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Nineteen
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2021-09-09 17:26:40Related chapters
House of Sighs Eighteen
EIGHTEENAiden touched down in Sydney at four in the afternoon. Busting, he took a painful piss in the terminal toilets and then downed his meds with a cup of coffee from the Gloria Jean’s stand. He switched the sim card in his phone, a task that should have been simple but proved otherwise due to the trembling of his hands. He fiddled with the chip, noticing he’d bitten his nails down to the quick on the long, overpriced flight.“Get in there you—”Snap.The sim clicked into place. Waited for the reception bars to bloom. Pounded Danny’s Australian number. Aiden killed the call before it had a chance to connect and sat on one of the airport benches whilst waiting for his rental car to be brought around.Maybe I shouldn’t tell him I’m coming just yet.What if he runs?Per Google Earth’s not always accurate calculations, James Bridge was a two-hour drive north, assuming Sydney’s traffic proved merciful. If everything were to go to plan—if a plan this even was—Aiden should get to t
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Seventeen
SEVENTEENThere was no way to tell if the fog had dissipated throughout the day because, by the time Michael woke, the town beyond his window hazed again. Blue light from the halogen lamp in the carpark dueled with the neon pink MOTEL sign, dousing everything in slicks of color that refused to merge. Their glows seeped into the room, reflecting off his phone, burning in the dusty television screen.It itched to look at, all that arcade lighting. Dreams were easier.Flies crawled the walls and across the bathroom mirror. Every time he scrubbed the webs from his face they came back twice as thick. Michael gave up, breath pressing against the caul. In. Out. In. Out.Readied himself in the kitchenette opposite the bed. Slipped on his shoes. Didn’t bother to take his phone with him. Key slid into the pocket of his jeans.A closing door. Click.His room was on the second floor of the wraparound balcony and he inched down the stairs at a deliberate pace. The last thing he wanted to do w
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Sixteen
SIXTEENAiden caught his warped reflection in the surface of the Hyundai Elantra, the only other vehicle in the James Bridge Motor Motel carpark. The AVIS hire sticker was right there in its rear window.“Jesus.” It was real now.All of it.He walked to an office tucked into the corner of the building on the first floor facing the street. Aiden pushed the door and heard an old-fashioned bell cry. A man with bushy white eyebrows slept behind the desk, mouth open—‘catching flies’, as his father used to say in those days before becoming a big cliché, one of history’s many bastards who went out for a slab of beer and never came back—and a tattered Louis Lamour western cracked across his chest.Aiden approached the counter, noticed the antiquated hook board on the wall where keys were hung. Like everything else in this sleepy town, nothing about the motel interior had been dragged into the twenty-first century. Even the computer was old. Aiden remembered using a similar such type at sc
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Fifteen
FIFTEENAiden’s shoes clunked the metal staircase. He stepped onto a veranda overlooking the carpark where the two rentals sat near one another. Strange bedfellows, he thought.Or maybe not so strange after all.He gripped his bag in one hand, steeled himself before progressing, heart pounding, mouth parched. If this had been a mistake it was a mistake he was about to own. Aiden wasn’t going to stand there all night, deliberating as to whether this was the right thing to do; he’d crossed the Pacific Ocean to get to this spot, damn it.No backing out now.Aiden stopped before room eleven.The big windows were closed but at least the curtains had been drawn back. However, he couldn’t see into the dark interior on account of the blue and pink lights outside. The glass reflected his neon-coated reflection like a mirror. And as it turned out, yes, the old manager had been correct. His fatigue was obvious, cheekbones gaunt from not having been able to keep meals down, hair fanned up on
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Fourteen
FOURTEEN“Can I help you?”The man in the doorway to the one-story house glared at Michael with cautious curiosity, head tilted in an almost puppyish manner. This parallel extended to the man’s eyes, which were big and brown and hadn’t changed over the years. They still clung to the vulnerability that attracted Michael to him in the first place. Clive had always elicited an air of melancholy.However, the rest of him had aged. Like the hawthorn trees on the street, the man with whom Michael spent the evening and following morning prior to boarding Liz Frost’s bus to town, had also filled out. Young pudge turned an older gent’s fat; the cute moustache now a full-blown beard.“I said, can I help you?”Michael recalled looking back at the house before striding off into the day. No, not strode. Ran. He’d wanted to stay longer. Clive had looked at him from the shadowy window, too. The curtain had shifted. Michael was sure of it.You know it did, said the voice of the flies.“Clive.”
