Bram's Hollow

Lightening streaked across the skies while soft taps on the rooftop of the stone brick house steadily became more and more frequent a light sprinkle transitioned into a full on rain storm. Thunder rolled soon after the lightening filling the sky with a short booming roar. Tobias added the storm to his mental list of reasons not to fall asleep. In fact he had all but given up on the concept of a good night’s rest and rose up and out of his bed wearing the t-shirt and shorts he used as pajamas. He walked barefooted downstairs and stood in the living room of Rotigan’s house and watched the downpour from the front window facing the street. Jerome’s story from a few hours ago played itself over and over in Tobias’s mind. He felt fulfilled in the knowledge of his full bloodline but was still mystified by it. Dhampir and Wolfkin blood ran through his veins, and yet he showed no traits of either one. There had to be an answer, Tobias thought.

A blue electric finger of lightning flashed bright in the distance, lighting up the residential street in front of the house. The heavy rain was far removed from light taps from a few short minutes ago and now seemingly pounded the rooftop. Wind blew hard and fast outside blowing treetops sharp to one side, Tobias was sure one or two of them would topple over before long. The flashes of light played tricks with Tobias’s eyes. Every shadow looked like a creature that seemingly danced with the wind and the rain as the lightning gave the shadows life. Tobias shook his head and rubbed his eyes, surely the lack of sleep was catching up with him, he thought.

Tobias watched the streets and waited for the shadows to move once again. The wind blew and the rain poured and the shadows remained still, no movement, nothing. This struck Tobias as even more bizarre, until one shadow moved, then another, not by force of the wind but of their own fruition without uniformity. A rather large streak of lightening finally raced across the sky filling the hillside street with just enough light to unveil the shadows as what they really were. They were men shambling threw yards and even into the street. Their movement was unusual as if they had either just learned how to walk or were all the victims of some sort of partial paralysis. By Tobias’s count there were eight that he could see out the window and they were slowly drawing closer to the house.

The lumbering bodies crossed the pavement and were approaching the front of Rotigan’s house. Tobias double checked the lock on the front door and, having twisted the bolt extra hard to ensure the lock, ran to the back kitchen door to do the same. The slide latch was in place but as soon as he entered the kitchen something began pounding on the back door. Not a panicked knocking of someone who desperately wanted to enter, but rather a hard almost rhythmic pounding of something that wants to break the door down. Tobias’s heart raced as the hammering from the back door was now being mimicked at the front. As the rain poured and the wind howled Tobias carefully stepped toward the front window to get a glimpse of who was trying to get in.

The growing crowd on the front steps was a mass of scraggly hair and milky white eyes with scabbed and withered flesh beneath tattered clothing. The people didn’t speak, they didn’t yell and they didn’t shout. Instead they groaned a guttural deep wordless moan that was completely devoid of actual communication and more an instinctive objection to the locked barrier keeping them outside. Tobias gazed in shock when he realized he was looking at walking corpses trying to break into the house. Isabelle had mentioned zombies but Tobias never thought that they would be loose in the street like they were. Tobias backed away from the window as one of the zombies separated from the group and began pounding on it. The glass was quick to break away and a couple other zombies had joined the first and they each tried to climb through the broken window.

As the zombies slid belly first across the window frame and into the living room Tobias looked frantically for some way out of the house. Fortunately the living corpses were slow moving and had trouble getting to their feet. Tobias used this as an opportunity to slip by them and head upstairs to his room. He headed straight to the bedroom window and fumbled on the latch as he heard the zombies break open the front door. When Tobias managed to pull the window up the zombies were already heading up the stairs. The rain almost instantly drenched Tobias’s head when he poked to out his bedroom window. It was a straight drop down to the ground below if he opted to jump down. And as the walking dead started to pound on his bedroom door Tobias realized he didn’t have a choice.

Tobias carefully sat on the window’s ledge and swung his legs outside. The wind was blowing hard as if it were trying to push Tobias back inside for the zombies who were pounding ever harder on the ever weakening door. As the wood on the door began to splinter and split, it became apparent that there was no other option left. Trying his best not to think of the height Tobias took a couple of quick breaths, looked back at the door where the zombies were just breaking through and then he jumped.

The fall was quick and didn’t really frighten Tobias all that much. Almost instinctively he twisted his body in midair and landed on the wet ground below evenly on all fours. Tobias stood up and looked at his limbs for injury. He was sure that he was going to break a leg in the fall but he appeared fine. It was amazing to him that he was unharmed by had no time to dwell on it. Besides the fact the he was barefoot and in his sleep clothes in the middle of a rainstorm next to a house surrounded by walking corpses that is. The rainfall was thick and made things hard to see. Only when a bolt of lightning struck would there be enough light for Tobias to see more than a few feet in front of him. It was during one of the strikes that he realized that the zombies weren’t just after his house, in face there were dozens in the streets pounding on doors and breaking windows.

“Isabelle.” Tobias said aloud realizing that she was possibly in danger. Barefoot and soaked, Tobias began running down the cobblestone street and headed for Isabelle’s house doing his best to avoid the dead in the process. Quickly Tobias realized that he wasn’t the only living creature in the streets that night. Some people managed to flee their houses as well and were also running but were heading the other way. Just over the sound of the rain and the wind and the thunder Tobias heard a family of Wraglings say they were headed for the castle as they ran around, and even one of them threw, his legs.

