Survival Instincts, page 26
Lynn nodded. I’ll need it. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Dani’s neck for a quick hug to remind herself why she was doing this. Before Dani could respond, she’d already let go. “Thanks.”
Two weeks was long enough for the chunks of grass Lynn had placed over the gravesite to start knitting together again. They broke apart when she pushed the boulder off. All her life, she had been taught death was the enemy. The dead carried diseases that could kill you. Every inch of skin, except for her eyes, was covered. She’d even wrapped cloth around the area where her pants met her boots so nothing could seep into them. She wore two pants and two shirts over each other; her hair was wrapped up in another shirt, and she’d tied a strip of cloth around her nose and mouth. She even had her winter mittens on, tied around her wrist with string. It would make holding the shovel a little more challenging, but the added protection was worth any discomfort.
Lynn grabbed the shovel and examined it, buying herself a few more seconds of respite. This tool had probably aided in the burial of a lot of people—it had belonged to the thieving family, after all—but had it ever dug up anyone? Disturbing the grave felt sacrilegious, but she reminded herself she was committed to doing it. So she started. She didn’t bother preserving the slabs of grass as she had when she’d buried him. He wasn’t going back in; no one was. She scooped the grass up along with the soil and tried to get her mind to go numb.
With her extra layers of clothing, she was soon sweating profusely and panting. Re-opening a grave was certainly less work than cutting it fresh out of the soil, but it wasn’t easier. Not long after she’d started, the sand became infested with maggots. Her insides coiled at the sight of the writhing white worms, then she steeled herself and pressed on. This was nothing, just a prelude.
Under the canopy, she couldn’t tell the sun’s path. She didn’t know how much time passed, but when the shovel hit straining skin, she realized either hours had gone by or she’d buried him shallower than she remembered. A rush of gas puffed up, and no amount of layering could protect her from the stench of rot and putrefaction. Lynn gagged. She tried to weather the assault on her nose, but it was useless; she had to get out of the grave.
She tossed the shovel aside and pressed her elbow over her mouth and nose. The scent of apple from her breakfast made everything worse.
Every inhale sent a warning through her system. Her body and mind screamed at her to get away from the corpse, but instead, she lowered herself down and cleared the dirt off the body with her mitten-covered hands. Icy streams of sweat slid down her back—a mixture of heat, exertion, and sheer miserableness. She ignored it—ignored everything but the scoops of wiggling earth she gathered and placed onto the grass next to the grave. Gather, lift up, gather, lift up, gather, lift up. Every now and again, a few white little bodies toppled back into the grave from the edge and she had to scoop them up again.
Eventually, she stood and balanced precariously over a bloated leg. For the first time, she allowed herself to take in the now fully exposed corpse. Richard looked worse than she had assumed. Where his skin had torn, his flesh had become infested with worms, ants, maggots, and everything else that fed off scavenged meat. His crawling skin made Lynn’s crawl sympathetically.
She knew she couldn’t give herself time to think about the next step. If the realization of what she would have to do sank in, she wouldn’t be able to do it. Instead, she pulled the edge of her rags more securely over her nose to dampen the smell and clambered out of the hole. She kicked the writhing pile of sand farther to the side to make room for the blanket she’d brought and, once done, shook her boot pathetically to get the sand and maggots off. As she climbed into the hip-high grave again, she tried to avoid stepping into the juices that seeped from the disturbed body.
How am I going to do this? The man outweighed her, and the grave was deep. She would have to get the body into a seated position, and that meant full-body contact was unavoidable. Her hair stood on end. Don’t think about it, just do it. Do it!
She held her breath, bent down, and hesitated only a moment before she pushed through her revulsion and grabbed the sleeves of his once-white shirt. Pulling the arms up, she walked forward until her boots sank into the wet dirt by his waist. She inhaled once, as shallowly as she could, and grabbed the shirt just below Richard’s clavicles. With a heave that pulled the muscles in her arms taut, she yanked up as she stepped back.
He bent with her and then toppled forward, against her legs, once he passed the tipping point.
