is. And the hood is the vertical kind, so they can’t climb onto that, either.

You’ll tire yourself out, Aksel thinks. Just do it.

As though hearing him, the old guy unwraps his legs. They swing down, and the sudden shift proves too much for his hands. He slips and drops with a roar. Landing on the roof of the car, he visibly hurts his knee, and he flops onto his belly with another, even louder cry. He flails and grabs for anything to hold onto, but there isn’t really anything, and both his legs swing out over the side of the car. The undead don’t miss the chance, but immediately grab him.

“No! You let go!”

He begins kicking frantically. Having gained a hold at the rim of the roof, he’s able to cling on, but he can’t shake off the zombies, who scratch and bite at his pant legs. One of his boots is yanked off. The guy reaches back with one hand, pulling out the knife, and tries to swat at them. He manages to cut a lady across the jaw, and makes a nasty cut in a guy’s forearm. None of them care, of course. They just keep going at his legs, pulling harder.

The guy loses his grip and drops the knife with a scream. Just as he’s about to get dragged off the roof, the cop shoots up through the sunroof and grabs his wrists. She tries to pull him back, but it’s six against one at this point, and the zombies are simply too strong. The guy is pulled off the car and disappears into the crowd. His death scream rings out over the parking lot.

“Shit,” Aksel mutters. “He didn’t make it either.”

“Aksel!”

Belinda’s voice is shrill, causing him to look back. He expects to see another zombie come down the hallway. But it’s empty. Instead, he sees Belinda staring up the stairs. As he follows her gaze, he sees a woman come clumsily down the steps.

“Fuck!”

All the careful planning Aksel was putting into how they would make the climb goes out the window at that moment. They suddenly only have ten seconds to get out.

Aksel grabs Belinda and pulls her into a tight hug. “Hold onto me,” he says into her ear. “And don’t let go.”

He leans backwards out the window like a scuba diver going over the edge of the boat. He grabs the wire, and, kicking off the sill, he wraps the other leg around the wire. It’s difficult because he’s also carrying Belinda’s weight, and the metal digs into his hands. But he can’t worry about that. He raises the other leg and climbs away from the building.

Belinda shrieks as the woman apparently tries to grab her legs. Aksel feels a hand graze his foot as well. Then they’re out of reach, and he hears the zombie woman groan as she leans out farther, only to drop to the ground.

Belinda is hyperventilating in his ear, repeating: “Don’t let go of me … don’t let go of me …” Because of the way they’re positioned, she has a clear view of what’s immediately below them, and Aksel assumes it’s not exactly an encouraging sight.

He focuses on making headway. If he hadn’t known the proper technique, they would have probably dropped already. And if it hadn’t been for his grip strength, he wouldn’t have been able to hold the weight of both of them. He moves one leg first, then a hand. He doesn’t let go of the wire, he just loosens his grip enough to slide it along. Normally, you’d be wearing climbing gloves, but he doesn’t have that luxury, and he feels the wire chafe his skin. He’ll get a few bad blisters from this, but that’s a small price to pay considering that the alternative is to drop several feet, then getting ripped apart while still alive.

They reach the halfway point, and Belinda is still chanting.

“It’s okay,” Aksel grunts. “We’ll make it.”

He inhales a mouthful of her hair and coughs. He can’t help but smell her perfume, and despite how scary the situation is, the feeling of her pressed against him reminds him so much of how Frida felt when she was on top of him just the other night. The memory is immediately replaced by Frida in the helicopter with her throat torn open and blood gushing out, and Aksel gives a croak and almost retches.

Get it together … Focus, man …

He bites down hard and climbs on. The groans and moans from the horde of undead below are boring into his skull, the pain in his hands intensifies, and then—

Then they’re over the car.

Aksel stops and chances a quick look down. The cop is standing in the sunroof, reaching up her arms. “One at a time!” she calls out, shouting over the noises from the zombies. “I’ll catch you!”

Aksel doesn’t like it. The drop is too steep. There’s a big risk it’ll go awry. If he drops Belinda and, say, her heel catches the cop in the face, she’ll likely knock her out and then fall to her own death. They’ll need to land right beside the cop, and the cop has to be quick in grabbing them before they can slide off the roof.

It’s a slim chance of success. But there’s no other choice.

“Okay,” Aksel pants into Belinda’s ear. “You’ll have to make the jump now.” He purposefully uses the word “jump” rather than “drop.” It implies some measure of control. It’s just like how doctors prefer to use “pressure” or “discomfort,” even when they clearly mean “pain.”

“I can’t do it,” Belinda gasps. “I can’t make it …”

“Sure you can. Do it for Rosa. Think of your daughter. She still needs you!”

Belinda begins crying, but at the same time, she inhales sharply, forcefully getting herself under control. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. Just gimme a second.”

