I’m startled awake by a sound streaking across the lake. With my eyes still closed, I catch only the last breath of it. An echo of an echo fading fast as it whooshes deeper into the woods behind my house.

I remain frozen in place for half a minute, waiting for the sound to return. But it’s gone now, whatever it was. The lake sits in silence as thick as a wool blanket and just as suffocating.

I fully open my eyes to a gray-pink sky and a lake just beginning to sparkle with daylight.

I spent the whole night on the porch.

Jesus.

My head pounds with pain and my body crackles with it. When I sit up, my joints creak louder than the rocking chair beneath me. As soon as I’m upright, the dizziness hits. A diabolical spinning that makes the world feel like it’s tilting off its axis and forces me to grip the arms of the chair for balance.

I look down, hoping it will steady me. At my feet, rocking slightly on the porch floor, is the whiskey bottle, now mostly empty.

Jesus.

Seeing it brings a rush of nausea so strong it eclipses my pain and confusion and dizziness. I stand—somehow—and rush inside, heading for the small powder room just off the foyer.

I make it to the powder room, but not the toilet. All the poison churning in my stomach comes out in a rush over the sink. I turn the tap on full blast to wash it down and stumble out of the room, toward the staircase on the other side of the living room. I can only reach the top floor by crawling up the steps. Once there, I continue down the hall on my hands and knees until I’m in the master bedroom, where I manage to pull myself into bed.

I flop onto my back, my eyes closing of their own accord. I have no say in the matter. The last thought I have before spiraling into unconsciousness is a memory of the sound that woke me up. With it comes recognition.

I now know what I heard.

It was a scream.