56 pages • 1 hour read
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Oskar and his father eat dinner and then play tic-tac-toe. Oskar cherishes time with his dad, so when one of his dad’s friends arrives, Janne, Oskar’s mood darkens. Oskar’s dad and Janne begin drinking, and Oskar realizes that the night is ruined: “But there would be no more crosses tonight. No circles. Nothing” (251).
A hospital receptionist named Maud Carlberg plays a game with herself while at work during the night. She makes up stories, then pretends that people entering the hospital are characters in her stories. When a young girl enters (Eli), Maud falters. She asks Eli her name but gets no answer. Instead, Eli asks where her father is because police brought him to the hospital and she misses him. Eli asks a series of questions, then leaves. Maud notices that Eli isn’t wearing shoes and rushes after her.
In Södervik, Oskar nicknames his father the Werewolf, because his father becomes someone completely different when he drinks. His dad isn’t violent, he just becomes emotional and inelegant after drinking. While Oskar sits in bed waiting for the Werewolf to arrive, he thinks about Eli and the possibility of her being a vampire. Unable to sleep, he asks himself, “Which monster do you choose?” (257). In answer to his question, Oskar dresses after reading Eli’s notes, then sneaks out the house while his dad drinks.
In the hospital, Håkan lies in bed, guarded by a sleeping policeman. As he thinks about Eli, he suddenly hears a noise outside the window and intuits that it’s Eli. Håkan carefully maneuvers to the window without disconnecting anything or waking up the policeman. Eli greets him, and when she asks how she can help, Håkan motions for her to bite him. Eli warns him that she’ll have to kill him later if she does.
Oskar finally reaches town. He doesn’t want his father to get in trouble, so he plans to call his dad later. Oskar will stay at a friend’s place until the time he’s supposed to return to his mom’s. This way his mother won’t know he left and returned to Blackeberg on his own. Oskar then hitchhikes and gets a ride to the station.
Back at the hospital, the guard wakes up and sees Eli biting Håkan. Eli flees onto the roof, and the guard calls for help. A nurse rushes into the room, but not before Håkan manages to step out the window and jump. An alarm sounds when his body hits the ground. A taxi driver, who’s transporting an old man, stops when the body falls. The men get out the car and see Eli on the roof. Her body changes, with a membrane connecting her arms to her body. She then flies, bat-like, into the night.
Oskar rides the subway into Stockholm late at night. A group of drunk teenagers boards and, though everyone else is annoyed by the kids, Oskar wishes he was as carefree as them. He plays with his Cube and thinks about Eli. In a sense, he isn’t afraid of Eli anymore. The surreal situation, coupled with his father’s absurd behavior, makes him feel like “he didn’t really exist” (266). When Oskar arrives back in Blackeberg, he rushes to Eli’s place. He rings the doorbell, then taps out her name in Morse code, to no avail. Just as he prepares to leave, Eli answers.
Maud and a security guard named Henrik wait for the police to secure the crime scene at the hospital. They wonder how Eli climbed the walls—an impossible feat. When Henrik begins describing how Håkan’s body essentially exploded upon impact, Maud stops him.
Back at Eli’s place, Oskar lightheartedly pokes fun of Eli by telling her that she must invite him in. The tension between them is intense, though Oskar assures himself that he isn’t scared. He finally asks Eli if she’s a vampire. Eli says she isn’t a vampire, but she does live off of blood for survival. When she brings up their aborted blood brother pact, Oskar gets visibly scared and backs away. Eli assures him she would never hurt him, then rushes over to him and kisses him. Oskar’s body immediately relaxes and he begins seeing images from long ago. It’s clear that he’s seeing these images through Eli’s eyes. There’s a castle and a banquet, as well as poor families who have brought their children to the banquet. Eli’s mother is also there. A well-dressed man who is the center of attention takes out a pair of dice. Eli removes her lips from Oskar’s, and admits when queried that the events he saw really took place. Eli promises that she will never hurt Oskar, and Oskar feels she is telling the truth. He decides to stay, but says, “You’re a little gross, you know that?” (274). Eli agrees to change.
