Evelyn's Locket Read online

  He spoke happily about that detail, but kept my body a secret. The killer delighted in the unknowing disgust of the other residents; at the complaints about the strange taste in the water. He smiled on the inside every time my Dad, my real Dad, took a sip from his favourite glass, knowing that he was drinking tiny parts of his own daughter’s flesh.

  The killer didn’t care if he died. He just wanted to continue his linage, and he met his end with a smile.

  But something had gone wrong when he went out to clean. The airlock had malfunctioned. Bad air had gotten in, and everyone had died. My killer was everyone’s killer. He had the last laugh in the end.

  Now I remembered. Matthew wasn’t my Dad. My Dad was dead too.

  Matthew tried to free the locket, but couldn’t. He looked at Sarah, who had finally managed to get her saw free, and the two seemed content with the haul they’d accumulated so far. They left looking for more treasures and I let them go. The locket had my attention now.

  I touched the metal frame, trying to open it. Strangely, my fingers found a solid object; I pried open the corroded metal. It was the only thing I could touch in the whole silo.

  The inside was a picture of my Mum, Kylie, smiling as if she hadn’t a care in the world, the picture hardly damaged by the water. She looked nothing like Sarah.

  I smiled back at her and then, as though it were an act of will, faded away from this world, letting the two strangers loot my former home, this ruined and dead silo, this place of murder and death and misery.

  It was time to go to my real parents.

  From the Author

  One day, my uncle Frank told me a story.

  It was all the way back in the end of 1997. My family and I (brother, sister, both parents), along with Uncle Frank, were travelling around the Kimberly region in Northern Australia. We had two four-wheel drives, a one-man tent each, and some of the most beautiful landscapes in the entire world. We went crabbing for yabbies, shot our .22 rifles (a rare pleasure in post-Port Arthur Australia), and we were tourists in our own country. Given my age of 13 I didn't appreciate any of this as much as I should have.

  On this trip, my uncle told me a story of his kettle. His favourite kettle. He always made tea from it and he loved his tea. One day the tea from the kettle started to taste bad, but he was a Queenslander; a country man, tough as the Earth and used to hardship. The kettle was his favourite and he kept using it despite the sour flavour.

  The tea kept tasting bad, but he eventually got used to the taste and, in time, actually preferred it over tea brewed elsewhere. Nobody he gave the tea to liked it but he did.

  About a year later he accidentally dropped the kettle and it broke. Curled up inside was a dead snake who'd obviously crawled inside at some point, and then when Uncle Frank made tea, the poor thing had been boiled alive. And flavoured every cup since…

  That story stuck with me and was the inspiration for Evelyn's Locket.

  The Lacunaverse

  Want more information about new releases?

  Check out my webpage here:

  www.lacunaverse.com

  Like my Facebook page here:

  http://www.facebook.com/lacunaverse

  Email me here:

  [email protected]

  Or sign up for my “new releases” newsletter here:

  http://eepurl.com/toBf9