A Dark Presence heard the words whispered to the small creature and trembled.
OHOOOOOO. DIANA SQUEEZED Frank’s hand, jerking his mind back to the sterile whiteness of the delivery room as another contraction gripped her.
“Soon, love.” He hoped his voice did not reveal his weariness.
Her contractions remained constant until about two hours ago – several minutes of pain then a half hour of blessed relief.
Through the rain-streaked windows, he watched the trees bending before the force of the wind. It was probably his own overworked imagination, Frank thought darkly, but the pain and length of Diana’s contractions seemed to be growing as the storm built.
“Silent night…”
The wailing wind and the cracking sound of breaking limbs sang a discordant duet, jarring counterpoint to the soothing Christmas music piped into the delivery room. Just then Diana’s cry signaled her contractions had returned.
Her delicate hand tightened, a low moan followed, quickly muted by the competing sounds of wind and music.
“All is calm…”
The contractions became longer, relief between them shorter. “All is bright…”
Again, her eyes closed, her moaning stopped, and there was a momentary lull in her contractions. Had her hand not continued squeezing his, Frank would have thought she was asleep.
“Sleep in heavenly peace.”
No peace for me tonight. For a moment the shrieking wind and sleet raking the windows diverted Frank’s attention, his premonitions mirroring the darkness outside when he remembered the beast of his dream.
What if it wasn’t a dream? He reached out and rested his hand lightly on the cold windowpane. Was the fragile glass all that held the snarling beast at bay?
Seized by another contraction, again Diana’s hand tightened on his.
Her cries of pain, the baying wind, and the Christmas music, so starkly out of place, was creating a bedlam of sounds sending his imagination reeling and giving substance to his fears.
To Frank’s jagged senses the window suddenly became the gaping mouth of a well. Searching its inky depths, he half expected to see taloned claws reach out and snatch Diana and their baby away.
“Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”
The windowpanes seemed to dissolve under the assault of the wind and sleet and he felt himself drawn outside into the darkness
His perspective changed again and now from a great height he looked down on the hospital whose windows were now small portholes through which pinpoints of light were shining.
An ark, he brooded, his mind now captive to his morbid imagination; an ark adrift on an empty sea, carrying Diana, our baby…even God away from me?
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”
The melodious carol smothered the wind and Diana’s cries, reached into the darkness and drew Frank again to Diana’s bedside.
“Let earth receive her King.”
“I am here.”
Frank whirled at the sound of a soft voice behind him. No one was there.
The voice spoke again with the timbre of a great cathedral’s antiphonal choirs.
“Frank, the storms will pass, the sun will rise again and your child will greet its rising.”
Frank felt his anxiety drain away under the caress of the voice’s reassuring promise.
Just then, Diana moaned again.
“Frank,” she groaned between clenched teeth, “I think the baby’s coming.”
He gripped her hand and felt a burning pain as Diana dug her fingernails into his palm.
“Darling, I’m here,” he said, ignoring the trickle of blood dripping from his hand onto the floor, secure in the certainty God had just reached out to him.
“And heaven, and heaven and nature sing.”
Frank smiled at the sound of the invisible choir that now seemed so appropriate for the moment.
“Amen,” he whispered.
“I see the baby’s head,” the doctor said. “Bear down hard, Diana.”
Apprehension in the doctor’s voice caused Frank to look up just as the old fear returned like a cold knife in his gut.
The voice promised the storm would pass, but now it had become a full-fledged blizzard. Sleet on its leading edge had given way to snow that swirled about the windows as moths attracted to the light.
He remembered as a boy there was a closet in his room across from the foot of his bed. Sometimes at night, he would lie awake and stare at the shadowy outlines of the clothes hanging there, imagining they were monsters ready to slip into the room the moment he closed his eyes.
Frank felt his eyes drawn again into the darkness outside as the momentary comfort of the voice slipped away. What fearful thing is hiding somewhere in the shadows, he wondered. Feeling a sudden chill, he remembered a line of scripture, “We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but…rulers of this present darkness.” The recollection was no comfort, but only reinforced the possibility his terrifying dream on the night of their baby’s conception was a warning of things to come.
The doctor’s voice jerked him from his morbid meanderings back to the delivery room.
“One more time, Diana. Push!”
Her nails dug painfully into Frank’s palm, but still he clutched her hand.
As suddenly as they started, the contractions stopped, Diana’s grip relaxed and she fell back, exhausted, on the bed.
Frank felt as if they were in the eye of a hurricane as a momentary hush settled over the delivery room. Through the window, he could see the snow had stopped; solid overcast had given way to high thin clouds and the wind was wheezing dying gasps signaling the storm had passed.
A lusty cry shattered the quiet.
Diana’s lips trembled and tears glistened on her cheeks as the doctor placed their baby on her stomach. “She’s a beautiful little girl,” he said, his own relief evident in his voice.
“God bless you, little girl,” Frank whispered, looking down at the tiny, squawling bundle.
One of the attending nurses lifted the baby and whisked her away for cleaning and weighing just as Diana’s eyes fluttered closed.
Overcome with gratitude for Diana’s safe delivery, Frank slipped out the door and leaned against the hall wall, his body limp with exhaustion. A nurse bustling by stopped abruptly in front of him.
“Sir? Is everything all right?” she asked as Frank looked up. “What?”
“Your hand, sir. You should get that looked at.”
He glanced down at the streaks of dried blood where, in pain, Diana had driven her nails into his skin. He felt a tremor run through his body. The lines ran vertically from the base of his fingers nearly to his wrist and resembled nothing so much as…claw marks!
He shuddered as the memory of the beast superimposed itself over the images of his innocent wife and daughter.
Mine! the cat hissed inside his head.
“No!” Frank’s mind recoiled as he spun on his heel and sprinted toward the exit, leaving the nurse staring after him.
Outside, he skidded on the icy concrete, his breath wreathing around him in the freezing night air. The wind had died completely, and even the high, thin clouds had fled to reveal a brightly shining moon.
The calm won’t last. Deep in his soul he knew that the struggle had just begun. His eyes swept across the empty parking lot to the plain that stretched in unbroken monotony to the horizon. Again, he glanced at his wounded hand. Just then, from somewhere far out on the moon-drenched plain he heard the high, shrill scream of a cougar.