We're nothing. We're dust.

Starke entered his house a detective, slipped off his shoes and became a husband and father. It was five in the morning. The world was blue. He went to the refrigerator and opened the door, looking for answers to mysteries he would never comprehend. So he closed it and settled for water instead.

Michael Delaney used to be fat. Not puppy-padding fat—bursting-frankfurts-in-a-boiling-pot fat. He remembered gym class and swimming lessons. All of the thin guys who could be divided into one of two groups: those who looked but did not comment and those who looked and commented, with enthusiasm...
Fat kids are like alcoholics; they always have excuses.

Yes, this was a haunted place. He had read
about certain materials absorbing the sounds of their surroundings like divots in a vinyl recording, and now, as the sun started to dip below the horizon, this concept chilled him more than the creeping cold. Put a needle to the mortar of these walls and listen to the screams. His own would be among them.

Darkness fell, gathering sin.

Nobody wants to be alone. Sure, we fill our lives with people, faces that come and go, we love a lot only to lose more in the end, and if we’re smart—really smart—we take our victories where we get them. But beneath our skins, we siren.