“Is she breathing? Come on. Tell me you checked to see if she was still breathing,” a man’s voice rang out against the stretches of light streaked across the hardwood floor by the lightning. Every light in the house sputtered to life. The crack of thunder outside drew out a groan from the man. The woman by his side was holding an infant in her arms, damp from the rain. She pressed two fingers to the baby’s neck.
“Yes, she’s breathing, and sorry. All I could think of was to get her out of the rain. I didn’t want her to be out there in the cold.”
“Did you see who dropped her off? You must’ve seen someone.”
“I didn’t see anyone, Harold!” The woman snapped and her eyes burned at him. She turned back to the child in her arms, cradling it softly. “I would’ve mentioned if I did.” She sighed and in her arms the child breathed a sleepy sound, “It’s a miracle she’s stayed asleep through all of it.”
“What she’s experienced is no miracle,” Harold said and leaned against the low end of the staircase. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette—inspected it quickly to see if it was dry—and then stuck the tip between his lips after confirming it was. “We can’t keep her here you know.” He took out his lighter.
“Oh gosh,” the woman said in a very long and drawn out manner, “I never said we should keep her.”
“You were going to.” He wasn’t looking at her.
The woman looked from him back to the child. She took in a deep breath and shook her head. “She needs to stay the night at least, we can’t just leave her where she was...Don’t light that in here,” she said, staring at the cigarette and motioning the child away from him.
“Do you expect me to smoke outside?”
“Do you expect her to sleep outside?”
This stumped Harold. He set the cigarette back in his pocket and looked back up to his wife. She was cradling the child close. It was obvious when the doorbell rang with nobody on the other end but a small, sleeping child that she’d been abandoned. It was obvious, too, that the both of them had been trying for months for their own child, but something about the whole situation seemed...off. How could he explain that without insinuating the child be left alone?
“We could call the police. They’ll know what to do with her.”
“You know as well as I do that the police will just ship her off to some foster home where she’ll probably die of malnourishment.”
“Honey, I think you’re being just a little dramatic.”
“It’s a real thing!” Her voice was pleading, almost begging.
Harold sighed. He couldn’t put the words to it, but he wasn’t feeling right. Even if they went through the whole process of adopting a child he would lose a bit of the connection he’d been so eager to create. It wouldn’t ever truly be his child—their child. He’d be a father, but he wouldn’t be a father. Something inside told him that it shouldn’t matter if he could be both or one or not...but he couldn’t separate that feeling. It wouldn’t ever sit right in his head and he couldn’t force it to. He knew Miranda had been thinking of adopting a child for some time now. She’d been slipping it into their everyday conversation and Harold had been either ignoring it or outright shooting it down. Their marriage became a taut rope that felt like an argument always waiting to happen and there of all times came an infant abandoned on their doorstep like the sharp pendulum ready to swing above that very rope until it was snapped. And boy was it ever close to snapping.
“She’s got no-one,” Miranda said.
Instantly Harold’s face contorted in such a way that twisted his good features into nastiness.
“I knew it! I knew it that you couldn’t just let it be.”
“Couldn’t just let what be? Not help an abandoned child?!”
“A child you’re dangerously close to waking up. Keep your voice down.” Harold hushed her. “Look, maybe she was kidnapped and has loving parents out there. We cannot make this decision and we certainly cannot do it tonight.”
As if he told her to kill the infant she looked at him with a sense of rage, loss, and hurt. “Fine, call the police.” In the span of four words something dark surfaced inside his wife. He almost attributed it to a red-hate, but then all at once he realized it wasn’t that quick. It had been slowly building for the past ten years. This baby didn’t cut the cord; she just opened the both of their eyes to the fact that the two strands had been long dangling from their severed center for longer than they could notice. The pendulum above had been cutting nothing but air.
That didn’t do well to help his mind.
There was a part of him that loved not knowing just how fragile the conversations with Miranda were—to not be aware of how many eggshells the both of them had to step around. For now he was aware of one he was becoming aware of the many. And in that baby in her arms, no matter if she were like a pair of glasses...they were the worst pair of glasses he’d ever worn. There would be no way he could adopt a child, much less this child. She had been horrible and she’d carried the darkness that now infested his wife. Yes, that was it. Everything was fine before this child arrived on their doorstep. She brought with her like a virus the anger and hatred that lay behind Miranda’s words. How she would sleep away from him tonight, how she would forget to wish him a good morning...all of it vanished in that split second.
She carried darkness. It didn’t take much for Harold to convince himself of this fact—it was so simply put it should have been obvious. She had a darkness that must leave this house immediately.
