Tomorrow everything will be dark

‘This is horrifying, thought-provoking and action-packed. [...] It is the commonplaceness of this book that makes it so frighteningly powerful. That this could happen to us here in little, out-of-the-way Norway. The parallels with the Ebola crisis are obvious. [...] The book is exciting and has action and drive – as well as love. I can’t see why it would not be a hit with young readers of dystopian fiction.’

‘A serious doomsday novel that pushes the limits of what a young adult book can contain. [...] The first part is a credible depiction of the development of a global crisis as seen through Brage’s eyes. [...] It successfully demonstrates how our modern media reality gives everything a sense of the unreal. [...] It [the picture painted by Brage] is a complex, psychological portrait of a rare and complicated character in Norwegian young adult literature. [...] It is dark, and it is intense.’

‘Sigbjørn Mostue can write horror that sends chills up your spine. He does the same in this novel, I morgen er alt mørkt.’

‘Read this book. Be afraid!’

Øverst i skjemaet

 Sigbjørn Mostue (1969–) has a degree in the History of Ideas. He works full time as a writer, having issued two crime novels for adults together with Johnny Brenna. He has also written two fantasy trilogies for middle grade readers.

Nederst i skjemaet

Brage is a normal teenage boy. He dreams about the beautiful but unattainable Frida, but otherwise lives a more or less carefree and safe life. He has a group of good friends, does well at school and lives together with his well-to-do family in a well-to-do Norway. Everything is more or less on track for him. Until one fateful autumn day when a disturbing news bulletin comes from Japan. Huge numbers of people have gone mad and, apparently blinded by rage, are lashing out at everything and everyone in their path. The early assumption is that it is some kind of mass psychosis, and the story does not hit the main headlines. Brage doesn’t give it much thought either. But a few weeks later the phenomenon has spread to big parts of Japan. And when the same happens in China, with millions killed as a result, people begin to worry. However, they are soon reassured that it is not a new and dangerous virus. Bendik, the father of Brage’s friend Oliver, is among those who think it is some sort of social uprising. Something like that would never affect the West. Brage agrees and carries on as normal.

However, over the winter the madness spreads across the Southern Hemisphere, and when spring comes to the Northern Hemisphere, there are more and more sightings of the so-called ‘afflicted’ along the USA and Europe’s southern borders. The West tries to protect itself by building concrete and barbed wire barricades while the rest of the world descends into chaos.

One day they hear that a team of doctors have discovered that the madness is caused by a mutated form of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that normally targets cats and small rodents. The parasite affects the brains of rats and mice and makes them unafraid of cats, which means they get eaten. This is how Toxoplasma spreads. The parasite also targets humans, and for some people this has dramatic consequences such as schizophrenia, personality changes and suicidal thoughts. However, after the nuclear disaster in Japan the parasite mutates and targets humans exclusively. No one knows how it spreads, but it is widely hoped that a cure will be found.

People think they can see an end to these terrible events, but then the parasite reaches the USA and starts spreading across large parts of Europe. The Internet fails, TV broadcasts cease, people flee, society falls apart – and then there is news that the parasite has reached the Norwegian border.

Brage’s mum is a doctor and is ordered to the front to take care of the wounded. His dad has stockpiled food and is keen for them to escape into the forest far from any other people. But it is too late. As the parasite spreads across the country, hordes of afflicted attack and spare no one – neither friends nor family.

Brage soon faces an impossible choice when his family and friends are divided, people he has known and relied on are infected, and his entire world is crumbling. There is only one chance of survival, and that is to follow his dad’s plan to seek refuge in the forest. He was not alone in coming up with this solution, and soon there is an entire community living out there while the afflicted wreak havoc in the towns. But are they safe from infection? And might the greatest danger come from among their numbers?
I morgen er alt mørkt is a harrowing and realistic dystopia with clear allegories to events in our own world. It is about an overriding threat to humanity and the world as we know it, about being faced with choices and challenges that we in the West have not had to consider for generations, about losing your innocence and childhood, about having to run and start over and about surviving in difficult and strange circumstances.

I morgen er alt mørkt by Sigbjørn Mostue

Sample translation by Siân Mackie

It’s the little things. You don’t realise how much you appreciate them until it’s too late. I know what I’m talking about. It’s only now that everything has gone that I miss it – the most idiotic things like the taste of ice-cold Coca-Cola and pizza, the sound of music, being online, Friday evenings in front of the TV with my family. I miss my bike, hot showers, loo roll, even school – and stuff like coming home and having the house to myself, being able to flop down on the sofa, surf the net, sleep and just enjoy doing nothing.

