Dori’s heart also swelled with pride for her husband. She felt emotions that had long been dormant flicker slowly to life, pushing the guilt aside. Despite their recent distance, she was proud of Amir’s ability to predict the superior creature he could create by carefully choosing horses. He spent much of his time at home studying books full of pedigrees, studying breed lines and characteristics. She had been a little skeptical of his decision to make the necessary investment to breed this certain horse, but she said nothing out of respect for him and his desires. Apparently he had been right and the initial investment had multiplied exponentially.
Lost in the moment, Dori was hatching a plan to celebrate Amir’s success. She went back to her girls and told them about a surprise for Daddy. She explained that the girls had the very important job of coloring placemats for a special dinner that night. The girls, motivated by Dori’s excitement, jumped at the chance to help with a special surprise for their daddy. With the girls working on their project, Dori was able to prepare Amir’s favorite meal.
As the girls finished their part of the surprise, Dori asked them to place silk flowers in a vase to make something pretty for Daddy. They spent more time than expected agonizing over which flower should go where.
Before Amir returned, Layla and Dahlia grew hungry. Dori settled for serving them before the adults had their meal. She was expecting Amir’s smiling face to come through the door any minute. She tried to focus on the dinner rather than the minutes as they ticked by. Personally, she wasn’t as thrilled with the dinner choice as Amir would be, but she knew that this was his night to celebrate and she was happy to support him.
Eventually it was time to bathe the children and put them to bed. Amir still hadn’t returned. The children couldn’t hide their disappointment at the fact that they wouldn’t get to show Amir their craft projects. As she tucked in Dahlia, she was faced with the question she had avoided all night.
“Where Daddy, Momma?”
“He’s working, Sweetie.” How could she possibly tell her daughter that she didn’t know where her father was? Watching her youngest daughter’s face fall in disappointment broke Dori’s heart. She did the best she could to put up a strong façade for Dahlia.
“I’m sure he will love your flowers and your pictures when he sees them later, Love,” she whispered as she tucked in the wiggling child. She kissed her quickly, not wanting to reveal that her eyes were filling with tears, or the quiver in her voice. She tip-toed out of the baby’s room and took a few breaths to gather herself. Layla wouldn’t be so easy.
She opened the door with a smile on her face.
“I am so proud of you today, Layla,” she gushed to the three year old. “You worked very hard and Daddy is going to love your projects.”
“Mommy, where is Daddy? I miss him,” Layla said dropping her eyes.
“Honey, Daddy is working on something very important. He wishes he could be here to kiss you goodnight. He will be home soon.”
Layla looked up at Dori, searching her eyes for the truth. Dori blinked back her tears and kept her face smooth, not letting her emotions show. She didn’t want to upset her daughter. Watching her two girls lament Amir’s absence was more painful than him being gone in the first place. She couldn’t bear to watch her children being hurt; it tore the fragments of her heart into jagged shards.
Far too mature for her age, Layla accepted Dori’s answer even though it was clear from her expression that she didn’t believe it. Dori hugged her daughter, pain stinging her heart, and tucked her in for the night. As Dori tried to stand up, Layla held onto her with one hand and gently placed the other on Dori’s cheek.
“I love you and I like you and I like you and I love you Mommy,” said a melancholy three year old.
Smiling, Dori finished the familiar cadence. “I like you and I love you and I love you and I like you too, now go to bed.” She hoped Layla hadn’t noticed the way her voice cracked and now hard she had to swallow as she said that. Before the tears escaped, she quickly left the little girl’s room.
Dori made her way back to the kitchen. She was trying to salvage the dinner by keeping it warm without drying it out. After another hour, she opened the bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. When the clock chimed again, her share of the bottle was gone and she began packing the elaborate dinner away. Amir still hadn’t returned by the time she climbed into bed.