“I can’t hold on much longer, Belinda. We need to do this.” It’s true; his forearms are like stone, his hands all cramped up. “I’m going to let go of the wire with my left hand. As soon as I do, you grab my wrist, and you hold on with everything you’ve got. Ready?”

“Ready,” Belinda whispers.

“Three … two … one … now!”

32

“He’s leaving.”

The redheaded girl—Marit—breaks the silence.

Hagos is sitting on the bed, praying. Now, he looks up, and he sees that Marit is right. The guy outside—Marit’s dad—has seemingly found something else of greater interest, because he’s staggering away from the terrace door. The lady is already gone. Into view comes an old lady, limping across the lawn, holding—of all things—a lamp in her hand. Hagos recognizes her as Lili from apartment 21. The cord is dangling from the lamp, and Lili’s legs get entangled. She flops to her belly, giving the guy the few seconds he needs to reach her.

Lili tries to get up, but she can’t. Instead, she valiantly swings the lamp at the guy as he falls on her. It’s no use. He kills her almost instantly.

“Oh, God,” Marit whimpers, looking away.

“Should we try to leave?” It’s the fat guy speaking. He’s looking from Edith to Hagos. “Make a run for it?”

Hagos is fairly certain neither the fat guy nor Edith can actually run—at least not for very long. But he doesn’t say that. Instead, he says: “I think for now, we’re safer in here. Judging by the sounds outside, this has already spread several blocks over.”

“Yes, I agree,” Edith chimes in. “I say we stay in here until the police finally manage to get this situation under—”

Someone bumps into the door to the apartment.

Marit flies to her feet.

“It’s okay,” Hagos assures her. “It’s locked. They can’t get in.”

Then, as though to disprove his point, there comes a beep.

For a split second, Hagos’s and Edith’s eyes meet. He can tell she heard it too, and that she recognizes the sound. It came from the lock, which can only be opened using a staff key card. But none of the residents would have one of those, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know how to use it. So how in the world—

“Get off me!” a woman’s voice comes from outside. “Let go of me!” It’s Louisa. The manager. One of the only people in the building who has a key card.

Hagos gets to his feet, just as the door to the apartment bursts open and Louisa comes crashing to the floor. On her back is an old guy—Gustaf, as far as Hagos can tell—and he’s tearing away at Louisa’s back.

“Jesus Christ almighty!” the fat guy exclaims, getting to his feet with surprising speed. “We need to—”

He’s cut off by Marit’s scream. Edith shouts something too, but Hagos filters it out. He sees everything that’s happening in the doorway play out in slow motion. Louisa, writhing, trying to get Gustaf off. Gustaf, biting open the skin on her back, causing blood to spurt out. And two more figures appearing behind them, shoving inside, eager to join the party.

Hagos then turns away. He sees the guy out on the lawn, still going at Lili, who’s now stopped fighting. He sees Marit, who’s closest to the terrace door, holding her face, screaming. Then he runs to her, grabs her wrist and pulls her along.

Unlocking and opening the terrace door, he shouts over his shoulder: “Come with us!”

He’s addressing the fat man and Edith, but neither of them seem to hear him. They’re both nailed to the spot, staring at the horrible scene. Three more infected people are making their way inside the apartment. Hagos leaves the terrace door wide open, giving the man and Edith a chance if they come to in time.

Then he drags Marit out into the cold air.

They manage only two steps outside, though, before a man—who’s too young to be a resident of the senior center—lunges into view from the side. He’s wearing what could have been a police uniform. It’s impossible to tell due to the fact that he’s drenched in blood and dirt.

Marit screams and tries to head back inside, but Hagos stops her. The apartment is a veritable slaughterhouse now. The infected have attacked both Edith and the fat guy. The latter seems to at least have made an attempt to reach the terrace door, but has been tackled to the floor right inside. He’s squirming and screaming for Hagos to help him, while two infected people are digging into his hamstrings and buttocks.

There’s only one way, Hagos thinks.

The young guy heads right for them, entering the terrace, effectively cornering them.

33

Kristoffer wants to obey, but he automatically raises his hands to show them empty. “Hey, man, we’re not armed. And we don’t want any trouble.”

“Totally with you on that last one,” the soldier tells him, not moving an inch, not even blinking. He has a subtle accent. “But it’s up to you whether this’ll turn troublesome or not. And I’m sorry, but we can’t just take you word that you’re not packing. Hope you understand.”

We? Kristoffer thinks.

The soldier whistles again.

From another direction comes a scraping sound, as a figure pushes through some bushes and comes into view. It’s another soldier, this one a few years older, and also wearing full winter uniform. He too is pointing an automatic rifle at them as he steps closer. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he instructs, speaking with the same dialect. It sounds like they’re Swedes, or maybe Danes, but judging by how discreet their accent is, they must have been living in Norway for quite a few years.

Both Hans and Kristoffer comply. The second soldier comes over to pat them down, tells them to get up, then checks their pant pockets. He pulls out Kristoffer’s folded knife and slips it into his own pocket.

