Pearl blocked the doorway. The cold air forging its way in made me reel. She wouldn’t stop interrogating me. The same questions, over and again. I don’t know why I hadn’t moved. Or why I couldn’t get any response from the radio. I did know I’d drunk an entire bottle of whisky on an empty stomach, then sat in a stupor for the whole of the rest of the night, too scared to get up and fetch myself some water or food.
I’d heard a car pull up late, a man’s voice hollering, but in my comatose state I couldn’t make out who it was. The sound of heavy boots on the veranda decking did nothing to ease my harried state of mind. I was convinced it was that ghost, or worse, Pete had come back to life, a Zombie.
I’d fallen asleep at some point and awoken in daylight with a mouth like sandpaper and an in
