Chapter 12 - Regression

Chapter 12

Disclaimer:
The following is adapted from the novel Let the Right One In by John A. Linqvist and the film bearing the same name. The characters in this work are those of Mr. Linqvist and no copyright protection is asserted to this work.

Oskar vomited into the toilet. Most of his dinner came out the first time, and a little more on the second round. Then he endured some dry heaves before he finally felt better.

He remained kneeling for a few moments in front of the bowl in his underwear, shivering. Fever is getting higher, he thought. He stood and looked at himself in the vanity as he shook three Tylenol out of the bottle and put it back on the sink. You don’t look so hot. Should go lie down.

He swallowed the pills, gargled some water to rinse the acrid taste out of his mouth, and then forced himself to drink two full glasses before going back to his mattress. He tried to avoid the Legos scattered across the carpet, and stepped over the pile of dirty clothes before lying down and pulling the blanket up to his neck. The little portable TV he’d bought from a pawn shop two weeks ago sat next to his bed, switched off and silent. He didn’t feel like watching it right now, and besides, the reception was crappy.

He rolled onto his side and stared at the half-sheet of notebook paper he’d taped to the wall. The little string of lead hash marks was growing long: 48 days and counting. Christmas, spent by himself with much crying and unhappiness, had come and gone, and 1984 was right around the corner. He closed his eyes and felt the tears leak out as he listened to the wind.

He reached down to the floor by his alarm clock and grabbed a little piece of dog-eared cardboard out from under the crucifix and unfolded it. I MUST BE GONE AND LIVE, OR STAY AND DIE. A heart, then: YOURS, ELI. He brought it to his face and pressed it to his cheek. Sniffed and closed his eyes, willing its talismanic power to right everything; to restore his focus. It didn’t work; he felt nothing.

Eli, you seem so far away. I’m finding it harder and harder to . . . make you real in my mind.

Things are definitely falling apart, he thought to himself as he put it back on the floor. Tried to keep things going, keep a stiff upper lip, put up the good fight, blah blah blah, but . . . I’m losing. I can’t even pray for you anymore.

He thought about all the things he should be doing if he hadn’t been flat on his back with the flu. The most important of which was getting himself down to the cemetery to check on Eli. Yeah . . . but he’d even let that slip over the last ten days. Instead of going nightly, he had started going every other night, telling himself that the odds were still good of being there at sundown if she woke up and needed help. Then this week, he had stayed home for two days. Tonight would be the third day, if he didn’t go. And he definitely did not feel like going out tonight.

She didn’t want you to be around, anyway. She wouldn’t have wanted you to keep going back, night after night, like you’ve been doing. Because of the danger. Better for you to just stay here and wait. Trust her judgment.

But what if she really does need help? What if she had just been giving me a lot of bold talk and she really didn’t have a plan to deal with herself when this horrible hibernation thing ends? What then? She had the old guy, before, to help out. Now all she has is me.

I should just stay here and try to make the place presentable for when she gets back. Tackle those dishes stacked up in the sink. Pick up a little. Do some laundry. Make her think that waiting seven weeks for her was a piece of cake—a great, personally rewarding experience that I’d love to go through again. He smiled cynically.

He turned onto his back and closed his eyes, trying to sleep. He kept imagining, though, what had grown to become, over the last days and weeks, his worst nightmare: Eli crawling out of the tomb, helpless and weak. Lying in the snow, unable to move, until the dawn came or some well-armed passerby dispatched her with a shot through the heart. And while he was thus engaged, he fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

Oskar woke up; looked groggily at his alarm clock: 5:45 a.m. The sun would be coming up in three hours. And then, the third day of neglecting the tomb—really, of neglecting Eli—would pass. He swore, threw the covers off, and sat up. Immediately he felt dizzy, and he lay back down again to let the feeling pass.

Screw it—I’m going. Nothing will happen, as usual, but I’m going anyway. Don’t care what time it is; don’t care how I feel. She might need me; might die without me.

He was less than halfway there when he began to seriously regret his decision. It was below freezing, the wind was making it feel even colder, and the cloud cover was so thick that there was almost no light. He trudged along through the snow with his flashlight, dressed in his warmest clothes—long johns, pants and sweatshirt, ski suit, hat, gloves, and boots—everything. He was warm enough but still felt weak, and shook from bouts of shivering. He had a big wad of tissues in a pocket that he kept hauling out and using to blow the thick, yellowish snot from his nose.

