Chapter 14 Bathing in the Sun’s Blood #2
Later, I nestled my head against his shoulder, having given up on wiggling in a vain attempt to dislodge the multitudes of sand from the various crevices of my body. I shivered, and he pulled me closer, enveloping me in his arms. He planted a kiss on my forehead.
“So ... what is your favourite theory on how all this started?” I asked him. “A biological weapon leaked from a lab somewhere? An alien virus? Divine intervention..?”
Darkness had descended, but there was a full moon to illuminate us to one another.
The wind was cool on my bare skin, and the first stars were bright above us.
Einar lay on his back, stretched luxuriously on the damp sand with his head supported by the discarded clothes.
His body radiated warmth despite the whims of the weather, and soon I ceased to be cold myself, cocooned in his embrace.
“Neither of those, love. Melting glaciers.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. My dad and I went for a glacier hike each summer when I still lived in Iceland. And each year we would have to drive at least fifty metres further to reach it, that’s how fast it was receding.
Apparently, it only got worse after I’d left.
And not just in Iceland, but in any snowbound region . ..”
Despite his impassioned speech, Einar’s heart beat calmly and steadily in his chest below my ear, in rhythm with the advancing and receding sea waves.
“There are pathogens in the ice that have been dormant for thousands of years. Modern people have no immunity whatsoever against them. And as the glaciers melt, these viruses defrost and enter Earth’s water distribution.
Some don’t survive the thaw, but it has already been proven beyond doubt that some do. That’s where I think CanLys came from.”
I traced his clavicle with my fingertips, pausing at the vulnerable hollow at the base of his neck.
“If you’re right and if it’s in the water supply then we’re all screwed.”
“No, not all of us,” he pointed out with a sardonic smile, his tone mockingly gleeful.
Raising myself slightly, I rolled over him so that I lay on top of him, his face directly underneath my own, his firm abs pressed against my softer belly. I rose up and down on his chest with each of his breaths.
“I beg your finest pardon. I meant to say that we’re all screwed apart from the few chosen ones who’re immune.”
I leaned in to kiss him but pulled teasingly away at the last moment, propping myself up on my elbows.
I did that once more before his hand landed sharply on my rear in retribution.
Unbeknownst to me, feminism must have taken leave of my mind some time prior because I found that gently masculine exertion of authority arousing in a most blood-boiling, knee-weakening way.
Despite finding his ministrations pleasurable rather than painful, I tried to escape from him after the third tingling slap, just to be game.
He didn’t disappoint and held me in place.
I kicked my legs in the sand and let out a sound somewhere between a muted squeal and a giggle.
Then I kissed him, long and deep with my eyes closed and with my fingers buried in his hair, earning a carnivorous rumble from him and a brief but sensual massage of the revenged-upon area.
“You’re so cute it hurts,” he told me tenderly, and for once, I took pleasure in the sentiment that usually only irked me when expressed by anyone else.
“You were saying before?” I reminded him of his earlier train of thought a little breathlessly.
“Oh. Right. I don’t think CanLys itself is waterborne.” His hand traversed slowly up and down along the depression of my spine. “Or the situation would have been a lot worse. I just think it came into our world that way, crossing with other pathogens and mutating into what it is today.”
Pensive silence ensued, and I rolled off him to the side, resting my head on his chest again.
“Do you know what happened to your dad?” I asked tentatively.
“I do. He died more than a decade ago.”
“Oh.” I raised myself slightly to look him in the face. “Oh, Einar, I’m so sorry. How did he go?”
“He fell down a cliff during a hike and broke his neck,” Einar replied, his arms winding tighter around me.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated mournfully.
“Don’t be, love. It was the death of his dreams. Quick and likely painless, doing something that he loved. At an age where he’d had the chance to live to the fullest, but before he could suffer ailments of old age.”
He fell quiet for a moment, the stars above reflected in his eyes.
“I haven’t been back to Iceland for years.
I feel sorry for it now. There was this old neighbour, Gunnar Bjornsson, who was really like an uncle to me.
We stayed in touch, and he visited me in Edinburgh a few times.
I should have gone to see him. But I kept postponing it, thinking there was enough time, you know? ”
“Hmm.” I made a sad noise in my throat. “You still might,” I told him. “Will you tell me a bit about your dad?”
At first, he spoke about the old, converted farmhouse where he grew up; L-shaped, white and little, with a red roof and a red garage door.
“In the middle of bloody nowhere,” he said, “with Gunnar as the only neighbour within a five-mile radius. How I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” he scoffed, his voice a little gruff with sentiment.
He spoke of his father at length as a kind, sociable man who loved the company of animals and enjoyed occupying his time with any outdoor pursuit possible, from fishing, hiking and horse riding to planting trees.
“Planting trees?”
“Yes. He always went on about the deforestation of Iceland and wanted to do his part to fix it. He kept campaigning about those melting glaciers as well, not that anyone ever listened.”
Judging that we had left Jean-Luc and Albert waiting for too long already, we stood up after a short while and began dressing ourselves, picking up our damp clothes and flapping them in the air to clear them of sand. I did this slowly, reluctant to abandon our budding sense of closeness.
“Do you think we’ll survive this? We, as in people,” I asked with the sole purpose of stalling.
“We will,” Einar replied confidently, and my eyes lingered on his hands as he fastened his belt.
“You sound very sure ...”
“I am. Because of the cannibals’ biggest weakness. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head.
“They’re almost oblivious to pain, aren’t they?
That’s what makes them so bloody dangerous in the short term.
They can come after you fast, even if their legs are broken.
But pain is useful because it prevents us from harming ourselves.
It is because they seem to completely lack the ability to feel hurt that I think they will kill themselves faster than they will infect us. ”
“That makes sense,” I allowed while pulling my hair from underneath the collar of my top. “We just need to defend ourselves long enough.”
“Perhaps. But in most situations, I prefer doing more than the bare minimum, and this will be no exception. And you’re going to help me with that.”
“How?”
He fixed me with an intimidating stare before taking a few steps closer, and my heart sped up with something close to alarm as I found myself craning my neck to look up at him.
“Why, however I tell you to. Won’t you, darling?”