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.