“Thought you said you weren’t armed?” the soldier behind the cliff remarks. “Does that mean we can’t trust you, buddy?”

“I … I meant we have no guns,” Kristoffer mutters, feeling sick to his stomach. This is the second time within a few days someone is pointing a gun at him, and just like when the cop did it in the pantry, Kristoffer gets the clear feeling there’s a fair chance he’ll get shot in a moment. “I’d forgotten about the knife.”

“Sure, let’s go with that for now,” the soldier says. “Find anything else on them, Lukas?”

“No, nothing,” the second soldier says, stepping off to the side, but still keeping the rifle aimed at Hans and Kristoffer. “They’re clear.”

“Great. Hear that, Jan? You’re up.”

Kristoffer and Hans exchange a look. Hans’s eyes seem to pose the same question as Kristoffer is thinking: There’s three of them?

Confirming the thought, a third soldier comes out onto the plateau from yet another direction. He’s shorter and not carrying a rifle. He’s also not wearing a helmet, and his uniform looks more like a regular one, not the type that’s necessarily meant for outdoor expeditions. Instead, he’s wearing a huge backpack. “Holy fuck! That was a motion detector!” he exclaims. His voice is slightly raspy, and he’s got no discernable accent. He’s chewing frantically on a piece of gum. “Sorry I didn’t believe you, Kjell.”

“You can thank me later,” the soldier behind the cliff says, then, addressing Kristoffer and Hans: “Looks like some operation you guys got going here. What’s in the cave?”

“Nothing,” Kristoffer says.

“Do you mean nothing just like you were carrying no weapons?” the soldier snarls. “Be specific, asshole.”

Kristoffer swallows. “I mean, there’s no one in there … only, like, stuff.”

“What stuff? We talking buttplugs and gimp suits? You guys came out here to bump uglies?”

“No,” Kristoffer says, almost breaking into a nervous laugh. “It’s stuff that’s meant for survival. Food and water and … tools and a generator. I can’t remember it all, but it’s just … stuff.”

“Are there any booby traps?”

Kristoffer frowns. “I told you, we’re not gay.”

For the first time, the soldier’s eyes flicker briefly. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Kristoffer shakes his head, looking from one soldier to the other. “I thought you meant … what exactly is a booby trap?”

The soldier scoffs. “Some survivor you are. You sure didn’t put up those motion sensors, did you?”

Kristoffer doesn’t know what to say. He suddenly realizes that Ragnar may be their only hope of surviving, and that Kristoffer just inadvertently gave his identity away.

“Who’s in that cave?” the soldier asks.

“No one,” Kristoffer says. “I swear.”

“Yeah, you swear all you like, brother. I don’t believe you. Tell your friend in there to come out.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Hans says, speaking for the first time. He looks from the soldier behind the cliff to the not-armed one. “There’s nobody in the cave. I put up the motion detectors, and to answer your previous question, there are no concealed entrapments in there.”

A moment of silence on the plateau.

“He does look like a tech geek,” the soldier behind the cliff remarks. “Let’s say you set up those detectors, pal. Why didn’t you know we were coming? Jan over there didn’t watch where he was going, and I’m sure he triggered it. I was quick to smash it, but still.”

“I left the receiver somewhere inside the cave,” Hans says, barely skipping a beat. “I must be distraught. I lost my fiancé this morning. We just came back from burying her.”

Another moment of silence, this one longer.

Kristoffer can tell the soldiers picked up on the sincerity in Hans’s voice. There’s no way anyone would come up with a lie like that, much less making it sound true if it wasn’t, and Kristoffer can’t help admire how quick-witted Hans is, even under pressure. He strikes Kristoffer as a different person from the nervous, clumsy guy from yesterday.

“Sorry for your loss,” the soldier behind the cliff says, not really sounding very sympathetic, but at least not sarcastic. “How’d she go?”

“Diabetes,” Hans says right away, real pain seeping into his voice. “She went into anaphylactic shock. We didn’t have any insulin.”

“Huh. That’s typical. You try to think of everything when you prepare for Armageddon, but you’re bound to miss something, right? Well, I guess going out like that still beats getting eaten alive by fucking zombies.” His eyes pan back and forth between Hans and Kristoffer. “So, you guys decided to head out here to your little cave the moment the shit hit the fan? Is that right?”

“It is,” Kristoffer says.

“Where you from?”

“Bodum,” Kristoffer says. “It’s a village just—”

“I know where Bodum is. And what was your plan? To hunker down here until things settle down?”

Kristoffer shrugs. “Basically, yeah.”

“Well, I got bad news, fellas. Things ain’t settling down. Not anytime soon, anyway. In fact, they’re only just getting started.”

