“The door is locked,” she tells me, her eyes fixed on the keyhole as if she has the power to unlock it with her mind. I think back to this morning, unable to remember if my Uncle said he’d be home or not. Clearly, he isn’t. Unless he’s asleep in bed. I check my watch: 23:01. It’s a possibility, I suppose.
“I’ll call him,” I tell her. “He might be asleep.” Waking him up wasn’t my intention when I left for town this morning but here we are. I’d rather bristle him and sleep in a proper bed tonight that have to kip in my truck, and I know the feeling is mutual in Kayla.
“Sound,” Kayla says. “I’ll check the back door.” I frown but don’t tell her to stop as she goes, it’s unlikely the back door will be unlocked if I remember rightly, but if there’s a chance... I wait in the nightly silence for her to reappear and she does so with a shrug. “Worth a shot.” I look through my phone contacts and select Uncle Charlie’s number. It rings a few times before he answers.
“Hello,” he grumbles.
“Hey Uncle Charlie,” I say, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt. It makes Kayla’s brows rise into her fringe. “Sorry for waking you up, um, but I just got to town and was wondering if you could...put me and a friend up for the night.” I hear him move before he replies.
“You’re in town?” He asks, “Why? Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “Spontaneous decision, that’s all. I’d have called ahead...” but I didn’t know I’d definitely make it. “I’m outside.”
“Outside?” He asks, alarmed. “I’ll come down.” He ends the call and I put my phone away, feeling nervous. I hate to make assumptions of people, I was taught it’s rude to, but desperate measures.
“We staying?” Kayla asks. I nod. “Good. I don’t think we’ll be alone for long.” He looks up and down the street as she says this and I feel the hairs on my arms stand up. A minute later, Uncle Charlie throws the door open to reveal himself standing in pyjamas with messy hair. He looks exhausted and I feel guilty.
“Hey,” I say awkwardly as I approach. “I’m sorry to drop in like this.”
“Nonsense,” he says, his eyes looking over my truck which is filled to the brim with my things. “Come in.”
“Thanks,” Kayla says, moving before I do. I follow her inside and look back to my truck, worried it’ll be the last time I see it. They hadn’t gone as far to vandalise anything but I could feel their desperation in the air. If I didn’t make a choice soon, they’d make it for me. I close the door, lock it and put the latch on. At least, in here, we’re safe. Safe from Them.
Claps of thunder rattle the windowpanes of every house in Dwyerym, unhinging the nerves of most. Fences are ripped from land in the fists of loathing wind, crops drowning from lashes of rain. Those who are fortunate drink their worries away in the local tavern while the anxious pray at their bedsides. Children cry between searing flashes of light, raising monsters from shadows inside their nurseries.
In a barn, a Doctor’s wife is on her back. She screams for mercy into the arms of her Mother, the cycle of life feeling most unnatural to her as her body births her first child, exhausting her sanity. Her Mother hushes her in gentle tones, rocking her as if she is still a bairn herself.
Hours pass as the Doctor’s wife sobs, her body pushed to its limits. Her husband checks in on her once an hour, commuting between said barn and the tavern. His friends drinking to the impending birth of his first born. He stumbles into the barn and winces at the high pitch wailing of his love. She looks awful and he’s glad he’s drunk so he won’t recall much tomorrow. He drops to his knees by her ankles.
“She’s in so much pain,” the Mother says. “I cannot soothe her at all.” The Doctor grumbles something incoherent and checks to see if all is as should be. He’s delighted to see the head of his child is crowning.
“Soon,” he tells his wife and pats her knees which are stationed like alps, tight with unbearable pain. He tries to coach her through childbirth though now his wife is barely coherent enough to hear, let alone understand. The whimpers of their child are mute but the baby squirms as babies do. The Doctor holds the bloodied child to his chest, cheerful for its health though disappointed with its sex. They would have to try again.
He hands the newborn girl to its Grandmother and tends to the umbilical cord. As he severs the tissue between Mother and child, the doors to the barn blow open and his wife’s head drops. Standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the bleak weather outside, a hooded figure creeps in. The Doctor turns to said figure.
“Tell the tavern we have a girl,” he says, forcing a smile despite his discomfort. The stranger is certainly odd.
“I smelled the blood,” the stranger replies and as the Doctor processes this meaning, the stranger zips forward to loom over the immobile Mother whose eyes are vacant of life. The Doctor then notices her stillness. He touches her knee.
“Rosie?” He asks, sobering. The stranger pushes him to the floor, red eyes trained on the distressed infant. Rosie’s Mother pulls away and the stranger chuckles.
“A child born of stormy death,” he murmurs and snatches the baby. “A perfect sacrifice for Him, so very perfect. So it is foretold. And when the child of angry elements bleeds the night of its sixteenth year, an ancient evil awakens.”
