Stormy Stormy Night
Maurice Moulterd
There was something strange about storms in the country.
Maurice Moulterd knew that. He knew the legends. He knew there were people who had gone insane after being caught outside in a country storm. He knew about the hallucinations. The things people saw and heard. The things people thought they could do.
He just never thought it could happen to him.
She had touched him. His Rachel. Mrs Slocombe she might be to the unruly bunch she dragged with her to Millstone Manor, she was still Rachel to him. And she had touched him. Accidentally, of course. She reached for the milk at the same time that he did. Her fingers touched his and he felt a bolt of lightning shoot down his spine.
After all these years, he had no idea he could still have feelings this strong.
He had been outside during storms before. There was no reason why anything should happen now, when nothing had ever happened in all those years.
The thunder had never bothered him before. He didn't care about the lightning. The rain was just a bit of water. So why had the storm given him such a headache?
Maurice Moulterd was not a scared man, but that night, he was terrified.
Mr Rumbold had scared everyone to death wandering the hallways of Millstone Manor, and he had run to the room Mavis shared with Mr Humphries. He didn't know what Mr Humphries did with his daughter, nor did he particularly care. Mavis had shared this bed with the last chef, too. Plus, he was fairly sure Mr Humphries wasn't interested in girls. What mattered was that he had a safe place to sleep off the headache the storm had given him.
The next morning, time had slowed down, or so it seemed to him. He fed the pigs and the goat, collected the eggs and milked the cows, and when he checked his watch, barely five minutes had passed. He tapped the glass, thinking the watch had stopped, then brought it up to his ear and to his surprise heard that it was still ticking. And suddenly there was only one thought in his mind.
The insanity has set in.
He had run straight to the bottle of syrup in the kitchen of his cottage. A lot of people who lived in the country had this medicine handy for emergencies. It helped against fever, coughs, headaches, sleeplessness and hallucinations. It was for that last purpose that Maurice Moulterd needed it now. He poured a spoonful into his mouth and swallowed the foul-tasting liquid.
It didn't help.