He knew exactly where he was. Could walk this in my sleep, he thought. Might have to, at this rate. He stopped and leaned against a tree to rest for a moment with his head down. What a dumb idea this was. Did you think about what might happen if you get so sick that you need to go see a doctor, Oskar? You’re probably at that point right now. Who will you tell them you are when you get to the ER? Pick a name off a tombstone. He rested a few moments, and then kept going.

“E-L-I A-R-E U T-H-E-R-E I-T-S O-S-K-A-R.”

He tapped out the message with the small hunk of granite he’d found in the bushes the first night he’d started doing this. He knew the Code by heart, and the wall of the mausoleum next to his little spot was scratched and dotted with innumerable scars from his previous efforts to communicate with her. Pretty soon it’ll be completely clean, he mused. All that age-old grime will be worn away. Maybe eventually I’ll just chip a hole clean through to her.

Since the night he’d gone inside the mausoleum, he hadn’t dared to go back to the front door. He was afraid that he if did, someone—a groundskeeper, or maybe a visitor—might notice the disturbance in the snow from his footprints and wonder what was going on. Might push that door open; might see that one of the vaults had been disturbed. And then . . . .

It killed him that he didn’t even really know if Eli was still sleeping inside the tomb. He had never stayed here all night, and for all he knew, she might have left days or even weeks ago. The whole situation was simply intolerable. No sane person would be doing this, he thought.

He tried a few more times with his standard variants.

“E-L-I I-T-S M-E O-S-K-A-R.”

He listened. Nothing.

“E-L-I W-A-K-E U-P.”

He pressed his ear to the wall again. Thought he heard . . . ? No—just the wind.

“I L-O-V-E Y-O-U E—”

A thunderous crash reverberated through the crypt. Oskar dropped his rock in fright. He felt the vibration in his knees and calves, even through all the layers of his clothing, and instantly knew what it was. Only one thing could cause such an enormous sound: the marble slab had fallen over.

He scrambled to his feet in a panic. An urge to flee overpowered him, and he bolted out of the scrubby bushes at a run. He did not go toward the back of the cemetery where he had come in, but headed toward the front, so he could watch the mausoleum door. He flew past the entrance, turning his head to check the door as he did so (Still closed! he observed with relief), and kept going. He ran to a large statue of a weeping angel about 75 meters away with ERIKSSON carved into its big, granite base, and crouched down behind it.

Once he’d caught his breath, he peeked around the corner. Nothing changed. The heavy, bronze door remained shut.

Oskar waited, kneeling, in the snow. Waited . . . and waited. And waited some more.

He began glancing at his watch, pushing the little button to light up the LCD and see what time it was. His watch told him it was 6:53 a.m. The cold in the ground crept up into his shins, numbing them. Five minutes. Eight minutes. Ten minutes. He quietly fished his tissues out and wiped his nose; wanted to blow, but didn’t dare make a sound.

His legs had begun to cramp, so as silently as he could, he stood up behind the angel and felt the welcome flow of blood return, tingling, into his calves. He was fairly sure his body was hidden behind her graceful wings, which flowed down into the base of the monument. He waited some more. What is she doing in there?, he wondered.

When 30 minutes came and went, his fear began to give way to impatience. I should just get out of here now, while I still can. Before that door—

With an inhuman groan, the door slowly swung inward on its old, bronze castings. Oskar froze, the adrenaline rushing through his veins. It squealed and swung about halfway open, then stopped. He could not see anything behind it.

Oskar realized that now, if she wasn’t Eli anymore, he was trapped.

He slowly crouched down again and pivoted so he could look behind him for a possible escape route. It was so dark that he could hardly see anything. The only thing that jumped out at him, and that was new and out of place, was a big yellow backhoe parked off to his left. There was a freshly dug, open grave next to it. He tried to think of how he could sprint from his spot to some of the larger tombstones and thereby get to the backhoe without being seen. But he knew, even as he considered it, that the plan was ridiculous. Unless she shut the door again, Eli would easily see him. And if she had reverted to something shriveled and monstrous, and didn’t recognize him . . . he’d be dead.

Come on, Eli, he thought desperately. Shut the door. Or, better yet, come out looking happy and normal so I can give you a hug and we can go home together. Cut me a little break, will you?

There was nothing to do but wait. He continued to watch until he felt a cough coming on. Then he slid back around and did his best to suppress it with his gloves. He again felt weak, and his fever seemed to be rising. He slipped down until he was sitting on his behind with his back against the pedestal. He drew his legs up, tucked his head down, and waited for dawn.

