Let the Right One In

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Gösta did not appreciate the joke and Lacke waved his hands in front of him. “No, sorry. I was just . . . uh, I’m all . . . this thing with Virginia, you know. I . . .” He suddenly straightened up, slammed his hand on the table. “I don’t want to be here anymore!” Gösta jumped in his spot on the couch. The cat in front of Lacke’s feet snuck away, hid under the armchair. From somewhere in the room he heard a cat hiss. Gösta shifted his weight, wiggled his glass in his hand. “You don’t have to. Not for my . . .” “No, not that. Here. The whole shebang. Blackeberg. Everything. These buildings, the walking paths, the spaces, people, everything is just . . . like a single big damn sickness, see? Something went wrong. They thought all this out, planned it to be . . . perfect, you know. And in some damn wrinkle it went wrong, instead. Some shit. “Like . . . I can’t explain it . . . like they had some idea about the angles, or fucking whatever, the angles of the buildings, in their relation to each other, you know. So it would be harmonious or something. And then they made a mistake in their measurements, their triangulation, whatever the hell they call it, so that it was all a little off from the start, and it went downhill from there. So you walk here with all these buildings and you just feel that . . . no. No, no, no. You shouldn’t be here. This place is all wrong, you know? “Except it isn’t the angles, it’s something else, something that just . . . like a disease that’s in the ...