When I was finished I tied the towel around me and pumped water to fill the drum again. Then I carried my clothes upstairs to my squat, dropped them on the floor, and crawled under the covers. I must have fallen asleep almost immediately.

I sat up. No, that’s not what I did. That’s not even close to what I did. Like some machine part, like a bolt being shot from one position to another, like a single-pole switch toggled from off to on, like a tractor-trailer jacknifing on the ice, I found myself vertical in the dark, sweat already cold, stomach and heart like trapped birds flapping, flapping, and a sound, not really a scream, escaping the back of my throat.

They do it in movies. Gunshot on the soundtrack, and a fast cut to an actor, sitting up in bed. It’s real. I did it.

“Easy,” said someone next to me in the dark. “Easy. You were dreaming. Tell me about it.” There was a hand on my shoulder. I snapped my head around and stared at the silhouette barely visible between me and the darkened window.

Lightning flashed behind, and a match flared in front of her. Sunny Rico. She sat in one of my kitchen chairs near the bed. Light sketched the outline of the fingers on the hand that sheltered the match; light rolled over her impassive face and lowered eyes and made her look like a statue in a Mexican church. A Madonna with a brush cut. She lit a candle on the nightstand as thunder cleared its throat outside.

Terror is a long-lasting, mind-numbing drug. I sat amid the ransacked bedclothes unable to identify them, or to make sense of anything, dragging air in and out through my constricted throat. Then half-thoughts fell over each other: what was she doing here, or if she was here, where was I? Memory began to settle out—Rico, her car, the building, Charlie, the dream I’d just—

“How’d you get in here?” I gasped.

“Tell me about the dream, before you forget it.”

“Not likely—”

“Tell.”

I slumped forward and leaned on my knees. “Don’t be a ghoul,” I said, muffled against the sheet.

“You can charge me for the time. Please?”