He was the one to make the phone call to the police. On the other line a young officer who couldn’t have been older than his early twenties answered. He sent out a much older gentleman who arrived at the house about twenty minutes later. Officer Dawkins was his name, and he looked like he could have been Harold’s father. They knew each other because they had gone to school together, but they weren’t much anything but bully and bullied. Harold flinched when Officer Dawkins knocked on their door. He didn’t seem to be recognized—either that or he took his job seriously enough not to let the little weirdo from Nasseu School District stop him from being anything but for the duty.
The whole situation was as painless as Harold could have hoped for; Officer Dawkins took some statements from the both of them on the situation and he took the sleeping child in his arms.
“Thank you both for your civic duty,” Officer Dawkins said, and just like that he was on his way out. Social services would be contacted and the child would officially be thrown into The SystemTM, but to Harold their work had been done. The darkness would leave their home and the fog would return. Things would return to normal.
Officer Dawkins’s car pulled out of the driveway as the rain bounced off of the ground and spun in circles around the now spinning tires. In the course of an hour Miranda was left with what she entered the night with. They stood beside each other as the car left their driveway. She was clutching herself and couldn’t stop staring at the car. The slightest of moments offered a chance of something new, but it was gone in an instant. Everything was gone in an instant she found; the happiness at the prospects of a child, the disappointment of handing her over, and the anger at Harold for being so…well, for being himself. All of it vanished like it was a shawl that she yanked off for being too soaked in the rain. It was a heavy weight no longer present.
Up above them in the sky a burning sphere tumbled past the clouds. The fireball soared in an arc and just as easily as it had come. The tension between the two of them vanished. Miranda grabbed her husband’s arm without a word; he rested his on top of hers and they stared up at the sky together. The cord between them would be ignored once more. It had been their silent vow.
She carried darkness, Harold thought.
~...~
Thirteen years later on the other side of town music erupted from a large house on a large hill. Nasseu has always been known for its obvious divide in class. It’s much like larger towns, but the people don’t hide the divides behind excuses. What you see is what you get. The old folk who established Nasseu as a resort town back in the late eighteen hundreds for the wealthy to spend and spend. Those with wealth flocked and those less fortunate fought for the rest of the space. It worked itself out eventually come another twenty years, but the lines never blurred and nobody sought to justify it. It was just how things were.
The wealthy lived in the east and everyone else made their homes on the western side of town; split just up to The Divide, otherwise known as Prosperry Street. Whoever named it was illiterate as they meant to call it Prosperity Street. It stuck as a bit of a quirk for the town, but as time passed it grew to be a symbol for most of what was wrong with Nasseu; an obvious, unfixed mistake.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The song playing was a radio top 40 hit called “Don’t Stop the Party” by a group called UnderGr4nd. They specialized in hypnotizing beats best suited for high school parties where complexity of rhythm and music theory took a back seat.
“Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay. Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay!” The synthesized vocal repeated the phrase into oblivion. The sounds echoed all the way toward the Honeyswourth’s home down the hill and crossed the road. The human body contains about seven billion nerves total, and the music that was playing at the party up the road was shredding every single one of Robert Honeyswourth’s. He despised the chorus's inane loops and the heavy synth flying up and down like a novice pilot. And don’t even get him started on that incessant kick drum...if that even was a drum anymore. It sounded like a mechanical hammer slamming against his frontal lobe.
“I tell you Martha,” Robert Honeyswourth began, “Those children out there are getting on my last nerve. It’s not even music...just slamming and noise!”
“Uh huh…” Martha called from the foyer. “Do you think they’ll settle down before midnight? I was hoping to sleep in for little Georgie’s piano recital tomorrow.”
Robert stepped down from the oval staircase with the day’s paper rolled up in one hand.
“Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay. Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay!”
“Darling, that wretched noise keeps telling us that they’re not going to be stopping anytime soon,” Robert said.
“Well, at least it isn’t a West-ender.”
“Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay. Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay!”
Robert sighed. “I would bet my left foot that there are most certainly West-enders playing that garbage. It’s most definitely coming from the Heights household. You know that girl of theirs is dating a West-ender.”
“Oh how dreadful. I almost forgot. He must have some dirt on her family or what. I couldn’t even imagine what their yard looks like. It’s probably already turned into a cannabis farm,” Martha tuttered.
“Don’t you stop the—don’t you stop the—Don’t you stop the par-tay-tay-tay-tay-tay-t-t-t-ttttttttttttttttt— EVERYBODY RAISE YOUR DRINKS!”
