House of Sighs

by Aaron Dries

  The other days of the week Jed sold pot for his friend Brody, who had a hydroponic set up in his living room.

  Brody was a perfectionist when it came to his stash. He grew plants in alternating rooms on a four-month rotation, the time it took to develop buds for harvest. When the living room crop was bagged, the hydro unit would be shifted to the next room, which Jed would have already coated with gloss white paint (seventy-five percent reflective). Sometimes they used Mylar if they had the spare cash. Jed sometimes babysat the stash whenever Brody left town.

  Selling drugs paid well and he had no girlfriend to blow it on. His money went into pleasures that wouldn’t be outgrown, unlike women. He had a delicacy of choice. He liked getting wet.

  PCP was a cheap and easy high, but dangerous. A friend had slipped into a coma at a party once after overindulging. The thought of being implicated in someone’s death frightened him. Jed had left the party and ran outside. In a field, he watched the stars turn to welts that vomited pus and glitter over the landscape. Hallucinations were not uncommon.

  Another time when he and Brody had gotten high, Jed found Brody in his bedroom, jeans around his ankles, belt tied to his genitals, attempting auto fellatio. His head was at an unhealthy angle, eyes rolled back to expose the whites. Jed closed the door, went downstairs and did sit-ups while watching Married with Children.

  The bitterness of the drug lingered in his mouth. He spat onto the shed floor, flakes of weed in his spit. The world shimmered. He punched the punching bag over and over with his injured hand. There was no pain, only hollow thumping sounds.

  The shed was hotter than usual. The corrugated roofing groaned under the sun.

  He only sold PCP to a select few. The transaction was more about trust than money. His most loyal customer was his sister.

  Eighty-Three

  Julia awoke with a start, relieved to be in her own bed. Her face was tattooed with pillowcase creases. The room was bathed in blue light. Her lips were chaffed and bleeding.

  A nightmare.

  In it she had 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 was floating crucified, damned to look down at her own peaceful body forever. Frozen. She started to panic, tried to talk. Nothing.

  The bedroom door opened. A sliver of light fell 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 but was left to frustrated silence. The man had come for her. He stopped at the head of the bed and bent over. She could hear him sniffing, the sound of his pebbled tongue running over her flesh. Then with a robotic slowness reserved for nightmares, the intruder turned his head upwards and saw her floating on the ceiling. He had shark eyes.

  “Did you have a bad dream?” the boy lying next to her asked. His kind eyes gazed at her, a morning glow on his pimpled face.

  “Yeah.”

  His hand stroked her cheek, gently. Julia nuzzled her nose against his touch. She felt safe but scared and guilty as well. I’m only sixteen, she told herself. It’s okay to be scared. You didn’t do anything wrong.

  From the cassette player on the dresser, The Grays sang to her.

  She rolled away, unable to look into his face. He wrapped his arms around her, his penis pressed hard against her back. He had been gentle the night before but it still hurt. The sheets were lightly freckled with blood. Pleasure too, somewhere among the red-hot thrusts. She could feel his smile burning a hole in the back of her head.

  Sometimes, Julia felt all she had was music.

  The walls of her room were covered with posters. Her friends gave her weird looks when they saw them. “Who are these people, why can’t you listen to normal music like everyone else?” they said. She pushed the hurt aside until she was alone and then she cried, ashamed for loving what she did. When the other girls in her class were worshipping The Backstreet Boys and Boys II Men, she listened to Grant Lee Buffalo. Sang along to Jellyfish with the lights out.

  The morning Julia found out she was pregnant, she searched through her cassettes until she found a song that soothed her panic.

  Diana introduced her to this music. When she arrived in Australia, tanned and gaunt after an extended Greek holiday, Diana had handed her a mix-tape. That cassette changed Julia’s life.

  Julia opened her eyes. The drone of the bus had lulled her to sleep. She gasped and bolted upright, remembering where she was.

  The first thing she noticed was the smell.

  Copper and shit.

  “Oh God,” she whispered.

  Diana’s fingers shot over Julia’s mouth, one slipped inside. “Shhh.”

  They were still bent double in the seat. Her older sister’s tightly bound hair fell out in curled ringlets. Julia wondered how it was possible to still look beautiful at a time like this.

  “Please be quiet,” Diana said.

  “I think it’s safe to speak,” came the voice from across the aisle.

  They looked up in unison and saw the old woman on the floor.

  “The driver’s out of it,” Sarah said. She sat on her haunches, bones cracking. Old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be, she sang to herself whilst reaching out to the girls. Her crooked fingers were shaking. That hand had seen a lot of hard work over the years, had been bleached and bitten and burnt, and had dealt out its fair share of comfort and discipline, but all of that didn't compare to the simple act of reaching out into the aisle. Nothing did.

  “No, don’t,” Diana said, pressing close to her sister. “She’ll see.”

  “She won’t.” Sarah gestured towards the front of the bus. “Trust me.”

  Julia saw honesty in the woman’s face. Their fingers stretched across the no mans land and intertwined. Squeezed.

