Chapter 26 The Best Laid Plans #2
A circle of onlookers was forming around us. A circle of concerned friends and family members, some about to be devastated. My hair was whipping against my face mercilessly, but I made no move to fasten it.
“We lost Carlos, Ian, Pierre, and younger Jean,” Einar said laconically, but his voice expressed his despondency clearer than any words could have.
There were gasps and sobs, people covering their mouths in shock and horror. Ian’s tall, thin girlfriend collapsed to the ground, wailing. I saw Monika, crying silently, her hand placed protectively on her blooming belly. I looked away quickly.
“They fought bravely until the end.” Einar paused to take a heavy breath. “The bad news doesn’t stop there, I’m afraid.” He looked back up. “Finlay got bitten. Time will show whether we’ll lose him as well.”
Next came the cry of Finlay’s girlfriend, Laura. Helga stood beside her and put her arms around her, saying something I couldn’t hear over the wind’s laments.
“Did you get the supplies at least?” Amit asked somewhere in the crowd, hidden from view by taller people.
“We got plenty of food.” Einar nodded. “And some medicines, including the much-needed Levothyroxine. Nothing in terms of surgical supplies, though. We couldn’t get to them, no matter how hard we tried.”
His eyes were virtually motionless, and he was breathing hard through his nose, his broad shoulders tense, as if he physically carried a heavy burden.
I was fairly certain that in seeing Einar’s steadfast resilience showing cracks, I wasn’t alone in feeling as if the world had destabilised and swayed on its axis.
Only then did I realise how much I had come to depend on it, how much we had all perhaps depended on it.
Shrugging off setbacks as if they were nothing but minor inconveniences in his glorious path used to seem second nature to him, a form of reckless arrogance.
But possibly it took more of his strength than we had all imagined, to instil confidence in others by not letting himself be deterred by whatever obstacles came in our way, by never allowing himself to despair, to do anything but soldier on.
“We will talk about this more.” Einar straightened back up.
“I know you all have questions, and I promise that they will be answered. But for now, please, let us take care of our injuries. Tonight, I will come to speak to each and every one of you who has lost someone close to them. And for the rest of you, tomorrow at dinner I will recount what happened, and there will be as much time for discussion as we’ll all need. ”
Nobody argued with him. People disappeared in a flurry of activity, carrying crates of food away and retreating back into their lodgings to escape the merciless elements until only Einar and his advisers remained, alongside me and the quietly sobbing Laura.
She was tall and slender, like a young tree, with a plait of fine blond hair and downturned lips that made her look sad even when she wasn’t.
“Where i-is he? I-is he still in the car?” she asked.
“Yeah, ’bout that ...” Russ rubbed his copper beard. “We sorta had to ... tie ’im up.”
“What?!” In her shock, Laura stopped crying, colour draining from her face. “Is ... has he already?”
Einar grabbed her around the shoulder, supporting her, just as she started to sway on her feet.
“He hasn’t turned yet, darling,” he told her gently. “He is still himself. And he might stay that way.”
“Then why tie him up?” Laura looked up at Einar, her eyes red and swollen.
The wind tugged on her plait with a high-pitched wail, tossing it there and back against her shoulders.
“He gave us some trouble, love. First, he lied, saying the fury didn’t actually bite him when we all saw she did.
Then he tried to steal one of the cars and drive away.
Threatened to bite others if they approached him.
He actually gave me a few of these.” Einar pointed to some of the gashes showing through his ripped T-shirt.
“But perhaps he’ll be in a better headspace now, let’s see. ”
Without further ado, Einar yanked the back door of the white sedan open. Finlay sat there in a heap, his green eyes huge and accusing as he looked in our direction. A rope coiled tightly around his torso, arms, and legs. A rag was stuffed in his mouth.
“Oh, I didn’t know about that,” Einar said apologetically to Laura, whose eyes bulged almost as much as Finlay’s.
“He wouldna stop yelling,” Russ explained with a guilty frown. “I couldna drive like that fer ’ours ...”
Einar removed Finlay’s gag.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Laura moved as if she wanted to fling herself at Finlay.
Einar and Russ both readied themselves to prevent her from doing so. But she stopped of her own accord before they got to her, jerking away mid-motion as if she had seen a viper on her path. The realisation plain on her face.
“Hey, baby.” Finlay smiled at her tremulously, and the look in his eyes alone could have melted butter.
I bit my lower lip until I tasted blood. My fingers were burning with cold, but I wilfully left them exposed to the air instead of benefitting from the warmth of my pockets.
Finlay turned to look at Einar.
“Let me go, man. Ye dinna know if I’ll turn. It’ll be days ’fore I’m dangerous.”
“Fin, you know I can’t do that.” Einar looked at him with firm compassion. “You may not turn. But if you do, eventually, then that means you’re already infected now. You’ll have to do what I did and—”
“No! I dinna want to be chaint! I willna be chaint!” Finlay’s kindly face erupted with protests, spittle flying from his mouth.
All of us but Einar took a step back instinctively.
“Man, you know I have no choice in this.”
