Orpheus - Haunting the Dead.pdf - Dice

HAUNTING THE DEAD
SETH LINDBERG
She laughed from the back of her throat, sounding
pleased. His lips grew closer to hers, brushed against
them.
When his memory turned to imagination, they
never stopped kissing. It was better that way.
***
Anders opened his eyes, then immediately wished
he hadn’t. He had only dreamed of Lila. A re-enactment
of a memory, that was all. His vision blurred and
it was like every part of him ached, like every cell in his
body complaining bitterly about its state in the world.
He felt disoriented and tired, worn, shattered, his brain
somehow dry. It was like that every time. Indeed, it
seemed with each successive trip his body felt more
taxed, and the recovery took longer.
He turned his body over on one side, a feat requiring
an extreme effort, like overturning a beached whale,
slowly rolling it back toward the salty arms of the
ocean. He expected to find Lila there, her back turned
toward him, shoulder lightly rising and falling, the
fading tattoo of Celtic knotwork spread between her
shoulder blades. But that side of the bed was empty.
Unconsciously, as if seeing if it was still there, he ran
a thumb along the thick scar that ran up his forearm
from his elbow to his wrist.
Blast, he thought bitterly. They’ve rescheduled our
times off, yet again. Once more he came back from one
of his extended missions with the Group to find that
Lila’s schedule had been slightly changed, that she’d be
working for a few extra days or longer, and that he’d
spend his two weeks of recuperation without being able
to touch her olive skin, feel her next to him, or look
into her warm brown eyes.
He tried to rise up from the bed, maybe stumble into
the bathroom, but it was too much effort. His body hurt
all over. It felt uncomfortable, like he was trying on
someone else’s corpse just to see what it was like and
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