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Sixty-One
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House of Sighs Sixty
SIXTYSarah cried out—the glare from the son like a punch to her throat—and fell back into one of the seats. Nearby, Michael and Julia flinched. “Stay down,” Sarah told them.“What is—” Julia began. Stopped.Footsteps outside. Slow and deliberate.Wind blew across the bullet holes, whistling breath over the mouths of Coke bottles.Michael imagined running out the door and into the trees beyond the shed; and before he knew what he was doing, turned toward the front of the bus. Jack pounced out of nowhere and threw him to the ground.“Stay the fuck down,” Jack said, a fist raised.Michael blinked, confused, and felt a shadow crawl over his face. They both turned their panic-stricken faces to the window on their left.Julia screamed.The son peered in at them, a dark silhouette with burning, murderous eyes. The bus rocked. He must be standing on the wheel, Jack thought, rolling off the faggot beneath him until he could see the man outside. Jack had never seen eyes so crazy.Dian
House of Sighs Fifty-Nine
FIFTY-NINEI’ve seen you. I’ve seen all your faces, you fucks. I’ve seen your sharp teeth. You’ve all got ants for eyes.Half of his world was red. Jed wiped blood from his brow.Look what you did to me. You cut me.His scarlet fingers were the hands of someone who had shot and murdered. Past the fingers, he saw his sister. He’d never seen somebody so scared. All Jed wanted to do was get wet, to take a drag and dull the reality of the situation, but he knew this shouldn’t be diluted. No. A busload of strangers had turned Liz into a wreck, and he’d never felt more alert. He scanned the lawn to the dead teenager sprawled near last year’s Christmas cut-outs.Who are you? Why would you run if you’d done nothing wrong? I did the right thing. You ran because you were guilty, because you were a ringleader in Liz’s torture. And I’ve got no doubt the others had sat back and laughed as you did your thing. Now look where it got you? Dead. You first, and them next. I’m going to rip out their
House of Sighs Fifty-Eight
FIFTY-EIGHT“Help me! Get over here now!” Jack screamed to the others.Michael couldn’t move. It was as though all the weight he had lost had been piled back on his bones and it was pinning him to the floor. He couldn’t even muster words. All of it, gone.Jack had a hold on the door. The accordion opened inwards and he propped his knee against the vertical hinge. Every muscle in his body rioted against him—as did the young man on the other side of the glass. Jack held firm; he had to. Their lives depended on it, on his strength, on muscles he’d worked hard to sculpt. Pride would keep them safe. Sure, there was a significant part of him that was afraid of the madman getting into the bus, but his adrenalin numbed that emotion’s jagged edge. Jack’s real fire was for the kid on his side of the door. Despite all the chaos and confusion, there was something about that dark haired, pale skinned fella that bristled his nerves. The air of pussy on him—and not the good kind of pussy, mind you
House of Sighs Fifty-Seven
FIFTY-SEVENThe pickup came at them.Such speed. Such precision.The sisters shot to their feet and joined the others, climbing over seats and cramming against the right-hand side wall. From inside the bus, the incoming vehicle appeared gargantuan. Logic dictated there was nowhere they wouldn’t be hit.Julia panicked, slipped, grabbed the “stop now” wire for balance. It snapped, recoiled like a broken rubber band and whipped the side of Michael’s face. He shied away, hand raised. Gasped.The pickup swerved to the left at the last moment and crashed into the front of the bus. Chewed metal drowned their yells. The entire hub rose off the ground, throwing the passengers against the windows. A seat at the front dislodged. The dead body jolted in a horrific pantomime of life. The bus skewered again as the truck fought to dislodge itself. One of the windows split but held true. Like a blade from between ribs, the pickup slinked in retreat, its front bumper ripped loose and dragging thro
House of Sighs Fifty-Six
FIFTY-SIXJed lifted his face from the steering wheel, loose teeth on the tip of tongue. He wanted to look at himself in the rearview mirror, only the mirror wasn’t there because the front of his pickup was partially inside the bus.No pain, not really. Only shock. And when he saw blood fanned across the twisted console, Jed wondered where it came from.The door next to him opened from the outside. Bewildered, Jed registered the sensation of sunlight spilling over flesh. He bathed in the warmth for half a moment, and in its fleetingness felt wonderful.“No,” was all he managed to utter before his father pulled him from the truck. Jed hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. Pulled free, he became aware of the erection tented in his jeans. He thumped on the ground as his father’s face loomed overhead.“Stupid boy!”Wes stared down at his son: face a welt with slits for eyes. A part of him wanted to flog him like a child for being so foolish, whilst another longed to drag Jed into his arms
House of Sighs PART FOUR - Fifty-Five
PART FOUR:Scissors“The leaves of memory seemed to makeA mournful rustling in the dark”—HenryWadsworth Longfellow, The Burning of the Drift-Wood”FIFTY-FIVEFlies swarmed Peter’s body.A spider in a tree ran the length of its web to catch its prey; it usually hunted at night but couldn’t pass a prize as sweet as this. The spider wrestled the butterfly until its web broke and both fell to the ground. A martyr to hunger.Beads of sweat clung to Diana’s upper lip. Musk wafted from her armpits. A ping of self-consciousness. As a teenager, she suffered from acne and spent innumerable hours scrubbing at her face with ivory bars, squeezing blackheads. Wherever she went one could smell her perfume, always spring flavors, citrus, and pink sugar. They now mixed with sweat in an odor that almost sickened her. She blinked and watched the house for movement. Prioritize, girl, she thought. Do you think anyone here is worr
House of Sighs Fifty-Four
FIFTY-FOURDiana rubbed the back of her sister’s neck. “That nice?”“Mm-mm.”Sarah dropped her head and slapped her thighs. “I’m tired of that damn house. It’s like staring at the sun.”“Sit with us,” Diana said. “What difference does it make if they are checking on us or not? We’re still stuck.”Jack sparked up as though he’d been waiting for someone to say that very thing just so he could refute it. “But we should try to get out, right? See that?” He pointed at the window closest to the driver’s hub on the left-hand side, a large crack running its length. “That’s the emergency exit window. It’s the only one on this bus and it’s already broken. All we got to do is push on it—”“We can’t do that,” Sarah said, stern. “We push it out and it shatters on the ground and they’ll come running.”“Pfft.” Jack’s eyes turned cold—old bird had a point after all. “Okay, fine. Whatever. So what about that?” He pointed at the escape exit above their heads, the wind whistling through it. “We’re
House of Sighs Fifty-Three
FIFTY-THREESunday heat intensified as clouds brooded in the sky. The ozone remained heavy, burdened, appropriate. Every time a face peered from the house, it stabbed the passengers’ collective consciousness, a series of small defeats that confirmed where those on route 243 were and what they had been reduced to.Jack was in the backseat with Sarah not too far away. Diana’s need to urinate overwhelming her; she closed her eyes and tried to distract herself with rocking, rocking. Julia fought the urge to suck her thumb, imagining that she was in her bedroom writing in her diary, an entry that read: nothing much happened today. Michael was closest to the dead body with his hands over his mouth to keep the stink at bay, a stink so thick he was sure he could feel it on his skin.Every window had been closed to stop more flies from getting in. They watched them congregate on the other side of the glass in writhing patches.In the steamy silence, Julia whispered, “It’s a girl.”Diana li
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