“No!” Finlay shook his head wildly like a child on the brink of a tantrum before he broke down in tears. “Please, no. I canna be chaint.”
His face reddened and contorted, and transparent snot flowed freely from his nose, collecting in his wiry stubble. Einar leaned forward and wiped it away with the rag before stuffing it in a spare plastic bag in the back of the car.
“Let’s make sure nobody but me touches that,” he said in a low voice to us.
I bit my tongue and the inside of my cheek. Blood flooded my mouth, and I swallowed it, feeling instantly nauseated. It was no use, not with Laura sobbing like that, not when tears like pearls glistened in the dark on Russell’s cheeks. Not when I looked into Einar’s tortured face.
“I’m sorry.”
Einar cut the rope binding Finlay’s legs, then dragged him out of the car with no little effort, since Finlay was a large, strong man himself and resisted valiantly.
“I will free you as soon as it’s clear you’re not going to turn, you have my word,” Einar raised his voice sharply.
“Well, and what if I start turning?” Finlay’s voice was an octave higher than usual. “Ye’ll shoot me, then, I know ye will! Ye’ll shoot me like a dog!”
Losing his nerve at last, Einar slammed his captive hard against the car.
“And what else would you have me do, eh?” he yelled, bearing down on Finlay. “Would it be better to watch one of my best mates turn into a creature that’s an insult to everything he ever was?! Would you prefer I let you become one of them?”
I volunteered to obtain the necessary supplies for Finlay to grant Einar some time alone in our cottage in the meantime.
Finlay was chained to a radiator in one of the erstwhile hotel rooms, and he glowered accusingly at me as I surrounded him with snacks, extra blankets, rolls of toilet paper, and a bucket.
I was hard on my feet and didn’t see how I could procrastinate my return home any longer, but still I opened and shut the main door as quietly as I could have, determined to sneak back out if I heard Einar weep. I knew he wouldn’t want me to see him cry.
But all was quiet, and I found him sitting on the bed, face buried in his hands, chest expanding and constricting rhythmically in deep, powerful breaths.
He had taken his shirt off, and I noted rather detachedly that his stomach was leaner and more sculpted than when I first saw him, muscles of his abdomen bulging tightly in neat rows, vaguely resembling a pack of bread rolls.
I was shivering even in my jacket, but as an Icelander Einar seemed as impervious to cold as ever.
He was motionless in the sparse candlelight and gave no indication of being aware of my presence.
I hesitated, then approached him wordlessly, wanting to put my arms around him.
“No!” Large hands snatched mine on their way, and I yelped.
He lifted his head to look at me. This way, there was a smaller difference in our heights than when he stood, and our faces were almost level. He stared at me intently, his eyes dry but full of shadows.
“Don’t touch me like this, Ren.” He let go of my hands and apologetically patted my hip. “In situations like these, let me come to you first, aye?”
I nodded wordlessly.
“You never know how you’ll react when faced with death,” he spoke slowly like reciting a poem.
“For me, when I was first bitten, there was no emotion involved at all. I chained myself. Nobody had to make me do it. I didn’t want to die, and I certainly didn’t want to turn into a fury .
.. but I disassociated and only focused on what had to be done.
” He shook his head, his mouth but a tight line.
“I don’t know why I assumed it would be the same with everyone. ”
“It was horrible.” I barely contained the sob, threatening to escape me.
It wasn’t lost on Einar, though, and he finally extended his arms to embrace me, and I practically lunged onto him.
He bore the impact stoically, squeezing me tight.
He unzipped my jacket to settle his head onto the bulge of my breasts with a moan.
I buried my face in his hair, not minding that it was still damp.
“Finlay and I have been friends for over ten years. We graduated together. I was the best man at his wedding, and then I was there when he got divorced. I introduced him to Laura ... that is all to say, I wasn’t sure I could do it.
Drag him, bind him ... but then I did. I had to.
And after that, I had this terrifying thought . ..”
I felt a shiver run through him.
“What thought?”
“What if it was you? What if you got bitten? I couldn’t do it then.”
“I wouldn’t make you, I don’t think,” I whispered into the golden crown of his head.
“Oh, I know you wouldn’t. Not you, brave in your indifference. You likely would have volunteered to be shot preventatively without as much as a shrug.”
While speaking, he pulled up my shirt and planted little cold, wet kisses on my stomach and my breasts. They made me think vaguely of tiny fish in a bright aquarium. There was nothing sexual about his caresses.
“But me? I couldn’t kill you or let you be killed.
I would have begged and cried for you, and I would have stolen a car to take you away.
I would have hurt anyone who’d try to get to you.
I would have broken bones and cut throats, I would have murdered everyone here, every single person, just to keep you with me, Ren.
And then, even if you turned and you were no longer you, I still couldn’t part with you.
Instead, I would let you tear me apart. Tear the heart out of my chest.”
“What a romantic thought,” I remarked dryly.
He looked up at me, and the breath caught in my throat.
“I’ll make you shoot me first if it ever happens,” he told me without a trace of humour. “If for no other reason, then value your own life because mine depends on it.”