People scream and throw themselves to the ground. An old man cowers behind me, using me as a human shield.

Sheriff Hansson walks over to the Grill.

I see Noora with her hand on her gun.

Hans Wimmer climbs out of his old Skoda and puts his hands up into the cold autumnal air. Must be nine-feet tall with his hands up. Taller than a bull elk.

The Sheriff talks to him and then turns and says, ‘Just a car backfiring.’ Then he stands on top of a bench and cups his palms around his mouth and yells, ‘Nothing to be afraid of, folks. Backfired is all.’

The volume in the square slowly increases to normal, like a dial being turned. Some take this as their cue to head home, but the older teenagers are emboldened. Like they survived something. Two of them start kissing outside Konsum: a boy with thick blond hair and a girl dressed as a fairy.

I take photographs and then I walk over to the Sheriff.

‘Sheriff.’

‘Damn old vehicles,’ he says. ‘Scared some of these people half to death.’

A figure emerges from behind an apple tree wielding a chainsaw. It’s not turned on. It’s quiet. The Sheriff says, ‘Excuse me, Tuva,’ and walks to them and tells them to take the chainsaw home. I can read his lips from here because he’s directly under a streetlight. The person removes their Freddy Kruger mask. It’s Margareta Eriksson from the Hive. He tells her that bringing out a chainsaw isn’t appropriate right now, not out in the town square.

Margareta walks away, back to her storage units and her carpeted apartment, and someone else yells out, ‘Killjoy!’

The temperature drops and the apple slime beneath my boots begins to sparkle.

Fog pumps in from outside the town like waves breaking on a shore.

There are high-pitched screams from moped engines as teenagers race round the back of the dental surgery to where I picked Ragnar Falk’s lock. Low-cc motorbikes with good-looking kids, the girls on the back, the air thick with anticipation, mixed with the kind of adolescent cool I’ve never even gotten close to. It’s like watching a movie. The girls’ bare arms wrapped around the boys’ waists. It looks like the boys are the ones in control, but they’re not really. The helmet visors reflect orange light from flickering pumpkin lanterns. The band plays ‘The Sound Of Silence’ as the town soundtrack.

A girl in school uniform with sunglasses and a white cane says, ‘Trick or teeth?’

‘It’s trick-or-treat,’ I say.

‘Trick,’ she says.

I just walk away.