I switched off my phone, not bothering to reply to Oliver. I was much more interested in closing my eyes.

Images of Frida suddenly started flickering in my mind’s eye as if my eyelids were a screen I couldn’t switch off.

I squirmed at the thought of her. Long, fair hair that shone when the sunlight hit it through the classroom window. A face that could have launched a modelling career. Tits that bounced provocatively under her T-shirt in gym class and made it embarrassing to be wearing shorts. An ass shaped by years of gymnastics, cheerleading and handball. She was without a doubt the hottest girl in school, but the warm tingling that the images of her had awakened soon petered out when I thought about how she acted around me. She hardly ever looked my way, never spoke to me. I was nothing to her. I had only plucked up the courage to talk to her once:

‘You doing anything fun at the weekend?’

A normal and inoffensive question. Non-threatening and straightforward. But she had looked at me as if I were a disease-ridden druggie asking her home to dinner with his family. When the gaggle of girls with whom she always surrounded herself failed to disguise their sneers, it was like being impaled on an icicle.

Okay, so I’m not the most attractive boy in school. Far from it. One Saturday when I was four, a Rottweiler came into the children’s playground in front of the house where we lived at that time. The adults were busy helping each other to rake leaves and trim hedges in communal areas while we children sat in the sandpit and played. Naturally we panicked and started running when the huge, black beast appeared. The dog’s hunting instinct kicked in straight away. I can still remember the stench of its breath before its jaw clenched around my head, the pain when my right cheek was torn apart, the screams of the adults, the ambulance ride and Mum sitting next to my bed crying. You can still see the scar, an expanse of pink just underneath my skin.

I’ve been terrified of dogs ever since.

But apart from that I’m normal. People have been telling me I have lovely eyes since I was little, but I don’t really know why. My eyes are normal really. I’m average height, or maybe a little over, I’ve grown a lot recently. Dark hair, a bit pimply, but no more than usual. I could have lifted weights and built some muscle, but who has the time? And who can be bothered? Apart from people that never think about anything other than their bodies, of course – the same people that fail every other test and are proud of it. Football has always been my sport. And skiing, but more when I was younger. Back then there was little I liked better than streaking through the forest, on and on without getting tired. But I still like running. Far and fast. No one runs further than I do during a match.

In other words I’m kind of plain. That’s what I thought anyway. Until Frida was so cruel to me. I looked long and hard in the mirror that evening. And decided that it was only to be expected when you looked like a monster.

But even though she hurt me, Frida still came to me whenever I closed my eyes. We walked hand in hand, went out together, kissed, slowly removed each other’s clothes – it was just Frida and me, and she didn’t know how good it was and what she was missing out on. So even though the knowledge that it would never happen in real life tore at me, I liked lying there like that, as autumn crept into the house, when everything was quiet and peaceful in a world that, despite everything, was still as it was supposed to be.

I glanced at my phone. Oliver. The class weirdo. He was never all there, not even when he was hanging out with us. I don’t know why, but he said a lot of strange things, did his own thing. There was never any harm in him, and we didn’t call him out on it. We just didn’t quite get him. But we respected Oliver’s dad, Bendik. He had a beard that was peppered with grey, was almost bald and somehow seemed a bit older than all the other parents. But he also had the body of a twenty-year-old. Bendik could do things with a football that we could only dream of, and there was something about him that meant training sessions were always somewhat regimented. Something in his eyes, deep between the laughter lines, said that you shouldn’t mess with this man. He was funny and nice, but he had a voice like a sergeant from a war film. When Bendik shouted from the sidelines, we listened.

Oliver loved his dad. The rest of us didn’t own up to that sort of thing anymore, but Oliver did, unrestrainedly and without embarrassment, and he was just as loved in return. He and his dad would come to training with their arms around each other, laughing and joking as if they had just been on some wonderful father-son walk – and who knows, maybe they had. We found it hard not to snigger at the way Oliver clung to his dad, but I remember dreaming that I had a similar relationship with my dad. My dad was nice enough, but not like Bendik. Bendik Kaspersen with the black sports jacket with “Military Academy” on the back, who had grabbed Ali and Gunnar, the school bullies, by the scruffs of their necks and literally dragged them home to their parents after they had scratched a car parked outside the school. Ali didn’t come back to school for a week. Some people said it was because his dad had given him a real shiner. Other people thought Bendik had beaten him up, but I don’t believe that.