She lay in the dark silence contemplating the evening and the painful throb in her chest. She had been so excited by her husband’s accomplishment; she was finally compelled to reconnect with him. She wanted to support him with the impromptu dinner celebration. She was thinking of her girls’ excitement as they threw themselves into the decorations for the evening. She was thinking about the food that would now surely go uneaten. She was pondering her guilt and her broken heart. Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep, waking up several times with a start, reaching for Amir and coming up empty handed.
Finally, when she woke up around three in the morning, he was there. He grunted as she reached for his comfort in the night.
“Hi Honey, where were you? You didn’t leave a note,” Dori whispered in the dark.
“I sold Al Hadiyah. I was out celebrating,” Amir murmured coldly. In his tone, Dori heard the unspoken words, “I don’t have to explain my every action to you.” The conversation was over.
Dori tried to find sleep again with Amir’s lack of compassion echoing in her ears. A slow tear ran down her cheek and fell silently on her pillow. Before long, she would steal away into the night, again looking for the box that held her peace.
It seemed like a distant memory as Dori shoveled her truck out the next morning. She didn’t dare wake Amir for help. He had been out late and she didn’t want to face him this morning. She tried not to focus on the pain that was still throbbing in her chest and knee as she cursed the raging storm. It was crazy to go out in this, but she had to make it to the feed store today. Finally, as Dori was forced to spend every ounce of her effort on the treacherous drive, she was able to find the numbness she had been waiting for.
The road was winding and steep with several impossible stop signs. It seemed as though she could walk faster than she was driving as she inched closer to her destination. Every successful turn was a small triumph.
She was descending the steepest of the hills which ended in a sharp right turn followed by a stop sign. She started tapping the brakes from the top of the hill. The speedometer read three miles per hour. She wished that this road had been better plowed. If she made it through the stop sign, the worst of the drive would be over. The dull wind had been punctuated with fiercer gusts all morning, and she had been careful not to be blinded by the white-outs. As she was nearing the turn, a sudden gust of wind tore out of the surrounding forest, throwing snow into the air and erasing the world around her.
Temporarily disoriented, she squinted, trying to make out the road ahead. She gripped the wheel and tapped the brakes more fervently. Her eyes darted from side to side, looking for something that would help her get her bearing. She was distracted by the way the snowflakes danced on the invisible wind currents, never thinning enough to reveal the world beyond. For a split-second, she thought she saw something unmoving despite the frantic gusts. Her eyes narrowed with effort as she tried to make sense of it. The wind shifted angrily and threw another blast of snow at her windshield. She flinched instinctively and whatever had held her attention was gone. She tried to tell her racing heart that in a second the snow would settle and she would regain her bearing. That would be a second too late.
Dori felt her truck lurch forward and she thought she was sliding, although it was hard to tell without a reference point. It felt as if she had been pushed, but was the wind that strong? She sensed that she was now traveling faster than before. She froze in her seat as her speed increased.
Automatically, she cranked the steering wheel opposite the direction she was skidding and her foot rammed the brake pedal. The snow l
ifted momentarily and then began to drift lazily toward the ground, a white comforter settling on the bed of snow. Dori saw the thick trees of the forest racing closer at the bottom of the hill. How was it possible that she was travelling this fast?
She could feel the adrenaline in her system. There was no way to stop. Her truck seemed to press toward the intimidating trees even faster. Thump, thump, thump, thump raced her heart; the truck sped impossibly faster. She had been going so slowly. The truck jerked forward as if it had been shoved; now she was hurtling toward the black wall of oak trees. This was going to be bad.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP. For a split second Dori only heard her heart. The sound of the twisting metal rang through the dark sky. The next scene unfolded in front of her eyes, as though she was outside of herself as her truck slammed into the trees. She heard the mournful groan of a large oak whose trunk had been nearly bent in half by the sudden impact of her vehicle. She watched as that same oak gave way to its injury and fell in slow motion across the roof of the pick-up. She heard, rather than felt, her own neck snap.