A mortician, Benke Edwards, eagerly wheels Håkan’s body into the morgue. Benke is happy because he gets to autopsy a celebrity—The Ritual Killer. The body has bite marks, but Benke isn’t as interested in them as the police because, for him, human beings are quite simple: “Everything is in the brain” (275). Turn the brain off and everything else goes. As he preps Håkan’s body, it begins bleeding. Though this is something that rarely happens with dead bodies, the bleeding angers Benke because he wants his work on the body to be “pristine” when he hands it over to the authorities. While trying to stop the bleeding, he notes that Håkan is bleeding plasma. This, too, is unlikely, but he determines to leave all the questions to the authorities who will retrieve the body the next day. He does what he can, then leaves. Just when he’s about to drive off, however, Benke has a realization: Håkan’s blood isn’t coagulating, which means Benke will have a mess to deal with in the morning if he doesn’t do something now.
In Blackeberg, Oskar enters Eli’s living room, which looks like a prison cell to him. There are toys everywhere, including an expensive, fancy egg made of gold thread, and a few pieces of dingy furniture. Oskar asks about Håkan, and finally realizes that he is neither Eli’s father nor a vampire. Eli tries to ease the tension by assuring Oskar that she simply suffers from a rare illness. Though Oskar believes her, he also wonders if Eli is toying with him, perhaps waiting for him to let his guard down so that she can kill him.
Eli asks to see Oskar’s Walkman, but the music shocks her and she drops the Walkman, breaking it. She retrieves a large amount of money from an old box and gives it all to Oskar, shocking him. He would have to deliver fliers for over a year just to get the money she offhandedly gives him. Despite Eli’s best efforts, Oskar feels anger at the fact that she kills people. Not only that, she has been lying to him from the beginning. They argue, and when he imagines that she tried to buy his friendship with the money, he prepares to leave. Eli grabs him forcefully, causing Oskar to hit her and then sit atop her. They begin wrestling heatedly, yet playfully.
When Benke returns to check on Håkan’s body, he’s shocked to see that Håkan has an erection. Moreover, Håkan is slowly moving around, moaning the letter “E.” Confused and frightened, Benke attempts to help Håkan. He decides to bring him back up to the hospital, but when he gets the gurney to the elevator, Håkan whispers something. When Benke bends down, Håkan shoves a finger in Benke’s ear, ripping through tissue until Benke becomes docile. Håkan’s eye changes color when he begins eating Benke’s face.
At the same time, Eli and Oskar recline next to each other, tired from wrestling. Eli shows Oskar her teeth when prompted, but hesitates when Oskar asks about other people like her and, lastly, when he asks her if Eli is her real name. Eli finally admits that her real name is Elias: “But that’s a…boy’s name” (289), says Oskar, to which Eli agrees. Oskar falls asleep, more confused than ever.
Chapters 11-12 address the concept of the “truly monstrous,” highlighting both human and inhuman monsters. Oskar’s father is an alcoholic who becomes someone completely different when drunk. Oskar fears this version of his dad, whom he calls “the Werewolf,” because his dad isn’t the manly, comforting father figure Oskar wants and needs during these times. By naming his dad a werewolf, Oskar also admits that horrible creatures exist in reality. This makes it easier to believe in Eli’s existence as well. In fact, Oskar asks himself which monster he should choose—Eli or his father. As a parallel, Eli appears later in this section in monster form when she flies bat-like off the hospital roof. Oskar’s dilemma underscores just how monstrous and cruel humans can be. Both human monsters like Oskar’s drunk father and inhuman monsters like Eli can frighten, especially considering that both characters are considered “monsters” due to internal conflicts. This foreshadows Oskar’s need to acknowledge his own “beast within” as he struggles to come to terms with his sexual identity.
This section also sets up more rising action when Eli bites Håkan and he later turns into a zombie-like creature. The narrative hints at zombies several times before this incident, and now a zombie-like Håkan is on the loose. Blackeberg now has Eli, Virginia, and Håkan to fear.
Meanwhile, Oskar makes his choice among monsters and rushes back to Eli. Oskar’s decision symbolizes joy and hope in the unknown, especially when he finally hears Eli’s voice and Eli asks if it’s Oskar at the door: “And so it was, after all; joy exploded inside his chest like a rocket blasting off through is mouth with an altogether too-loud: ‘Yes!’” (269). Despite Oskar’s rush to Eli, Oskar still grapples with what Eli is and what she does for survival. Oskar himself mentions that Eli is the evil that his mother tries to protect him from. Oskar summarizes here humankind’s desire to banish the Archetypal Monster. Yet Oskar takes comfort in the loneliness he sees in the Monster. Further revelations about Eli’s gender—Eli reveals her real name is Elias (a boy’s name)—again confuse Oskar, adding to the gender and sexuality storyline.