As I said, my dad was okay, but he wasn’t really all there. Or, how should I put it – he was away a lot, even when he was home. Didn’t really care what was going on with me and my sister. He just asked us how school was and that was it. Always keen to get out into the garden to mow the lawn, paint the banister or wash the car if he wasn’t on a fishing trip. Dad was a dietician. And saying your dad researches healthy eating doesn’t exactly make you a girl magnet. Suffice to say, there weren’t many cheese puffs or hotdogs eaten at our house. Take Sivert, for example, my best friend. His mum was an accountant and his dad was a big cheese in marketing for the oil industry. It was quite impressive, and everyone thought that Sivert would go on to greater things. Tore’s dad ran his own business, developed some data system or other for engineers and made heaps of money. He worked from home, was always cheerful, and Tore got whatever he wanted. They even had a swimming pool in their garden. And Khadaffi’s dad was a police investigator. It’s hard not to be impressed by people like that, isn’t it? And their children reap the benefits, no doubt about it. But I didn’t reap much in the way of benefits from my mum or dad. My mum was a doctor, which ordinarily would be pretty cool, but at some point along the line, for some reason or another, she had decided to specialise and become a gynaecologist. And it’s not so fun telling people that your mum spends her days with her head between other women’s thighs.

I decided early on what kind of dad I wanted to be if I ever had children: one like Bendik. Or Tore’s dad. Or Khadaffi’s dad or Sivert’s dad. Someone all the kids would look up to, someone whose own children would adore them, and someone who could ensure their children had an advantage.
Sivert. Tore. Khadaffi. Me. And Oliver, of course. That was our group. The lads. We had known each other since we arrived with wide eyes on our first day of school and started looking for people to be friends with. I ended up sitting next to Sivert. He couldn’t take his eyes off my scar.

‘What happened there?’ he whispered, pointing with a finger covered in orange and blue felt-tip pen.

‘Got bitten by a monster,’ I whispered back.

‘That’s so cool!’

That’s how we found out we got along. And during break the next day, when we started kicking a ball around, Tore – who Sivert knew from nursery – came over to join us. Then Khadaffi, who despite being small and somewhat puny, could work magic with a football. A boy with short blond hair stood on the sidelines watching us. After one of many miskicks, the ball rolled over to him. The boy grinned, nimbly chipped the ball up and kicked it hard and without hesitation. The ball soared over our heads in a low arc and hit the back of the net hard. We had never seen anything like it. And that’s how Oliver joined our group. Even though he was a tad odd.

The days flew by. The years passed more and more quickly. We grew, went to school, had long summer holidays that were over in the blink of an eye, celebrated Christmas, went to school some more, and then our childhoods were suddenly a memory. Some people started to smoke, like Gunnar and Ali. Some skived off school and hung out at the shopping centre or sat at home playing computer games, but most people persevered and tried to get good enough grades to ensure a decent chance at the overwhelmingly adult life bearing down on us. In short, we were as normal as could be. Everything was normal. Just fine. Nothing to write home about. Or so we thought. But there was something to write home about. We had the best lives ever.

But that’s just how it is. You never give it much thought until it’s too late.

2.
A few weeks after I received that text message from Oliver, I was sitting in my room puzzling over one of the countless presentations we had to give at school. I could hear my dad talking to one of the neighbours outside my window. They were probably discussing where they were going to shovel the snow that winter now that they had planted a hedge between the houses where the snow was usually heaped. I looked up. A few stray snowflakes had smacked into the window. Autumn was over. I looked down again. Glowered at the boring-as-hell book lying on my desk that had taken me an age to read. Now I had to write a synopsis of it as well as revising for a maths test the day after. Our teachers were working us hard. I sighed. It seemed impossible to condense an entire book into a few sentences, but I knew there had to be something online. My search was interrupted when I stumbled onto a news website. The main headline called out to me: State of war in Japan! After reading the headline, I clicked without hesitation on the play button further down the page, ignoring the graphic images warning.