The morning was silent. Dori realized she was back in her body again and her eyes flitted around, trying to figure out what had just happened. She wanted to reach for her phone, but her body wouldn’t obey. She tried to draw in a deep breath to call for help, but the air caught in her throat. The world was spinning and she was helpless in the whirlpool. She sat there in the freezing quiet for a while, trapped and scared.
Slowly her senses awoke and she began to assess the situation. She heard the whistle of the wind as it enveloped the twisted shape of her car punctuated by the rapid assault of snowflakes flung through the air. Then the faint, slow thump of her heart was audible in her ears and it grew steadily stronger. A similar faint noise kept time with her heart. Something, probably blood, was dripping from her temple.
Her vision focused now that she was more under control. She couldn’t turn her head, but she was trying to catalogue everything she could see, attempting to assess the situation. She was wedged in the space between the tree trunk and the overturned treetop. She was staring straight at the clock, which now showed eight, eight, eight, no longer keeping track of the passing minutes. Her mouth awoke to a metallic taste. Her stomach rolled again and she was certain that she had bitten her tongue when the airbag slammed into her face. She sat immobile for a very long time.
After what seemed like forever, Dori heard the distant wail of an ambulance. Her heart jumped. Help was on the way! She heard some frantic yelling and tried to call out. Nothing but a broken whisper squeaked out and she decided it was better to save her energy. Tears fell fervently, like an open faucet. They left a cool, wet path on either cheek on that snowy morning.
The sirens multiplied and grew louder. She tried to make sense of the jumble of sounds that were flooding her thoughts. She was too shaken to identify them, but finally there was the rhythmic flashing of lights bouncing off the world around her. She was slowly losing her grip on reality as shock set in. She felt as though she was being pulled away from the immediacy of the scene. It was as if something was pulling at the core of her soul, pulling her up and away. She didn’t want to go and tried to shrug off the magnetic sensation, but it was impossible. She was too tired to put up a fight.
She swallowed and resigned to give in to the gentle, convincing tug. Her eyes sagged and then shut. She said silent goodbyes to those she loved. Just as she was giving up, she heard a voice she recognized in the distance. Something about that voice made it hard to disobey. She remembered that she liked the voice that was calling her back to reality. The voice was willing her to stay.
“Dorianna, stay with me. I can help you live through this, but you have to stay. You have to give me a chance. Dori?”
It was the voice of an angel and it filled her confused mind. The voice rang in her ears and made her heart race. She was too far away from reality to easily recognize the person she was hearing, but she knew she liked the owner of that voice. Her mind drifted to a cramped living room. She saw swirls of color, one blending into the next. She heard the echo of classical music in the distance. A comforting heat crept into her memory and suddenly the pieces of the puzzle snapped into place. She knew that voice; the man it belonged to occupied a growing place in her heart. In her mind, she saw Michael with paint smudged on his face. She was rocketed back to reality, back into her body. Her eyes snapped open with a determination to disobey the pull. She wanted to stay here, with him. He would make this better.
“Help me.” It was no more than a breath, but somehow he heard.
“Dori! Don’t talk!” I am going to get you out of here. You have to trust me today. I will save you from this.”
It took an eternity for the emergency squad to make progress. Michael was giving orders to everyone there. She didn’t know what was going on, but everyone was scurrying to obey him. Once the neck brace had been fastened, the tree had to be removed from the roof of the truck. Then the fire department came in with the jaws-of-life to cut her from the mangled heap of metal, all the while the wind was thwarting them with a relentless barrage of icy needles. At some point she was wrapped in a foil blanket. Michael climbed into the wreckage to support Dori’s neck and shoulders once the roof had been removed. Day broke and the gray light cast a somber mood over the scene. She knew that her situation was worse than she had originally thought.
The sun was much higher in the sky when the rescue squad finally brought the backboard over. It took several men to lift her onto the board and they did so with the care they would have shown a newborn. They could have manhandled her, she thought, for all the difference it made. She could feel nothing from the neck down. Michael climbed into the ambulance and touched her face. There was a flicker of indecision in his eyes, a moment when he was still amidst the hustle of the emergency squad, and then he jumped out of the back of the ambulance. He was talking with the other rescue squad members.
