“I’ll do my best,” Erin replied, her voice warmer than before. She had already vowed to love and care for her child unconditionally. She wouldn’t threaten them with ominous visions of darkness or deny them knowledge about their paternal father. Even though she knew very little about Sean, she would happily divulge all the information she had to her child. She owed her baby that at least. Even the more crazy parts about Sean’s belief that he was a werewolf. Her child wouldn’t be denied any aspect of truth.
Unlike Erin. Her lineage was shrouded in mystery, relayed to her through cryptic utterings from her mother. All Erin knew about her paternal father was that he was the harbinger of the darkness that supposedly engulfed her and cast a shadow over her life.
“Have you thought about any names yet?” the nurse inquired brightly.
Erin shook her head. Names were the last thing on her mind. All she could think about was the present. Once her baby arrived, she felt she’d instinctively know what to call it, or at least she hoped so.
“Do you have someone you can call? Someone who can bring you into the hospital when you go in to labor?” the nurse asked as she scanned through Erin’s chart. Her tone was more formal now, the friendly banter over and her brow furrowed with concern.
This was Erin’s final hospital appointment before her due date. The next time she came, she would be coming to give birth. It was a scary thought and one she’d not given much credence to until that point. A part of her kept hoping that her mother would change her mind and come and stay with her but sadly that never transpired.
“I have a friend I can call,” Erin lied. She didn’t want to reveal the terrible truth, that she was completely alone. She didn’t want the nurse to pity her, to regard her with sad eyes when she realized that the only person Erin would be calling as she went into labor was a cab.
“Good.” The nurse sounded relieved. “Because when the big moment comes, you’ll want someone there to comfort you. Labor can be a really scary time, especially for first time mothers.”
“I’ll be fine,” Erin reiterated her earlier statement. But she realized as she said it that perhaps fine wasn’t good enough. She deserved to be great, wonderful even. Fine was passable and Erin wanted more than that for both her and her child. She wanted Sean but he was long gone, now existing only in her memory.
***
Alone in her house, doubled over with pain, Erin tried in vain to focus her thoughts. The pain made everything in her mind appear black and displaced.
“Argh!” she screeched out again to the unfeeling night, stretching out her hands and grabbing the sheets as she did so.
Her hair was now wet and slick to her head. She was sweating profusely.
Panting, she tried to calm herself down but each new wave of pain only sent her into a further state of panic.
As the pain intensified, Erin became certain that the moment was here, that she was going into labor.
She grabbed the sheets in bunches, desperate to tear the bedding to shreds. She needed to do something, anything, to alleviate the pain.
Then Erin felt the wetness that was suddenly released from beneath her. It felt like she had just wet herself, even though she was certain she hadn’t. The sheets around her immediately darkened with the liquid she had released.
Looking down in disbelief, Erin tentatively touched the now wet sheets and shook her head sorrowfully. Her waters had just broken. There was now no doubt about it; she was in labor.
Erin screamed again in both frustration and pain. Her baby was on its way, and she was stuck alone in her house, in too much discomfort to even get off the bed. At least the phone was close at hand. Frantically, she reached out and grabbed it, prepared to dial 911 when a sound from downstairs made her stop dead.
The sound pierced through the silence of the night, crashing into Erin with deadly, horrifying purpose. It was the sound of breaking glass. A lot of it, as though one of her windows had just been broken in.
Erin’s blood instantly turned to ice, and she sat frozen on her bed. Pain rippled through her but she bit down on her lip, refusing to scream out. Someone had just broken in to her house, she was certain of it. However quickly the emergency services arrived at her home, she doubted they would be quick enough to save her from whoever had just smashed their way in.
Holding her breath, Erin listened to try and make out more sounds. As she did so, she heard the unmistakable sound of someone ascending her staircase. Each step was well placed and purposeful.
Fearful tears silently soaked her cheeks as Erin waited on her bed, paralyzed from both terror and pain. Someone was coming for her.
Glancing around the room, Erin looked for something she could possibly defend herself with, but there was nothing. Again, Erin felt unbearably alone, like a part of her was missing.
A sound from outside grabbed her attention. A clattering noise, as if a garbage can had just been overturned. Erin glanced hopefully in the direction of the window. Perhaps her cries had awoken someone? Perhaps she needed to scream out again, to ask for help. But her cries would surely be misinterpreted as the result of labor pains and contractions. She wouldn’t be taken for the woman in mortal peril she clearly was.
Beyond her bedroom door, the footsteps from the staircase continued to approach, growing alarmingly closer.
Panicked, Erin pulled herself up in to ball as more pain knocked the air right out of her. As terrified as she was, she reminded herself that she must remain calm, for the sake of her baby. The last thing she wanted was for her child to become stressed. Whatever had broken in to her home, she wouldn’t let them jeopardize the safety of her baby.
But who was it? If it had been generic robbers, surely they would now be ransacking the downstairs? Fleeing with the plasma television and rooting through drawers and cupboards for other valuables and keepsakes?
Whoever had broken in had done so with a single-minded purpose. A purpose that had guided them past the valuables and straight upstairs to Erin.
