ELLEN

4.45 P.M.

Before they could make it back to the car, they were surrounded by adrenaline-charged children. Ellen recognised them: it was Bea, Karl, and their gang. The girl with the pink hair was there. Even Alice came bicycling towards them, though she stopped a little further up by the gravel pit and stood there silently with her bike. The others were striking the ground with their weapons in the form of sticks and baseball bats, and screaming strings of words and battle cries, but it was hard to make out what they were saying.

‘What do you want?’ Ellen pulled the towel around her and tried to make her voice sound calm while she tried to remember where she had put her phone and car keys. Her bag was a short distance away, and her clothes were spread out on the little beach.

The children immediately started howling even louder. They were primitive and brutal.

‘What is this?’ Didrik stood perplexed beside her with his towel around his waist. ‘Stop that,’ he yelled, attempting to take control of the situation.

She wished he’d shut up. He had no idea what forces were at work in this group of kids. They were unreachable. Sealed off. Blocked.

Ellen stood stock-still. She didn’t know what to do.

Bea drove her moped up and stopped right in front of her. Everyone fell silent.

‘What is it you’re not getting? Didn’t I tell you to stay away? You just had to keep your mouth shut.’ She spoke each word slowly. She got off the moped and walked over to the chairs and the parasol. Poked at the picnic basket with her foot and looked around. She picked up Ellen’s dress, which was tossed on the sand, and threw it behind her. ‘Having a picnic, huh?’ She took a gulp of wine and poured the rest out in the sand.

Ellen and Didrik stood completely motionless and stared at her. Several times, Ellen opened her mouth to try to talk sense into her, but just as quickly closed it again. Instead, she watched in silence as Bea slowly humiliated them.

‘Come on, let’s go.’

Ellen slowly moved her eyes to the other children. It was Karl who had called out.

Then she heard a scream from Bea’s direction. In pure fury, she started kicking the chair apart.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Didrik ran over, but immediately received a blow across the chest from Karl, who rushed at him with a stick. Didrik groaned and fell down in the sand.

One of the taller guys started hitting him with his stick, and the others fell in. Some of them went over to Pink Mist and began beating it. Another took out her key ring and scratched into the paint on Didrik’s mother’s car.

They hollered and laughed by turns. Nothing could penetrate. The only thing that existed was their adrenaline-fuelled excitement, a pubescent vandalism that at some moments turned into primitive fury.

‘Look what I found,’ called a boy who had been digging around in Didrik’s bag. In his hand, he was holding a pistol.

‘What?’ Ellen stared at Didrik and felt the blood drain from her face. Why did he have a pistol with him?

Didrik stood up and was on his way over to the boy, but Ellen held out her arm to stop him. ‘Can I have that, kid? Those things are dangerous,’ Didrik attempted in a calm, collected adult tone that set them off even more.

‘Is it loaded?’ The boy studied the pistol closely.

‘Give it to me, otherwise you may do something you’ll regret your whole life.’ It was impossible to miss from his tone that Didrik was shaken.

‘Shut up, you old loser.’

With the pistol in one hand, the boy walked up to Ellen, lifted the towel with the barrel of the pistol, and laughed loudly.

‘We saw you in the water,’ he said, pulling Didrik’s towel away from him. ‘Do it again. Fuck now. We want to watch you fuck.’

He pointed with his pistol at the ground. ‘Didn’t you hear me? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ All the children chimed in. ‘What don’t you understand? If you don’t do what I tell you, I’m going to shoot.’ He looked slowly around, then went up to one of the younger kids and aimed the pistol at her head. It was Alice.

‘Stop!’ Ellen screamed. ‘What the fuck is this?’

Alice started to cry and fell down on her knees. The boy pressed the pistol against her head.

‘Now then, come on!’ he said, waving to some of the other kids, who pushed Didrik towards Ellen.

‘How can you do this to each other? Next time, maybe he’ll put the pistol to your head,’ she tried in a desperate attempt to put an end to the whole thing. ‘How can you let this happen? That’s your little sister.’ She stared at Bea, and then at Karl, but got no response.

Didrik took her hand and squeezed it hard.

They all laughed, except Alice, who was terrified for her life. Ellen saw her pants turn a darker shade. She covered her chest and swallowed hard.

‘Take her from behind,’ someone called.

Ellen closed her eyes when she was forced to get down on her knees, and she cried when Didrik penetrated her. How was he even hard? Was he turned on by this?

‘Stop, for fuck’s sake!’ Bea yelled. ‘I don’t want to see any more, it’s disgusting.’ She dragged her keys along the cars, and the children screamed hysterically again, as if they were inciting each other.

Ellen staggered to her feet and covered herself with the towel.

‘Ellen!’ Didrik shouted.

She turned around and met Bea’s eyes.

‘Didn’t I tell you to keep your mouth shut?’

Ellen barely had time to see her heavily made-up eyes and the black streaks of mascara before the blow to her nose came.