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

cold had made her skin deathly pale, and it was difficult to tell where the skin ended and the fabric began. As Anders looked around for the bag containing Elin’s clothes, Henrik ran his hands over her breasts and stomach and said, ‘Have you earned it, baby? I don’t think so. Not yet.’

The carrier bag was lying by the fence a couple of metres away from where Anders had landed after the crash. Whether Henrik and Björn were ghosts or crazy or both, this couldn’t go on. Elin would freeze to death.

Anders pulled her sweater out of the bag and went over to the group. Despite the impossibility of Henrik and Björn’s presence, and despite the knife in Henrik’s hand, Anders was not afraid. In the same way as a school reunion tends to cast everyone in their former roles once again, he regarded Henrik and Björn as nothing more than the slightly ridiculous boys they had been in the old days; he had no respect for them. He held out the sweater to Elin. ‘Here. Put this on.’

Elin didn’t move, and her gaze was turned in on herself. When Anders rolled the sweater up to put it on her, Henrik took a step forward and placed himself in the way. He looked Anders in the eye and said, ‘What’s changed? Nothing, I just love you less. Slightly less than I did, anyway.’

As he uttered the last word he swept his hand in an arc over Anders’ legs. It felt as if he had been lashed with a whip, and when he looked down he saw that his jeans had been slashed across both thighs; there were two cuts the width of a hand in the fabric. For a second he could also see the pink flesh in the cuts. Then came the blood. It filled the gashes and dark stains spread over the fabric.

Before Anders had time to think the thought: I’ve been cut, his chin was hit by the metal knob on the end of the knife’s handle. Everything went black and he staggered backwards for a couple of steps before he fell over and hit his shoulder on the platform of the moped. The adrenaline was running riot in his body, and he started shaking.

Henrik pointed the knife at him and mused, ‘What do you think the knife wants?’ He grinned and made a slitting motion.

Björn laughed as though he had heard an unusually funny joke. Without taking his eyes off Anders, Henrik extended the palm of his hand. Björn gave him five and said, ‘That was good.’

Anders had drawn up his knees and warm blood was pouring down his thighs, tickling its way over his groin and gathering under his bottom. His head was reverberating with a sound like the lingering echo of a church bell, and he was too weak to get to his feet. Henrik continued lecturing him.

‘Elin here,’ said Henrik, placing an arm around her shoulders, ‘she was a great girl, wasn’t she? Looked after herself. If anyone came too close, she started screaming. Times have certainly changed.’

Incapable of doing anything more than lifting one arm in an impotent attempt to put an end to all this, Anders leaned against the moped and watched as Henrik grabbed the blade of the knife and pushed the metal knob on the handle inside Elin’s pants. He glanced at Anders, nodded, then pushed the whole of the handle inside Elin’s vagina.

She didn’t make a sound. The blade was sticking out of her pants like a metal penis. When Anders looked up at her face, he saw that she was smiling. A big, ugly smile. His stomach turned over and sour vomit spurted out between his lips, all over the gravel beside him.

He wiped his mouth and took a deep breath. Through his burning throat he managed just one harsh word, ‘Elin!’

Elin’s eyelids flickered and she looked at him. Her eyes came back to life, and when she looked down below her belly she screamed. Henrik snorted, grabbed the blade and pulled out the handle. Björn grabbed her from behind, locking her arms as Henrik caressed her skin with the blade. He turned to Anders.

‘You still haven’t answered the question,’ he said.

A tiny amount of strength was beginning to return to Anders’ body. Soon he would be able to stand up, and he thought: A weapon, where can I find a weapon? as he said, ‘What question?’

‘The one about the disco,’ said Björn, adopting a pedagogical tone, as if he were addressing a particularly stupid pupil, ‘Why are we burning down the disco?’

‘I don’t know.’

The fence post. The one that came loose.

Elin was screaming wordlessly and writhing in Björn’s grip. Henrik put his arm around her neck with his hand over her mouth, then turned to Anders again, nodded briefly and slashed her stomach.

A muffled scream escaped from beneath Henrik’s firmly clamped hand and Elin’s legs kicked out as she tried to free herself, while a trickle of blood spread horizontally along a crease in her stomach. Anders staggered to his feet and Henrik pointed the knife at him.

‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘Chill. That was worth a clue.’

Anders wasn’t sure his body would obey him if he tried to rush over to the fence, so he stayed where he was and tried to gather his strength as Björn said, ‘For the same reason as we’re hanging the disc jockey.’

Henrik nodded and loosened his grip on Elin’s mouth, dug his hand inside her bra and grabbed one nipple, pulled it out and rested the blade of the knife against it. Elin was now dangling helplessly in Björn’s grasp, too frightened even to scream.

‘Last chance,’ said Henrik. ‘Why are we going to hang the DJ and burn the disco?’ He made a couple of sawing movements with the knife a centimetre above Elin’s stretched, pink flesh, and said, ‘Come on Anders, you know this.’

There was no possibility that he could reach the fence post before Henrik let the knife