Kristoffer’s mind keeps going to Ragnar. How long will he be gone? If they can just keep the soldiers chatting, Ragnar will no doubt hear them as he returns, and he might be able to get a jump on them. He brought the rifle, but Kristoffer isn’t entirely sure Ragnar will use it. Not as long as he’s out-gunned. He might just turn and run without looking back, leaving Kristoffer and Hans to their own fate. But Kristoffer doesn’t think so. He feels pretty certain Ragnar won’t give up his cave this easily.

“Are you guys from the camp over there?” Hans says, gesturing north.

As he raises his arm, the older soldier raises his rifle, hissing: “No movements.”

“Sorry,” Hans says, blushing.

“Yeah, we left this morning,” the soldier behind the cliff says. “We didn’t feel like hanging out with fifteen hundred walking corpses. It might just be me, but it was getting creepy.”

“Kjell,” the older soldier says. “We need to get moving.”

“Yeah, right. I just want to check out that cave real quick.”

“Why? We’re not staying.”

“No, I know. But there could be stuff in there we can use.”

“Look, you take whatever you want,” Kristoffer says. “Just please don’t—”

“That’s right, we’ll take whatever we want,” the soldier behind the cliff snarls. “And we don’t need your fucking permission, either. So shut the hell up while the grown-ups talk.”

“I’m with Lukas,” the unarmed soldier says, shifting his weight. “I say we leave. If we press on, we can cross the border by tomorrow.”

“Then what?” the soldier behind the cliff grunts. “The infection doesn’t fucking care about borders. It’ll be right behind us.”

“We went over this, Kjell,” the older soldier says, still not taking his eyes off Hans and Kristoffer. “It’s settled.”

“Yeah, my uncle will get us on that plane,” the soldier with the backpack says. “We’ll be in Saint Petersburg before—”

“Don’t fucking tell them!” the soldier behind the cliff shouts, and for the first time, he takes a step sideways, revealing all of his face and body. “You fucking idiot, Jan. Now they know where we’re going!”

“Why … why does that matter?” Jan asks, shaking his head. “It’s not like they’re coming along.”

“No, but they can tell on us, you asshole. We’ve gone fucking AWOL, remember? You want us to end up behind bars? That’ll be a fucking hoot, dying of thirst and starvation while the goddamn zombies take over …”

“Hey, calm down,” the older soldier says. “It’s not coming to that. It’s not like they’ll send the cavalry to find three UAs right now. They’ve got enough to worry about.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want any loose ends. We got away clean, and if we’re lucky they won’t notice we’re gone until tomorrow. If we just leave these two guys sitting here, they might tell on us, and they’ll catch us before we reach Sweden.”

“We won’t say anything to anybody,” Kristoffer says.

“I told you to shut your goddamn mouth!” the soldier named Kjell shouts, raising his rifle and taking aim at Kristoffer. “One more word out of you, and I swear—”

“Calm down, Kjell, for fuck’s sake!” Lukas shouts. For the first time, he turns his head away from Hans and Kristoffer to look at his partner behind the cliff. “You can’t lose your goddamn head and going flying off the handle like this every time something—”

The soldier stops talking abruptly. He does so because his jaw is suddenly gone. His eyes stare at nothing as he keels forward. A split second before he hits the ground, the shot that killed him slams against Kristoffer’s eardrums.

“Fuck!” someone shouts from far away.

Then there comes four or five more shots in rapid succession.

Kristoffer ducks down instinctively, feeling as much as hearing the projectiles whizzing by inches above his head. He spins on his heel to run away, when Hans bumps into him, knocking him over, landing halfway atop him. Kristoffer tries to shout something, to tell Hans to get off of him. But Hans isn’t moving, and as Kristoffer shoves him aside, he sees that the top of Hans’s head is open like a can of peeled tomatoes.

Jesus, oh, Jesus …

Kristoffer scrambles to get to his feet as another shot is fired. This one closer. He runs into the cave.

34

Aksel lets go of the wire with his left hand.

Belinda immediately grabs his wrist.

Just like he expected, he can’t hold them both in only one hand, and as his right hand loses its grip, he and Belinda both fumble to catch each other.

As Belinda tilts sideways and is about to go free-falling, they manage to grab hold of each other. Aksel clenches with all he’s got as Belinda swings down, screaming.

His legs are crossed around the wire, and even though it digs into the back of his knees painfully, it holds.

So do their hands. For a few seconds, they hang like circus artists, Aksel head down, Belinda dangling below him. She chokes back a scream, tries to look down, craning her neck. “Don’t let go,” she chants. “Please, don’t drop me!”

“It’s okay,” Aksel wheezes. “You’ll only fall a few feet. The cop will help you. Grab onto her as soon as you land. Okay?”

“Okay!” she gasps.

Aksel is about to count down again, when Belinda’s grip slips. He can’t hold her on his own, and she drops through the air with a scream.

