Harbor by John Lindqvist (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

Watches were examined, with some people expressing concern that it was so late; Simon was the target of some sideways glances, since it was his appearance that had led to the whole thing being so drawn out.

Simon couldn’t believe it: they were sitting here discussing terrible forces, how they should be dealt with, and their own survival. And yet this paled in comparison with the risk of missing the news on TV. Then he realised it was only to him it looked that way. For them the threat had become a part of their everyday life, a depressing fact, not something that needed to be discussed. Like people in a war zone or a city under siege, they clung to the small elements of happiness that still exist in life. If the news can be regarded as a component of happiness.

Simon raised his hands to show that he was giving up, that he wasn’t going to make any more demands on their time. For now.

Anna-Greta nodded to Elof. He looked bewildered, then realised that he was expected to carry on from where he had left off a couple of hours earlier.

‘Right, well, as I said before…before we were interrupted…I can only think that this is a positive development.’ Simon noticed that several of the others were shaking their heads, but Elof went on, ‘It’s never happened before, no one has ever…come back. I would say this is an indication that…it’s getting weaker. Somehow.’

His lips moved but he couldn’t work out how to proceed. Anna-Greta helped him out, ‘And what do you think we should do about that?’

‘Well…’

He didn’t get any further before he was interrupted by a noise. At first Simon thought it was a distant foghorn, but then he remembered what it was. It had been heard that time when some idiot from Stockholm had set fire to some brushwood at the end of June, and almost set the whole of Kattudden alight.

Everyone was on their feet immediately.

‘Fire!’

Jackets and coats were pulled on, and within a minute the room was empty. Only Simon and Anna-Greta remained. They looked at each other without speaking. Then Simon turned on his heel and went out.

After the light inside the hall, the autumn darkness was dense. The little megaphone in the alarm bell tower was sending out its pulsating tone, but there was no sign of a fire down towards the village. In any case, the wind was coming from the south-west. He should have been able to smell the smoke on the breeze if the fire was in that direction.

There was a fire service, but it was focused on the area around the harbour, the original settlement. A powerful pump next to the jetty was connected to a four-hundred-metre pipe, and in an emergencythis could be used to hose sea water over most of the buildings in the central part of the village.

But the fire wasn’t in the central part of the village. When Simon’s eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, he could see the outlines of the others from the meeting. They were heading for Kattudden. The low-lying clouds to the east were tinged with pink. When he had gone a few steps in that direction, Anna-Greta appeared by his side. She groped for his hand, and Simon pulled it away.

After about fifty metres they caught up with Tora Österberg. Her gumboots creaked slowly in the darkness as she moved along with the help of her wheeled walker. She was dangerously close to the edge of the track and the ditch. Anna-Greta grabbed her arm and stopped her from tipping over the edge.

‘Go home, Tora,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘You’re not needed here.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with being needed,’ snapped Tora. ‘I want to see what’s going on.’

Simon took the opportunity to put some distance between himself and Anna-Greta. He strode out as fast as he could, and slowed down only when Tora’s indignant voice was far behind him. He was so disappointed in Anna-Greta, and he just didn’t know what to do.

The purely symbolic rent he had been paying for so many years had enabled him to put quite a bit of money away, and he could probably afford to buy a house. Perhaps he could buy the house he lived in from Anna-Greta?

He smiled bitterly. No. For one thing he wouldn’t be able to pay what a house so near the shore was worth, for another he might not want to live close to Anna-Greta any longer, for another…for another it would be like paying back the rent he really owed.

Fuck her. Fuck the lot of them.

Suddenly the ground fell away beneath his feet and he tumbled over. The darkness in the forest, the darkness in his head had led him to the ditch. As he landed he grazed his hand on a rock. Tears of pain and fury welled up in his eyes and he screamed out loud, ‘Fucking hell!’

Then he pulled himself together and checked himself over. Nothing was broken or damaged, and he didn’t want Anna-Greta to see him like this. He crawled out of the ditch and got to his feet, pressing the cut on his hand against the edge of his shirt. He was about to set off again when he heard the sound of an engine approaching. It was coming from the forest, from the path leading down to the shore on the northern side of the island.

The sound was strained, hysterical, like a moped engine being revved much too hard. He peered into the forest and there it was, the headlight of a moped bouncing along the narrow track, its engine roaring.

Who the hell is that? It’s virtually impossible to ride along there!

The only house in that direction was Holger’s, and Holger didn’t have a moped. Besides which, he would never have driven a moped with a cargo platform—because Simon could hear from the rattling noise that it was a platform moped—along the bumpy path.

The moped