The Deathly Silence is an excerpt from the full-length adult/YA novel titled The Oddity Effect (Beckton 2025). The Gothic narrative follows Teddy and Mouse, who return to Heaven’s Temple after venturing from their commune home to visit the ‘Otherworld’, only to discover that their Templar family has been massacred.

The moon cast a silver skin over the chorus line of cars parked near the gates of Heaven’s Temple. Teddy motioned for Mouse to crouch behind a thicket of lantana, then placed a finger to his mouth. He peered through a gap in the foliage to take in the scene.
‘What can you see?’ asked Mouse
‘Cars,’ said Teddy. ‘Lots of them.’
‘Do you think they’re police cars?’
‘Yes, I think the smaller ones are police cars, but there are other ones too – different ones.’
‘What do they look like?’
Teddy leaned further into the thicket, squinting to get a better look.
‘They’ve got flashing lights like the police cars but they’re bigger. And they’ve got two doors that open wide at the back. Inside, there’s a bed, along with tubes and wires connected to machines mounted on the wall.
Mouse leaned close to Teddy.
‘I think they’re called ambulances,’ she whispered. ‘They collect people who are sick.’
Teddy turned to Mouse.
‘They collect people who are sick? Why would they need to be here, at Heaven’s Temple?’
Mouse shrugged.
‘I’m not sure.’
Teddy turned back to the scene. Most of the police officers were still in their cars, except for two uniformed men near the gates who were holding torches above their heads. The torches crossed in swords of light over the wooden entrance, revealing moon-shaped finials on each high corner and a string of painted words below. Teddy didn’t need the torchlight to read the words. The Templar creed Discrimine Salus, and its Latin translation, was etched into the brain of every Templar man, woman and child. The words translated to Safety within danger; the divine is within. The creed’s meaning, however, was a source of debate. Maji was quick to clarify that the creed referred to every Templar, and that ‘divine’ referred to the beauty found in our soul. Although she never corrected her loyal elders who were quick to say that Maji was the ‘divine’ one, and that we were safe within Heaven’s Temple as long as we were under her care.
‘Do you think the police are looking for us?’ asked Mouse.
‘I don’t know.’ Teddy rubbed his fingers across his brow, warding away a looming headache. ‘We only left this morning so I doubt we’ve been gone long enough to be missed. Also, the elders didn’t take rollcall this morning because everyone was tasked with clearing damage from the storm. I’m pretty sure we slipped out unnoticed.’
It was supposed to be the storm to end all storms – the reckoning Maji predicted would usher the clan into a new era as the ‘chosen ones’. The storm caused damage, for sure, but not to the extent Maji had predicted.
‘Even if someone had noticed our absence, Maji would never call the police here to Heaven’s Temple,’ added Teddy.
They watched as the policemen flashed their torches into bushes near the gates.
‘They’re obviously looking for something, if not us,’ said Mouse. ‘Either way, this is weird.’ She gestured to the barricade of cars. ‘Why isn’t Maji or someone from the guard house here, outside the gate. Why aren’t they talking to the police? The gates to Heaven’s Temple are our first and last line of defence. The guardhouse is usually manned. Why is it suddenly empty?’
‘I was thinking the same thing. People so close to the Temple gates would normally trigger the tower floodlights. The entrance, this road, even this lantana bush should be lit up as bright as day. It should have triggered the Templar guards.’
Teddy watched as one of the officers held a cone-shaped object to his mouth. As if by magic, the officer’s voice, distorted and amplified, filled the air around them.
‘This is the police. Open the gate.’
Mouse covered her ears and looked at Teddy, her eyes wide. The officer waited a few minutes then used the mechanical mouth to speak again.
‘This is the police,’ he repeated. ‘If you don’t open the gate we will force our way in.’
The air hummed with uneasy tension then receded, leaving a heavy and expectant void.
‘Why is no one coming?’ asked Mouse.
Teddy shook his head.
‘I don’t know, but we’re not going to find out by staying here. We can circle to the back entrance where we left this morning, and slip inside without being seen.’
They waited, their limbs frozen, until they were sure they could melt back into the shadows. They flanked the perimeter wall until they reached the back entrance where a tree uprooted by the storm blocked access, and the gates were unmanned. The felled tree had created the perfect decoy for their escape that morning, but something felt different now, as though someone had rearranged the forest furniture. Teddy couldn’t put his finger on what had been moved. The air was still, apart from a colony of fruit bats which were roosting in a grove of trees nearby. They clung, upside down like droopy balloons, asleep. They were unsettlingly quiet, until every so often when one would unfurl its wings, flap with abandon then readjust itself back into a slumbering cocoon. The air was thick with the gamey waste of the close-living creatures and the sweetness of blooming banksias. The smell was so strong, so pervasive, that Teddy covered his nose with the back of his hand.
‘Do you think we could slip inside without anyone seeing us?’ asked Mouse as they skirted behind the empty guardhouse.
‘I’m not sure what we should do, to be honest. Something doesn’t feel right.’
Teddy shifted his weight, ready for flight.
‘I don’t like this one little bit,’ he said, pointing to the gate at the back of the compound. ‘Look at the gate, it’s open. It’s never open at this time of night. The guards would have done their rounds by now. They would never leave the gates ajar like that.’
Mouse nodded.
‘You’re right, but maybe there’s a reason. Maybe everyone is behind the front entrance, where all the action is.’
‘Maybe.’ Teddy rubbed his finger across his bottom lip. ‘If you’re right Mouse, then we might be able to pretend that we’ve been here all along, as though we never left.’
They crept from behind the fallen tree toward the open gate, slow and cautious, as though stalking a wounded animal. Teddy reached for Mouse’s hand as they stepped from the Otherworld, over the threshold, into Heaven’s Temple.
‘Should we go back to our cabins?’ asked Mouse. ‘If we’re lucky, everyone will still be busy with bedtime routines.
‘Ok.’ Although nothing about this felt ok to him. The night was strangely devoid of the usual smells and sounds that typically filled the evening air – like the hum of generators running through the night, and the viscous cooking smells that permeated the Temple grounds after dinnertime. They were replaced instead by an unfamiliar mix of aromas that pushed back against the darkness – the smell of dying flowers left too long in water, of soiled linen, and the remnant scent of rusted metal.
Mouse tugged at Teddy’s sleeve.
‘It’s so quiet,’ she said. ‘Maybe Maji sent everyone to bed without dinner. She’s been harsh with punishments since her first prediction failed.’
Teddy nodded slowly.
‘Yeah, that’s what it will be, they’re probably already in bed. I’m sure you’re right.’