Glancing at the phone, Erin thought again about calling her mother, but she could still be of no use, she was too far away to help. But Erin could call, just to say goodbye, as she sensed that whatever was out in the hallway had terrible intentions for her.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, sensing the dark terror floating through the air.
Erin’s arms wrapped around her stomach. Her maternal instinct was trying to surface, desperately wanting to protect her unborn baby. But what could she do? She was helpless and completely vulnerable.
More tears flooded her cheeks, and Erin struggled to stop herself from sobbing aloud, causing her chest to heave and her whole body to shake.
The footsteps stopped outside her bedroom door. Erin almost wanted to call out and demand who was there but she remained silent, not knowing what else to do. She didn’t want to die, not there alone in her home, on the brink of giving birth.
The silence seemed to stretch on indefinitely as Erin fought against countless contractions, which were becoming more frequent and closer together. Her child’s birth was imminent. She looked fearfully at her bedroom door; it was her only escape route and it was now off bounds as outside it something was waiting for her, and she sensed it was something with malicious intent.
As if confirming these fears, she suddenly heard a low guttural growl coming from behind her bedroom door.
“Oh God,” Erin uttered fearfully as she steeled herself to face whatever was about to come crashing into the room.
The growl came again, more menacing this time. A low, guttural sound that left no room for interpretation. Whatever was beyond her door was hostile.
Erin whimpered as she drew herself further away from the door, her contractions continuing. The adrenalin surging through her made her feel terrifyingly alert. Frantically, she wondered if there was any way she could secure her bedroom door, to keep out whatever was about to enter, but in doing so she would also deny herself her only means of escape and sh
e was in labor. Things were really starting to look dire for her.
She remembered the first night she had awoken to howling. It was the third night after Sean had left. Her sleeping was already fitful, her dreams still tormented by images of gnarling, snapping dogs. But this night when she woke, the howls weren’t confined to her nightmares, somehow they had seeped out in to the real world and were now delivering their moonlight serenade from beneath her window.
The sound had made her heart momentarily cease beating in her chest. Initially, she hoped she was merely dreaming, but as her senses quickly returned to her she realized, with a sinking feeling, that she most certainly was not. She was awake, which made the howling all the more terrifying.
Every night, she hoped that the howling would depart and never return. But night after night, beneath the veil of darkness, the long drawn out wail came back, crying out into the unforgiving night. Erin didn’t want to believe that the howling was in any way connected to Sean’s werewolf delusions, but she couldn’t accept the fact that the howling gave his theory some credence. It was a fact that didn’t sit well with her.
***
“What if I’m losing my mind?” she asked her mother during one of their phone calls.
“What do you mean?” her mother asked, her voice concerned.
“I’m…hearing things,” Erin explained vaguely, unsure if she wanted to divulge too much information for fear of seeming mad.
“What sort of things?”
“Just…noises.”
“Bad noises?”
“Unusual noises,” Erin sighed. A part of her wondered if the howling existed only in her mind or if there really was something keeping a nightly vigil at her house.
“Perhaps you’re just dreaming them,” her mother suggested.
“Mmm.” Erin wasn’t convinced. She knew that the howling was very much real, what she needed to know was where it was coming from and why it was happening at her house every night.
Ideally, she needed to ask Sean, to question if there was any connection between his cursed beliefs and what was now happening to her. Between the howling and the canine-themed nightmares, Erin was starting to doubt her resolve in sending him away, in discounting what he said as merely madness.
***
And now there was a very real threat just beyond her bedroom door. Something, which was now growling menacingly, had broken in to Erin’s home and was set to enter the very room where she was going into labor.
Closing her eyes, Erin tried again to steady her breathing, fearing what the sudden insurgence of stress would do to her unborn baby, who was preparing to make its debut in to the world.
The growling intensified and became accompanied by a scratching sound upon Erin’s bedroom door. It sounded like nails were being racked upon the thin wood. The noise made Erin’s insides twist with dread. She wanted to scream out at whatever was there to leave her alone, to let her be, but she sensed that it wouldn’t understand her, that whatever it was, it wasn’t human and would fail to respond to words alone.
In any other circumstance, Erin would attempt to defend herself but her labor left her almost completely incapacitated. When her body wasn’t enduring another contraction, she was trembling uncontrollably. Without the assistance of pain medication, she was going in to shock.
The scratching upon the door became more frantic. Erin knew that she was running out of time. Whatever was beyond the door would soon be in the room with her. She looked over at her en suite bathroom. The door was flimsy but it at least had a lock and would buy her a few more precious minutes.
The en suite was located just across the room but in her fragile state it might as well have been on the moon. But Erin knew that her only chance of surviving lay within that room, stowing herself away behind a locked door.
Summoning all the energy she could muster, Erin began to slide over the bed toward the en suite door. Each movement resulted in eye watering pain and Erin was constantly forced to stop and cry out in agony. She no longer cared if the creature scratching at the door heard her. It already knew she was in there; she was the reason it had come.
Sweating from the exertion, Erin reached the end of her bed and pushed herself off, hoping the momentum would propel her closer to the en suite and relative safety.
