Death in a Funhouse Mirror by Kate Flora

hand and sniffed it curiously. I couldn't see his face in the dark, but I knew it would be troubled. He understands about my affinity for bourbon, but it worries him. He thinks drinking alone is dangerous. Too many of his colleagues have trouble with alcohol, and too much of the crime he sees results from it. He slid a warm hand down my bare arm. "You're all goose bumps," he said. "How long have you been out here?"
    "Not long. The cool air felt good."
    He stood up. "Come here. Let me warm you up."
    "You never have any trouble doing that."
    "I just meant..."
    "I know what you meant," I said, getting up and going over to him. I buried my face in his chest, rubbing my cheek over the coarse, wiry hair, feeling the hardness of his muscles. "I miss your smell, when you're not here."
    "I smell?"
    "Don't be an idiot. I meant that combination of soap, shaving cream, and you that lingers on my pillow after you're gone. That kept me from changing the bed for two weeks, until there was so much grit between the sheets it was like sleeping in a sandbox and I gave up and washed you away."
    "You have such a poetic way of talking."
    "Well, you know how it is with wordsmiths; we toil all day long, beating the phrases into shape."
    "Only it was uncomfortably close to 'I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair...' Speaking of hair..." He reached over and pulled out the elastic that was holding it back. It fell onto my bare shoulders, tickling them with little wind-driven wisps. "There, that's better. Go stand over there by the railing." I stood by the railing, my hair floating on the wind, white nightgown billowing. "Wait there," he said. "I'll be right back." He disappeared inside, returning a minute later with the bedspread, which he spread out on the deck. He held out a hand. "Care to join me?"
    He untied the ribbons that formed the shoulder straps of my nightgown, and watched, his eyes shining in the dark, as it drifted to the ground. I stepped out of it and into his arms. Later, over his shoulder, I saw a shooting star, and then, for an hour, we both slept heavily, until the chill of a rising fog drove us back inside. That hour was the only restful sleep I got. Back in bed, even with his comfortable warmth beside me, the dreams returned.
    First it was the deer again, but this time as I watched, it grew Helene's head, and then her body, and it was her gaping bloody wound. Then the picture faded and became Eve again, but this time a corpulent, bloated Eve, bulging horribly in the bike shorts and tunic she'd worn today, perched on the stool like a dreadful toad, floating around the room like a witch from the Wizard of Oz, singing "Ding, dong, the witch is dead." And beside her, on a stool of his own, Padraig, his flaming hair long and dirty, his face dissipated and gaunt, floated with a cadaverous grin. Below them, Helene writhed and crawled, leaving a trail of blood on her impeccable kitchen floor.
    I moaned and tried to wake up, but the unrestful sleep held me in its grip. The kitchen gradually faded out, the picture became black and white, and I was looking at a wooded path. Far ahead of me, on the path, someone was lying. I fought harder to wake up, because I knew this picture, knew what was up ahead on the path, but the reel kept running, the dream coming on, relentless, drawing me closer to the silent figure on the ground. "No. No. I won't look. Don't make me look." But you can't close your eyes in a dream. Then it was all right there in front of me. Carrie. My sweet little sister. Lying there battered on the ground, the earth beneath her dark with blood. Dead at twenty-one. And then the vile projectionist finally let up, sent the pictures spinning into oblivion, and I was just driving along in my car, windows down, listening to music.
    Beside me, Andre stirred in his sleep, put an arm around me, and pulled me close. I moved my head across the pillow to his shoulder, finding, as I did so, that my pillow was wet with tears. After that I