“Didn’t you want me back?”

Nana stood at the top of the staircase. Her head hung crookedly, the whites of her eyes glowing a sickly yellow in the meagre landing lighting. I felt myself nodding.

“I do. I did,” I faltered, my hands gripping into the bannister. I could see the skin of my knuckles stretching and bunching. Small globules of bile rolled around in my stomach, gathering like blisters round a sore. I bowed my head, the stench of my grandmother’s body making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “Not like this.”

Nana’s corpse made a sickening crunching sound. The bones of her tiny ankles cracked as the corpse lumbered down the stairs towards me.

“You wished for this!” her maw opened, rotting vapors curdling the air. “You brought me back.”

Hot tears burned my eyes. I clutched my stomach, the vomit surging up my throat.

“I didn’t wish for this,” I sobbed, “Leave her body alone.”

“Her?” the corpse descended again, the bones crunching with each step. “It’s just me, my darling girl.”

My nickname coming from its mouth sent the contents of my stomach hurling down my shirt.

“Please, stop it, stop it.”

I wiped the mess from my mouth and looked about dartingly.

Nana continued to creak and crunch towards me, lurching like a hanged body. I saw an umbrella my sister had hung to dry on the pegs by the hall mirror. I stumbled, reaching to grab it.

“Don’t leave me again!” My nana screamed at me, as I lifted the umbrella over my head to sink into her rotting swollen head.