I sat watching Japanese people kill each other with wide eyes. People were panicking, and I could understand why. Huge packs of people were hunting random victims. It was as if they were on drugs, screaming and running around, out of their minds. I grabbed the phone, called Sivert and told him to go online, and soon we were both looking for more news. One of the sites said that there was nothing the police could do, so the army had been sent in. The authorities didn’t know why it was happening, but they were trying to reassure their countrymen and the rest of the world that they had the situation under control and that they would protect people. We soon found videos of this so-called protection. It wasn’t helping much – people were being massacred.

‘This is just mental, it’s like a computer game,’ Sivert said.

I just shook my head and grinned. It was too much for us to wrap our heads around. We had grown up in the world’s safest country. None of us had witnessed any violence other than the odd fistfight in the school playground. We were safe and well-fed, had everything we wanted and more. And Japan was very far away.

But I must admit it took me a little longer than usual to get to sleep that night.

7.
‘It’s Marte,’ I forced through vocal folds that felt as dry and fragile as old paper. Dad let go of me and ran downstairs. I got up and started to follow him, but ground to a halt on the top step. I ran back and grabbed the shotgun before hurrying after him.

When I got outside, it was as if my senses had been dialled up to full strength. The air was warm and full of the smell of grass. The sun sank slowly down towards the horizon, spray-painting the sky red, pink and orange in its wake, and birds sang in the trees. But their loud twittering couldn’t drown out the screams from Sunniva’s house. Marte stood frozen on their porch, staring at what was happening inside. She screamed and screamed, utterly frantic, her mouth wide open.

Dad had jumped through the hedge separating the properties and was heading towards Marte when glass suddenly sprayed across the lawn. Something big and heavy toppled out of the smashed window. A man's body. Ice-cold claws dug into my chest and squeezed. It was Sunniva’s dad. He lay lifeless and bloody in front of Marte, who crouched down with her arms tucked close to her chest. Her screams grew higher and feebler, but still didn’t stop, not even when Dad picked her up and carried her away. Then the porch door flew open to reveal Sunniva’s mum. She was holding the same huge knife that her husband had been wearing in his belt earlier in the day. It shone red as if the sunset had coloured the edge. Her face was deathly pale, but when she spotted Dad and Marte, she was anything but a slow to pursue them. She raised the knife and roared like a wounded animal as Dad stumbled backwards in shock.

‘No!’ he shouted, raising an arm in futile defence against the huge blade flashing towards him.

It was as if someone had taken control of my body. I had hardly registered raising the shotgun before the butt rammed into my shoulder so hard that I stumbled back. The shot rang in my ears. Sunniva’s mum span round, the knife soaring in an arc behind her before falling with a clatter to the ground. I stared with eyes that would have fallen out of my head if anyone had thumped me on the back. Dad was equally dumbfounded, but quicker to pull himself together. He lifted Marte again and forced his way back through the hedge.

Against all reason, Sunniva’s mum got up and followed. Where she had been shot it looked as if someone had stabbed her through her clothes and skin with a spike. Her right arm hung limply, leaving a thin, red trail across the lawn as if someone had been playing with a ketchup bottle, but the pain the gunshot wound must have been causing her didn’t seem be slowing her down.

Without saying a word, Dad put Marte down next to me, grabbed the shotgun and pushed us into the house. The door had only just closed when there were more gunshots. Then it was quiet. Horrifically quiet.

‘Are you okay, Marte?’ I stroked her hair away from her face with shaking hands. The glassy-eyed gaze I uncovered could just as easily have belonged to one of her dolls.

‘Sunniva’s dad… He was dead,’ she whispered, her voice shaking. ‘And she tried to… Brage, she tried to kill us!’

I didn’t know what to say. I just held her close. Her body was rigid. She didn’t react when the door opened. Dad’s face was pale and severe, as if he were wearing a mask.

‘All okay?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Good,’ he answered, staring at the wall with unseeing eyes. A rank odour spread through the air from the barrel of the gun, which was smoking slightly. Then he straightened up, leant into the closet and got out a box of ammunition. The gun swallowed the cartridges with a hollow sound. ‘Stay here,’ he said hoarsely before going outside again.