Aksel sees her land on the car—more graceful than the old guy, but still not exactly a 10. She collapses, rolls sideways and is about to slide down the windscreen, when the cop catches one of her legs and stops her. Yanking her back, she just manages to pull Belinda out of reach of the zombie hands eagerly groping for her. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”

Belinda grabs onto the cop’s arms like a drowning person. She begins to cry from fear and relief as the cop ducks down into the car, helping Belinda after her.

Then the cop pops back up and looks at Aksel. “Now it’s your turn!”

Aksel nods. “It’ll be more difficult with me. I’m heavier, and it’s a longer drop. You think you can grab me like you grabbed her?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I’ll try to land on my feet, but I can’t guarantee I’ll succeed.”

“We’ll make it work. Tell me when you’re ready.”

Aksel sucks in a couple of deep breaths while he takes in the view. From up here, it’s like a scene right out of a horror movie. Zombies are crawling all over the parking lot. Pushing up against the car, they cause it to sway back and forth. The young chubby guy has gotten back up to his feet and joined in, and the old guy is still getting eaten, though most of the undead have lost interest in him and returned their attention to fresher prey.

This is it. If I don’t make it, I’ll die. And so will all three of them.

Aksel musters what’s left of his resolve and courage. He didn’t come this far to turn into zombie food just yet.

This is nothing compared to what you did at the hospital. Seriously, this is barely a fall. More just a tumble. It’ll be over before it’s begun.

Still, this feels way more risky. One wrong movement, one arm or leg that goes off the side of the car for just a split second, and he could be pulled to his death.

“Okay,” he tells the cop. “I’m ready. Here I come.”

Then he lets go.

35

While Marit is screaming, Hagos quickly assesses their options.

On their left is a relatively open path, with only a few potted plants on the ground. On their right is a small table with a single chair, a terrace warmer, a broom and a rolled-up garden hose lying in a pile.

Hagos shoves Marit to the left, going right himself. This gives her the least obstructed path and thereby the greatest chance of escape. Also, them splitting up does exactly what he hoped for: It causes the infected guy to hesitate for half a second, unsure whom to go for. As Marit darts past him, he reaches for her, but misses by less than an inch. She runs like an American footballer going for a touchdown, not looking back.

Hagos uses the few additional seconds before the guy can turn back around. He moves around the table, giving himself a small buffer against the other. The guy doesn’t care, however, and simply bursts right into the table as he reaches for Hagos, tipping it over. Hagos jumps back, bumping against the trellis. The guy grabs his shirt, and he instinctively hammers down on his wrist. He loses his grip, but immediately tries to grab hold again. He’s simultaneously pinning Hagos in place with the table. Hagos grabs the chair. It’s not very heavy, and he manages to swing it at him just as he catches his shirt again.

The chair hits the guy’s shoulder and makes him lose his grip again. This time, he also stumbles sideways. It’s enough for Hagos to be able to shove away the table and make a run for it, tipping over the terrace warmer and stumbling over the garden hose. He hears the guy lunge for him, and feels his hand graze his back. Then he’s on the lawn, and for a wild second, he’s sure that he’s made it. Marit’s reached the far end of the lawn, and her dad is still eating away at Lili.

Then Hagos’s leg disappears from under him, and he suddenly finds himself lying flat on his stomach. He tries to get back up, but the guy has grabbed his ankle. Hagos kicks and writhes. Looking back, he realizes it’s not the guy at all, but the garden hose which has wrapped itself around his foot. The guy has lost a few steps due to the chair-knock, but he’s now headed right for Hagos.

Hagos yanks his leg hard, but it only makes the hose tighten its grip. Instead, he sits up and fumbles to get it loose.

He’s too late.

The guy reaches him. Wasting no time, he throws himself at Hagos, attacking with teeth and nails.

Hagos yelps and rolls to the side.

He narrowly dodges the guy landing on him. He feels hands grope for him, and he tries to crawl away, but the damn hose is keeping him back, and the guy pulls at his shirt, reeling him in. Hagos flings back his arm, catching they guy in the face with his forearm.

Then, suddenly, he hears a buzzing by his ear.

Looking to the side, he sees a robot lawn mower come rolling by. Without even thinking, Hagos leans over and grabs it. It’s a small model, but it’s still heavy. However, the adrenaline coursing through his veins makes it no harder for him to lift than if he was picking up a dinner plate. Intending to use it as a shield, he holds the lawn mower in front of him, then thrusts it at the guy just as he gets to his knees and leans over Hagos.

There’s a loud crunching and spluttering sound, as the still spinning blades connect with the guy’s hands. Hagos sees stuff fly in every direction—skin, flesh, bones and blood. The guy retracts for a moment—not because he seems to realize that he’s basically stuck both hands in a meat grinder, but simply to regroup and get around the obstacle. He tries to grab the edge of the lawn mower, but there’s only a bloody, shredded stump left where his hand sat seconds ago.

