Jolting from my bed, I strangle myself from the covers and throw myself at the door. Screams are drenching the house, floating through the veins of my home. I wrestle with the door, unlock it, race down the steps, following the screaming. Hannah and Les are vanished. I wheel around at the foot of the steps, in the foyer, and rush downstairs two steps at a time. The door to the family room is open; Mom’s graying, stiff corpse stares at me with those lucid, unmoving eyes. I burst into the room. Ashlie is on the floor, falling apart, writhing and screaming. Tears lace her face, stain her shoulders and the neck of her nightgown. Les fights to hold her steady; Hannah tells her to get quiet, to calm down, everything will be okay. She doesn’t stop. Ashlie sees me and screams – roars – maybe out of anger. She looks at me and the guilt and shame that sleep erased burst like a dam and the Anthony Barnhart 36 Hours 135 waters gush. Her legs bash against the walls and floor; Mom’s body doesn’t move, cut off from everything, an object, no more a person.