***

The first body they saw was face down on the manor house lawn. In the shadowy moonlight, Teddy recognised the Templar tunic but couldn’t tell if the body was male or female. What he did know, what he could tell for sure, was that it was dead. The body was flat and still, its limbs stretched wide in a sugar-glider pose, as if mid-flight. The lifeless skin emitted a strange green hue under the pinpricked, starlit sky. Teddy’s first instinct was to turn the body over but Mouse yelped, a high kettle-whistle shriek, then pulled at his sleeve.
‘Don’t, Teddy.’
The moon appeared pinned to the dark sky above, and it’s iridescent glow lent life to Mouse’s dewy features. Her chin shook as she motioned to the lawn beyond the body. The scene, at first, was unclear. Teddy felt the thrum of anxiety weigh down his bones as he focused on the full horror of what lay beyond the body near his feet. He grabbed Mouse’s wrist as his knees buckled beneath him.
‘It can’t be real,’ he said.
They locked elbows, supporting each other’s weight as they gazed, wide-eyed at the carnage. The lawn was covered in white clad figures, an outbreak of pimples on the flat skin of land. When his eyes adjusted, his mind caught up to the fact that the figures were his Templar family and friends, motionless in their bleached and homespun tunic-sacks. Teddy’s head rolled left then right at the sprawl of bodies, his mind swirling as he tried to comprehend what had happened and who the bodies belonged to, even though, in the back of his mind, he knew full well he could likely place a name on the head of every lifeless form. ­
Teddy slid the backpack from his shoulder and fumbled through the contents for his torch. He cast a wide arc of light over the lawn, fast at first to determine the full scope of things, then more focused as the torch stuttered over finer details, illuminating each frame in a curated horror. There were flashes of grass, branches, and sticks still waiting to be cleared from the earlier storm. Fingers of light landed on a sneaker, pitched upside-down like a football on the grass, then a cloudy eye staring blankly ahead. A set of blue lips. Teddy swung the torch to a chorus of open mouths and clawing fingers frozen in a futile grasp for air, for soil, for anything that promised life — or at the very least, rescue.
His breathing ragged, Teddy willed his legs to move, one foot after the other. The bodies lay piled, seemingly frozen together in tangled knots where they fell, body over body, bones over bones. Teddy’s torch hit a form close to his feet, and he saw an arm, delicate and thin and notably smaller than the adult bodies nearby. A curtain of hair fell across the girl’s upturned face, obscuring a cheek and half-opened lips. Enough features were visible for Teddy to recognise the scatter of freckles and highlights of ginger hair; enough to recognise that the body belonged to their Templar friend, Giselle.
Mouse, her hands clasped to her mouth, suffocated a wave of sobs that threatened to rise in her throat.
‘Giselle.’
Teddy placed his free arm around Mouse’s shoulders and pulled her close, shielding her head from the view.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said, pulling away. ‘I don’t understand,’ she repeated, looking up at Teddy.
Teddy swallowed but the stubborn lump in his throat refused to budge. He searched for words, but none came – there simply weren’t any. What he did know, what had suddenly become clear, was why police were at the gate of Heaven’s Temple.
‘But what about the others?’ asked Mouse, talking frantically with her hands. ‘Elijah and Arlo… and Sunday. Teddy, what about Sunday? Teddy we need to find them.’
Teddy folded his hands across his chest, his fingernails digging into the skin of his arms. He knew from the scene on the lawn, and in his heart-of-hearts, that there was little point looking.
‘Hands up. Put them up now.’
The voice carried on the hush of the night, but Teddy was blinded by the beams that converged on his face.
He felt Mouse stiffen.
‘Drop your torch, now. Both of you, put your hands in the air.’

Teddy shied from the light, unable to shield his eyes from the blinding beam aimed at his face. He dropped his torch in time to catch Mouse as she crumpled against his body. The flashlights flickered between Teddy’s face and the scene on the lawn, and Teddy clung to Mouse’s limp form as the torchbearers drew closer.
As torchlight fixed on his face, Teddy caught the glint of a silver badge. It lowered, bringing both the badge and the man wearing it, into focus.