Run Run as Fast as You Can (19 page)

I took the glass and stared into it wondering if they had drugged it. Then I watched Christian lift his, toast and guzzle it down.

"Give me one of those," Lisa said, and grabbed a glass out of Sophia's hand. Then she drank it greedily.

If they can do it
… I thought, and lifted the glass and sipped from it. Sophia drank hers as well while Christian poured himself another one. Morten didn't touch his and left it on the table. The alcohol warmed my stomach and made me calmer. Sophia handed me another and had one more herself. She had stopped breastfeeding just a few days ago and I guessed she was enjoying the fact that she could have a couple of drinks now. I drank one more, then told them I had enough. The alcohol made me dizzy, but very, very relaxed. Morten seemed troubled. I felt like hugging him and letting him know how much I liked him. Christian and Lisa were drinking heavily now. They were laughing and pouring more into their glasses. I couldn't help staring at them, wondering how many they had killed. Imagining how and where they had done it and wondering if they were planning on attacking us while we were asleep.

Freaking Bonnie and Clyde in my own house.

I looked at the half empty bottle of Sherry on the table. Maybe that was why Christian had taken out the bottle? It wasn't that it was drugged. No it was just to make us fall asleep, wasn't it? Were they going to kill all of us? Or just some? Would they kill one then come back for more? Would they hurt the kids?

The thought made me clench my fists. I decided I wasn't going to let them do anything to anyone. I was going to stay awake all night and keep both my eyes and ears open. Nothing was going to come past me.

If they planned anything this night, then they'd have to deal with me first. Well me, and hopefully, Morten.

50

March 2013

T
HEY TRIED GOING
to the police, but no one believed them. Thomas watched through a window when they showed an officer the note and the coffin, but he told them Thomas was dead and he even had a death certificate to prove it.

It had to be someone else. Maybe it was just a joke.

Ellen and her handsome husband left the police station in Nordby while Thomas followed them. He jumped inside his car and followed them down the road, leaving a couple of cars between them in order to not be seen. He had become an expert at remaining hidden.

From afar, he could tell they were fighting in the car. The handsome husband was yelling and gesticulating heavily while Ellen only got a word in here and there. They continued like that until they reached the shopping district downtown and the husband stopped the car in front of the liquor store. Thomas could tell Ellen didn't want him to go in there. She pulled his shirt and appeared agitated. Thomas drove past her car and parked down a side street, where he was able to stay hidden and still see when the husband came out of the store.

A minivan drove up on his side and stopped for a red light. Thomas turned and looked inside. In it, he spotted five women. They seemed to be arguing as well. The lady driving was yelling and screaming at the ones in the back seat. Thomas stopped looking at them and turned his head to look at Ellen again, when he realized she had decided to get out of the car.

Where are you going?

Next to Thomas' car was a bakery. Was she heading for the bakery? She did have a bad habit of overeating when she was upset. Something that had started to show on her hips.

You know you'll regret it.

That was when it dawned on Thomas. This was it. This was his moment. It would be the easiest thing in the world. He could walk right up there to her and grab her before anyone saw it and put her in his car. It would be a piece of cake. He could pretend he had a weapon, a gun in his pocket, and she would follow him without a word.

Yes, yes. That is it. It's now or never Thomas. This is your moment to shine.

Thomas felt exhilarated. He clapped his hands and looked at Ellen as she walked across the street. Thomas exited his car as well and started walking towards her. She was crossing the road. A sound startled Thomas and he turned just in time to see the minivan miss him. He looked in the van in the split second it drove past him and noticed the woman driver was still yelling at the women in the back and not watching the road at all. Panic hit him and his heart stopped.

Ellen!

Tires screeched, then a thud followed and everything went quiet inside of Thomas. He saw people staring at the minivan with open mouths, while others covered their eyes with their hands. The minivan finally stopped further down the road and all the women got out of the car. One of them kneeled on the ground and threw up. Another stood with her mouth open like she was screaming but Thomas couldn't hear her. He heard nothing, not even the handsome husband's screams when he came running out of the liquor store to throw himself at Ellen's dead body on the asphalt.

Thomas didn't even hear the sirens when the ambulance and police arrived and cleared the street. He stared at the ground where the remains of Ellen were scattered all over the street. The last thing Thomas remembers was when his eyes, for a split second, met those of the handsome husband who was crying helplessly while the paramedics tried to help him get away from his dead wife.

51

November 2013

T
HOMAS WAS LOOKING
in the windows of the pretty woman's house. She wasn't beautiful like Ellen had been, but he thought she was pretty, in a casual sort of way. Emma was her name, he had learned. And she was harboring the two women who Thomas was looking for.

The last two from the car that hit Ellen.

They thought they could hide, didn't they? But they didn't know Thomas very well. They didn't know he knew everything about them, every friend they had, every move they had made the past eight months. He had followed them, all of them, written down their routines in detail, making sure he never left anything out. He knew when Lisa had a doctor's appointment and when Sophia was getting her alimony check because then she would go shopping for new clothes for her many children. He had kept track of all five of them to make his revenge perfect.

After the accident, the handsome husband left the farm outside of town … abandoned it. Thomas couldn't just leave everything the way the husband had done. He kept coming back, remembering Ellen and not wanting to let her go. Even if the house was now empty except for a few pieces of furniture and other things they had left behind … among them all of Ellen's clothes, which Thomas smelled every day and even wore on some days when he really missed her and thought he wasn't going to survive without her.

For weeks, he cried every day while sitting in her bedroom with the windows closed so her scent wouldn't disappear. One day, there had been someone in there with him. He had heard a strange sound, then walked to the kitchen to discover a small bat on the floor who was trying to fly, but it had broken its wing. Seeing himself a little in the young bat with a broken wing, Thomas picked it up and in the following days he nursed it back to health. Soon, he found another one hanging under the ceiling. As he walked around the house, he realized it wasn't alone. So he built them a cage and put them in it. For quite a while, they were his only company.