She stumbled. For a disgustingly terrifying moment, the dead, rotting weight threatened to push her off-balance. The back of her legs hit the wall of the grave before she could fall over. Richard’s head lolled against her thigh.
Her first instinct was to shove him away, but then he would fall back and she would have to do it all over again, so she fought the urge and carefully stepped aside.
He slumped forward even more, and with effort, Lynn freed her legs. She hurried out of the grave and did a jerky little dance out of sheer disgust, sending maggots and ants flying. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Flapping her arms around wildly, she beat at her clothes until she couldn’t see any more bugs. She still felt them, crawling everywhere.
“Gah!” She clenched her hands to fists and squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds. She wanted to cry. There was no way she could go back into that grave and touch him again—but she had to. Thankfully, she could postpone the inevitable.
She picked up the shovel again and broke the side of the grave opposite Richard’s slumped body down to a ramp. Then she tied a rope around a tree and steeled herself before she went down again. The stench instantly overwhelmed her again, and her nausea flared anew. She pushed the bile down and forced herself to see Richard as a package, not a human being. It made it easier to reach under his armpits and tie a rope around his torso. Once she was sure he was secured and the knots would hold, she gratefully clambered back out, wiped bugs from her arms and torso, and got to hoisting.
She sat and planted both feet against the trunk of the tree she’d looped the rope around, then used it to anchor herself to her spot as she pulled the package up the slope. Hand over hand, she pulled the rope around the tree and the package up with it.
It was heavy work. Her muscles didn’t get a reprieve: if she let go of the rope, Richard’s body slid partway down the ramp. She’d have to cover that distance again, and she didn’t trust her arms to hold out for much longer. Finally, the resistance stopped and Lynn checked behind her to see Richard’s body entirely freed from the grave. She let go of the rope and fell back onto the grass, too tired to care that she might be lying on bugs.
After taking a moment to breathe in fresh air and settling her heart rate, she returned her mind to the task at hand. That was what it was: a task. Complete it, clean up, move on. With another deep breath that made her breakfast rise up in her throat, she stood. Her legs felt shaky and weak. Get it done. Quickly!
She adjusted the blanket spread out on the ground, then crouched down behind the package and slid her arms under his. The force on the rope had turned his skin to mush. Wetness seeped through her shirts. Lynn squeezed her eyes shut and tasted bile when her stomach protested. She didn’t linger. She pulled, trying not to stumble and land under the body. One step, two, three, four. With one last blast of energy, she yanked until he was more or less on the blanket, where she dropped him with a wet thud.
I should not have eaten breakfast. Lynn looked down at Richard’s swollen face and protruding blue tongue. She was desperate to get it over with, but her legs were numb and her arms shook. Her back had cramped entirely. She stood with her hands on her hips, panting through the rags, bathed in sweat and itching all over from real or imagined bugs. Fuck! Lynn hadn’t felt this physically uncomfortable in years. Her mind had shut down what felt like hours ago. She was just going on instinct and adrenaline.
Lynn took a deep breath. The stench still upset her stomach, but it was also becoming familiar enough to endure. She bent down and folded a corner of the blanket down over Richard’s face, another over his feet, and covered him with a length of the blanket before she rolled him over a couple of times. Getting a rope tied around the package was a chore that once more had sweat running down her back, but she managed. Hours after she’d started, she finally hoisted Richard’s body onto the cart, using the same rope-around-the-tree technique as before.
Lynn stumbled and sank to the ground ten feet or so away from the grave. Everything smelled like death. It seemed to spread inside of her. Exhaustion pulled at her limbs like lead weights. Done. I’m done.
Dani looked up from the fire as Lynn pulled the cart with Richard’s wrapped body out of the bushes. She rushed over, Skeever on her heels, but stopped a few feet off, gaze honed on the package. “You did it.”
“Yeah.” Just by acknowledging that she had, indeed, gotten it done, the nausea returned, and she had trouble hiding the shivers of panic and relief that coursed up and down her spine. Slowly, they turned into tremors, and she gripped the handlebars to hide it.
