31
4 DAYS REMAINING
At first there was darkness. And the faint whinny of horses. Galloping hooves on turf and a snort. Then in came the light. White, skull-penetrating light through the window. The curtains half-drawn. Alice opened an eye, face-down on a pillow moist with drool, mouth and throat desert dry. She saw Ray lying with his enormous back to her, his head wedged in his old high school football helmet.
"Oh no," she said to herself, voice croaking. She hauled her leaden head off the pillow and turned onto her back, brushing away an empty pizza box. "Oh no," she said again, staring at the box.
Rubbing a flake of sleep out of one eye, she felt something spiky digging into her butt.
Lots of little somethings. She lifted one leg. Saw a colony of dagger-like crumbs clinging to skin