Robert fumed red as his hand collided with the side frame of the staircase just as the lead synth kicked into its main melody. “That’s it! I’m stopping this nightmare here and now. I am sick of them. I am sick of their noise, and I’m sick of their poor morality.”
“Oh, Robert,” Martha called after him, placing a hand to her chest. “What ever are you going to do?” In her mind Martha was on one of her soaps. She imagined the roses being tossed on stage as the curtain fell and enveloped her like a royal sash.
“I’m calling the police and shutting them down. It’s bad enough to live next to them.” Robert growled, grabbing his phone from his pocket and dialing the magic number.
He held the phone up to his ear and heard some West-end punk pick up on the other end. You could always tell how they sounded. They drew out their speech and threw out hard R’s as feverishly as they could like it were some sick game. Neanderthals, he thought. “Yes, please put Officer Dawkins on the line, boy.” The man on the other end of the line sounded as if he were at least in his mid-thirties, but it didn’t matter, he was still a boy to Robert. “Yes, sir, you see, I’m having a bit of a problem concerning a neighbor…”
~...~
The drums pounded so loud in Carleigh’s ears that it shook the entire world. Colors zoomed across the pool and the sun streaked across the sky. “Woah!” She said as the sound filled her entire being. “Come here Tyson, you have to try this! It’s so crazy—Wooooo!” She threw her hands into the sky and yelled back with a cackling laugh. Tyson said something, but it was just buzz to her. She smiled and nodded, laughing again.
“Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay. Don’t stop the—don’t stop the par-tay!”
The sound of the gargantuan speakers drowned out any other noise. Carleigh placed her cup to the ground and clapped her hands above to the beat of the kick. It was just the right song to come on. She was a huge UnderGr4nd fan. She and Tyson went to their huge concert just in July. It was sold out but she managed to pull some strings—her father was big in the music business.
Tyson had a great time…and Carleigh loved that. He didn’t get much experience at big events like that since his family wasn’t as well off. It almost brought as big a smile to her heart as was currently on her face. The sun streaked an elaborate masterpiece in front of her eyes. The dancing bodies out in the pool began to change from bodies to formless moving shapes that almost looked gelatinous.
“C’mere,” a voice whispered in her ear, to which she turned and felt the entire world spinning around like a kaleidoscope. She smiled even wider and nodded her head. “Okay,” She giggled and looked at him. He looked almost formless too; like a clay figure that pretended to be human. He held out a blocky hand and she took it. This was unlike anything she’s ever done.
“C’mere, we’re going to the bedroom,” the voice whispered in her ear again. It made her smile, she felt good when his voice reached her ear. She bit her lip and raised her head.
“Baby, you know how good that feels, but we’re at a party...”
“They won’t mind.”
They passed by two more formless blobs who Carleigh thought were making out. They looked like two doughboys from that old ghost hunting movie pushing their faces into one another. The room was large and the colors were all wrong, but it felt all right. They went up the stairs that seemed to take ten years to walk up. Carleigh stopped right in the middle of the staircase to wait for her mind to catch up to her body, but then she was quickly hurried along by the figure holding her arm.
“C’mon, we’re almost there.” The bedroom door swung open fast. Carleigh didn’t remember how she ended up there when she was just on the stairs thinking about the doughboys. The door shut and the sound muffled the music from downstairs. It was still just as loud to her; amplified, even. It got louder as the bed in the middle of the dull-painted room seems to grow.
“Don’t you stop the—don’t you stop the—Don’t you stop the par-tay-tay-tay-tay-tay-t-t-t-ttttttttttttttttt— EVERYBODY RAISE YOUR DRINKS!”
A nap sounds wonderful right about now.
Carleigh found her way to her bed and just before she was about to sit she was pushed from behind, falling forward onto the mattress. The surprise vanished quickly when she felt how soft the mattress was. This too vanished when she was flipped on her back and the world spun upright. In an instant the lull of the colors disappeared and suddenly the extreme joy she’d been feeling turned on its head to something new...fear. The formless being in front of her now looked scarier, sharper. She was suddenly aware that she was no longer wearing her bottoms—they’d been tossed aside off the bed.
“Tyson? This...this isn’t funny any longer.”
The figure didn’t respond and came closer to her--the music outside blasted its loud synths. She felt it all at once as it sent a painful shock-wave through her lower half. Her mind screamed as the music outside blasted its loud synths. There was a sound that was almost like laughter, but it was distorted. There was warmth across her body starting from her neck and it seeped down. The figure shuffled about in a hurry and bolted out of the shape that was the door. She took a breath of relief and didn’t realize it would be her last. Darkness came and sucked her into the void forevermore.