I could never have imagined that fear would make me as cold and collected as I was right then. Marte was my responsibility, and somewhere at the back of my mind there was an instruction leaflet telling me what to do. She is in shock, it said. People in shock need water. And chocolate, if possible. I must have seen it in a film at some point. I led Marte into the kitchen, filled a glass with tap water and forced her to drink it. Then I found an old Toblerone in the cupboard from the last time we had been in the Mediterranean. We ate chocolate so rarely that it quite often lay untouched until the next time we travelled. I had just persuaded her to take a bite when the door opened again. Dad came in. He was carrying Sunniva.

‘She hid in the bathroom,’ he said darkly. ‘Clever girl. And I see you’ve given Marte some water. And chocolate,’ he said, nodding approvingly. ‘I think Sunniva will need some too.’

It was as if the two girls revived somewhat upon seeing one another. After Sunniva had drunk two glasses of water, Marte put her arms around her and whispered something in her ear. They clung to each other as they cried in silence.

‘Did you kill…’ I whispered, jerking a thumb in the direction of the house next door.

Dad didn’t meet my startled gaze. I understood. And I knew he would never be the same again. No one could ever be the same after what we had just experienced.

It was like being in a cage where anything could suddenly loom out of the darkness at you and try to get in. Now and then it felt as if the air was as thick as porridge, and I had to force myself to breathe normally.

Naturally, Sunniva was inconsolable. One moment she had been playing with Marte in the garden. The next moment she was an orphan. Marte managed to coax what had happened in the house out of her. What she said made a chill run up my spine: her mum had been fine until around lunch time. Then she had complained of dizziness and a headache and gone to lie down. That was around the same time Oliver had stopped by and the girls had dug out their old dolls. When it got closer to dinner time, her dad had gone upstairs to see how she was feeling. Sunniva had been in the loo, and couldn’t tell them much more than that she had suddenly heard her dad scream in pain and run downstairs, and that her mum had followed him. At first Sunniva had thought there was someone else in the house, someone who was attacking her parents. She had locked the door and hidden in the shower stall. Then she had heard the sound of the window smashing, and then – the gunshots. Sunniva hadn’t moved until Dad had knocked on the door, and I shuddered to think of the sight that must have greeted her as he carried her from the house.

Marte tried to comfort her, but Sunniva was in a dark place. It wasn’t easy for Marte either. She was more sensitive than anyone else I knew. It only took a dead worm to upset her. I can’t tell you the number of times she started crying at bedtime when she was little because she was afraid something might happen to us and that she would be left all alone. I used to laugh at her and tell her she was a scaredy-cat.

But now something much worse than her most terrible nightmares was becoming a reality.

There was a muffled knock on the door. Then a muted click from the shotgun as Dad turned the safety off.

‘Who is it?’ he called.

‘It’s me.’

Dad couldn’t open the door quickly enough. Mum hadn’t even made it over the threshold when he threw his arms around her.

‘Honey, what’s happened? And why is it so dark…’

Then she saw us. Dad took her aside and started to explain.

It was as if Mum was borne on a mild summer breeze. She went straight over to Sunniva, and after a quick examination she lifted her into her lap and started to stroke her hair. Marte sat close to them, and Mum started to sing one of the songs she used to sing to me when I was little and couldn’t sleep. I let them sit in peace and went upstairs to Marte’s room. I collected her duvet and then my own. When I came downstairs again I gave them to Mum, who wrapped them around the girls and sat with them until they fell asleep.

‘Any news?’ Dad asked in a low voice when she came into kitchen. We had lit a new candle, which sent shadows dancing along the walls.

Mum studied me for a few moments before apparently deciding that whatever she had to say couldn’t be any worse than what I had already experienced.

‘We don’t really know what the situation is in Østfold, but the people who have managed to get past the barricades say it’s just like here: people suddenly go berserk and attack the first person they see. But they all insist that there haven’t been that many cases.’

‘So how did Lill get infected?’ Dad shook his head dejectedly. It seemed as if he had twice as many wrinkles now as he’d had a few hours ago, and that they were all twice as deep.

‘I don’t know,’ Mum said thoughtfully. ‘That’s the big question. How can a few individuals have been infected so far away from any other cases? The problem is we can’t ask them what they’ve been up to recently. What they’ve eaten, whether they’ve travelled…’ She gestured vaguely.

‘Sunniva’s mum hasn’t been away,’ I said slowly. ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her every day. She always goes out in the garden after dinner. Went, I mean,’ I said, correcting myself. It was strange to talk about her in the past tense.