Hagos coils up his free leg and kicks the guy hard in the chest. He flops to his back, and Hagos—again without even thinking; it’s like some primal program has taken over—presses the lawn mower down on the hose. It gives off one loud snap as the rubber is cut … and then he’s free.

Not a moment too soon, because the guy has gotten back up and is coming for him again.

Hagos flings aside the lawn mower, gets to his feet and backs away. The guy reaches out his arms. Both hands are gone, the bones visible in the gnawed-down stumps. Yet he moves forward with the exact same amount of determination.

He’s like the Terminator … he never stops …

Hagos spins around and runs after Marit.

36

Kristoffer stumbles into the cave, his pulse roaring in his ears, his eyes straining to adjust to the dimness.

The image of Hans keeling over, the top of his brain visible where the bullet punched open his skull is still flashing through his mind, and nausea is pushing from below, wanting to empty out his stomach. Survival instincts are overruling it all, however, and he’s able to focus on just getting as far away from the gunfight as possible.

Gotta find something to defend myself with.

Having lost his knife, he heads for the shelves where he noticed Ragnar kept different tools. He stops, taking a second to scan the selection. There’s a saw, a crowbar, along with several screwdrivers. While all of those are great for close combat, none of them obviously stands a chance against a military rifle.

Don’t bring a handsaw to a gunfight, he thinks, feeling like he’s out of his mind. Yet the thought isn’t crazy. If the soldier behind the cliff shoots Ragnar, then comes into the cave to kill Kristoffer, he’ll be effectively trapped and will have to defend himself.

He kneels down to the lower shelf, on which he sees something more promising: different gas-actuated tools. There’s a drill, a jigsaw, and even a nail gun. Kristoffer grabs the latter along with one of the gas canisters.

He used to do all the repair work around the house whenever anything broke, and he even built the henhouse. So he’s no stranger to carpentry tools, and it only takes him a couple of seconds to click the canister into place. While the nail gun only holds three-inch framing nails, they’ll certainly do the job—as long as he hits his target. He’s never fired a nail gun at anything but floorboards and battens, but he knows it can be done. He just needs to pull back the safety, aim and fire, and anyone who’s close enough will get a nasty—

Kristoffer freezes as he becomes aware of the silence. No shots have been fired since he entered the cave. He takes this to mean the gunfight out there is either over or has hit a stalemate.

I sure hope Ragnar got him …

Kristoffer hesitates, unsure what to do: run farther into the cave, or walk towards the opening to check who’s out there. So, he simply stays put, holding his breath, listening for any sounds.

And he picks up on one. It’s coming from behind.

In a flash he remembers the third soldier—the unarmed one with the raspy voice. The blazing guns made Kristoffer all but forget about him. Where did he go? Kristoffer assumed he ran for cover behind the cliffs, but maybe he actually ran into—

As he goes to turn, an arm slips around his neck and pulls him in.

“Easy, easy,” the soldier whispers in his ear. His voice is tense and full of fear. Kristoffer can smell the gum on his breath—it’s cherry or strawberry. “Don’t do anything stupid. I have a knife. I don’t want to use it, but I will.”

Kristoffer feels the cold blade press against the side of his neck, and he stays absolutely still. “Okay,” he croaks. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Good, that’s good.” The soldier chews loudly and rapidly—obviously a stress-coping habit. “We can still … we can work this out …”

“Sure we can,” Kristoffer tells him.

“Shut up, I’m not talking to you right now …” The soldier pulls Kristoffer back. “Come on, come with me … we have to … I need to find out what happened out there …”

Pushing him forward, the soldier uses Kristoffer as a human shield. He’s not very tall—in fact, Kristoffer is almost a full head taller, and he can easily hide behind him. They walk awkwardly towards the cave’s opening. The sunlight is blinding. Kristoffer squints. He can’t help but look down at the bodies lying there. Hans and the soldier named Lukas both died from precision shots. Pools of blood have formed around their heads.

“Jesus,” the soldiers moans. “Jesus Christ … they shot Lukas … fuck, this is bad …”

Kristoffer just stands there, stiff as a board, aware of the knife at his throat. He scans the surroundings, but sees no one.

“Who did this?” the soldier asks, raising his voice. “Who’s out there?”

Kristoffer isn’t sure if he’s supposed to answer, so he keeps quiet.

“Huh?” the soldier asks again, giving Kristoffer a quick shake. “Answer me!”

“You … you told me not to speak,” Kristoffer mutters.

“Well, now I’m telling you to fucking tell me who shot at us!”

“It’s … my partner. There was three of us, just like you.”

“So it’s only one guy?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s got a fucking sniper rifle …” This sounds more like a fact than a question, and Kristoffer doesn’t reply. “Oh, man … this is bad …” More quick and loud chewing. “Kjell?” he shouts suddenly, and Kristoffer jolts. “Hey, man, you out there?”

The soldier’s voice rings out over the landscape. No answer comes.

“Kjeeell?” he tries again, even louder.

