It was too beautiful to have the repeating song of bullets inrhythm, wasn’t it?
“Slow down your shots,” Lucia whispers under intermittent fire. “We need some for later.”
We totalled five rounds in the fire bays, twenty bullets given out per. We could look normal only shooting ten, so now we have fifty.
And I’m almost for their plan. At some point, touring the trenches while being read personal accounts from soldiers of rabid disease and sleeping next to dead friends and lovers makes me want to leave—any direction. Ghouls can’t be worse than this.
We’re ordered to our dugouts, which I have to guess areimprovedfrom their original counterparts. Sleek floors, incandescent lighting, a stove with clean pans and food unsafe bottles of olive oil, not even one corpse—every breath feels inauthentic.
“The room is yours for the night. Lock the door. Ring the bell if there’s trouble.” Our two escorts leave back outside.
I jolt back from their voice. I didn’t know they could talk!
Hanna sits on the edge of a cot, lighting a cigarette. “About how many fags until they go to their own quarters, you think?”
“Pass me one.” Lucia sits next to Hanna. “We should say three,just to stay safe.”
I hesitantly join their giggling.
Hanna beckons me. “You know, it’s good for your heart health. Get it pumping without all the work of exercise. Filtered too, so it’ll help those lungs.”
“I was wondering why it tasted like asbestos,” Lucia sneers.
“Oh, and what brand are you, you picky little bitch? Those filterless ones give you cancer.”
“Whores and communists smoke filtered.” Lucia gives a dainty kiss to Hanna’s cheek. “I guess we’re all just whores for the night.”
Hanna turns to me and winks. “You don’t need to stay over there fantasizing.”
I want to just turn my eyes over them and be flooded with desires. I want to be staring at their chests or their faces, at their lips and not what’s stuck between them.
It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing. Some years trimmed from someone who was never going to live forever. It shouldn’t cause my muscles to tense. It’s beautiful to die and be scattered upon the Great Ring.
Inhale. Clasp hands. Whisper a prayer. “Great Ring, make me want what is good for me.”
Hanna cackles. “Oh, fuck yeah. We need prayer for what we’re doing.”
“My grandfather always did warn me that the Great Ring could never forgive homosexuality,” Lucia reminisces.
“Mine said that too. Mind you, he definitely was fucking his ‘best friend.’ And loudly.”
“Everyone needs alittlegay sex.”
Yes. Of course. Everyone. I need it too. I want it too. Just a little. And just a little later than now.
Chapter 16
Flaws and Failures
The night is settling; the ghouls are waking.
Lucia’s the first to brave leaving the fire bay, barbed wire long since cut. “I think I can block in the sound for… a hundred meters. So we’re marching that far.”
“I’m actually trained and can reach two hundred,” Hanna says while climbing after.
Being shorter than either of them, I need their help to get up.
They’re happy to give it; it’s the proper way to treat their shared date.
