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Eighteen
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House 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
House 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
House 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
House 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.”
House 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
House 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
House 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
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
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