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House of Sighs Nine:
NINE:PunishmentJack on his parents’ bed from where he’d been thrown, face down, eyes closed. He waited for the unbuckling belt, a signal that his punishment was about to be enforced. And waited. Was his dad doing it slowly to prolong the torture? Or maybe he meant for it to be quiet—the element of surprise being the feature that distinguished this lashing from the others in the past.Nothing. In the distance, his cousin’s cries.Jack opened his eyes.The bulge of his father’s stomach through the apron he wore. In his hands, he held the blood-streaked scissors Jack used to slit open Charles’s hands and fingers.“What you doing, Dad?”“Don’t speak, boy.”“What?”“Don’t you say a bloody word, you hear?”Jack bit his tongue and pinched his lips together.“Now,” his father began, “you’re going to learn a lesson. And it’s a lesson I don’t much like teaching. But I’s got to do what I think’s fair.”Jack was frightened. He breathed hot air into the blanket. The fabric itched agai
House of Sighs Eight
EIGHTBack in that second reality, in the living room with the ugly carpet, Jack beheld the thin, white scars running the lengths of the two first fingers of his right hand. Surely all sons must hate their fathers for trying to make them stronger men. It was only natural to resent the teacher, the person who dealt cards no child wanted. But time passed and perspective drew things together. It made sense to him now. He didn’t hate his father as he assumed he did—he respected the bastard. These scars were his old man’s testament, and no doubt, they hadn’t been etched with ease.Those scars could never be undone. The carver and the carved had been united.Forever.The scissors from the kitchen weren’t cold anymore. If anything, they burned with their own inner warmth.He knelt beside another father—that of the driver who had brought him to this house—and wondered where to stick him. The stomach didn’t seem vital enough. The chest plate would be difficult to puncture. The heart? No, t
House of Sighs Seven
SEVENThe bush. The rain. The orgasmic scream escaping Jack’s lungs.“I’m gonna cut off your cock and stuff it down ya throat after I fuck ya, Charles!”He didn’t add that he planned to watch his eventual decay, planned to stand witness to the flies as they laid their eggs in his stab wounds. So much to see.I won’t be erased, he thought. I’m not a blur on the back of a toilet door.He didn’t need the voice in his head anymore.Jack finally had his own.***Wiping rain and sap from his face, Michael burst through a blockade of trees and fell into a clearing. An uneven patch of ground with a fallen eucalyptus across its girth.Two options.Just keep on running and pray to God he shook The Beast off. It was getting darker by the minute and the bushlands were thick and knotted. True, this could be used to his advantage. But if he came across a road—what then? The chances of a car coming by at that exact moment were slim to none. So, alternatively, would he end up fleeing further
House of Sighs Six
SIXMichael splashed through running water and followed a fast-flowing stream to a narrow cliff face on his right. He couldn’t tell how steep the drop was. Past the bluff, the valley writhed under the storm’s onslaught.His shoes slipped on mossy rocks. Behind him, The Beast jumped through the trees.“I’m going to get you for that, you shit! I swear to God—”Michael watched it twist its ankle on a loose boulder. The stumble gave Michael enough time to spirit into the thicket. Branches snagged his shirt, wrapped around his arms.The Beast walked towards the trees, limping. Drool strung from its chin, its face a mask of blood and shit-smelling mud. “Don’t you move, Charles,” it whispered. “Got a lesson to teach you. You ain’t going to like it.”The trees were its webs, and instead of fangs, the spider bore scissors. It crept closer and closer. It was as though The Beast wanted this to be drawn out, as if he was enjoying the thrill of the hunt.“You’re just too easy,” it told Micha
House of Sighs Five
FIVEThe rain stopped as night fell over the valley. And still, Michael ran with The Beast close behind, clothed in shadow and craving meat.Startled birds shot into the air.I do exist, thought The Beast. I’m not rumor or myth. I’m not a fairy tale told by parents to keep their children obedient. I’m not caged anymore. I shake off the clothing you keep in your closet where I was hiding. I wipe the dust from under your bed out of my hair. I will make you bleed and you will know how real I am. I will be heard. I’ll lift up your skirt and see what lies beneath, teacher. My hand is raised and this time I know the answer. And there is only one answer.Don’t turn back. Do not walk.Run!The trees cleared again. Moonlight across a field. At its far end, a steep incline, and at its very top, yellow streetlights shone through the grass.The road leading to Flagman’s Bridge, and the town beyond it.Michael tried yelling for help but his voice was gone. Every step drew him closer to pass
House of Sighs Four
FOURA bulb switched on in the Frost home and a slice of light cut across the lawn. A silhouette moved past the living room window. The soft shhhh-shhhh-shhhh of its dragging feet could be heard from outside. It studied the landscape on the other side of the rain-speckled glass. It saw grass, the driveway, and the monolithic form of the bus wrapped in blue nightfall. These things didn’t hold its attention. It focused on the trees near the verandah, at the fairy lights winking into life in its branches. It tilted its head and saw the Christmas cutouts. It was early November and yet it felt a chill. The silhouette noticed that the storm clouds were gone.Something fell across Reggie’s vision in gentle, downward swirls.“I can’t believe it,” she said, blinking.Snow.She turned from the window and surveyed the living room. The tree decorated with stars and tinsel. It wasn’t the plastic tree she usually put out every year. It was a Fraser Fir. At its peak, a crooked angel flanked by t
House of Sighs Three
THREEMichael Delaney was born December 23, 1976, with his umbilical cord around his neck. The doctors feared he might have suffered mild hypoxia; a depreciation in his heart caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain. Because of this, he was born by caesarean.A fighter from the very beginning.
House of Sighs Two
TWO5:37 a.m.A blue morning.Birds sang along with the crickets. Trees patiently awaited yet another day’s onslaught of heat. That would come later. It always did.Michael opened his eyes.***While unconscious, the police arrived at the Frost residence. One officer threw up when he found the carnage in the living room. Detectives struggled to put the pieces together and wondered if they ever would. A troop of eager-faced police scouted the surrounding bushlands with sniffer dogs.Michael’s scent led the way.A barricade at the top of the driveway held back coffee-toting reporters.***Word spread in town.The nine o’clock church service filled with people praying for the lost. Mournful groups drew together.At Michael’s home, his parents wept with a counselor who prepared them for the news that their son might be dead. Every time the phone rang, their chests tightened. An officer unplugged it from the wall and was later reprimanded by his supervisor.***Pain pinned Mic
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