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Thirty-Nine
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House of Sighs Thirty-Eight
THIRTY-EIGHTMichael heard the barking and thought of Mr. Maclachley’s junkyard. He used to pass the old man’s auto-wreckers every day after school. The chain-link fence stretched the length of the block, it being the only barrier between the eleven-year-old schoolboy in the ill-fitting clothes and the old man’s guard dog.Before boarding the route 243 bus to town, Michael thought the worst fear he would ever experience was that evoked by Mr. Maclachley’s Rottweiler. In its bark, young Michael heard screaming, gutted children, laughing maniacs—noises that stalked him even into nightmares where he was running past the fence as fast as he could, the black monster leaping at the mesh through clouds of dust.One day his sports sneakers fell out of his backpack. Michael hadn’t dared go back for them. When he got home, his mother yelled at him.His father went back for the shoes.Maclachley’s dog never attacked him, of course, or any of the other kids who had to run the dreaded junkyard
House of Sighs Thirty-Seven
THIRTY-SEVEN4:37 pmJack wriggled through the ten-inch gap in the door until he could wiggle through no more. His hand swiped the air and landed on the hood of the pickup. Pebbles of broken glass pinched his palm. He strained, veins sticking out in his forehead, and relented. “It’s too tight.”Michael, Diana, and Julia watched the house for movement from the back of the bus. The last sighting had been four minutes earlier. Diana kept the time, her watch angled towards the light.Sarah crouched next to Jack on the warped steps; he held her arm to keep himself steady. From here she could see over the top of the destroyed pickup. The rear was elevated, the nose pinched tight to the ground. This angle gave them enough cover to worm out of the bus and onto the hood and then slide to the ground without being observed.Assuming one of them could fit through.It had been discussed: their aim was to get someone to the garage. There, they hoped said person would discover some sort of weap
House of Sighs Thirty-Six
THIRTY-SIXThe glass on the hood stuck into Julia’s palms but didn’t break the skin. Every muscle in her body tensed. Elbow quivered. Inside, her baby continued to grow, unaware of what was happening, of the world it was fated to be born into.Hair swished across her eyes. Blew it aside.You can do this, she said to herself. You’ve got no choice.The house faded into shadow as clouds filled out overhead. A hot gust of wind rattled fairy lights in the dying trees.***As best as Michael could tell, there wasn’t a possibility of Julia being seen until she was off the truck and on the ground, at which point she would be out in the open and visible to all eyes. “Please, please, please, be safe,” he said.Diana moved away from the others. Hatred boiled, rolled to the surface like fleshless bones in a pot. They deserved to die, everyone except Julia, a girl who was too young and stupid to know better. How adults—including Diana herself—could let something like this happen baffled her.
House of Sighs Thirty-Five
THIRTY-FIVEJulia’s hipbones, already beginning to widen in the early stages of motherhood, struggled to fit through the gap. Both hands were on the hood now, her grip sliding due to cuts in her palms—the skin had relented in the end, a reminder that there were no guarantees in this game. She experienced no pain, though; nor was there fear. Adrenalin wiped it all away. Body twisted. Hips slid free of the pinch.“Come on,” Julia said. “Come on.”She pulled her right leg through the door and lowered her kneecap against the hood. A muscle gave way and she fell flat onto her chest, leg slamming against the grillwork. Oxygen emptied from her lungs. So many adult concepts had been forced upon her today that something as natural as breathing seemed a complication, a hiccup in her fight for existence. Breathe! She took a mouthful of air and her mind focused.***“Everyone down!” Michael half-yelled, half-whispered.The curtain in the window shifted: the mother, not the son this time.Di
House of Sighs Thirty-Four:
THIRTY-FOUR:The ShedFeet pounded earth.The faces in the bus slid from view, drawn into time-lapse blurs as Julia increased speed. Her hands swung in tight fists, back and forth, hard and fast.The shed loomed closer.Julia was a mouse under the eye of an overhead hawk.She increased her speed but it just didn’t feel quick enough. Every step was half a step too short. She faltered, regained her footing, pushed onwards.Run.The shed door swallowed her whole.Darkness. The temperature dropped. A chill rocketed up her back like lightning in reverse, electricity retracing its jagged steps home to the clouds. Breathless, Julia dropped to her haunches. It took some time for her eyes to adjust.I made it. Her victory was so powerful she almost forgot where she was, and that she was only running from one hell to another.I did it! I did it!Her parents would be proud. If only they were here to witness her bravery. They would smile at her and clap their hands. When she returned t
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
House 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
House 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
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