‘Do you think it’s in the water?’ Dad asked, eyeing the tap and the two glasses the girls had used, which were still standing on the kitchen counter.

‘Loads more people would have been infected if it was in the water,’ Mum said. ‘Everyone in fact. It has to be something else. Something that can carry the parasite over long distances.’

‘Birds?’ I suggested, shuddering. The idea of such nice, innocent creatures that sang so beautifully being carriers of disease was grotesque.

‘Maybe,’ Mum said gravely. ‘They carry bird flu, salmonella and tapeworms, so why not? But how would that infect so many of us? We don’t have that much contact with them.’ She threw out her hands in frustration. ‘I really don’t know, Brage. These are all shots in the dark.’

‘I think we should head out to the forest now,’ Dad said. ‘We’ve just found out what it’ll be like to stay here.’

I tensed up as Mum nodded.

‘It’s probably for the best,’ she said. ‘Take the children and I’ll follow.’

‘I’m not a child!’

‘Shh, Brage, you’ll wake them. No, you’re not. But you’re still our child.’ Mum smiled and stroked my hair.

‘And you’re not allowed to leave us,’ I said, pressing my lips together so that I wouldn’t start crying again.

Mum sighed. She looked at Dad, but he said nothing.

‘I have a job to do, I told you that.’

‘A job? Your job is to survive, and to stay with us!’

‘Let’s not start this again,’ she said tiredly, putting her head in her hands.

All I could do was show what I thought by getting up and leaving the room. I grabbed a blanket from the sofa, went upstairs and fell into bed. But my eyes refused to close. I lay there staring at the wall, where images of Sunniva’s mum being shot played over and over again.

11.
Have you ever felt dissociated from yourself? That you’re somehow outside of your own body? That’s how I felt from when I fired that shot until I opened the closet, found Mum’s winter coat, laid it over the motionless body and straightened up again. I had to coax my fingers into obeying as I reloaded the gun. It was only then, when the nausea took hold of me, that I felt I was myself again. I ran to the loo. It felt as if my stomach had turned inside out. There were tears in my eyes, and I gasped for breath, spat and heaved over and over again until there was nothing left. I wanted to cry and scream and expel the anguish overwhelming me, but I couldn’t. I sank to the floor, where I sat staring at the hands that had performed that abominable act, hands I just wanted rid of. I couldn’t breathe, but that was good. I would have been happy to die.

Then I felt a small hand on my head. I looked up. Marte was standing over me. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she tried to give me a comforting smile, nodding as if to say that I hadn’t done anything wrong, that she was grateful to me for saving them, that she was just as upset as me and that now it was all about surviving. No matter what. She managed to say all that with one little nod. Finally I managed to breathe. I gulped down some air, closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together.

Then we heard gunshots and howls from outside. I got up. Staggered upstairs and opened the porch door. The fresh air caressed my face and filled my lungs. But a new wave of nausea overwhelmed me at the sight that greeted me. The house on the other side of the road was on fire. Four people standing a little way from the flames howled like a pack of wolves waiting for their prey. I knew the signs now. They were afflicted. Desperate cries for help could be heard from inside the house. Without thinking, I lifted the shotgun, aimed at the pack and fired. Nothing happened. Nothing except that they turned towards me, snarled and ran towards our house. I fired again, but they didn’t even blink. I had been foolish. Dad had told me that a shotgun was no good at such a great distance.

As I turned to run downstairs to the girls, I saw that the family from the burning house had managed to get out unnoticed by the afflicted. So I’d done something good, but now we were their target. I hurtled downstairs, tore open a box of cartridges and shoved two of them in each barrel.

‘They’re coming!’ I shouted to the girls before running upstairs again and out onto the porch just in time to see them starting to tear at the planks we had put over the living room windows. I fired two shots, grunting as the butt rammed into my tender shoulder. One of the afflicted fell to the ground, another bled from its neck and shoulder. I reloaded. The three remaining afflicted ran through the garden and disappeared behind the house next door. I decided not to waste any more cartridges on them.

My mind was reeling. What were we to do? I could hear more gunshots from nearby. I had once read that Norway is one of the countries with the most guns per inhabitant. There were a lot of hunters out there, just like Dad, and now we needed every weapon at our disposal. There was no doubt now that the parasite was spreading like wildfire.

