As the storm began to release its fury, I heard Nicole's flute, which had been playing a soft melody, cease.
It has begun...
I made sure all the doors were locked and the windows shut and then went to tend the dieing fire. Grabbing a few pieces of wood from the back garden, I heard a horrifying sound coming from the house. I rushed inside with three logs in hand to hear my daughter's horrifying cries.
"MOTHER!!!!" she cried as she dashed down the stairs.
"What is it love?" I asked as she began to cry.
Something has happened, she never cries unless...
"Mum... some... someone...the lightning... help!" she cried, I barely understood what she said before she dashed outside into the now pouring rain.
"NICOLE!" I cried out as she raced out the door, but my cries were drowned out by the rolling thunder and vicious rain as I bombed the earth.
I saw her slim figure quickly dash out into the abyss as I grabbed a pair of shoes off the front steps and ran after her.
What did she mean someone, lightning, and help? Maybe... Oh GOD!
That's when I saw it, the most horrifying sight my eyes have ever been forced to witness. As I came upon my daughter's hunched body, I saw what she had been trying to tell me...
"Oh my God." I breathed as I saw Jack's body lying on the muddy earth; Nicole was crying.
Crying? Why this? This man tried to kill us!
I heard my daughter's sobs silence when she saw a piece of paper clutched in his lifeless hands. She slowly reached for it and as she touched his hand he grabbed her arm and screamed,
"Fear what you can not see! Long for what can not be! Run from the light of day! You must run, far away!!!"
As these final words passed his lips, he fell back to the earth... He was dead... My daughter shakily picked up the soaked paper, which was lying in his lifeless hands, and held it tightly in hers. She then did something I'd never in my wildest dreams think she would do... She gently reached out and shut Jack's blue eyes and crossed his chilled hands over his unmoving chest. She then rose silently from her knelt position and walked like a ghost back to the house. I did not know what to do.
Who should I go to? What of the body?
I walked into the house and ordered for a message to be sent immediately to the police. It read,
"A body has been found. He had been struck by lightning. He lies on Willow's Road."
I gave it to the messenger and he rode off on his brown stallion into the stormy abyss. The heavy 'clops' of the horse's hooves slowly faded away as he disappeared into this dismal night.
I then rushed from the front steps into the dark house, shutting and locking the door behind me. I immediately dashed upstairs, almost slipping on them, but grabbing on to the railing to keep my balance and continuing. As I reached the top, I heard a low mournful cry seep underneath the attic floor. I slowly crept towards the door and opened it as silent as possible. I peered inside to see, Nicole lying in her bed, shaking.
I walked over to her to see tears streaming down her pale cheeks and her slim frame quivering on her bed. When she saw me she sat up ever so slowly and shakily handed me the piece of paper that was clutched in her ghostly hands. I looked into her red eyes to see fear racing across them as I unfolded the dripping note and read its contents. I became horrified and confused by what it said,
Don't let your guard down for a storm soon to be, will release its fury and pain upon thee.
You can not fight the horrid night that is soon to be, ye may hide your love up above but he shall find ye.
The Rain
The rain? What or who is that?
"Nicole? Are you ok?" I asked softly, shaking her from her daydream.
She stared at me with her blood red eyes, a tear streamed down her pale face as she said shakily,
"He's the one... the one who killed him? Isn't he?"
I sighed and bowed my head... How am I to tell her?
"Sweetheart... You said it yourself... Lightning killed this man... No one else was there and..." I began but stopped short because of the look inside her eyes that was filling with so much fear of what I was about to say.
Why? Why of all nights? Why must this happen?
I knew eventually that I would have to explain to her that it was her father who hired Jack to kill us... He had never forgiven me for not bearing a son for him and he just plain hated Nicole for existing.
"I'm so sorry." I cried as I hugged her tightly. I hated her to witness such a horrid thing as death, though it is inevitable, no child should have to endure it.
She began to sob in my arms; she never cried so much and she never would again.
After an hour passed, she fell asleep in my arms and I changed her wet sheets where her clothes had dripped dry. After I set her back down in bed and covered her up, I went downstairs to check the house, an eerie feeling locked around my aching heart as I stirred the dieing fire. A horrifying voice made my body quiver as it weaved a tale of terror around my soul, ensnaring it, trapping it, and suffocating it.
"You can't protect her... You can't save her from the inevitable... She will die... You know that the time will come when..."
"NO! No! No! No! That won't happen! STOP!" I cried as I ran from the room, tripping over some dark lump in the floor.
I looked back as I stood to see Jack's lifeless body lying in the floor, blood draining from his lips and his now red eyes were locked on me.
"STOP!" I cried once more as I fled to my room.
I shut the door behind me and locked it in my terror. I went for the poker that gleamed red in the fire, but was stopped by the horrifying image that forever would haunt me.
Lying in my bed was my drunken husband... dead.
Horrified I began to scream... That's when I awoke...
Nightmares... No... Night terror is closer to it.
Never had I had one so vivid. I crawled slowly out of bed and silently went to the staircase in my room that my father had installed. I climbed the stairs, slowly and silently, soon coming to the hatch to the attic. I raised it gently as entered Nicole's room like a burglar, quiet and aware of every little sound that passed my ears. I crept upon her bed to see her lying ever so still. I could not tell if she was alive for she breathed ever so silently and slightly that she did not even disturb the air.
After I made sure no one was in the house, I went back to my room and went back to bed.
All a dream? No... It couldn't have been. It was so real.
That's when I saw a piece of paper lying on the desk by my bed. I held it up into the light of the candle and read its contents many times letting the reality seep into my mind...
It was no dream...
The anxiety and eerie sense never left my soul though as I finally drifted back off to sleep. I did not realize that this would not be the first night this would happen.
Time reveals the true pain that has been lying in wait.
