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Lahat ng Kabanata ng House of Sighs: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

152 Kabanata

Eighty-Four

EIGHTY-FOURThe empty Frost family kitchen.Water dripped from a faucet. The refrigerator hummed. Danish figurines lined the top of the kitchen door architrave, collecting dust. A pair of long-bladed scissors hung from a hook by the sink.Wes was upstairs in the bathroom. The Kinks and Waterloo Sunset lilted down the hallway from the record player. His wife loitered in the living room watching television, a magazine across her lap. Daytime soap operas mingled with the music.There was a filing cabinet in the study full of tax reports, and Liz’s and Jed’s old school papers—Reggie held on to it all. Every drawing, every Easter card, all kept and forgotten in that tiny room.Outside, last year’s Christmas cutouts flanked the house. Dead fairy lights in the trees swung low over Santa and his reindeer, a shepherd leading his donkey. It embarrassed Reggie that they were still up, though she couldn’t find the energy to take them down now.The shed: thirty feet from the front door on the

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Eighty-Three

EIGHTY-THREEJulia awoke with a start, relieved to be in her own bed. Her face tattooed with pillowcase creases. The room bathed in blue light. Her lips were chaffed and bleeding.A nightmare.In it, she’d been hovering on the ceiling of her room, looking down at her sleeping form on the bed. She enjoyed the sensation of weightlessness as she hung in the air. But when she tried to move, her arms remained in place. She floated crucified, damned to scrutinize her own body forever. She started to panic, tried to talk.Nothing.The bedroom door opened. A sliver of light across her sleeping face. A man with long, gray hair tiptoed into the room like a Punch and Judy doll on jerking strings. She wanted to scream a warning at her other self. No luck. The man had come for her. He stopped at the head of the bed and bent over. She heard him sniffing, the sound of his pebbled tongue running over her skin. Then, with a robotic slowness reserved for nightmares, the intruder lifted his head to

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Eighty-Two:

EIGHTY-TWO:ScissorsTen year old Jack stood in the backyard. His parents were gone. The smell of evening barbecue: oily and rich. Next to him was the apple tree. Beetles flew in its shadows.Sunset. An orange sky raked with purples, and high above, an airplane. It left a long silk thread in the ozone, like a spider web when it catches the light. Jack could just make out the Boeing’s drone.Another sound. Closer.Screaming.

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Eighty-One:

EIGHTY-ONE:NoiseThe memory rose from somewhere deep inside, a bubble from the bottom of a lake. Pop. It made Jack dizzy. Sweat dripped into his eyes. Crunching thirst.A fly buzzed by his head, its whine like the roar of chainsaws at dawn. He tried to ignore it and focus on the scene in front of him, on the shape and texture of that one word, on the word.Scissors.If someone wanted or had scissors, it meant that someone was willing to fight, willing to bring those twin blades down in a shimmering arc—over and over—into the driver’s face until she was dead and someone else took control of the bus. That person would be him. Jack always knew he was hero material. It silently thrilled him.He stared through the Perspex hub at the back of the driver’s head—little life there. She reminded him of a toy whose batteries were winding down.If only the emergency escape window was closer, he thought, then I could just make a run at it. Or if we all decided to take her down together, the

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Eighty

EIGHTYJulia dipped low in her seat again, drawing a ragged breath. The driver hadn’t moved after all. It struck her as almost impossible that the woman could be both there and not there at the same time. Though then again, possibly not. Because when Julia closed her eyes, she could see the posters in her bedroom far away, could hear music crooning from the cassette player on her dresser.Pulling something close to her chest, assuming it was one of her teddy bears. Only it wasn’t. The baby in her arms was a viscera-coated, half-dead creature clambering for breath.She clenched her fists as hard as she could, refusing to resign to the worlds of hurt on either side of her blink. Two places at once, and neither of them safe.“Look,” Jack started again, his voice like a shake in the dark. Julia didn’t know why she feared him so, yet fear him she did. She watched the way he held up his large strong hands, both as big as trashcan lids, and shivered. “I’ve got these. I can—” he mimed a ki