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Thirteen
THIRTEENRowena Webb sat upright at the sound of the three knocks against their door.She was in the living room after yet another draining day, watching MasterChef, her favorite program. A glass of Shiraz clamped tight in her hand. It wasn’t often she cracked a bottle to have on her own. Clive never drank on a work night, but the idea had been percolating in her head since about ten-thirty that morning.Pfft. Who cares?Some of the toughest women she knew needed an occasional carrot on a stick to see them through—her mother on the opposite side of town sprang to mind. Now that everything was settled, now that the contestants were prepping for a surprise elimination, now that her socks were off and her feet up on the couch, things at long last felt in their place. Yes. This was where all busy weeks should end: with cooking shows paired with a well-earned red.A dollop of wine leapt from the glass as she righted herself. Splotched a cushion.“Damn it.”Rowena placed her drink on
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Twelve
TWELVEThe Beast spilled into the house, quick as running water, inky and filthy water from deep within a well. It had teetered for too long, poured out now, something glorious in its release. When it opened its mouth to roar, it did so not with anger, but ecstasy. The sound it made was akin to dead branches clattering together.It didn’t walk. It surfed the hallway on electric waves of energy, fingers curling about the handle of a knife thieved from the kitchenette in room eleven of the James Bridge Motor Motel. The blade came away clean from the throat and a ribbon of blood jetted across the adjoining wall, red against white. The man it stabbed started to kick; hands lashed out, gripping its shirt, trying to punch and fight. Laughable. When something was funny, it was only natural to let loose.So it did.Why be apologetic to those who were not, in essence, willing to apologize.It brought the knife down again. Into the cheek, where the flesh was soft. Into the eye, which popped
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Eleven
ELEVENThe man came for Rowena and instinct forced her into the kitchen, feet slamming the tiles as she ran. That same instinct screamed at her to snatch the nearest available weapon. Anything would do.Anything.Her fingers curled around a long-bladed kitchen knife housed in the chopping block—yet another antique Clive hadn’t been able to let go of. Grief was like taffy, it was sticky as hell, and the longer you played in its snare the sweeter it became. Even though it frustrated her, Rowena couldn’t begrudge her husband that. No, not one bit. Some messes, people must escape alone.She drew the knife and spun. “CLIVE!”Their intruder thundered down the hall.Rowena sped out of the kitchen with the blade in both hands. She didn’t know what she was doing. Fight instinct with instinct, that was the extent of her thoughts. She was armed and ready, if it was possible to be ready under such circumstances. Rowena prayed that she would never have to be this ready ever again. Her Clive w
Last Updated : 2021-09-09
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House of Sighs Two & One
TWOEat the part that hurts, said the voice of the flies.Eat the part that hurts.ONEOutside, fog yielded to the winter wind and moonlight beamed through. That same rush of air swept over the James Bridge Motor Motel to rattle its eaves, blowing dirt against its windows. The night’s breath, so very much like a sigh, eased the door on the second floor shut. Ungreased hinges creaked, creaked, and trapped the new fathers within.Somewhere out there, time moved on. But not here. Not inside room eleven.
House of Sighs Three
THREEAiden came around to face his partner head on, Danny’s silhouette outlined in blue and pink. He could see every hair on his head, the fine peach fuzz along his arms, all of it highlighted in vibrant detail. Seeing him, Aiden thought, was to observe a painting, an oil on canvas titled ‘Man on Bed Holding Baby’.The itsy-bitsy-spider within Aiden’s throat bit down. Muscles tensed. Terror filled him and froze, painful cracks appearing in the ice as he brought his hands to his face. Things like this didn’t happen to people like him. This was something from a horror movie, or maybe, tomorrow’s headlines.I’m a good person, Aiden wanted to scream. I—we—don’t deserve this. It’s gone too far. Take it back.Take it back!Too late for that now. Aiden Bonner was in room eleven of the James Bridge Motor Motel, with the carpet beneath his feet and the stink of copper tainting the air. He was in room eleven with Danny as he brought the child to his face to plant a kiss on its cheek. Reali
House of Sighs Four
FOURThe woman who’d made the emergency call had collapsed at the entrance to another room on Kaaron Brennan’s right. Long, red hand streaks also palmed the door there. Blood lathered the handle, grew fat at the bottom of the knob, dropped to the puddle by the woman’s severed ear.Ploink.Ploink.Ploink.Brennan wanted to cry. She didn’t, and kept her pain inside.Stenciled across the ajar door were two words. It must have taken a caring, steady hand to inscribe that lavender printing so well, even going to the effort to put a little heart above the ‘I’. A mother’s touch, if there ever was one.“Timmy’s room,” Kaaron, who had two kids of her own, read aloud.Later, there would be time for weeping. That time was not now.