“Thank you.” Dani tore her gaze away from Richard’s body and inspected Lynn carefully. “Do you want to wash?”
Lynn wanted nothing more, but she had one urge even more pressing. “Could you grab the pile of clothes I laid out on my bed?”
“Of course!” Dani’s gaze flickered to the back of the cart one more time before she took off at a sprint.
Lynn pulled the cart to the back of the building and then stumbled farther into the lot. With difficulty, she managed to contain her nausea until Dani was out of sight—and hopefully out of earshot—before she retched until her stomach cramped and she didn’t even have gall to spew up. Hidden between car wrecks, she tried to expel the memories of her ordeal along with her breakfast. She failed, but eventually she felt gutted enough to dull them somewhat. She stood and tried to get her cramped abdominal muscles to relax.
The feeling of maggots wiggling over her skin plagued her again, even though she knew they weren’t really there. She shivered, and her teeth chattered. With a sigh, she ran her forearm over her face and wiped away tears. After a few moments of slow breathing to help her stomach settle, she kicked dirt over her vomit and cracked her neck to relieve the tension in it. Quietly, she headed back to the fire, where Dani waited for her.
Dani stood and reached out, but Lynn pulled her arm away.
A flicker of rejection ghosted across Dani’s face.
“I’m filthy.” Lynn swallowed. “Sorry.”
Dani relaxed a little and nodded. “Time to get you clean.”
Chapter 16
As Lynn walked, the tremor in her hands spread to her arms, then to her torso. Well before she reached the stream, she was shaking all over. She wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to stop it, but it didn’t help much. Every time she blinked, she saw Richard’s face—bulging eyes, bloated tongue, maggots crawling—as if she was looking straight at it. No matter what way she turned her head, his face was always right there. Shaking worsened the feeling of things crawling along her skin, under and between the layers of her clothing, maybe even under her skin.
Dani gave her space at first, but then concern for her well-being seemed to take over. “Lynn? Are you okay?” She looked at her as if Lynn was losing her mind.
She might be. Dani’s voice seemed to come from much farther away than a foot or two. It was hard to hear her over the pounding of her heart and the shallow, shuddering breaths she drew. Every beat seemed to pump filth through her veins. Every breath was tainted with decay. It wafted off her clothes, off her body. Her shirt stuck to her chest and arms where she’d been forced to squeeze him against her body so she could drag him. Her mittens were stained brown and red with sand and blood. Why am I still wearing my mittens?
The question stood out as the only solid thought in the jumble in her brain. This time when she blinked, she saw her once-white mittens dig deep into bloody, maggot-infested soil. Something inside of her snapped. The panic that had been solely physical before crashed into her mind like a tidal wave, drowning out everything else. “Off.” She tugged at the strings holding her mittens tight around her wrist.
“W-What?”
Lynn didn’t pay Dani any heed. She tried to get a hold of the tiny, twisted, and knotted string on her left wrist, but because her hand was encased in wet wool, she couldn’t get a grip. “Off!” Her voice broke, and it was far less a command than a squealed plea. Lynn didn’t care. She plucked, trying and failing to unravel tangled string and undo the knot.
Dani gripped both of her hands to get her attention. “Lynn, stop, please. I’ve got it. Let me do it.”
When Lynn looked up, eyes the color of hazelnut husks met her gaze. The wave of panic subsided just a fraction. She nodded.
With precise movements, Dani untangled the string around her wrist, undid the knot, and pulled off the first mitten. The breeze hit Lynn’s dirty fingertips and her red-stained skin.
It felt so good. Lynn gasped in relief.
Dani smiled up at her and then wordlessly freed her other hand before she took them both in hers and squeezed. “There. Done. They’re off.” Those soft eyes inspected her face. “You’re crying.” Before Lynn could reply, Dani transferred both of Lynn’s hands into one of hers and used the fingers of her other hand to brush over her face.