It was one day while feeding them, by letting them suck his blood through an open wound, that he came up with the idea for his revenge. He wanted so badly to punish someone for Ellen's death, and who better than those crazy women? He knew it was all their fault. Especially the driver. She hadn't been paying any attention, she hadn't kept her eyes on the road as she was supposed to.

As the days passed in the empty house, Thomas became more and more convinced that it was the women's fault and he started planning his revenge. He started following each one of them, and soon, he was very busy keeping track of everything they did and who they did it with.

Now eight months later, he had killed three of them by shooting them with the handsome man's old rifle that he had left behind.

Thomas felt better each time he killed one of these despicable women. What bothered him the most was that woman, Lisa. He recognized her as the woman he had been watching for a short while after Ellen had moved to the countryside. There wasn't a day when he didn't regret not having killed her back then. The thought came again and again like a thief at night.

If only I had … No, no. You mustn't punish yourself for what happened to Ellen. It wasn't your fault. It was theirs. It was especially hers.

Lisa Rasmussen was a terrible woman, Thomas had come to know. He was the one who had handed the papers to her opponent, Per Egon, the ones showing that Lisa never took her exam. An idiot like Per Egon never would have thought of this himself. So, Thomas helped him a little. But Thomas had seen Lisa do horrible things to people. Oh boy. He had even seen her punch a small boy in the gut and knock the air out of him, just because he cut in line in the candy store while the owner looked away. Entering the store just as she did it, Thomas heard the boy start to cry. Lisa then whispered in the boy's ear that she would kill his dog if he ever told anyone. So he didn't.

No, there was no doubt that Thomas was doing the world a huge favor by getting rid of her and the same probably went for the rest of the women. They were all horrible creatures.

Three down, two to go.

Thomas giggled as he watched all of them gathered in the living room. All he had to do now was to make his pick. Who would go first?

52

November 2013

B
Y ONE O'CLOCK,
we all slept heavily. I fought the urge to fall asleep for as long as I could, but soon I dozed off as well. Dizzy from the sherry and exhausted from all the agitation, I closed my eyes for just one second and then fell into a deep sleep on my couch. I thought Morten would hold out, but when I opened my eyes and realized it was light out, the first thing I saw was him sitting in the chair with his head tilted backwards, sound asleep. The rest of the company had disappeared.

"Morten," I whispered.

He grunted. "Not now."

"Morten. Wake up."

"What?"

"Wake up. We fell asleep. It’s morning."

Morten sat up with a startled look. "We fell asleep?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I'm so sorry, Emma. I was supposed to stay awake."

"I'll go check on everyone upstairs," I said, and got up. I hurried into Maya's room and found her in a deep sleep snuggled up in the middle of the bed, drooling on her pillow. I smiled and backed out of the room quietly. Then I entered Victor's room. He was already awake, sitting in his chair with his notebook on his knees, writing in it while rocking back and forth.

"Hi buddy. Did you sleep well?" I asked. Then I realized he was still wearing the hearing protection I borrowed from Jack. I approached him and kneeled in front of him. His face seemed tormented. I grabbed one of the ears on the hearing protection and pulled it off of him.

"Hi, sweetie. Did you sleep okay?"

Victor lifted his eyes and looked into mine. It was always so intense when he did that. My heart rate went up.

"Is something wrong?"

"The bats are screaming, Mommy."

My heart was beating faster now. "Is someone with them now, Victor?"

Victor removed my hand from the hearing protection, then pressed it closer to his ears like they weren't enough to keep out the sound. Then he nodded. I was struck by a sudden feeling, rose to my feet, and stormed towards Sophia's room. I opened the door and found the bed empty. I gasped, then walked inside.

"Sophia?" I called.

Baby Alma was babbling from her travel bed in the corner. I walked to her and picked her up. "Where is Mommy, Alma?"

I looked at the bed. It hadn't been slept in at all. I walked into the bathroom with a pounding heart. "Sophia?" I called again and again. But no answer came. I found her clothes on the chair so she had undressed and gotten ready for bed, but then what? Where did she go after that?

Sophia would never, ever leave Alma
.

The thought made me run down the hallway while calling Sophia's name and looking into all of the rooms, one after another. I wondered if she had gone in to sleep with her other children and found their room. They were all awake; two of them were fighting and throwing pillows. One was sitting on the floor crying while the oldest was trying to comfort him. They all froze as I entered the room.

"Have any of you seen your mother?" I asked, trying not to sound worried. "Alma needs to be fed."

"There is milk in the refrigerator," the oldest, Christoffer said.

"Has your mother been in here this morning?" I asked.

Christoffer looked concerned. "No. Why?"

I shook my head and forced a smile. "No reason. I'm just looking for her, that's all."

The twins Anne and Erik looked at me with big eyes. "You can't find Mommy?" they asked in unison.

"No, no. I'm sure she is downstairs. It's just a big house."

The two oldest, Christoffer and Ida, knew I was lying. I could tell by the worry that was suddenly planted across their faces. "I'll find her," I said. "Just take care of each other, will you?"

They promised and I closed the door. I ran from door to door, knocking, then went back to Maya's room and woke her up.

"Please take care of Alma. Sophia is missing. I need to find her. There is milk in the refrigerator."

53

November 2013

T
HEY WERE FIGHTING
again. They had been going at it all morning and none of them remembered why anymore. Lisa sighed and looked at Amalie and Jacob who were yelling at each other, one screaming louder than the other while baby Margrethe was crying loudly, like she was trying to drown all of them out. This was, all of a sudden, a very small room. The kids had come in to get their clothes and use the bathroom.