Dan just stands for a moment, paralyzed, thoughts darting back and forth inside his head. Thomas will wake up any moment. The doctors have no idea of the danger. If they bring him inside the hospital to try and resuscitate him—
His train of thought is abruptly interrupted when Thomas opens his eyes. But as the empty, milk-white balls turn to look at him, Dan can tell at once it’s no longer Thomas peering out of them. He utters a hiss and reaches up to grab him.
Dan acts out of instinct: he grabs the lid and slams it down. Thomas immediately starts scratching on the inside.
Dan skips round the car to Linda’s side, and she rolls down the window.
“What happened?” she asks.
Dan shakes his head. “It’s too late. He’s—”
The nurse comes running back out, bringing two colleagues and a gurney.
Dan steps out in front of them, his heart pounding, holding up his hands. “He’s dead! There’s nothing you can do!”
The nurse doesn’t pay any attention to him, he simply pushes him aside and grabs the handle to the trunk. “How do you get this open?”
“Listen to me!” Dan yells, his voice pleading now. “We can’t … it’s dangerous … he’s no longer human!”
One the other nurses—a young Indian-looking woman—exclaims: “I can hear him in there! He’s regained consciousness.” She turns to seize Dan by the arm. “Open that trunk lid, right now!”
The male nurse is still struggling to open the lid, tugging at it hard. Dan is close to panic. He only sees one way out of the situation, so he screams: “Go, Linda! Drive!”
The engine roars and the car skids forward.
“No!” the nurse yells, letting go of Dan. “What the hell are you guys doing? Stop the car!”
Linda pulls out onto the road and guns it. Dan runs after the car as fast as he can with his aching ankle screaming to him for every step.
“Call the police!” one of the nurses calls from behind him.
Luckily, none of them take up the pursuit. Dan waves at the car, and the brake lights shine as Linda stops and backs it up.
Dan opens his door and throws himself inside. “Go,” he gasps.
Linda has already floored the pedal, and a moment later they once again speed through town. From the trunk Dan can hear fumbling, scratching and growling.
“Oh, no,” he whispers, rubbing his head with trembling hands. “Oh, no, oh, no …” He turns and looks back. “Can he get to us?”
“I don’t think so,” Linda says. “Unless he scratches his way through the seats.” She darts him a quick glance. “What now? And don’t tell me I have to run him over. I’m not doing that again.”
Dan tries to collect his thoughts. The shock of the nearly averted disaster slowly settles, and an idea comes to mind. “I think … I think I might know what to do. Do you smoke?”
“What? No.”
“Then pull over at the gas station coming up on the left.”
Linda glares at him. “Are you going in to get fucking cigarettes? Right now?”
“Just pull over, please,” Dan says, trying to shut out the sounds of Thomas from the trunk.
Linda pulls over and stops in front of the gas station.
“Wait here, it’ll only be a moment,” Dan says, getting out. His ankle is worse now, all swollen and throbbing. He can’t put his weight on it, so he skips into the store on one leg. He’s met by the smell of coffee and chocolate, but the store is empty.
The cashier comes out from a backroom. It’s a young, pimply teenager, around Thomas’s age. “Hey there,” he says absentmindedly, not even looking at Dan. “You paying for gas?”
“No, I just need a lighter.” Dan skips to the counter.
“Sure thing. We got ’em here.” The cashier points to a rack next to the counter.
Dan grabs one and also takes a packet of Kleenexes, putting both items on the counter.
“Forty-five kroner,” the cashier says.
Dan goes to his pockets and finds a fifty-kroner bill all crinkled up and damp from sweat. He was going to spend it on a cold soda on their way home from the paper route.
The cashier gives him the change. Dan grabs the lighter and the paper tissues, turns and skips towards the door.
“Hey, what happened to your foot?”
“Soccer practice,” Dan mutters over his shoulder right before hobbling out into the cool night air once again. He opens the door and jumps in.
Linda stares at the lighter. “You … you’re not thinking about …?”
“Drive out of the town,” Dan says tonelessly.
TWENTY-ONE
They pull over at the first rest area they see.
Linda turns off the engine and looks at Dan. “For the record, I still think we should call the police.”
“They won’t believe us,” Dan tells her for the fourth time.
“We just need to explain to them what happened. If we tell them not to touch him—”
“It’s still too risky.”
“But we can—”
“No!” Dan interrupts, amazed at how stern he sounds. He goes on more softly: “We need to end this. It was too close a call before at the hospital.”
In the trunk, Thomas is rummaging around, growling and snarling.
“Sure there’s no better way of doing it?” Linda asks hoarsely.
“I can’t think of any. Can you?”
She bites her lip then shakes her head. “And you’re sure he won’t …?”
“I’m sure. He doesn’t feel pain anymore.”
“All right.”
“Do you have anything in here you want to keep? Better bring them, then.” Dan opens his door and steps out onto the asphalt. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cool, crisp air, smells the surrounding fields and listens to the silence.
Linda comes out of the car, carrying her jacket, purse and a pair of sunglasses. “Okay,” she mutters. “All clear.”
“Right. Step back then.” Dan opens the back door. He pulls open the packet of Kleenex and shoves them down between the seats one at a time. Thomas scratches and moans more eagerly from the trunk, as though