Her skin was warm, not the icy cold that had radiated off Richard, and Lynn leaned into the touch as Dani pulled her hand away, seeking more of it. The grueling hard work and the layers of clothing still on her should have left her cooking from the inside out, but she felt cold—dead cold.
Seemingly sensing Lynn’s need for warmth, Dani cupped her cheek.
The touch burned on her skin like an inferno, and Lynn closed her eyes to bask in the glow.
They stood like that for a while. It was good, soothing. Her heart beat steadily again, and her breathing had deepened; neither function drowned out sound anymore.
“Can you go on?” Dani stroked gently with her thumb.
“Think so.” With great relief, she realized she actually did feel ready to go on. The tremble had subsided, and the panic had gone down to a tolerable level.
Dani withdrew her fingers from Lynn’s face but took her hand instead. With the other, she picked up the mittens from the ground.
They resumed their short journey.
Lynn let herself be pulled along and stared at the place their bodies met as if her hand were a foreign object that had somehow gotten attached to her body. Lynn knew she should be holding her tomahawk instead, and she should be looking out for danger, but her world had gotten very small, and Dani’s hand seemed to be the only thing tethering her to reality. She couldn’t let go of that—if she did, she’d be swept away by that wave again.
Dani stopped.
Lynn stopped too, but not before bumping into her. She stepped back dully.
“We’re here. Come, down to the stream, okay?” Dani pulled her along again, carefully guiding her over grass and rocks. When Dani stopped again and rolled off Lynn’s top shirt, Lynn let her. Dani pulled the second shirt free from her pants. Again, Lynn raised her arms dutifully, and Dani slipped it off.
The wind ghosting over her back, belly, and breasts felt wonderful. Lynn hummed and didn’t protest when Dani sank to a knee and undid the strips of cloth around her boots, then slipped her boots off. Lynn dug her toes into the cool grass with immense pleasure. Dani laid the tomahawk by Lynn’s feet and set her nimble fingers upon the knot in the rope holding up both of Lynn’s pants.
Lynn stepped out of them.
“Go on in.” Dani looked up at her. “I’ll keep watch.”
“In?” Lynn frowned.
Dani tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “Into the water.”
The words shook loose the memory of scouting out the shallow stream by a bridge near their camp. That memory in turn brought back the day’s events. Lynn jolted and blinked. She quickly whipped her head about, all of a sudden realizing she stood naked in the open and Dani’s face was level to her crotch. She stepped back. “Wha—?”
Carefully, Dani stood and raised her hands, palms up to show she was unarmed. The tip of her spear bobbed up over her shoulder. “It’s okay. Just get in the water. It’s…it’s been a long day.” She looked at Lynn as if she had become a cornered animal with bared teeth.
Lynn felt as if maybe she had. Then something seemed to tumble from her hair, down her back and off the curve of her ass. She gasped and eyed the water by her feet. The need to get clean overwhelmed all other instincts. She stepped in.
The cool water hit her like a slap in the face and cleared some of the fog. She put her other foot in as well and waded out. The water barely came up to her knees at the center of the stream, but that was enough. She lowered herself down and then submerged herself entirely, staying underwater as long as she dared, hoping everything alive would either float off her or drown.
She came up and inhaled deeply. Finally, her lungs didn’t fill with the sickening stench of rotting flesh. She inhaled the pure, moist air again and sank back. Slowly, she opened her eyes to make sure everything was all right around her. Nothing beyond an outright attack would get her out of the water.
Dani had climbed up the embankment and stood on the road that led across the creek, her back to Lynn, but casting sweeping glances at their surroundings. A little downstream, hooked behind a branch, were Lynn’s clothes, getting a good soak.
As Lynn lay in the stream, ass on a rock, head tilted toward the sun, she felt the touch of death seep out of her slowly. Secure in the knowledge Dani was watching over her, she moved her arms above her head and then back down. The water pressed against her palms and coursed through her spread fingers. Goosebumps played across her skin, and her hair stuck to her scalp. Slowly, Lynn started connecting to her old self again.
