The Chosen
Authors: Kristina Ohlsson
KRISTINA OHLSSON is a political scientist and, until recently, held the position of Counter-Terrorism Officer at OSCE. She has previously worked at the Swedish Security Service, the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs and the Swedish National Defence, where she was a junior expert on the Middle East conflict and the foreign policy of the European Union. Her debut novel,
Unwanted,
was
published in Sweden in 2009 to terrific critical acclaim and all her novels have since been bestsellers. Kristina lives in Stockholm.
Also by Kristina Ohlsson
Unwanted
Silenced
The Disappeared
Hostage
MARLAINE DELARGY has translated works by many writers including John Ajvide Lindqvist, Åsa Larsson, Anne Holt, Michael Hjorth / Hans Rosenfeldt, and Johan Theorin, with whom she won the
CWA International Dagger in 2010.
First published in Sweden by Piratförlaget under the title
Davidsstj
ä
rnor,
2013
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Kristina Ohlsson, 2013
Published by arrangement with the Salomonsson Agency
English translation copyright © Marlaine Delargy, 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Kristina Ohlsson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
TPB ISBN: 978-1-47114-879-8
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47114-881-1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
The First Day
: WEDNESDAY, 25 JANUARY 2012
The Second Day
: THURSDAY, 26 JANUARY 2012
The Third Day
: FRIDAY, 27 JANUARY 2012
The Fourth Day
: SATURDAY, 28 JANUARY 2012
The Fifth Day
: SUNDAY, 29 JANUARY 2012
The Sixth Day
: MONDAY, 30 JANUARY 2012 TIME: BEFORE 22:10
AFTERWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
F
ear came with the darkness. He hated the nights. The distance between his own room and the safety of his parents’ bedroom seemed immense. Many times he had chosen to hide under the
covers rather than venture out onto the dark landing outside his door.
He could see that his mother was worried about his night terrors. He would scream out loud when he had bad dreams, and she always came running. Stroked his forehead and whispered that everything
was all right. Switched on the bedside lamp and opened the blind.
‘There’s nothing here, David. Nothing that could hurt you. Come and have a look, and you’ll see that there’s nothing to worry about.’
Like all parents, she wanted him to look for himself, see that there were no dangers lurking outside.
But David wasn’t afraid of something you could see with the naked eye. He was afraid of something you weren’t aware of until it was too late. Of dangers that moved with the darkness
as their protector and silence as their companion. David was afraid of the danger against which there was no defence.
It was Avital who had told him the story. Told him about the boy who hated children, and who waited for them in the barren landscape around the village where they lived. The Paper Boy.
‘He sleeps during the day and wakes up when the sun goes down,’ Avital said one day when they were hiding in his tree house so that David wouldn’t have to go home. ‘He
picks out the child he wants, then he takes them.’
David felt his stomach turn over.
‘How does he choose?’ he whispered.
‘No one knows. The only thing we know is that no one is safe.’
David tried to swallow his fear.
‘You’re making it up.’
The floor of the tree house was hard, and the wind was so cold. He was wearing only shorts and a short-sleeved top, and he was starting to shiver.
‘I am not!’
Avital had always been more daring. He was never scared, and he was always ready to fight for what he thought or what he wanted. But he was also a true friend. David’s father had said more
than once that Avital would be a good man and a good soldier when he grew up, the kind of man who always did the right thing, who stood up for his friends and his people. He never said what he
thought about David, but David assumed he had a very different opinion of his own son.
‘He comes at night, when we’re asleep. He waits outside the window, and when we least expect it, he comes in and grabs us. So don’t sleep with the window open,’ Avital
said.
Those words penetrated David’s brain like nails and were impossible to remove. From then on his window had to remain closed.
But when summer came and the dry heat rolled in across the country, his mother had had enough.
‘Being too hot can make you ill, David. You have to let in the cool night air.’
He allowed her to open the window, then waited until she had gone to bed. When the house was silent, he tiptoed over and closed it. Only then could he get to sleep.
Although you could never be completely sure.
Avital explained this to him a little while later.
‘When he gets angry, he becomes very strong, and then there are no doors, no walls, no windows that can keep him out. The only thing you can do is hope.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Hope he chooses someone else.’
That did it. From then on, David’s fear of sleeping alone was greater than his fear of making his way across the landing. Every night he crept into his parents’ room; they sent him
away only if his little sister had got there first.
‘In you come, sweetheart,’ his mother would whisper as he slipped under the covers.
But he slept for no more than an hour or so as dawn was breaking, and that created more problems. He had just started school, and was nodding off during lessons. The teachers were worried; they
called his parents, who took him to the doctor.
‘The boy is exhausted,’ the doctor said. ‘A few days’ rest and he’ll be as good as new.’
David was allowed to stay at home, and Avital came round after school with his books to tell him what they had been doing. David wished the teacher would send someone else. He had been trying to
avoid Avital so that he wouldn’t have to listen to any more of his terrifying stories, but it was as if he wasn’t meant to escape. As Avital zipped up his rucksack and got ready to go home, he said:
‘Have you seen him yet? At night?’
David shook his head.
‘I think he’ll come soon,’ Avital said.
It would be a while before his prophecy was fulfilled.
Many years passed. David and Avital left the village where they had grown up, and by chance ended up on the same kibbutz.
And then he came. The Paper Boy. A child went missing from the kibbutz. For ten days and ten nights they searched for him – adults, police officers, soldiers. Eventually they found his body, so
badly mutilated that they didn’t want to tell the other children what had happened to him.
But they knew anyway.
David and Avital, grown men by this time, looked at one another in silent understanding. They knew what had happened to the boy.
The Paper Boy had taken him.
And it was only a matter of time before he returned.
FRAGMENT I
T
he woman who still does not know that hell is waiting around the corner is walking briskly along the pavement. Snow is falling from the dark sky, settling like the frozen tears of angels
on her head and shoulders. She is carrying a violin case. It has been a long day, and she wants to get home.
Home to her family.
To her sleeping children and to her husband, who is waiting with wine and pizza.
Perhaps she even feels a sense of peace, because a drama that has been going on for a long time seems to have reached its conclusion. Only now is she aware of how much it has been weighing her
down. Being able to put it behind her will change so much.
She strides out, speeding up as she gets closer to home. It is time to allow herself to rest. To recover. Gather her strength.
She can’t wait, and starts to walk even faster.
And then she hears it. The sound that slices through the winter silence and hits her like a hammer blow.
Screaming sirens, blue lights. The engines roar as they catch up with her and race past.
And suddenly she knows where they are going.
To her home.
She runs faster than she has ever done before. She runs for her life as she moves towards death. Her footsteps are silent in the snow, her breath is like thick smoke. She rounds the last corner
and sees the blue lights pulsating against the neighbouring buildings. There are people everywhere. Men and women in uniform, on the pavement and on the road. Loud voices, agitated expressions.
Someone is openly weeping, and someone else yells at a driver, telling him to fucking park somewhere else.