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Fifteen
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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
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 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 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
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