Oskar had dozed off for what seemed to him only a short time when he was startled awake by the harsh clang of iron striking stone. It was still dark, but only 15 or 20 minutes before sunrise. His butt was cold and numb, and he was relieved that soon he would be able to go home. But what had that noise been? He got stiffly to his feet, turned, and cautiously looked once again at the tomb.

The door was still half open. But now the crowbar was lying on the threshold, half in and half out of the doorway. And lying in the snow, immediately in front of the door, was Eli’s hat.

At the same time that he saw these things, Oskar heard the sound of an approaching motor. He looked to the left and saw the headlights of a vehicle a few hundred meters away. It stopped briefly, then turned right and slowly approached him on the path nearest to the mausoleum.

As it drew near, Oskar saw that it was a green pickup truck with the name of the cemetery stenciled on the passenger door, the side facing him. The passenger door window was frosted up, and he could not see who was driving.

When the truck was a short distance from the mausoleum, it stopped. Oskar heard a change in the sound of its motor as the driver shifted it from drive into park. Then the driver’s door was opened and shut.

A man dressed in a winter coat and hat emerged from behind the truck and headed toward the door of the crypt, which now seemed to Oskar like a dangerous, metal mouth yawning open, ready to spring closed. It was too dark for Oskar to see him clearly, but over the rumble of the pickup’s idling motor he heard the man mutter, “Damn kids.”

In the reflected light of the pickup’s headlights, Oskar saw the groundskeeper stop in front of the door, stoop down and pick up the crowbar with his left hand. Then he produced a flashlight, switched it on, and pushed the door further open with the light and his right hand.

The beam of the flashlight zigzagged around the interior of the crypt, then stopped, pointing down at something on the floor. Oskar knew what the man had seen.

“Christ,” the man exclaimed in a disgusted tone. “What the hell.” And then he stepped inside.

The dread in Oskar’s heart that he had felt from when the man had left his truck swelled and burst in his chest. He wanted to say something, to shout a warning, but nothing came out but a dry wheeze. No no no no NO—

Soundlessly, a dark shape dropped from somewhere above the door and landed on the man’s back. He grunted with a loud oof! and fell, rolling to the side and out of Oskar’s vision. Oskar heard scuffling noises and began to quiver with fear. Then there was a high-pitched, ear-bursting scream; a scream with no control, full of complete terror. The kind of scream a man might make if he was plummeting to his death off a skyscraper, or if he was being eaten alive by a shark.

The sounds of a struggle grew louder. He heard a sharp, snarling noise that a wolf might make, fighting to keep its kill for itself. There was a clanking sound and then Oskar saw the flashlight roll across the floor in a lazy arc and come to rest, illuminating one side of the tiered vaults. One booted foot suddenly swished into view, the heel scraping on the floor. It began to jerk spasmodically. Then the other foot appeared, and both of them thumped and twitched an erratic drumbeat on the floor.

The man’s scream rose and fell, rose and fell. Then it was abruptly cut short. And with this, Oskar could now hear the same, awful sounds he had heard in Eli’s bathroom when the man from the neighborhood had died—grotesque, wet sucking sounds, intermittently broken by a low growl.

Oskar knew as these events unfolded that now was the time to make his escape; while Eli was distracted by her kill. But instead, he was rooted to the spot, completely unable to tear his eyes away from the carnage. And so it was that he saw Eli emerge from the building.

His blood ran cold at the sight of her. He froze, completely unable to move. If he had never seen her before, he could not have guessed that she was the same Eli that he had come to know and love.

She was wearing only his pants. Her hair had grown much longer than its previous length, and flowed in tangled curls down her back. Her skin looked bluish-gray in the light from the truck. Her face could not be described as human. Her eyes were two enormous, dark holes, the pupils appearing to gleam in the darkness. The fanged mouth hung half open, the red, red tongue clearly visible. Her lips, chin and chest were covered in fresh blood. Her shoulders and forearms were much larger than Oskar had ever seen them; the slender, beautiful limbs that had encircled him on their last night together were now those of a beast—bulky and muscular, terminating in terrifying claws that were streaked with gore.

The Eli-thing sat panting on its haunches in the doorway, looking from side to side. Oskar shrank back in fright from his vantage point, and just as he did, its head swung toward him and appeared to look directly at him. Oskar stifled a tiny cry of terror and froze, flattened against the back of his guardian angel, head cocked to listen to the tiniest sound he might hear over the idle of the truck. Then he heard a growl and the sound of feet on snow which moved with incredible swiftness to his left, and faded out into the darkness.