Free The Resurrected Compendium by Megan Hart

body arched, but she was like a turtle on its back. Imprisoned with him pressing against her from behind, his body linked to hers and her belly in front of her keeping her from rolling forward, all she could do was swim in the sheets and let out a startled cry.
    Something was very, very wrong, but though her mind knew it, her body hadn’t yet figured it out. Even as she struggled, pushing at the pillows, the inexorable slide into orgasm had begun and wasn’t stopping. It ripped at her, left her gasping, her vision bright with stars and the hazy red edges of possible unconsciousness. He thrust harder, the bed rocking. He moaned her name, and something familiar in it sent her over the edge again even as she fought against the pleasure with a silent “no, no, oh, God…no.”
    He spent himself inside her with a low shout and stopped moving. Marnie panted, frozen. Tony stroked her hair from the back of her neck; his lips pressed her there in the place that not so long ago she’d loved to have him lick and bite and kiss. Then he withdrew. The bed shifted. She heard the pad of his bare feet on the floor, down the hall and into the bathroom. She heard the shower start, the water pattering on the porcelain and the rattle of the shower curtain rings on the curved metal rod he’d installed just for her so she’d have more room in the old-fashioned shower.
    She heard him start to sing.
    Tony had a surprisingly sweet baritone voice, always on key though he only ever sang in the shower or along with the car radio. His voice was grit and gravel now, nothing sweet about it except when it sputtered into silence. Marnie pushed herself up from the bed, anticipating the slow, warm gush of him on her thighs, but there was nothing. She shook, her knees weak for a moment, and she gripped the nightstand.
    What the holy fuck was happening?
    The shower shut off. The bathroom door squeaked, then the hall. The stairs. All normal, familiar sounds made shocking and terrible by the fact she should be the only person in this house and was not.  
    She heard the back door open and close.  
    Only then could she move. Marnie went downstairs, found the orange juice carton on the counter instead of in the fridge, just as she had so many times before. It had made her angry and angrier all those other mornings when Tony had gone off to work, leaving her with the mess. This time, all she did was close the carton, open the fridge and tuck it inside. Her fingers shook; she was light-headed and woozy the way she got when she didn’t eat enough or it was time for the daily liquid shot of the heavy duty iron supplement she had to take to counter the anemia this baby’d created. She went to the cupboard to get the bottle, every movement an effort she was afraid she’d be unable to make but forced herself to do anyway because only be pretending she might possibly still be normal, that all of this was normal, could she hope to function.
    She stopped in front of the electric calendar that had been on the kitchen counter since her grandparents had owned the house. Like an old clock radio, it had flipping numbers, black on white, to keep track of the   month and date. She looked at it every day.  
    Yesterday had been the eighth, she was sure of it because that was bill-paying day and she’d spent the morning at her desk, calculating the bank balance. It had put her in a bad mood, which had led to the frank-n-beans argument, and that had led to her throwing them on the floor…and then the storm had come. Yesterday had been the eighth, the day after had been the ninth, today should be the tenth, that’s how time fucking worked, it went forward twenty-four hours at a time, but the calendar said it was the twelfth.  
    Marnie gripped the counter, her breath short. The baby moved and squirmed, kicked once and settled. She looked at the microwave clock, which should be blinking if the power went out, but it was the same steady green as always. Besides, if the