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The heat in Mexico never stopped. It beat down on the roof of the little house they had bought before the wedding money had run out. They'd have to sell it soon, before they completely ran out of money. Or before there would be no one left to live in it.
Mauri was sat on the cracked concrete step outside, accordion at his feet, flask warm in his hand. Inside, a body was cooling under a thin sheet.
Pimme had been so excited yesterday. They'd booked a gig - a birthday party for a kid who apparently wanted to grow up to be a drummer.
What a shame.
Heikki had gone first. Then Sakari. Pekka. Puka. Now Pimme. One by one. The house was growing quieter every week.
Soon they'd all be dead.
Mauri stared at the dry dirt between his pointed shoes. There was a small beetle struggling to climb the side of a stone, falling back each time it reached the top. He watched it try again. It seemed a stupid thing to keep doing, but the beetle did not appear to have any other plans.
Mauri had not cried when they told him, not for any of them. He had not cried when they carried Pimme out of the back room where the bottles were stacked up to the ceiling. He'd stood aside to let the others pass, then gone outside because he just... couldn't.
The tears simply would not come.
Something in his chest had gone quiet weeks ago, maybe years, and now it was only a flat, dull space where feeling used to live.
Maybe he hadn't felt anything since before they left Siberia.
Pimme had always been the quiet one, the one who looked over his shoulder too often on those endless American highways. In those dive bars and dead end towns, he'd been scared - more than the rest of them. And maybe they wouldn't have be died if they hadn't left home with Vladimir in the first place. But given the choice of rock and roll or the labor camp, they'd chosen the music. They'd chosen America. They'd chosen this. This miserable fate, these deaths.
Mauri wondered, without much interest, if he would be next. Maybe it would be a blessing. No more mornings waking up to creep through the house and count who was still breathing. No more nights listening to the remaining ones pretend they were happy with where they'd ended up.
Mauri unscrewed the flask.
The same sharp bite of the venom that had taken Pimme and the rest hit Mauri's lips. It burned the way it always did, familiar now, almost comforting. Mauri swallowed. He did not know if he was wishing it would take him next. The thought of dying was too distant to feel like fear, and the thought of living was no longer much of anything.
The sun kept beating down. Mauri stayed on the step, flask open, eyes dry and useless, and waited for his turn.