It was a good thing that we were in such high spirits because the next few days were perhaps the most grim any of us have had over the course of the pandemic. It was necessary to dispose of all the bodies that lay amassed in the streets below the citadel. The only manageable way to do that was to pry arrows out of them, collect them in pyres, set them aflame, and then clear the ashes. As it turned out, killing furies was significantly easier than burying them. Not only was it physically and emotionally draining work, but we also had to be careful to avoid infection and to ensure timely detection of roamers still clinging to life despite their odds.
“Christ, I can’t do this, I swear I can’t,” I groaned, straightening up.
I had just scooped what looked conspicuously like a charred uterus and thrown it onto the nearest pile. I stepped over the coils of bowels that had slipped from my shovel with a sickening, wet splat.
“Allow me, hun.” Dave pushed them towards the pyre with his shovel. “Done.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I announced, bending in half, unsure whether it was better to breathe deeply through the scarf around my face or avoid breathing altogether.
“It’s minging, I’ll give you that.” Dave patted my back.
“And that’s coming from you! You’ve performed autopsies!” I pointed out. “Myself, I never wanted to know how alien the insides of a person look. Or the way they ... smell.”
A fresh bout of nausea crashed through me, and I groaned as my stomach churned.
Once I finally straightened up, I let Dave hug me, resting my head against his shoulder. There wasn’t anything more comforting in the world than Dave’s bear hug, strong and very masculine in feel, almost suffocatingly warm, fiercely protective, and wholly devoid of any sexual tension. I had two younger half-brothers, but I wasn’t particularly close with either of them, and only with Dave I found out what it felt like to actually have a brother, a man who loved me and cared for me without there being even the faintest hint of possible attraction between us.
“If you want to disappear, I won’t tell anyone,” he said, stroking my hair.
“No, I couldn’t possibly. It wouldn’t be fair on everyone else.”
Einar walked by, and I saw him shoot a narrow-eyed look in our direction. He relaxed somewhat as soon as he realised that I was only with Dave, but his jealous frown didn’t melt away completely, and traces of displeasure still lined his eyes. Not minding his step, he immediately slipped on a puddle of dark, congealing blood and nearly lost his balance. I laughed at him, but stepped away from Dave.
“Bloody things are a nuisance even in their demise, eh, mate?” Dave called out to Einar.
Einar replied in his painful whisper, inaudible over the sea, the wind, and the voices around.
“You know, mate, I find you extremely tolerable today. I wonder why that is ...” Dave reached up to pat Einar’s shoulder cordially, the latter’s protests wholly mute.
Dave then walked away to collect some more scattered limbs and give us some privacy
“It serves you right,” I told Einar. “What did you think, that I was having a romantic moment with my secret lover—inhere?!”
He said something I didn’t hear, looking endearingly bad-tempered. He grumbled some more and pulled the cloth down from his face, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m going to assume that was an apology,” I teased him, but stepped closer.
His hand shot out to grab mine with the speed of a cowering viper, making my body crash against his.
His eyes twinkled with good humour behind the stern facade. Peeling the cloth from my own face, he leaned close, and his breath tickled my ear as he whispered to me threateningly and enticingly at once,
“I said quit bratting, my girl, or else I’ll make sure your voice is hoarse tomorrow.”
It took four increasingly odious days to burn all the corpses and to clean up the carnage, and if any of us didn’t hate the infected alive, we sure all hated them dead. Those late September days were still hot enough to make the bodies swell and stink rapidly and to attract all sorts of insects and rodents. Not to mention all the atrocious leakage. The floaters may have been the worst of it, the roamers that fell into the marina but resurfaced with a mighty stench due to their post-mortem bloating.
We got through it, however, and in the end, only putrid dark stains remained on the streets. We scrubbed the worst of them off with brooms and buckets of seawater but hoped that rain would eventually take care of the rest.
A few weeks later, one (finally!) rainy afternoon found me in our bed, covered with nothing but the silk covers, with abook propped up on my knees and Einar’s arm around my bare shoulders. Water fell in sheets behind the tall windows with a sleep-inducing drumming of the glass panes, punctuated only by the occasional thundering. Einar had put his own book down for the moment and was staring ahead in silent contemplation. Suddenly, there was a loud knock on our door, and Russ strode in without waiting for an invitation.
I hastily pulled the cover up to hide my chest and felt myself blush deeply.
“Och!” Russ stopped in his tracks at finding us so very nearly indisposed.
We must have looked guilty as charged, having spent most of said afternoon in the same bed, but doing things other than reading with the sensual deliberation of people wanting to prolong their pleasure as long as humanly possible. Even the air was thick with the remnant of our passion.
Not that Russ seemed to mind, grinning widely as his eyes landed on me with thinly veiled male appreciation.
“What is it, man?” Einar pulled on his boxers underneath the covers and got up, the muscle and sinew on the massive bulk of his back covered with a thin film of sweat.