Mum! Suddenly I saw the solution. It was so obvious and simple, but also impossible. The soldiers were protecting her and the others inside the barricades. But how would we get there?

There was only one option.

‘Marte! Sunniva!’ I shouted as I ran downstairs. ‘We need to get to the medical centre! Hurry!’

‘How?’ Marte asked, staring at me with panic in her eyes.

‘In the car, of course.’

‘What? But you can’t drive!’

‘I know. I’ll just have to learn as I go, won’t I?’ I said, looking around. Where were the car keys? I ran into the kitchen, but they weren’t in the usual place on the counter. Then I froze. Dad had been the last person to use the car.

‘Oh no. Please no,’ I whispered. But after looking in the bedroom and in the kitchen again, I knew I had no other choice. I crouched down next to the bundle on the floor and stuck my hand under Mum’s coat. I looked away when I felt the keys in his pocket, and tears streamed down my cheeks as I fished them out. I folded the coat over him again, bid him a silent farewell and stood up again. I knew he would have been proud of me for what I had done and was about to do, no matter how crazy it seemed.

I stuffed my pockets full of cartridges before unbolting the door and opening it carefully. I felt as if my heart had been replaced by a hammer striking an anvil. Once again it was as if my senses were heightened. Every sound was amplified and I noticed every tiny detail around me: the moss that had grown in the cracks between the flagstones, the gauge in the plank left by Marte’s bike after it had been picked up by the wind and dragged along the side of the house last autumn, a spider spinning a web between the branches of the yew tree that Dad had planted a few years ago. And of course the distant gunshots ringing out at irregular intervals nearby. They reminded me of the first, sharp sound of a thunderclap.

‘We’ll use the side door,’ I whispered when we reached the garage. ‘The garage door will make a lot of noise.’

The girls nodded. We sneaked inside, and they sat obediently in the backseat. I had to take several deep breaths to calm myself down enough to get the key into the ignition. The Volvo was an automatic, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard to drive. I had watched my parents driving often enough that I knew what to do – sort of. I lowered the brake and pressed the start button. The engine answered straight away with a contented purr. Plain sailing. I pressed the garage opener and the door started to open. I gave it some gas. Nothing happened apart from the engine revving and the speedometer needle swinging. But of course, I had to set it to ‘D’ for ‘Drive’. After I did that the car lurched forward, crashing into the lawnmower sitting ready for its first outing of the year. The girls screamed. I slammed on the brakes.

‘Twat,’ I whispered to myself as I put it in reverse and tried again. The car rolled backwards. I gave it more gas. I scraped the entire side of the car and tore the wing mirror off, but miraculously, we were out. I turned the wheel, but the car went in the opposite direction from what I wanted it to. I started to sweat.

‘Brage, they’re coming!’

The panicked scream from the backseat made me step on the brake. Through the plastic acting as a replacement side window I saw two of the afflicted who had attacked our house come charging across the lawn: a young bloke in a white T-shirt and jeans and an older guy wearing only jogging bottoms. I squeaked, put the car in drive and hit the gas. We immediately shot forward, but I hadn’t turned the wheel enough. The front of the car disappeared into the neighbour’s hedge before I had a chance to stop it. I gave it more gas. The hedge branches clawed at the bodywork, the wheels span on the lawn and suddenly, a figure appeared next to me. The girls screamed. So did I, but then the wheels found purchase. The car lurched forward, and even though we took out the letterbox as we turned, we managed to get out onto the road.

My eyes zeroed in on the edge of the road as it suddenly loomed dangerously close. I turned the wheel gently so that we would stay in the middle, and soon my mouth turned up into a begrudging smile. This wasn’t hard at all! It was almost like playing a computer game, only easier. I looked at the speedometer. Fifty-five kilometres per hour. Okay, so not exactly “Need for Speed”, but it was fast enough. I looked up again. And stomped on the brake, causing the girls in the backseat to be thrown forward.

A group of six or seven afflicted were running straight at us. A bellow such as you might hear from a herd of angry buffalo issued from their wide-open mouths. Some of them had knives, others sticks, and a couple of them even had guns. It was just like we had seen on TV in other countries. But this was here and now. And we were their target.