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Seventy-Nine

SEVENTY-NINEJulia’s head pressed against the seat. Skin clung to the leather. Its grip drew her face into a deformed jester’s smile.“See!” Jack pointed at her.She closed her eyes again. Something dark and primal pounded in her, a second heartbeat that couldn’t be ignored. “Who knows when there will be police?” she said. “You’re right, Di. This is James Bridge, and there’s never any cops at the station. If they come, they’ll come from half an hour away in any given direction. God only knows where we are. Any idea?”“Trees and more trees,” Jack said. “I can’t see a thing.”At the front of the bus, Michael tried to imagine what the others were talking about. He longed to be with them—safety in numbers, as they say—and not here at the mouth of the lion’s den. Or lioness. Either way, if the driver moved, he and the prayer-happy teenager would be the first to know. The first to die. Michael’s urge to join the others grew and pulsed.If you join them, you will be seen, he told himsel

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Seventy-Eight

SEVENTY-EIGHT“This isn’t the road that takes us into town and it isn’t the one taking us to Maitland or Cessnock, either,” Sarah said. “We’re in a hollow. The road is narrow. If we were on the main stretch out of town, we’d be seeing fields, right? She’s driving us further and further into scrub.”Julia sat up. “We have pens, keys.” She balled her shaking hands into fists. “Together we can take her down. One of us just has to grab the wheel. All or nothing, though.”“And there’s a big old gun right there in front of her just waiting to tear through us,” Sarah said. “You’re brave—” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “But you’re a bub. This lady won’t do anything to us unless we make her—”Jack moved forward, a sudden realization upon him. “We’re fucking hostages here.”Julia spun on them. “I don’t want to die.”Diana flinched.The bus filled with crashing; it drowned out their screams. Windows rattled in their frames.Liz Frost snapped back into reality, her pupils dilat

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Seventy-Seven

SEVENTY-SEVENReggie Frost climbed out of her well-loved recliner and decided to make herself useful, something she’d long ago thought she ever could be. Yet she kept trying, kept on climbing. There were things that needed to be done after all, and hate it though she did, nothing ever found its way back to its rightful place unless Reggie did it herself.The Christmas cutouts for example. She’d forgotten how many times she’d asked any one of her family members to take them down. The seasons had rolled on by and it was somehow November again; almost time to put the damn things back out again.She knew she was invisible, an extension of the furniture in some ways. I’m being worn away, eroded. Reggie daydreamed of meeting someone who made her feel young, someone who maybe—just maybe—knew how to love her. Where there was no love there was no life, and this nothingness left her with two simple conclusions: she was over being a mother and wife.Tired of trying.On those few and far betw

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Seventy-Six

SEVENTY-SIXThe crashing sounds of metal on metal.Jack launched himself onto the seat behind Sarah. Julia and Diana screamed. Sarah, however, fell. Her hands shot into the air and grabbed at nothing, only to land on the floor, limbs peddling like a beetle on its back.The sound continued. An intense rattle and pound.It consumed all.Peter knew that at some point he must have fallen asleep. Yes, the nightmare was vivid, but it was a nightmare nonetheless. Things like this didn’t happen to people like him—simple, really. His life had intertwined with his fiction. The notebook flew out of his hand and clapped onto the floor; a corner soaking up the dead man’s blood. Peter couldn’t help it; he wept. Jagged vibrations bulleted through him. His already busted lip cracked again.The bus shook.To Michael it felt like they were driving into the sky. The strobe of sun through the passing trees disappeared. He squinted against this blinding light, slammed his eyes shut and saw red.The

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

Seventy-Five:

SEVENTY-FIVE:Radio“Report back, two-four.”The handset sat on its hook, DC cable swinging in an arc, ticking the dash.Static crunched. “You there, Liz?”The voice on the radio belonged to Bridget Sargent. Bridget was overweight and loving, her messy hair tamed by bands and pencils. She greeted Liz every morning by tapping her garish fingernails against the window of her cubicle. Bridget was their Lead Fleet Correspondent. She alerted employees to changed traffic conditions and radioed drivers concerning route punctuality. Liz knew this was why Bridget was calling. A commuter must have tired of waiting for the bus to arrive and called the transit hotline to file a complaint. It was Bridget’s duty to find out the reason for the delay.Liz imagined her co-worker’s plump face washed in the lights from her switchboard, could almost hear fingernails drumming against the desk. Brow furrowed, the first twinge of concern.A wasp slammed against the windshield and splattered.The bus

Huling Na-update : 2021-09-09

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