“Your buddy left.”

Kristoffer feels a surge of hope at Ragnar’s voice. He’s not shouting, and it’s hard to tell exactly how far away he is. Kristoffer also can’t discern the direction—probably because the words bounce off the cave walls and echo around them. The soldier obviously can’t figure out where Ragnar is speaking from either, because he looks around wildly, while pulling Kristoffer back a few steps.

“You okay, Kris?”

“I’m … I’m fine,” Kristoffer says out loud, realizing immediately that the soldier didn’t permit him to speak.

“Fuck!” the guy hisses, chewing away rapidly. “Fuck me … this is bad …”

“It’s okay,” Kristoffer tells him. “We can work it out, just like you said …”

“Did you shoot Kjell?” the soldier shouts, addressing Ragnar. “Did you kill him?”

“No,” Ragnar’s voice comes evenly. “Like I just told you, he left. He made a wise decision, because I would have killed him if he didn’t. Just like I’m going to kill you if you as much as harm my partner there.”

Kristoffer feels a weird mixture of relief, gratitude and rising tension. He’s glad that Ragnar is determined to help him, but he doesn’t like his approach.

“Ragnar, I’m glad you’re okay,” he says out loud, before he’s even sure what he’s going to say. “But I think we should solve this without any more violence. We can all walk away from this calmly.” He turns his head slightly, trying to look back at the soldier. He regrets it as the pressure from the knife immediately increases.

“Don’t move!”

“It’s okay, I won’t. Just put down the knife.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” the guy splutters, spit hitting Kristoffer’s ear. “He’s going to blow off my head the second I do.”

“No, I won’t,” Ragnar says, and Kristoffer can tell right away that he’s closer now.

Looking across the plateau, he sees Ragnar step out from behind the bushes. He’s holding the rifle in what seems like a semi-casual way with the barrel pointed at the ground. Yet Kristoffer can tell Ragnar is ready to whip it back up and fire any second. He tries to make it look like that’s not his intention by holding up his other hand, showing it empty.

“Stop right there!” the soldier shrieks. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll fucking cut him!”

Ragnar stops, but says in a voice so calm it reminds Kristoffer of those guys working as hostage negotiators: “We both know you won’t do that. Because if you do, I’ll kill you right away. But Kris is right. It doesn’t need to come to that. Let’s end this little disagreement on friendly terms, shall we?”

The soldier breathes through his nose, stress-chewing his gum. The noise is getting on Kristoffer’s nerves. “Are you for real?” he asks. “Will you really let me live if I let him go?”

“Absolutely,” Ragnar says.

Kristoffer doesn’t know Ragnar that well, but after having spent the last couple of days with the old tough guy, he’s begun picking up on certain markers. Kristoffer was always kind of socially awkward, but at the same time, he’s good at reading people—especially when they’re not being truthful. It’s what made his Spidey sense tingle earlier, when he tried to figure out whether Ragnar was hiding something

about how Ingrid died.

He gets a subtle feeling now that Ragnar isn’t telling his true intentions. He’s being just a bit too willing to cooperate.

The soldier seems to pick up on it too. “I don’t trust you, man … how can I? You just shot the face off my friend there, and I have no idea whether you killed Kjell too …”

“Believe what you will,” Ragnar says in his most diplomatic tone. “This is still your only chance to get out of this alive. You can either stick to your current game plan, and I will eventually have to kill you. Or, you can put down the knife, kick it over here, and I’ll let you walk. God as my witness.”

The soldier seems like he wants to believe Ragnar, but his better judgement is telling him not to. “Jesus, I can’t believe this,” he mumbles. “You killed Lukas … this is bad … this is really bad …”

“It’ll only get worse if you don’t lay down that knife,” Ragnar says. “Look, I’ll take the first step …”

“Don’t …!” the soldier begins, tightening his grip on Kristoffer, probably expecting Ragnar to come closer.

But Ragnar simply crouches down, places the rifle carefully on the rocky ground, then straightens back up, both his knees popping. “There,” he says, holding out his palms. “Your turn.”

As the soldier seems to consider what to do, Ragnar looks Kristoffer dead in the eye and asks: “Das Ding aufgeladen?”

Kristoffer blinks. It takes his brain a couple of seconds to adjust to the shift in language. Then he says: “Was … was für ein Ding?”

“Die Nagelpistole.”

Kristoffer is so surprised by this, if he hadn’t been caught in a chokehold, he would have looked down. He doesn’t need to, though, in order to realize that he’s still holding the nail gun. It’s hanging right there, in his right hand. He forgot all about it. Incredibly, the soldier hasn’t noticed it either. “Ja, schon,” he tells Ragnar.

“What are you saying?” the soldier asks. For the first time, he’s stopped chewing. “What the fuck are you guys talking about?”

“I’m telling him it’ll be all right,” Ragnar says.

“The hell you are! You said something about a pistol! You have a second weapon on you!”

