TWENTY-THREEIntolerable burning in Michael’s shoulder.All he wanted to do was turn to one of the strangers around him and ask for help, for someone to please—please!—put him out of his misery. Someone swish a magic wand and take it all away; and whilst they’re at it, strip the planet of its populace to let him wander the streets alone. Only there were no magicians here, no quick fix hocus-pocus.Just the ticket in his hand and fire in his scars.He studied the veins in the back of his hands.Boom-boom. Boom-boom.Fingers strangled the air. Now there was the headache, too, as if those dry, dead branches were growing within his head now, twigs gouging at his grey matter, pinching nerves until there was no sense among his senses. The urge to vomit doused him again. Prickling flesh.Walk. Don’t run.He strode up the long white corridor, bored faces warped by fatigue gliding past him. He could see the toilet ahead and continued towards it as the walls inched in.Boom-boom. Boom-b

TWENTY-ONE“What the actual fuck?”Aiden scuttled from the computer. His cheeks were hot, a weird contrast to the icy disbelief rippling down his neck. The hairs on his arms stood upright as a wave of goosebumps pebbled his flesh.“What are you doing?” he said to the screen. Without warning the tears were back. What he was reading couldn’t be correct. But he knew it was.Danny wasn’t home when he returned from work last night, and hadn’t been seen since. Six hours had passed. Aiden was almost at the point of calling the police.A word taunted him.Suicide.Even though every fiber of his being screamed to do otherwise, Aiden didn’t act. Not yet. One more hour, he told himself. One more to be sure. If he made a report and set those wheels in motion, and Danny wasn’t in danger but had gone on another bender, then there was every chance this straw may break the camel’s back. And then Aiden would lose everything.Assuming, of course, he hadn’t lost it already.His email chimed. The

NINETEENThe lot where the Frost house once stood was on the outskirts of town, and it didn’t appear that the surrounding landscape had increased in population very much in the years since Michael’s last visit. This may have been for the best. It didn’t take a genius to realize the town had been bleached raw by tragedy, with this area suffering the worst. Some marks never went away.Scars.He passed over Flagman’s Bridge, wooden boards clattering under the tires. It was only a matter of time before the whole thing fell apart and tumbled into the Hunter River. Liz Frost had taken them across this exact same bridge in 1995—going the opposite way, of course. Towards her home. Her’s was a one-way ticket. She’d wanted to make a new family to call her own, one pieced together from them, her passengers.Hostages.Memories stirred as he drove into the dense hollow on the other side of the bridge, into the dark. He didn’t let them stop him. Flies crawled around the inside of the windows. T

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

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