chapter 25

Michelle crawled towards the front door. When she got there, she reached up onto the cabinet beside it to grab her car keys. With great effort, she pulled herself up and got the door open. Hugo hovered closely, whimpering, trying to work out why his mistress was in such distress.

A blast of wind and rain hit Michelle in the face. Fumbling with the house keys and doing her best to keep Hugo inside with her foot, she unlocked the steel security gate and stepped out into the rain. She hobbled up the driveway towards her car.

Then another contraction hit, stopping her in her tracks and causing her to gasp in pain. She waited for it to subside and then, gritting her teeth, she resumed her journey to the car, deactivating the alarm with the key as she approached it. She was already soaked to the skin. Heavy drops of rain stung her cheeks and she could hardly see where she was going. Taking deep breaths, she opened the car door, settled herself into the driver’s seat and tried to put the key into the ignition. Her hands were shaking from cold and pain and her fingers felt numb and clumsy. She missed the slot and the keys fell from her hands. She heard them clatter onto the driveway and cursed herself for not closing the car door first.

The rain was really pelting down and the sloping driveway was awash as water flowed down it in steady rivulets from the road outside. Michelle got out of the car and crouched down to feel beneath the car for the keys. Mercifully, she saw them just within reach and took hold of them firmly, concentrating on slow, deep breathing and willing the next contraction to stay away until she was safely on the road to the hospital. This time she managed to start the vehicle without any problem and she put the car into reverse, activating the access remote, and watching in the rear view mirror for the electronic gate at the top of the driveway to slide open.

It didn’t.

Michelle pressed the button again and began to reverse slowly. She looked over her shoulder.

The security gate hadn’t moved an inch.

Moaning in frustration and fear, Michelle slammed her hands against the steering wheel, causing the horn to go off with loud insisting hooting. She put the car in neutral and pulled up the handbrake. The motor for the gate must have been taken out by the lightning too. She turned off the engine and sat thinking. Probably she should have been timing her contractions; or maybe it was just as well she hadn’t been. She was scared enough now as it was.

Wearily, she climbed back out of the car, not even noticing the rain this time. She plodded up towards the electronic gate, her shoes splashing through the river that used to be their driveway. Chris had shown her how to bypass the motor when they had first moved in but she hadn’t paid much attention to his instructions. And now, as she peered through the darkness at the mechanism, she realised that she had no clue how to get the gate open manually. There was a large lock on the motor cover anyway to prevent thieves from accessing it. In vain she tried to fit one of the keys on her keyring to the lock. None of them worked, nor even fitted into the lock.

Bracing herself, she tugged on the gate with all her might, hoping that brute force would cause the barrier to move along the sliding rails. The gate did not budge. Perhaps it was the physical exertion that triggered it, but another sudden contraction took her breath away and she screamed in pain and frustration. Grabbing onto her stomach, Michelle tried to make her way back to the car but the pain was too much. Once more she dropped onto her hands and knees and just stayed there, head hanging, her sodden hair and the relentless pouring rain completely obscuring her vision. She let out a primitive moan. She couldn’t move. Her body was paralysed by the pain. And she had no way of getting help.