“Stay here,” was all he needed to tell them. There was an awkward silence, but the volunteers finally shuffled off to investigate the scene.
Michael climbed back into the ambulance and flashed Dori a triumphant smile. She was too exhausted to try to figure out what had just taken place. Before she knew it, the ambulance was in motion and Michael was alone, preparing a syringe.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Do you want to be able to walk again? Be able to pick up your children? Be able to squeeze them tightly in your arms again?” Excitement burned in Michael’s eyes.
“Yes,” she answered again. This time her chin wobbled with the threat of another deluge of tears. She hadn’t thought about the fact that she would never hold her precious girls again.
“Good.” He plunged the needle into her unresponsive arm. “This is something to help you sleep. I promise when you wake up, you will be a new woman.” He finished administering the dose and leaned very close to her face. His sudden closeness surprised her and she was dizzy. Her heart raced. He kissed her forehead; his warm embrace was loving. He pulled away and his gentle smile put hope back in her heart.
He paused for a mere second and his face changed completely. His jaw set, his eyes took on a wild glow. With flaring nostrils, he pulled back his lips, revealing a threatening row of teeth and lunged at her throat. He bit into her cold flesh. Pain instantly seared through her. She gasped, wanting to scream and his hand clamped over her mouth. Her mind raced. She had to move, to shove him off, to push him away, but she lay still, her body betraying her.
She suddenly felt very sleepy, her eyelids sagged. She couldn’t will them open. He was still at her neck, but he wasn’t attacking any more. She felt his lips caress her chin. Her eyes finally sank shut as he moved up her jaw line; his kisses were tender and loving. She couldn’t fight the sleep that was taking her captive, sucking her down into a dark abyss. A creeping chill was penetrating her more deeply now. It was chasing her further into darkness. She wondered how long she had be
en outside in the snow.
“Grazie,” the angel voice echoed in the darkness. The words swirled and danced in her mind like blinding snowflakes on the breeze and she lost her battle with sleep. Dori fell, slowly, toward some unknown depth for what seemed like hours. The cold intensified as she drifted lower and lower. Finally, her decent stopped as she settled onto an unseen floor. She shivered alone in the dark.
Chapter Eight
February 7, 1598
I am no longer the man I once was. All hope of salvation has been stolen from me. I am now a prisoner of the nighte. The demonic spectre made me part of his coven; I’d rather he had ended my suffering. Instead I shall spend the rest of eternitie searching for his demise.
He found the three remaining colonists and myself huddled in the chapel, reciting the Lord’s prayer. A stench was noticeable before the smoke began billowing in. We presumed the building had caught fire, but we were quite deceived. While we watched, the putrid cloud solidified and became flesh and bone. Before us stood Lucifer’s henchman. A skeletal body with matted hair stared with a menacing grin. Eerie laughter filled the room. Spittle dripped from his chin.
The tortures we endured that nighte left us all begging for sweete, sweete death. Our screams fell on deaf ears and only served to further the attacker’s greede for our pain. Blood ran through the pews, sullying the Lord’s house.
Henry was laine out on the altar and the barbarian drove spikes through his palms and feet. John’s wrists were slit to fill the communion challis with an unholy offering. James was bound and prepared for a spiritual cleansing. The vile creature performed a darke, darke exorcism on him, tearing open his flesh to free his body of evil. With my fellow colonists in varying stages of deathe, he turned his attention to me.
Ravenous eyes thirsted for more carnage; he was intoxicated by the terror and gore. He pursued me swiftly, but my torture would come later. Wordlessly he lifted me to his bosom and sunk his teeth into me. Blackness overtook me. I sank into a frozen chasme. I cannot say how long it was before I awoke, but when I did I was quite ravaged with hunger. The air was perfumed with the most glorious smell and a single thought drove me. I was quite savage, tearing at any obstacles in my path.
Immortal Storm Page 5