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Thirty-Three
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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
House of Sighs Thirty
THIRTYYou did the right thing, Jack-o, said a voice he had never heard before.“Did I?” he asked.“Did you bloody what?” roared his father, who still held him by the arm. His other hand latched around the back of his neck, squeezing tight. “I ask the questions around here, got it?”Jack didn’t reply. He couldn’t take his eyes off the boy before the window, the boy whose hands were still wrapped in bloodied sheets. This boy was his cousin, Charles; he was six years old.“You speak to me when I speak to you, you little shit.”“Yes!” Jack yelled back.“Yes, bloody what?”“Yes, sir. Dad!”“Now you own up to me, boy. You own up to me or so help me God you’ll get a bigger bloody thrashing than what you already got coming. And trust me, a thrashing’s the least I should be doin’ to you.” His father bent in low, close to his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw yellow teeth. “Did you do this to young Charles over there?”The cousin stopped his screaming, stood and pointed at J
House of Sighs Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE“Did I?” Jack replied, turning to Michael. The faggot had no answer for him.Drifting gun smoke.Sarah attempted to get up. Diana watched the brother scoop his sister up in his large, strong hands; one still held the hammer. His gaze honed in on Diana’s.Blood poured onto his shirt from Liz’s wound. He dropped the corpse and it hit the hood with an undignified thump. A stunned Julia watched the huge, wet mass tumble towards her. The loose remains of a tongue slid out of the broken head to slap her thigh. The body pinned her to the ground.His father, who had dropped his gun and rushed to the remains, distracted Jed. Reggie was close enough to see Liz, headless and now being pulled into Wes’s arms. Julia covered her face as the body lifted off her chest, leaving behind large, red patches. Then the pain settled in. Her sliced open hands.The mother screamed.Wes couldn’t believe what he was holding. This couldn’t be everything he’d poured his hopes and dreams into, his
House of Sighs Twenty-Eight:
TWENTY-EIGHT:CampDiana awoke to the sound of seven gossiping friends. Two older teenagers slept on the other side of the cabin. She liked the counselors, idolized them—they didn’t judge, or bicker as much as she and her friends did. They respected each other, and Diana liked that about them.This would be her final year at summer camp.She planned to go for a swim, to help the younger visitors at meal times and take part in whatever activities were scratched on the chalkboards. Breakfast was in the dining room at eight. Large, wooden tables covered in toast and fruit. Diana played with her food and laughed when a slice of orange hit the cheek of a girl next to her. The culprit was nowhere to be seen. By nine o’clock she and the girls were in the canoes, life jackets around their necks. The girls talked about how cute the male counselor was. Twelve thirty rolled by and lunch disappeared down hungry mouths, boys made farting sounds, counselors huddled together and commented on the
House of Sighs Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN—hard against the bus floor. Incredible pressure in her bladder.Screams all about her. The old woman, whose name she couldn’t remember, had her hands over her eyes and was kneeling in the aisle, rocking. She looked so sad, and Diana was scared for her, though not for herself.The man with the big veins in his arms, the one with a goatee, ran past her in dreamy slow motion, and jumped into the stagnant air.***Jack landed hard on his feet. The faggot ran wildly around the back of the bus, thumping against the seats and windows. The faggot was everything wrong in the world. Sure, his eyes might look sympathetic and everything, but Jack saw him for what he really was: the conspirator in all things weak and lost. The faggot was the enemy, more than anything else. The faggot was the driver; the faggot was the dead kid, splattered on the road; the faggot was the driver’s brother; the faggot was everyone but Jack, the only sane person left in this wasteland. The faggot was
House of Sighs Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIXJack drove his fist into Michael’s face, watched the kid crumble to the floor and then jumped on him, arms thumping away. Michael kicked out in defense, one foot connecting with the base of his attacker’s jaw. That he connected at all was luck alone.The sound of a hundred busting soda cans under the heels of a hundred drunken men, followed by the tinkle of glass, exploded through Jack’s head. He faltered, clutching at the already forming welt, and watched the faggot wriggling out from under his knees.***Jed stood on the hood of his destroyed pickup. In his hands, he held the hammer, ribbons of hair clotted on its head. He pulled himself up onto the roof of the bus, which was white and reflected what little light remained in the day. The clouds were at the point of breaking, weeping. Wind shook the trees through the valley. As Jed slid across the surface of the bus, he left a snail trail of gore in his wake. Dirt blew against his face, although it was no longer a face,
House of Sighs Twenty-Five:
TWENTY-FIVE:HomeJed, who had run ahead of the rest, burst through the door, trembling and out of breath. The smell within hit him hard, offending and displacing his senses. Butcher shop stink. Blood. Raw meat. Shit. It wasn’t just the room that smelled, but he, also.Violent afternoon cartoons played too loud from the television. It was getting dark quick and the first hailstones were pelting the corrugated roofing, filling the house with hollow pot-and-pan rumblings.Curtains billowed, signaling the arrival of rain.Reggie cradled Liz between her legs by the kitchen door, hugged her from behind, an awkward bundle of limbs rocking to and fro.She was conscious of the flesh in her hands, the sensation of her skin pressing against her daughter’s dead weight, but her mind was mostly empty.Once, she’d entertained the thought of being a teacher, only like most of her aspirations, it never eventuated. Instead, Reggie bounced between office work and retail, never quite happy. As a c
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