  There was a sting of envy in Diana. This was a small betrayal on behalf of her sister, whom she had always been there for. Why not me? she wondered.

  Sarah saw her husband in them: shattered but feigning composure. It felt good to tell them that things were going to be okay, even if it was a lie. The important thing was for the girls to know they were not alone.

  “It’s going to be okay, you get me?” Sarah smiled at them.

  Julia nodded.

  “What’s your names, then?”

  Julia answered for them both, a quick rat-a-tat-tat of syllables.

  “Sisters?”

  They answered in unison, bringing a thin smile to Sarah’s face. “I’m so sorry you kids had to be here for this.” Heavy sadness rose in her throat. “It’s okay,” she said a little too loud. The driver hadn’t heard and was poised still except for the bobbing of her head, a frightening echo of the bus’s rhythm.

  “You two girls have got to stay with it. Be strong like this, you hear?” Sarah intertwined her fingers with Julia’s. After a moment the two hands, each laced with the other’s sweat, parted and returned to their respective owners. Julia bit down on her lower lip and kicked the floor—a definitive why us? gesture that made her seem all the more childlike.

  “Hey, don’t you go thinkin’ like that,” Sarah said. She had raised enough children to recognize the frustrated stomp, and although she thought it warranted and in fact was asking herself the same question, knew that nothing good could come from it. “I know it’s hard.” Her voice was soft and calming. “My name is Sarah, Sarah Carr. And we’re all in this together. Now tell me what you two have in your purses?”

  “I don’t have one,” Julia said, a little flummoxed. “What? Why?”

  Diana scrambled through her small clutch, understanding at once what she was looking for. Weapons. Anything. “Shit, I don’t have much.”

  “No nail file? Those little scissors? Nothing?” Sarah asked. It was a small fissure in the veneer of her calm.

  Scissors.

  Scissors.

  Scissors…<
br />
  The word cut through the air and stabbed into Jack’s ears.

  Eighty-Two: Scissors

  Jack was no longer on the bus. He was ten years old, and stood alone in the backyard of his house. 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. The orange sky raked with purples and high above an airplane flew. It left a long, silk thread in the ozone. Jack could just make out its sound.

  But there was another sound. This one closer.

  Screaming.

  Eighty-One: Noise

  Jack opened his eyes.

  The memory had risen from somewhere deep inside like a bubble from the bottom of a lake. It made him dizzy. He shook his head. Sweat dripped into his eyes. Thirsty.

  Near his head there was a fly, its tiny whine sounding like chainsaws. He attempted to ignore it and focus on the scene in front of him. 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 could take control of the bus. That person would be him. Jack always knew he was hero material. It silently thrilled him.

  He looked through the Perspex hub at the back of the driver’s head. There was 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 bitch wouldn’t stand a chance.

  There were six of them and one of her.

  If they rampaged, she would react, would jerk the wheel and steer them off the road and into an accident. She might even grab the gun. But then again, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she wouldn’t even see them coming. Maybe. Maybe.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  Scissors.

  He had to know.

  Jack stretched his leg and lowered his foot into the aisle, stepping into the gummy blood. His hand grabbed the seat in front of him. Joining the women was a risk but he was willing to take it. He scanned the bus for signs of movement, looked in the concave mirror above the windshield. It was so small from where he sat—a silver eye looking back at him. The longer he waited, the closer the driver was to turning to check on them. He was positive that what little mental capacity she had left was focused on getting them to wherever they were going.

  It had to be now. Quick and quiet.

  Jack bound into the aisle and slipped. His palm landed on a seat, a loud clap cutting through the silence. It was too late to turn back now.

  Sarah shot her head in his direction, her chest seized.

  Michael saw the movement in the mirror above the driver and spun around. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing: the man with the goatee, running towards the others. How could he be so stupid?

  Jack skidded to a stop behind Julia and Diana. He felt like a soldier diving for cover, his movements trailed by snipers. The girls recoiled as he slipped into the seat behind them. The Eagle has landed, he thought, a little giddy. Roger that. He leaned into the aisle and clicked his tongue twice. “Someone say they got scissors?” he whispered.

  Nobody answered him at first. Jack looked up again, saw the chicken-shit kid at the front peering at him in the mirror. From here he could just make out the driver’s face. Dead and unmoving, jaw slack.

  Relief swelled. He had not been seen.

  “Someone’s got scissors?” Jack asked again, stronger this time.

  Sarah cursed the man for his selfishness. He had just gambled with their lives. She knew if she didn’t answer, he would only ask again and the more noise he made increased the chances of breaking through to the driver.

  “They don’t,” Sarah told him. It was the truth.

  “Shit!” Jack lowered his head.

  “I’ve only got credit cards and receipts,” Diana said.

  Jack’s thoughts snagged on her accent. Nasal and whiny—a Yank. What the hell is she doing in James Bridge? Jack hated Americans; they were all the same. Spoke loud, never had enough; they all thought they owned the world. He caught her glare. Girl even looks like a Yank.