House of Sighs Five
FIVESneakers wisped over carpet. Aiden was tempted to reach into the dark, but he held off for the time being, letting his eyes adjust instead. The room sketched into form one shade of blue and pink at a time.Aiden found his partner sitting on the bed with his back to him, lit in neon glow.The quiet hotel room. Quiet, except for a curious suckling sound.“Danny?” Aiden said and took another step. His chest seized when he saw a shape on the far wall near the kitchenette, where the drawers had been opened.Just his shadow.You bloody fool, he could almost hear his mother say, leaning over to scold him as she did when he was a kid, bringing with her a wave of scented lady sweat and bush smoke. Pull your shit together.Aiden longed to have her here with him now, even if only to condemn him. That, at least, would be something. He felt so disconnected from his people, from his land. He couldn’t wait, one way or another, for this Hell to be over. Besides, he did need to pull his shi
House of Sighs Six
SIXNull relented and nodded, stepping up to his partner’s side as they inched to that doorway. Brennan smelled blood in there, in the pit of nothingness.They forced themselves through the arch, the quaking beam of Null’s flashlight revealing an upended phone on the floor, and farther ahead, the soles of two pale bare feet.Brennan didn’t want to see. Yet it was her job to see.It wasn’t that the woman’s clothes had been torn away. The comfy looking Sunday garments had bloomed off the slippery corpse, shed like the scrim of a cocoon. There was no beautiful butterfly here, not here in this dark house on Queen Street. Only cuts on top of cuts.For all Brennan knew, she stared at eighty stab wounds. Or more.“Good God in Heaven,” whispered Null. These were the quivering tones of that boy in the third grade, the one who feared his teacher’s yells because he hadn’t done his homework again.If only there was a way to wind back the clock and erase this sight from her mind, to go back
House of Sighs Seven
SEVENBlue and pink neon light illuminated Aiden’s way.He listened to the buzz of electricity from the MOTEL sign at the carpark’s entrance; it sounded like a hive, bee stingers rasping together. Another gust of wind blew through town to rustle his fringe, to stir the foggy cauldron obscuring the sky, stretching it thin in places to reveal the quarter moon beneath. He sweated. And he was scared.Aiden stopped.He thought of his flight from Brisbane to Bangkok and the black-and-white movie he’d watched on the way. It’s A Wonderful Life, it had been called, and while it featured numerous set-pieces, one particular scene returned to him now. In it, Jimmy Stewart’s character said he would lasso the moon and gift it to his gal to win her affection.And earn her love.The fog rolled in. Everything turned blue and pink once more.To think that he—or any man—had ever set their sights on the moon and thought it a three-dimensional thing worth dragging to Earth for the sake of someone sp
House of Sighs Eight
EIGHTAn ambulance pulled up as Kaaron Brennan entered the house. Never once in her six years on the force had she ever drawn her gun with the intent to shoot; she was more terrified now than she’d ever been. Null was by her side, covering blind corners. Every door she kicked open revealed empty rooms, rooms of unfinished business. The paperback on the bedside table with the bookmark tucked within, the mobile phone blinking messages received, a scented candle that had never been lit.Death in the details.Blood caked thick where the hallway branched into a T intersection, kitchen on her left and living room on her right. There was no mistaking which way the action had progressed; gore led to weeping MasterChef contestants.The door hung off its hinges on the other side of the room. Darkness beyond. Null shone his flashlight to reveal handprints on the architraves, swipes of blood resembling red, drooling smiles.Footsteps and flashing beams outside the window, past the television.
House of Sighs Nine
NINEAiden thought he’d dreamed the coming and going of sirens. He lifted his head from the pillow, muscles giving a kick. The musty motel air made his eyes itch.The television was on, evening soap operas playing out their inevitable dramas.Those sirens sounded so real.He fumbled for the remote and switched the old unit off. Beautiful faces shrunk down to a dot, bleeping into oblivion.Aiden propped himself up with one arm and looked to the window across from him, brow furrowed with concerned tension lines. He strained his ears, blinked his quiet shock away, and registered the fading screech of police cars. Or maybe an ambulance.Legs swung around to touch the carpet.He licked his lips. Dry.Aiden was at the point of crawling off the mattress and taking himself over to the kitchenette to drink water straight from the tap like he used to when he was a kid, but he stopped in his tracks. And he stopped because of a fresh sound, one that couldn’t be confused with another.The
House of Sighs Ten
TENIt took sixteen minutes for the police to arrive, and considering how long it took for the authorities to respond the day of the James Bridge massacre, this wasn’t too bad a turnaround. Some things had improved in this part of the world after all.Units dispatched from Maitland, further up the valley, their journey quickened by the expressway killing the town, skidding off the exit, kicking dust, their red and blue blinders like fireworks in the fog. They sped down the main drag and took a sharp turn, not bothering to stop at the traffic lights. Cockatoos feasting in the tree above the bus bench were startled into flight, feathers twirling and the branches tumbling into the gutter as they took to the air, screeching as though they were the chased ones.Units mounted the curb out the front of 15 Queen Street. One by one, lights bloomed within the surrounding houses. Rubberneckers took to their windows, clutching nightgowns, cupping faces to the glass.Officer Kaaron Brennan hit
