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Thirty-Four:
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House of Sighs Thirty-Three
THIRTY-THREELiz stood in the doorway. Her eyes were deep red scratches in her face. She staggered down the front steps, her sudden appearance making the crows lining the eaves and peaks of the house flap their wings and screech in applause.Dust devils whirred between the driver and the girl running into the daylight.A current of terror palsied Julia’s legs, but she held true and pushed on. She didn’t see a woman rushing across a lawn at her; no, she saw death itself closing in, The Grim Reaper with its scythe held high, black cape billowing.Her ankle twisted, bullets slipped from her pockets. Julia hit the ground.Helpless, the passengers screamed at her to get up, the bus rocking. Through the hair hanging over her eyes, Julia saw her sister banging on the windows, screaming her name over and over. Diana’s voice hooked under her skin, reeling her to her feet.Liz lurched forward. “Where are you going?” she yelled. Above, clouds flexed and belched the day’s first thunder. “Don
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Thirty-Two
THIRTY-TWOHalfway through the gap, the collar of Julia’s shirt tore on a twisted piece of metal. She reached for the hammer in her rear pocket. Gone. Shaken loose when the driver wrestled with her legs. Julia had no air in her lungs with which to scream, just a rattle. She glanced up at her sister who wasn’t looking at her, but at the driver in whom they had placed their trust at the beginning of that day, the woman who had hit the girl in the road and brought them to this horrible place, at the driver crawling onto the hood beside her.“Don’t go,” Liz pleaded. Julia felt her breath on her skin.Directly behind the driver’s wide, frightened eyes, the brother slid into Diana’s line of vision—an angry blur of tanned skin and tattoo.Julia sensed his presence and kicked, one foot connecting with the driver’s jaw. Crack.Jack tried to push the second bullet into the chamber of the handgun. Sweat dripped from his nose and he wished the faggot would shut up.Michael screamed at the ba
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Thirty-One
THIRTY-ONEThe driver’s head exploded. A spray of blood filled the air. It covered the hood, the broken door. Jack’s face became a mask of dripping scarlet. His own skin broke in multiple places where button-sized flakes of skull pierced him.Reggie witnessed it all. She continued a few steps and then fell. A cloud of dust blew up off the earth and colored her face until she almost seemed a part of the landscape.Wes, who had been crossing the yard, stopped beside his wife. His mind must be playing tricks on him—this couldn’t be real. His limp arm hung by his side, the gun still in hand. “Nope, don’t think so,” he said to nobody, to the ground, to the green clouds in the sky.Reggie’s wail ended abruptly like a record needle spun off the vinyl. “That wasn’t my little girl, Wes,” she said. “That wasn’t her.”Wes shambled to the bus.Reggie didn’t stand; she crawled, braying her mantra of denial.The girl who had been in their shed was at Jed’s feet now. The one who had run for th
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Thirty
THIRTYYou did the right thing, Jack-o, said a voice he had never heard before.“Did I?” he asked.“Did you bloody what?” roared his father, who still held him by the arm. His other hand latched around the back of his neck, squeezing tight. “I ask the questions around here, got it?”Jack didn’t reply. He couldn’t take his eyes off the boy before the window, the boy whose hands were still wrapped in bloodied sheets. This boy was his cousin, Charles; he was six years old.“You speak to me when I speak to you, you little shit.”“Yes!” Jack yelled back.“Yes, bloody what?”“Yes, sir. Dad!”“Now you own up to me, boy. You own up to me or so help me God you’ll get a bigger bloody thrashing than what you already got coming. And trust me, a thrashing’s the least I should be doin’ to you.” His father bent in low, close to his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw yellow teeth. “Did you do this to young Charles over there?”The cousin stopped his screaming, stood and pointed at J
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE“Did I?” Jack replied, turning to Michael. The faggot had no answer for him.Drifting gun smoke.Sarah attempted to get up. Diana watched the brother scoop his sister up in his large, strong hands; one still held the hammer. His gaze honed in on Diana’s.Blood poured onto his shirt from Liz’s wound. He dropped the corpse and it hit the hood with an undignified thump. A stunned Julia watched the huge, wet mass tumble towards her. The loose remains of a tongue slid out of the broken head to slap her thigh. The body pinned her to the ground.His father, who had dropped his gun and rushed to the remains, distracted Jed. Reggie was close enough to see Liz, headless and now being pulled into Wes’s arms. Julia covered her face as the body lifted off her chest, leaving behind large, red patches. Then the pain settled in. Her sliced open hands.The mother screamed.Wes couldn’t believe what he was holding. This couldn’t be everything he’d poured his hopes and dreams into, his
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Twenty-Eight:
TWENTY-EIGHT:CampDiana awoke to the sound of seven gossiping friends. Two older teenagers slept on the other side of the cabin. She liked the counselors, idolized them—they didn’t judge, or bicker as much as she and her friends did. They respected each other, and Diana liked that about them.This would be her final year at summer camp.She planned to go for a swim, to help the younger visitors at meal times and take part in whatever activities were scratched on the chalkboards. Breakfast was in the dining room at eight. Large, wooden tables covered in toast and fruit. Diana played with her food and laughed when a slice of orange hit the cheek of a girl next to her. The culprit was nowhere to be seen. By nine o’clock she and the girls were in the canoes, life jackets around their necks. The girls talked about how cute the male counselor was. Twelve thirty rolled by and lunch disappeared down hungry mouths, boys made farting sounds, counselors huddled together and commented on the
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN—hard against the bus floor. Incredible pressure in her bladder.Screams all about her. The old woman, whose name she couldn’t remember, had her hands over her eyes and was kneeling in the aisle, rocking. She looked so sad, and Diana was scared for her, though not for herself.The man with the big veins in his arms, the one with a goatee, ran past her in dreamy slow motion, and jumped into the stagnant air.***Jack landed hard on his feet. The faggot ran wildly around the back of the bus, thumping against the seats and windows. The faggot was everything wrong in the world. Sure, his eyes might look sympathetic and everything, but Jack saw him for what he really was: the conspirator in all things weak and lost. The faggot was the enemy, more than anything else. The faggot was the driver; the faggot was the dead kid, splattered on the road; the faggot was the driver’s brother; the faggot was everyone but Jack, the only sane person left in this wasteland. The faggot was
Last Updated : 2021-09-09House of Sighs Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIXJack drove his fist into Michael’s face, watched the kid crumble to the floor and then jumped on him, arms thumping away. Michael kicked out in defense, one foot connecting with the base of his attacker’s jaw. That he connected at all was luck alone.The sound of a hundred busting soda cans under the heels of a hundred drunken men, followed by the tinkle of glass, exploded through Jack’s head. He faltered, clutching at the already forming welt, and watched the faggot wriggling out from under his knees.***Jed stood on the hood of his destroyed pickup. In his hands, he held the hammer, ribbons of hair clotted on its head. He pulled himself up onto the roof of the bus, which was white and reflected what little light remained in the day. The clouds were at the point of breaking, weeping. Wind shook the trees through the valley. As Jed slid across the surface of the bus, he left a snail trail of gore in his wake. Dirt blew against his face, although it was no longer a face,
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