Ragnar smiles. “No, I don’t.” He pulls up his shirt, turning around slowly, showing his belt empty all the way around. He then folds up his sleeves. “Satisfied? Now, please drop the knife.”

“I can’t do it,” the soldier says. “You’ll fucking shoot me the moment I do!”

“I told you, I won’t.” Ragnar keeps looking at the soldier as he says: “Er wird das Messer nicht weglegen. Du musst ihn erschießen.”

Kristoffer’s heart, which was already beating fast, now goes into overdrive. This is not the right way; this is escalating. But he can’t stop it now. He’s afraid Ragnar’s right. The soldier was never going to buy Ragnar’s bluff. This could very well end with Kristoffer getting his throat cut open if he doesn’t do as Ragnar wants him to.

“No more fucking German!” the soldier shouts. “You’re trying to trick me!”

“Wenn ich das Wort ‘schießen’ sage,” Ragnar goes on calmly, “schießt du ihm einen Nagel ins Knie.”

Kristoffer swallows a big lump. “Gut,” he croaks. He tightens the grip on the nail gun. It’s sweaty. His index finger finds the trigger.

“Stop it!” the soldier screams. “Cut it out! One more fucking word I don’t understand, and I swear I’m going to cut off this guy’s fucking ear! You hear me?!”

“Okay, okay,” Ragnar says, holding up his arms. “We’ll stop now.”

“What were you saying? Tell me right now exactly what you were talking about, and no more obvious lies!”

Ragnar lowers his hands in a “calm down” motion. “It’s all right, really. I just needed to tell my partner that in case he doesn’t make it out of this alive, it was an honor knowing him, and that he schießen feel bad for how things—”

Ragnar slips the cue word in there so discreetly, Kristoffer almost misses it.

He acts before he can think. Even as Ragnar is still talking, he pulls back his arm, presses the tip of the nail gun into the side of the soldier’s leg, and squeezes the trigger hard.

37

Ella opens her eyes with a sudden jolt.

She sits upright, looks around the room.

It feels like she was gone for a very long time.

Is this what it feels like? she thinks, realizing to her surprise that she can think. Is this what it’s like being a zombie?

She looks down at her hands. Her skin isn’t green like she expected. And what’s even more curious, she seems to be able to control her movements. Turning over her hands, she opens and closes the fingers. They react to her will. No jerks or spasms. She’s not even shaking anymore.

What’s happening here? Why do I feel like myself?

For a moment, the entire world spins around its axis, making her so dizzy, she almost passes out again. She must be dead, and this must be some kind of dream. Maybe her mind is blocking out everything, creating its own, comforting reality.

Except she doesn’t feel like she’s dreaming. In fact, she feels more clear-headed now than before she passed out. The fever is obviously gone, too. Her hair and clothes are still damp, but she’s not burning up anymore, and the wound on her wrist isn’t hurting either. It doesn’t even look infected anymore.

“This can’t be real,” Ella says. The sound of her own voice only strengthens the impression that this is in fact real. But of course, it can’t be. She’s dead. She died. She remembers it all too vividly.

Then what the hell is this? Purgatory? Some sort of afterlife? I don’t get it …

She gets to her feet. The muscles in her legs, arms and back tell her just how worn they are from the exertion she’s put them through since last night. Also, her body is tired from not sleeping all night and from fighting the infection. This, too, just makes everything seem more real.

She looks at herself in the mirror, and it’s what finally brings it home all the way.

She’s not only alive, she’s perfectly fine.

I kicked it, she realizes at last. I beat the infection …

The first thing that comes to mind is calling her mom. Delivering the good news won’t only bring her mother great relief, it’ll also once and for all cement the fact that this is real. She picks her phone off the floor, only to find it’s run out of battery.

“Damnit …”

She slips it into her pocket, and as she turns towards the door, she becomes aware of the sounds that have been there all along: shuffling feet, several of them, going back and forth. It doesn’t exactly sound like anyone is working the door from the other side, which is kind of weird. Since Ella hasn’t turned into a zombie, they should still be interested in her.

Unless …

Ella has a crazy thought. One that’s simply too implausible.

Still, she needs to know for sure. So, she turns the lock and pushes down the handle. Opening the door halfway, she sees an old lady over by the windows. Her back is turned, and she hasn’t noticed Ella yet.

Then, into view comes an old man, as he lumbers around the door to stare directly in at Ella. She’s close to slamming the door again, but something makes her hesitate.

The old guy just stands there. His black eyes rest on her for a moment. His jaw moves, as though he’s chewing bubblegum.

Then he simply goes on, shambling across the apartment to join the lady by the windows.

Ella breaks into shrill laughter. She can’t help it. The sound doesn’t even make the zombie couple turn around. They don’t care anymore. It’s like she’s not there.

“Holy hell,” Ella breathes. “I’ve become immune …”

***

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