Tobias stopped and from the glow of the lightening saw that in fact everyone that left their house was running toward the castle, up the hill at the far end of town. At least he knew where to go when he found Isabelle. He continued on down the road dodging shambling zombies and fleeing residents in the process. The rain began to lighten and when Tobias turned the street corner he caught sight of Isabelle’s house. His running slowed down at he approached, Tobias looked around and realized that there were no zombies in the area. Perhaps they all moved on or never even came to this neighborhood, Tobias thought.

It was odd, even the rain was now just a faint drizzle by the time Tobias walked onto Isabelle’s front lawn. The streets were quiet now, no thunder or lightening no wind and no noise. The ambiance we even more terrifying than the storm and the zombies. Tobias felt it in his bones that something was not right about this. Quickly he jogged to the front door of the house and knocked hard and fast.

“Isabelle?” Tobias’s voice sounded hurried and frightened. “Isabelle, it’s me Tobias. If you’re there we need to get you and your parents to the castle.” Tobias knocked again even harder than before. He opened his mouth to call for Isabelle again but he was interrupted by the sound of laughter. Laughter that sounded eerily familiar.

Tobias turned around as the laughter multiplied and grew louder. He looked by the tree stump where he first met Isabelle and saw who was laughing. They were three of them. They looked older than Tobias but not by much. Each of them was wearing black coats and jeans. Their long black hair was wetted down by the rain and their eyes were narrow and their brows were crooked downward out of some sort of manic anger.

“Are you looking for someone?” The three spoke simultaneously, an effect that was both odd and chilling.

“I don’t think the shifter is home at the moment.” One of the three teens said to the other two.

“Perhaps she retreated to the castle with the others.” The second once said before the third chimed in.

“Or maybe she is in some sort of danger?”

The three smiled and spoke together once again. “Yes, that must be it.”

Tobias remembered Isabelle’s description of Docherty the Triune shortly after he found the Den of Souls and figured this had to be him. “If you know where she is you better tell me.” Tobias uttered as threatening as he could muster.

“Or else what?” The first Docherty asked.

“There is only one of you.” The second added.

“And three of me.” The third finished the thought.

Tobias’s head was pounding with anger, if Docherty knew where Isabelle was he had to find out. It suddenly felt as if everything but Tobias and Docherty started fade away. Tobias was completely focused on the moment, on Docherty and himself. An odd calmness befell him, as if Tobias was ready for a fight. He was still scared but he was filled with a deep sort of confidence, like he already knew what he would and could do if he had to.

“Where is Isabelle?” Tobias was showing his growing anger in his voice.

“Please, half breed. You really should calm down.” One of Docherty’s bodies said with a malicious tone. The Triune alternated its sentences between bodies. “You’ll overreact and take a bad fall.” Said the second body as the third took over. “Just like you did when you fell down the old well.”

The Triune laughed from all three bodies at once. Anger swelled in Tobias, prickling his skin like a sudden chill. He was looking of a reason to fight now, he didn’t know if he could win but he knew what he was willing to do.

The Triune walked closer toward the front of Isabelle’s house closer toward Tobias. He stood perfectly still as the triplets with one mind advanced on him forming a semicircle in an attempt to surround him. Images flashed in Tobias’s mind of the fight that was to come, or at least as he saw that it could happen. He would have to separate the three bodies so they wouldn’t overwhelm him. Close they walked still laughing at the enjoyment they were going to derive from the three on one beating of a teenage boy. Tobias looked from one of the would be attackers to the other, anticipating the first move to be made, for the fight to begin. It was then in a moment of intense focus that Tobias was distracted by a cloaked man in the shadows between two of Docherty’s bodies in the distance. Whoever it was must have been watching the whole time. He looked at the shaded figure and knew in an instant that he was looking into its eyes. The cloaked person then turned its back and started to walk up the street back toward the Arcane Chamber’s caste and as soon it turned the rain poured down once again. The mystery in shadows had managed to distract Tobias from the situation at hand and paid for it as Docherty landed the first punch to Tobias’s face.

The impact of fist to cheek rattled Tobias momentarily but dud now knock him down. Defensively Tobias pushed the attacking body back as he thrust his right foot back toward another catching him in the thigh with his bare foot. The third representation of Docherty charged toward Tobias fist reared back ready to strike. Tobias fortunately anticipated the blow and managed to duck the punch sending the bare fist into the hard wall of Isabelle’s house. Docherty’s hand was hurt and all three bodies shared in the pain each grabbing their right hand and bellowing a painful shout. The first body of Docherty that punched Tobias in the face had picked up a large brick sized stone from the houses unkempt lawn and held it aloft prepared to throw it at any second.

The other two of Docherty’s bodies charged Tobias and grasped him by the arms to keep him still. Lightening was starting to crash behind the rain heavy once again. It was in the instant of one of those bolts of lightning that Docherty dropped the stone, his eyes filled with the terror that could only come from true fear. A quick as a hiccup the other two of Docherty’s bodies released Tobias and joined the first in running away from the Tobias and the house and retreated down the hill.

As they ran a piercing howl shot through the night overpowering even the noise of the storm. Tobias’s eyes opened wide as he found the courage to turn around. As Tobias turned he peaked his eyes over his shoulders. There were three of them, their fur covered appendages wet and matted down from the rain. They looked quite a bit like the tapestries in Rotigan’s house with the exception of the torn black vests and pants. The beast in the middle stepped toward Tobias extending its arms and embraced him.

“Are you alright Toby?” The rough but feminine voice asked.

“I’m alright mom.” Tobias said as he wrapped his arms around his Wolfkin mother. “I’m alright.”