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Twenty-One
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House of Sighs Twenty
TWENTYJed heard everything happening downstairs from the bathroom. Cringing, he stepped into his jeans. They slipped over his jagged hipbones with ease. He didn’t bother with underwear or a shirt; they were in a wet, red pile in the corner. Water still ran from the showerhead. A single scarlet thread dribbled down the side of the tub.Fingers formed a net in front of his face, a lattice between him and the mirror. His heartbeat raced as though he’d gotten “wet”, but he was sure the drug was no longer in his system.Pain and bleeding cuts and images of people flying apart in slow motion. His sister running at him with open arms.He recalled how Liz came to him earlier that morning to say goodbye, as if she’d known these were her last hours. He’d seen a similar frightened and confused look on her face when they had gotten high together that one time in the shed, the day he’d lost control. He’d slammed her in the face with the heel of his foot. She didn’t bleed until after she hit th
House of Sighs Nineteen
NINETEENWes jabbed the twin barrels of the gun against the side of Jack’s head. “You want to kiss my daughter, you disgusting piece of shit?” he hissed. “You gonna marry her? Did you fuck my daughter?”Each blow hurt but Jack resisted pulling the knife from his pocket. He wasn’t going to risk blowing this bet until he was positive the timing was right. Chances didn’t exist in this house, if indeed they ever did. The final smack of metal against scalp echoed loud and hollow. “Stop-stop it!” Jack said.“Stop? You dare say stop to me?” Wes stared, incredulous. “Okay, you said it.” Wes recoiled then spat a heavy wad of spit on the man kneeling before him. He pointed the gun at the old woman instead. She recoiled in shock, arching backwards, stopped her fall by slamming palms against the carpet. Her exposed throat.“Why don’t you tell me to stop, lady?” Wes inquired.Sarah felt no pain, even though her body contorted into a position no woman her age should attempt, let alone accomplis
House of Sighs Eighteen:
EIGHTEEN:Jed Bleeds“Dad!”Wes swung towards the staircase and the gun swung with him.***“Dad!”Wes saw his eight-year-old son standing in the shadows of the hall, a line of paper dolls holding hands in a downward smile strung across the archway above. It seemed impossible that such a huge yell could issue from someone so tiny. Wes clutched the carving knife, watched Jed crouching low.Anger danced with disgrace. These bloody kids had him wrapped around their little fingers. That wouldn’t stand. A lesson had to be taught, and so a lesson they would receive—just as Wes’s own father had taught him. One day his children would understand. Character was carved.It paid to bleed out the bad if that was what it took.A father had a right to discipline his children.Liz sprawled on the ground at his feet. Shirt ripped open at the collar, one of the denim suspenders of her overalls unclipped.Jed began to cry.***“Stop crying,” Wes told his son, huddled at the top of the stairs
House of Sighs Seventeen
SEVENTEENWes rushed at the little boy framed by paper dolls.Which will rip easier? he wondered.He laughed a little, even though a part of him was sad.He brought the knife up and before he knew what he was doing, lashed out to see his power enacted upon the world in the flesh of his son. Jed lifted up his hands to shield his face.***The wounds winked at Wes, and he stopped, lowering the gun.Jed’s slit wrists crisscrossed before his face.“I’m sorry, Dad.”The arm holding the gun fell to Wes’s side. He looked up the staircase. Along the walls, over the balustrade, were dark red smears and splashes.Jed shied away from his father. He was getting dizzy. Incredible pain—he could never have anticipated such hurt. How long did it take for a person to die from such wounds? He hoped he’d snipped all the right veins; though he was sure he had.When he slid the six-inch shard of broken mirror through his flesh, there had been an instant spray that freckled the ceiling. The thumpin
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
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