I turned the wheel as hard as I could in an attempt to avoid them. But the road was too narrow and we just ended up facing the kerb. I put it in reverse and gave it some gas, but then we just ended up back where we had started. The herd was getting closer very quickly. The frenzied roar increased in volume. I put the car in gear again and stepped on the gas, but again ended up with the front facing the wrong way. The girls screamed. I fumbled for the shotgun, but knew it was no use. They were too many of them. And they were too close. I turned and gazed into Marte’s eyes. My hand clenched tightly around the butt of the gun. My dear sister. She looked down at the shotgun, then at me. Her eyes were black with fear.

‘No,’ she whispered.

Then there was a strange sound, like when something heavy falls on sheet metal. I jumped and looked through the plastic. A big, dark blue SUV ploughed through the herd, the afflicted bouncing left and right like bowling pins. Then there were several volleys from an automatic weapon. The car pulled up next to ours before the window rolled down and was swallowed by the door. Bendik stared at me as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

‘Brage?’

I nodded.

‘What are you doing…’ Then he turned to the side, pointed a gun at something behind us and fired. ‘Fucking crazy bastards,’ he muttered before turning to look at me again. ‘Where are you parents?’

When I didn’t answer, because I knew I’d start crying if I opened my mouth, I could see he understood what had happened. His eyes softened and he shook his head.

‘No and no,’ he murmured.

‘Where’s Oliver?’ I stammered. I wanted to talk about something else. ‘Is he okay?’

Bendik cleared his throat.

‘He’s at home. I’m on my way there now.’ He frowned when he heard the sobs from the backseat. ‘Where are you going?’

‘The medical centre. To Mum.’

‘Ah, I see. She’s there,’ he said, averting his eyes. I felt my blood run cold.

‘What do you mean? Has something happened? Has something happened to Mum?’

‘Now, Brage, you have to listen to me…’

‘No!’ I yelled. I tried to open the door, but he had stopped so close to us that it hit the side of his car. I had to stay where I was. ‘Has something happened to her? Don’t tell me she’s gone as well? Bendik...’ The final words were pleading.

He shook his head and raised his palms.

‘I don’t know anything about your mum. But when I was on the way home, I saw that parts of that area were on fire. It was chaos. A lot of the soldiers from the Home Guard have become afflicted. There was shooting and…’ He shrugged dejectedly.

‘You have to take us there,’ I pleaded. ‘We have to find her!’

‘You’ll be killed instantly, Brage!’ His voice was suddenly hard and determined, his mouth a thin line across the salt-and-pepper beard. ‘Your mum may well be alive, but no one will be able to tell you where she is. It would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and these crazy bastards will be after you as well. Forget it!’

‘She’ll be fine,’ said a firm voice from the backseat. I turned. Marte looked past me out into the road, refusing to meet my eyes. ‘Mum is smart enough to avoid them. She knows we’re at home. She’ll come for us.’

I looked at Bendik again. He had started to tug doubtfully at his beard.

‘So you’ll take your chances there, alone in your house, which is anything but secure? No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Leave her a note saying you’re at ours. If there’s anywhere you’ll be safe, it’s at home with me.’

I slumped over the steering wheel. I didn’t have the energy anymore. I just wanted to sleep, to escape and avoid all these difficult decisions.

‘What should we do?’ I mumbled between my arms.

‘We do what he says,’ Marte said. ‘So that Mum can find us.’

‘Okay.’ I lifted my head and nodded at Bendik. ’We’ll stay with you until Mum comes back. But if she’s not back soon, I’m going to look for her!’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Jump in and we’ll get going.’

‘But our car’s full of food and equipment’ I protested. Bendik looked in his mirror, then at me and tugged at his beard in frustration before making a decision.

‘Drive right behind me,’ he said, putting the car in gear. ‘Are you armed?’

I showed him the shotgun. He nodded and stepped on the gas. I finally managed to turn the car and followed as best I could.

‘Marte? I never meant to…’

‘We need to bury him,’ she interrupted. I looked in the rear-view mirror. She was staring out of the window. Sunniva was sitting with her head bowed and her shoulders slumped. Now we had experienced the same as her. There were no words to describe the emotions overwhelming me. But at that precise moment in time I had to keep my emotions in check. I couldn’t let myself fall apart. I couldn’t give up. I had to be strong, tough. Push the pain away. Marte was doing it. I couldn’t let her down now.

‘In the garden?’

‘What?’

She thought about it.

‘Under the apple tree?’

‘Yes, he was proud of that,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he’d have liked to be buried there.’