  “You got anything?” Sarah asked Jack.

  “I’ve got nothing.”

  “Wait—” Sarah’s hands flew to her bag and she pulled out her house keys. “This any good to us?” The thumb-sized picture of her grandchildren swung on the hook, catching the sun.

  “Look, we’re just going to make things worse. Let’s wait this out. It’s the only way,” Diana said.

  Jack looked at Sarah, who he assumed would understand.

  “I’m not saying we do anything about it,” Sarah said, “but I think we should have whatever we’ve got on standby should things go that way.”

  “I’ll be fucked if I’m just going to sit here and let that happen.” Jack swiped at another fly.

  “Look,” Sarah began, “I’ve got keys—” She shifted them in her hand so the jagged metal spikes faced outwards through her fingers. “And I’ve got a couple of ballpoint pens.”

  The veins in Jack’s neck drew tight as guitar strings.

  Keys? A couple of ballpoint pens? scoffed the voice in his head. The driver has a fucking gun!

  His eyes were wide, teeth clenched. “We can’t let her do this.”

  “What’s your name?” Sarah asked, her voice different from anything the sisters had heard from her so far. He looked at her, taken aback. “Well?”

  “It’s Jack.”

  “Well right, Jack-o,” Sarah said. “We can’t Rambo our way through this. God gave you a brain, why don't you use it?”

  “Please, shhh,” Diana moaned.

  Michael could hear their words catapulting the length of the bus. Every sound made him flinch; they were unexploded hand grenades falling at his feet. He wanted to look to see if the teenager, who could not have been more than a few years younger than he was, was still praying. Try as he might, Michael could not look away from the back of the driver’s head.

  We’re going to get caught.

  Eighty

  Julia looked over the handlebar of the seat and dipped low again, drawing a ragged breath. The driver had not moved. It seemed impossible to her that the woman could be both there and not there at the same time. When she closed her eyes she saw the posters in her bedroom, heard music on the cassette player. Saw a baby in her arms—a viscera-coated, half-dead thing clambering for breath.

  “Look…” Jack began. Julia was scared of him and didn’t know why.

  He held up his hands. They looked as big as trashcan lids to her. “I’ve got these. I can—” he mimed a kind of strangling, “—from behind.” His eyes were pleading.

  “And lose control of the bus and kill us all?” Sarah tapped her forehead in a think man gesture. “Not in this life, Jack. You grab her and she’ll go and jerk the wheel. We flip, who knows?”

  “But if we all go at her together…” Jack said, cracking his knuckles.

  “Kids, Jack. This is a bus of kids. Those guys up the front are terrified and I don’t blame them. I’m scared too. We’re not an army.”

  “She’s right,” Diana said. “We wait. The driver will stop eventually and when she does she’ll let us go. It’s simple. Either that, or the police will come. Whatever happens first. A dead girl in the middle of the road doesn’t go unnoticed. Not even in James-fucking-Bridge.”

  Jack could not believe what he was hearing. “She has a gun! What you think she’s gonna do when the police show? Jesus!”

  “We should fight…” said a voice.

  They turned to the speaker. Julia.

  Seventy-Nine

  Julia’s face was pushed up against the seat. Her skin clung to the leather. Its grip and her weight pulled her face into a deformed jester's smile.

  “See!” Jack pointed at her.

  Julia closed her eyes again. Something dark and primal
was pounding through her head, the second heartbeat she could not ignore. “Who knows when there will be police? This is James Bridge, there’s never police at the station. If they come, they are coming from half an hour in any direction. God only knows where we are, anyway. Any idea?”

  Jack glanced out the window. “Trees and more trees. I can’t see a thing.”

  At the front of the bus Michael tried to imagine what the others were talking about. He wanted to be with them, not here at the mouth of the lion’s den. If the driver moved, he and the prayer-happy teenager would be the first to know.

  The first to die.

  The urge to join the others grew; it pulsed inside him like something alive. If you join them, you will be seen, he told himself. Michael bit his knuckles and lowered his eyes from the mirror to look at Peter. He was still whispering to himself.

  Seventy-Eight

  “This isn’t the road that takes us into town and it isn’t the one taking us to Maitland, or Cessnock,” Sarah said. “We’re in a hollow and the road is narrow. If we were on the main road 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 held up her shaking hands, balled them into fists. “We can take her. One of us needs to grab the wheel. It needs to be all of us.”

  “There’s a big old gun right there in front of her just waiting to tear right through us,” Sarah said. “You’re brave—” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “But you’re a bub. She won’t do anything to us unless we make her—”

  Jack moved forward, a sudden realization upon him. “We’re fucking hostages here. I don’t want to be a hostage.”

  Julia spun on them. “I don’t want to die.” She looked at Diana, who flinched at the words.

  The bus filled with crashing; it drowned out their screams. Windows rattled in their frames.

  Liz Frost snapped back into reality, her pupils dilated and everything burned bright.