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Seventeen
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House of Sighs Sixteen
SIXTEENWes watched his attacker raise a bloodied fist. It lingered. Descended, bringing the blade down with it, razoring the air, whistling as it went. Blood like red stars falling and exploding against his face. Wes didn’t feel the square-ended knife slip inside his cheek, nor did he feel it snap against his gums. Almost casually, as though there was no such thing as agony, he reached past the splayed books for the shotgun. Fingers latched onto the barrel and wrapped around the trigger. He heaved it up, but the bastard on his stomach caught the blur of movement and halted his movement with a forearm block.An explosion of light and sound; a hole opened in the ceiling. A huge cloud of plaster dust wafted over them.The helix in-curve rim of Jack’s external ear disappeared, the wound cauterized by the heat of the blast. His hand shot to the side of his face to touch the part of him that remained, and he shrieked.Wes dropped the now useless, empty gun. Punches were all he had left.
House of Sighs Fifteen
FIFTEENThe old man attempted to grab Jack’s hair but it was too closely cropped to hold on to. Instead, those thick fingers latched to his shirt, tearing it at the collar.End this not because you have to, but because you want to, said the voice in Jack’s head. The tone was sweet and low and comforting. You have to end this because you were put on this earth to end it all.Jack had the father pinned underneath him once again. He smashed the face with a tightly clenched fist and heard the nose shatter.***Jed was on his side at the foot of the steps, bleeding to death. His world darkened, but not quick enough. It left him wondering how much longer he had to live. So silly—Jed assumed it would all blink out in an instant. Of course, he thought to himself almost wryly, a swift mercy would be denied. He’d never had the luck of the Irish. Not with girls, not with gambling, and not now when he needed it most, here in his final moments.Though moving remained difficult, he could still
House of Sighs Fourteen
FOURTEENMichael pulled the door inwards as the mother’s body pressed against him from behind, her heat on his skin. He grabbed her doughy face and forced her away with what remained of his strength. She flailed and an image crackled through his head: priests on late-night Evangelical commercials throwing the blessed to church floors. He dove outside, the contrast like a changed channel. Where there should be ground, there was a low step, just loose-packed bricks. One toppled under his heel. He slammed the earth. Instant pain. Rolled onto his back and saw static, saw lightning.Jangling chains and panting.Michael arched his head and took in the upside-down countryside. Between himself and the trees, which formed a fence at the back of the yard, there was a clothesline. Saturated sheets hung over its wires, flapping like wet skins.A heaving blur ran straight at his face.He was twelve and in his school uniform again, knees shaking. His face tattooed by the shadows of Mr. Maclachl
House of Sighs Thirteen
THIRTEENThe man named Jack stood in the doorway. Only it wasn’t Jack. Sure, it looked like him, had the same muscular arms and tell-tale cheekbones as him; but this figure was not the same person who had been with Michael and the other passengers on the bus. Couldn’t be. This man was covered in gore and held a pair of long-bladed sewing scissors. Though it would be easy to dismiss Michael’s conclusion as pain warping perception, he believed—perhaps more than he’d believed anything—that the person emerging from the house wasn’t even a ‘he’ anymore, rather a thing, a thing that had lost the most important parts of itself along the line, debris trying to piece itself back together again, only failing, always failing, and then becoming defined by that failure.Maybe—No. No maybe. Michael knew that he was seeing true.This thing was an ‘it’. A beast.The Beast.Michael pushed himself up off the ground, sluggish like someone coming out of hyper-sleep in the science fiction movies he
House of Sighs Twelve:
TWELVE:JackJack was the smallest kid in class. He hated being short, hated being so narrow shouldered. Everyone else was broad and tall. Some boys even had hair on their upper lips.Though the runt of the pack, he emerged popular but never the ringleader he wanted to be. Time resigned him to their jokes about his size, and on some level, he hated himself for letting them get away with it.Jack accepted that he wasn’t extraordinary, or noticeable. In class, he raised his hand even if he didn’t know the answer just so his teacher—whom he loved and often dreamed about–would look in his direction. She never did. He had no great aspirations and came from average blue-collar stock. Jack appeared destined to be forgotten, and worst of all, he knew it.One recess, he slipped into the boy’s restroom. In the farthest stall, he sat on the toilet seat and opened his backpack, dug through notebooks and lunch wrappers to fish out a pen. Nervous, he scribbled words against the back of the door
House of Sighs Eleven
ELEVENThe uneven ground beneath Michael’s feet. Rocks jutted up through the earth with the sole purpose of tripping him over. He ran farther and farther into the trees. The sky was the color of a corpse—and Michael knew what a corpse looked like now. Heaven help him, he knew only too well.Tunnel vision. Tugging branches. Twigs raked his skin.The Beast pursued him.Michael pushed himself harder than he ever had before. Every yard he put between him and The Beast was a yard closer to safety. He heard the monster crashing through branches behind him. Michael ran blind, praying for a road, or maybe to discover some half-buried weapon in the ground.Lightning flashed. Trees in the strobe.
House of Sighs Ten
TENJack sprinted through two places at once.One was the dense Australian bush with its brambles and knots. The second was the room in which he’d killed the driver’s father. He could see, clearer than the dwindling day itself, the ugly carpet lining the living room floor and the old man beneath him as he bent down to bite off his lips. They came off with such ease.A scream. Coppery blood in his mouth.Euphoric victory.It was surprising how long it took to kill him. The human body was programmed to fight; a self-defeating trait, considering that in the end it was destined to give up the ghost. Given this, Jack found enjoyment in assisting someone fulfill his destiny.The father had rolled around, grabbing where his lips should have been. Jack laughed. Damn funny! Power over another was a special kind of freedom.A ceramic lamp in the shape of two swans kissing on a table near the television set. He picked it up, sneered at its tackiness, yanked the cord from the wall. Jack sla
House of Sighs Nine:
NINE:PunishmentJack on his parents’ bed from where he’d been thrown, face down, eyes closed. He waited for the unbuckling belt, a signal that his punishment was about to be enforced. And waited. Was his dad doing it slowly to prolong the torture? Or maybe he meant for it to be quiet—the element of surprise being the feature that distinguished this lashing from the others in the past.Nothing. In the distance, his cousin’s cries.Jack opened his eyes.The bulge of his father’s stomach through the apron he wore. In his hands, he held the blood-streaked scissors Jack used to slit open Charles’s hands and fingers.“What you doing, Dad?”“Don’t speak, boy.”“What?”“Don’t you say a bloody word, you hear?”Jack bit his tongue and pinched his lips together.“Now,” his father began, “you’re going to learn a lesson. And it’s a lesson I don’t much like teaching. But I’s got to do what I think’s fair.”Jack was frightened. He breathed hot air into the blanket. The fabric itched agai
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