She landed heavily on the floor with a thud. She was almost within the en suite, at least the top half of her was. Crawling along the floor, Erin tried to get inside, knowing that once the door was locked behind her, she could relax at least a bit and catch her breath.
The phone.
Glancing back regretfully at the bed, she realized she’d forgotten to grab the phone, the only connection with the outside and with help that she had.
“Shit,” Erin hissed, still gasping for breath. She paused on the floor, debating whether she had the energy to climb back on the bed and retrieve the phone or if she should just proceed in to the en suite but her mind was made up for her as her bedroom door suddenly came crashing down.
***
“Not long now.” Frank had smiled at Erin one evening as they both pulled in to their driveways at the same time, both relieved to have completed another day at work.
Erin’s car was full of balloons and flowers. It had been her final day at work before her maternity leave commenced and her co-workers had seen her off in style.
“Let me help you with some of those,” Frank kindly offered.
“Thank you.” Erin smiled gratefully before handing him a vanilla tray back someone had made her, iced with a good luck message.
“Do you always come home with this kind of stuff or was today your last day at work?” Frank quipped.
“Last day,” Erin confirmed. She was thankful to no longer have to drag herself into work as the daily grind was draining her. Being pregnant was much more tiring than she ever anticipated it would be, especially when she was struggling to sleep at night.
“Looks like they gave you a good send off.”
“Yeah, it was lovely,” Erin commented as Frank waited for her to unlock her front door before following her inside with his arms laden with cake, balloons and flowers.
“If you could just pop them on the counter.” Erin glanced at the kitchen counter and Frank dutifully unloaded his burden there.
He paused briefly after doing so and glanced around the room. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in your house before,” he commented somewhat sadly.
“No,” Erin agreed, “I don’t think you have.”
“It’s nice,” Frank said kindly, the sadness now replaced with polite formality.
“Thank you.” Erin still felt saddened by his comment. She knew what he was feeling as she felt it each and every day. He was feeling the weight of what might have been if Erin chose men who were good and decent, loving and kind. Instead she chose a man haunted by mad werewolf theories, who couldn’t stand by her while she carried his child.
“Do you need anything else brought in?” Frank suggested helpfully.
Erin wanted to tell him what she was feeling. How she desperately wanted to keep him around, how she’d been a fool not to see what a good man he really was. Sean was sexy and alluring but what good were those qualities if, in times of need, he was nowhere around?
“That’s everything, thanks.” Erin forced a smile as Frank nodded and left the kitchen and ultimately her house, heading back to his life next door.
Erin wished she could love a man like Frank but she knew she never could because each time she thought of Sean her body felt weak with longing. In spite of everything, she remained incredibly drawn to him. It was as though she were powerless to resist him. Erin hated the fact that if Sean showed up after months of no word, she would still welcome him back in to her arms. He made her weak, he made her needy. Sean was no good for her yet Erin already knew that he’d ruined her for any other man. The sex with Sean was electric, it made Erin feel impossibly alive with desire. No one could ever even come close to replicating that and it meant th
at Sean would forever have a hold over her.
***
The bedroom door came crashing to the floor, breaking free of his metal hinges with a loud snap. As the door fell, a huge gray wolf pounced in to the bedroom, its huge white fangs exposed and glistening with moisture.
It growled, the silver fur on its back prickled with hostility. Sniffing the air, its head immediately turned to face Erin, locating her sprawled upon the floor, an easy target. It pounced again, set to land upon her.
Erin instinctively held her arms over her stomach in an effort to protect her baby and closed her eyes, preparing for the horrific moment when the wolf landed upon her and set its monstrous teeth in to her flesh, tearing her apart as though she were made from paper.
But the terrible moment never came. At the point when Erin knew the wolf should be upon her, a deep, resonating growl filled the room, followed by a swift flurry of movement.
When Erin dared to open her eyes, the air was filled with a terrible squealing sound, like a pig being gutted. On her bed, she saw the most brutal of scenes. Two wolves were fighting each other. There was the wolf who had lunged at her and another, new wolf.
The two creatures were locked in a brutal battle. Snarling and ripping into each other, sending blood and fur everywhere. As one wolf sunk its teeth in to the other, the victim would scream out in pained horror.
Erin wasn’t sure what to do. Tentatively she backed away from the dueling wolves and tried to finally get in to her en suite.
The wolves were ferocious, biting and chomping at each other with a horrid intensity. It was clearly a battle to the death.
Finally, the new wolf seemed to gain the upper hand as Erin pulled herself in to the en suite and kicked the door shut behind her. She heard an awful, high-pitched squeal and then silence.
Even from behind the bathroom door, she could smell the unmistakable stench of fresh blood and the underlying odor of death.
Trembling, Erin panted and heaved, knowing that she had to calm herself, to regulate her breathing to save her baby. She had no idea how far along her labor was, or if her baby was now in distress. Sat up beside the toilet bowl, with her hands over her stomach, Erin tried to shut out the crazed happenings that were occurring in her bedroom and focus on the most important task at hand; delivering her baby.
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