Connie hadn't wept when she'd seen Wilbur's corpse staring at her that morning. She'd shrieked, yes. But hadn't wept -- and she was somewhat happy about that.

The expression on his face was the same as that he'd worn in life. A look that gave the impression he'd sucked on one too many lemons, and now everything had gotten so used to being that way, that it had become firmly stuck. All his facial features pointed forwards accusingly -- the ridge of his eyebrows, the pout of his lips, the strip of hair either side of his head.

So it had taken Connie a moment to realize that her husband was indeed dead.

In the end, it'd been his unblinking eyes that had given him away as a corpse.

They'd always betrayed him, his eyes. When he'd been out that night and it hadn't been at the tavern (she'd searched there first of all), it had been his eyes that had given him away. Connie had long suspected he'd had a thing for Norma at the fishmongers (Norma! Older than Connie and not as pretty), so when he'd finally returned home she'd asked him what he'd been up to.

"Tried a new place for a drink," he'd said. And his breath indeed wafted booze at her as if to prove his point. "And I had food out, 'cause it was late and I was 'ungry."

"Have any fish for dinner?"

He frowned, his lemony features hardening. "Nay. Meat pie." But his eyes. They glinted guilty and excited.

And now he was dead.

Connie would have to find work, she supposed. But that might not be so bad -- she'd meet people. Being in the house as much as she was, always cleaning then cooking for when Wilbur came home, she didn't get to meet many people. Her friends from childhood had gently melted away as if they had been snowflakes and their lives had become spring.

Her life, of course, had been stuck in winter.

One of Wilbur's arms was missing. Oh, no, there it was. She'd found it as she'd peeled back the bedding, thrusting out of his stomach as if someone had run a sword through him. Or an erection, she thought dryly. Hadn't been able to get one of those in two years (at least, not with her), but now he gets the biggest one of his life. The ol' bastard.

Then Connie felt a little bad about the thought.

She threw the sheet back over him as if throwing on soil over a shallow grave. "Bastard," she snapped again, annoyed that she'd have to burn the good linen. It'd taken weeks to save up enough for one of the few luxuries in her life. The bedsheets were perhaps top three of her little luxuries, somewhere just behind the new ringer. Never had she been able to squeeze water out of their clothes half as well as that machine could.

But there was nothing to be done about it. She wasn't going to die the same way he had. And she'd heard it spread if not contained. Might be too late already. If it was, then she supposed there was no need to prepare dinner for Mary and herself tonight.

No, best to be safe. She'd prepare it anway.

Oh, yes. Mary. Yes, she best go tell her daughter of her father's demise.

Thud thud rapped her knuckles on her daughter's door. "Mary, sweetie, I've some terrible, terrible news."

Mary sat up in bed, her expression changing like mercury between anxious and excited. "Is it Father? Tell me it's not Father."

"I'm afraid it is. That terrible awful plague that is ravaging the city has found our dear sweet man."

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Mary bit her lip and looked to the floor, trying her best to appear glum.

The two hugged, and both (when sure the other couldn't see their face) grinned. Good riddens, you miserable old git, they thought.

"What's to be done?" said Mary.

"I'll get the paint down from the attic and we'll make our door how the Jones' did theirs, back when their little Peter passed."

Mary nodded. "Tonight?" Had she sounded too eager? Maybe she should say something. "If I sounded eager, it's only because I'm scared the plague might spread to us."

But Connie understood and told Mary so. "We'll roll him in the sheets and put him by the door. They'll collect him tonight, if they're using our taxes as they say they are."

Now Mary really did feel sad. "Not your good linen sheets!"

Connie shrugged pragmatically. "There's nothing to be done about it."

It was a struggle to get Wilbur out of the bedroom. The wood of the floor was warped and uneven and he kept getting jammed as they rolled the linen-wrapped body. He was heavy, too. His stomach swollen by years of ale and pies (his favorite, that he demanded his wife make at least twice a week with very thick pastry). But they found that once they had him through the doorway, that he moved a little easier.

By the time he got to the stairs, he was almost floating. He bounced merrily down them and Connie thought it was the happiest she'd seen him since that night he'd had with the fishmonger.

He landed almost in the right place, just by the front door.

"Well," said Connie. "That's that."

"Yes," Mary agreed. "That's that." And thinking she should say something more profound, she added, "I'll miss him?"

"We both will. Now what's say we have a drink and celebrate his life."

Mary smiled. "We don't have to talk about him though, do we?"

"No dear, I think he'd rather we had an enjoyable night on his behalf, than a miserable one." Of course, that wasn't true and she knew it. Wilbur would much rather they had been miserable ever-after, after his death. The ol' bastard.

The wine had been good. Wilbur had hoarded so much wine (wine and his precious pale ale that he coveted more than any woman) that the night had turned into a feast of liquids. Connie thought they wouldn't get much for selling it (they would have done) and so suggested they spend the next few nights enjoying it, instead.

And that first night they did just so. The kitchen sang as the ladies bellowed out song after song, wine splashing from tankards in their hands, smiles splashing high up their faces. When was last time they'd had a night like this? Connie had wondered.

Never.

They went to their beds (Connie's sheets changed to a cheap and rather coarse, prickly cotton), the house spinning, hearts still singing, and fell promptly asleep.

Connie woke to a most dreadful scream. She thought for a moment it was coming from her own mouth, so drunk she still was.

But then it came again, and she was almost certain it wasn't her.

She swung her legs out of bed and nearly fell as she did so. "Mary? Is that you?"

There it was again. A third scream. And a "Help me," too.

Connie didn't like the sound of it all very much. Something odd about it. She stumbled out of her room, her shoulders thudding the wall in the corridor as she steadied herself. "Mary, your mother's coming," she said.

She didn't think of needing a weapon. That was the drink, it was still dulling her mind. It was a shame, as a good weapon might have helped her.

But probably not.

Down the corridor she went, her eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. She should have kept a candle burning last night and she cursed herself for blowing them all out.

If there had been candles lit, perhaps she would have looked down the stairwell as she passed it and seen the conspicuous absence that did not lie there. The flatness of the linen sheets, as if the body that had been in them had gone through her ringer.

Connie entered Mary's room.

The screaming had stopped by then.

But she could hear heavy breathing.

"Mary?"

She stepped into a wet patch and winced. "Did you have an accident, dear? Alcohol can do that to people, no matter their age. Your father was often--"

And then she saw him.

The arm that protruded from his stomach wriggling and writhing.

At his feet lay the still and silent body of their daughter.

"Gods have mercy," Connie said. "I thought you were dead."

He said nothing, but took a step towards her.

"Should have known you'd come back to take me with you."

Wilbur, or rather the body that had recently belonged to Wilbur, took another step forward and moved a cold clammy hand up to Connie's neck. His fingers wrapped around her. Like iron, she thought. As cold and strong as iron.

"Damn you," she choked. "You old basta--"

The thing that Wilbur had become squeezed its hand tight, its strength far greater than Wilbur's had ever been in life.

And easily, it tore Connie's throat from out of her neck.