Entwined

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

One rule. Kind of a funny way Shay phrased it, considering their lives were nothing but rules in this lockdown. When you can exercise, where and how long… even when you can leave to buy tampons. All dictated by the government. And now this, dictated by Shay’s Great Uncle… whateverhisnameis… owner of this house, where becoming stranded as another lockdown was called was once only a humorous possibility. A future romantic anecdote for a wedding speech.

Just now, romance felt as dead as the mice that desiccated in these walls, permeating each room with a subtle perfume of decay.

Cass could hear Shay downstairs, doing who knows what. Anything to avoid her, she supposed. A far cry from their intimacy at the start of the holiday weekend that brought them here. How many weeks ago was that? How many fights ago… Cass counted, unconsciously, on fingers still bearing the chipped remains of the blue nail polish she’d applied that first morning.

If the timing had been different they would have been back in the city now, maybe Zooming each other from their own apartments. Not straining their ears for the floorboard squeaks of the other’s purposeless pacing. Would Shay hear that her own footfall had brought her to the forbidden door?

Hear this, she thought, as she wrenched the handle. The door came to, releasing a billow of dust and a meaty decomposed odour.

Her breath caught as she recongnised Shay, reclined in a lovers’ embrace. Though the skin sloughed and slipped in places, the identity was clear. From the other side of the bed reached an arm with fingers entwined in Shay’s hair. The flesh withered, but the blue nail polish was as fresh as the day it went on.