“Selina?” Dad asks, pulling her back. “What’s wrong?”
Selina lifts her arm and points.
Allan has already turned his head to look. “Shit!” he exclaims, spinning on his heel and running to the hallway.
“Allan!” Soren exclaims, getting up from the table. “What are you doing?”
But Allan doesn’t answer, and a second later the front door slams.
Selina is still pointing and staring at the window, unable to move or speak, trapped as though in a nightmare, everything suddenly moving painfully slow. She sees the girl who’s got to be Jennie Nygaard descend upon the girl; it looks most of all like a clumsy embrace, causing both of them to fall to the grass. For a few seconds, they scramble around.
Then the girl screams. This time, it’s a genuine scream. A scream of pain and fear.
“What the heck?” Dad says. “What’s she doing? Is that the girl you guys are—”
“Stay in here,” Soren commands, running through the living room and opening the terrace door.
Dad follows him.
Selina still can’t move. Events seem to speed up again, reaching an unnatural pace. She sees and hears everything from the window, which is ajar.
Jennie Nygaard is sitting astride the girl who is still screaming, now in very shrill, batlike tones. Jennie Nygaard throws back her head, and Selina sees the bloody chunk between her teeth. It disappears quickly out of sight, as the teenager gulps it down and promptly bends down for another bite.
What the fuck? She’s … she’s … biting her!
“Hey, you!” Soren calls as he comes running across the lawn. “Stop that right now!”
Jennie Nygaard doesn’t react the slightest to his call, but keeps doing what’s she doing.
“Hey!” Soren yells, grabbing her by the shoulder. “I told you to—”
Selina sees the officer freeze in place, his expression turning to utter horror. “What the hell are you doing? Stop! … Stop that!”
He shoves Jennie Nygaard aside, giving Selina a clear view of the girl on the grass. The sight makes her gasp. There’s a giant bloody crater in the neck of the girl. She’s no longer screaming.
“Allan!” Soren roars, kneeling down by the girl. “Allan, goddamnit! Where are you?”
Jennie Nygaard is laboriously making her way back to her feet, and the officer seems for a second to have forgotten about her completely. The lower part of her face is covered in blood. She makes a sound halfway between a gurgle and a growl, then turns towards Soren.
Suddenly, miraculously, Selina’s voice returns. “Watch out! Watch out behind you!”
THREE
The policeman reacts to Selina’s warning, but too late. Jennie Nygaard bends down and sinks her teeth into the back of his neck.
Soren roars with pain and throws her off. He touches the back of his neck, then stares with disbelief at his bloody fingers. Jennie Nygaard has fallen down once more, but that doesn’t stop her reaching for his leg and trying to bite his ankle.
The officer pulls back his leg. “Stay down! Stay down, I say!”
Jennie Nygaard isn’t listening; she’s crawling stubbornly forward, her nails digging into the grass, her mouth snapping. Soren makes a move which looks rehearsed: he quickly steps to the side, plants a knee in her back, twists both her arms back and slaps a pair of handcuffs on them.
At that moment, Allan comes running around the house. He has a gun in his hand.
“Tend to the girl!” Soren shouts. “I don’t think she has a pulse!”
Allan hesitates for a moment at the sight of Jennie Nygaard. Then, he drops down by the girl. “Holy shit! Her windpipe is totally gone … she’s already … oh, fuck me!” His free hand goes to his head.
Selina is once more unable to move, and that nasty feeling of being trapped in a dream has again taken hold of her. A single thought keeps repeating.
This can’t be happening. It just can’t.
“Jesus Christ, she’s completely out of it,” Soren snarls, trying to hold down Jennie Nygaard. She twists violently from side to side, bending her back in obtuse angles, making it look like her spine might snap any moment. She doesn’t seem to be in pain, though, as her main concern is still trying to bite Soren.
“Stop resisting!” he shouts at her. “Do you understand what I’m saying? Lie still!” He darts a look around and fixes on Allan. “What are you waiting for? Get them to send an ambulance!”
Allan takes out a walkie-talkie, his movements slow and hesitant.
“What’s going on?” it’s Dad’s voice, as he suddenly appears on the terrace.
Soren points at him. “Get the kids out of here. Take them inside.”
The remaining kids—whom Selina hasn’t even noticed till now—run to her dad crying, and he disappears inside with them.
“Central,” Allan says into the walkie. “We have an injured …” He stops. He’s staring at something outside of Selina’s view. Not until he takes a stumbling step sideways does she see it. The dead girl is now sitting up.
Selina’s first thought is that the girl wasn’t really dead after all. But then she sees her eyes, as the girl turns her head and glares hungrily at the officers.
This is a bad dream. It has to be. I’ll wake up any moment now …
But a part of her knows she’s not dreaming. A part of her understands that all of this is terribly real. A word is ringing somewhere at the back of her mind. That word is zombie. And that knowing part of her understands that zombies aren’t just something on television anymore.
The girl exclaims something which might have been a growl, had it not been for the torn-up throat, which only produces a gurgling rattle. She gets to her feet. Her white summer dress is completely covered in blood still oozing from the open hole in her neck. She reaches out her arms and staggers eagerly towards Allan, looking grotesquely like a little girl who wants
