Page 85 of Hot Ghost Summer

Mr Bowen stares in the direction of the Old Dairy, then his arm suddenly jerks forward.

Reflexively, I tense. I knew this was a stupid idea.

How to get yourself killed: walk up to the same ghost who killed your… colleague, and steal his cows.

Idiot. Theo. Idiot.

But when he holds out a rugged and transparent hand for me to shake, my sigh of relief is loud.

twenty-six

I Can't Feel My Face

Theo

The world is my enemy.

Each of my senses feels like it’s simultaneously on fire and trapped in ice.

My feet land heavily. Sluggish, as if they’re dragging my waterlogged body through thick air. Except, even through blurred vision, I know I’m walking the winding paths of Bowen’s Park back to the paddock.

The orange glow from the streetlights doesn’t just brighten the darkness, it assaults. I blink to clear my focus, but it sears even through closed eyelids. Opening them again improves nothing.

What the fuck is happening?

The last thing I remember is…

Lancing pain spears through my brain and triggers such a sudden and profound paranoia that it threatens to drown me.

I suck in a large breath that rasps over a sandpaper tongue and fills my lungs with splinters of glass.

Jim Bowen.

The last thing I remember is shaking hands with Jim Bowen.

I try to stand still—to process—but my body doesn’t listen. It’s like all the wires in my brain have been cut, and I’m no longer in control.

“Wha—” I grate, but my voice doesn’t sound like mine, and I can’t feel my face.

A sudden high-pitched moo detonates beside me. I recognise Brigid’s happiness, but can’t turn my head to locate her. Her black and white bulk cuts in front of me as she skips and bounds toward the paddock gate like a large field puppy.

Hurr Hurr.

Is that… my laugh?

No. Nope. No way. This is all just too much fucking weird. Even for me.

I try to stop again. And again, my body ignores me and carries on. Relentless, like a machine.

Why can’t I—

“Theo? Brigid! Oh, thank goodness. I was so—” Jayne’s voice carries through the still night long before I’m able to focus my vision well enough to see her. “What’s all this?”

As she draws near, I can see that she’s staring in disbelief at the herd of fifty ghost cows. Fifty-one, if I include Brigid.

I try to explain. “Herrrd.”

My hands clench into fists by my sides. What in the ever-loving…?