He Who Fears the Wolf Read Free

forget. And so she became one of many who would later report to the police that she had seen the man they were looking for on that day at that particular spot.
    The others were always after him. Not just his ravaged body with its organs all jumbled together, or his hard-as-stone heart that trembled behind the grating of bones. They wanted to get inside him. Into the secret space with the dazzling lamps. They wrapped their evil intentions in fine words, nagged him about the blessing of reality and the exciting challenge of community. He couldn't bear it.
    What if he didn't want to?
    He shook his head in confusion. His thoughts had wandered out of control, disturbing his sense of time. He tottered back into the room and sank down on the filthy mattress. He was glad that he had run away from the suffocating asylum, glad that he had found the abandoned cabin. He curled up on his side with his knees bent, his hands between his legs, his cheek pressed against the mouldy mattress. He was staring deep inside himself, down into the dark, dusty cellar where a narrow hole in the ceiling opened, letting in a ray of pale light. It formed a circular patch on the stone floor. There sat Nestor. Beside him a ragged coat. The coat looked quite innocent, like something discarded, but Errki knew better. He lay still for a long time, waiting, and then fell asleep again. The wound needed time to grow together. While it grew he dreamed. After the punishment he was always given comfort, and he accepted it. It was part of the agreement. It was 6.03 a.m. on July 4th, and a fierce heat was already seeping in.
    *
    The cabin had come as a surprise, hidden in a dense grove of trees. It was an old place where no-one had lived for decades, yet it was in good repair, although most of the furnishings had been ruined long ago by drifters. Over the years quite a few such people had made themselves at home for a brief period, setting their mark on the worn rooms, leaving empty bottles behind.
    He had stood in the grove for a while and stared. It was a wooden house, and in front was a little yard with a lush lawn. He put his hand tentatively on the door and pushed it open, then stood for a moment, sniffing the air. Inside he found a kitchen, living room and two bedrooms. On one of the beds lay an old striped mattress. He tiptoed from room to room, looking around, breathing in the smell of old timber. In this house Errki was closer to his ancestors than he knew. It was an old summer cabin, constructed on the ancient site of one of the many Finnish dwellings built in the 1600s. As he walked around he listened to the mute walls. It looked as if something had happened. A rage had settled in the walls. Many of the thick beams had splinters sticking out of deep gashes, as if someone had attacked them with an axe. Not a single window pane was intact; only a few shards of glass remained in the shattered frames. He thought of three or four things at once. It was impossible to get here by car, and as far as he knew no-one had seen him when he had turned off the road and began clambering through the undergrowth. He didn't have a watch, but he knew he had walked for about 30 minutes after leaving the roadway. The fact that he had no food or extra clothes didn't bother him, but he was thirsty. He ground his jaws together to create some saliva and began chewing on his tongue.
    He went into the room that had been the kitchen and started opening the drawers. The knobs were gone, so he had to prise them open with his long fingernails. He found a fork with missing prongs and a box of candles. Crumbs and cobwebs. Bottle caps. An empty matchbox. Under the broken kitchen window lay the remnants of a net curtain, but when he picked it up, the fabric dissolved in his fingers. He went back to the living room. The room had one window facing out the front and one on the opposite wall, looking out at a pond. Against one wall stood an old sofa with rough green upholstery. Across from it