Two things happened simultaneously, but that did not mean that one was influenced by the other, although there were keen effects felt by both. In the distant east, distant in terms of a pedestrian walking rather than a vehicle moving, a rumbling disturbance could be heard. And above a large property of a fair sized estate, another disturbance could be felt.The first was noticed by Nathan, who was as usual, pottering about in his garden, but he was not the only one to hear it. The youth swiftly placed his trough and fork, his cutters and hand rake into a bucket of pulled weeds that he had been removing from the rose beds. He hesitated for a moment, staring at the main property and more specifically the room in which Ren Zexian had entered two days ago and had barely left since and thought for a long moment. But then he shivered despite the heavy heat as the pressure of the air around him seemed to change and a strong pulling sensation seemed to stir the winds towards the main property. Nathan did not wait around to see what was causing the second disturbance, fleeing for his home as he rubbed the goose pimples that stood up over his entire body.
Aslan sat up from where he lay, watching his human ward as she stole strawberries from the strawberry bushes, after figuring out the trick of collecting the red ones by watching Nathan. The animal naturally felt both disturbances both distant and near, but it was the latter that made him howl, even as it made Lucy scamper towards him and hug his thick, furred neck.
Patrick dropped the bricks he was causing to float from the rubble pile towards Winston as he used them and a bucket of mortar to firmly bring them together into a st.u.r.dy and fairly thick wall. The bricks were not all whole, but the builder could not be fussy and was slowly layering the bricks both length and width ways like a jenga puzzle that could not so easily fall. "Careful," he chided the smaller man, but Patrick was not listening and rushed off toward the main property as if aware that something was about to happen. Harry, who had been using his muscles where Patrick was using his mind, stared after him as did Winston. The two men glanced at each other before continuing their work, while Paul kept an eye out for wandering zombies.
Due to their location and the fact there were so few of them, they seldom attracted humanoid corpses, but that did not mean that the odd farm or wild animal zombie wouldn"t drift their way in search of live meat. Already, Paul had bludgeoned a stray roe deer fawn this morning, with Patrick"s help, the young creature must have zombified not long after it was born from its size. It was Paul that noticed the distant disturbance, but none of these men noticed anything untoward about the main house.
"Sound"s like a storm," he mentioned as he glanced in the direction where a few black clouds could now be seen gathering in the sky.
Winston sighed, but was glad he wouldn"t have to waste too much mortar as he dusted down his combat trousers. They really needed a wash, but water was scarce, washing clothes was done only once every two weeks and usually in bath water so even then the water couldn"t exactly be considered clean. "Let"s pack it up guys," he said. "In case that storm heads this way."
Patrick didn"t stop running until he entered the house, heading for the door where Dexter still lingered inside. He shivered as the air changed further, even feeling a little sharp against his skin. Tyler, who despite being sceptical, was not stupid to ignore his gut instincts and grabbed Patrick by the arm and dragged him to the other side of the property.
"What are you doing?" Patrick whined. "I want to see what happens!"
"Are you an idiot?" Tyler questioned him. "Do you have no sense of preservation?"
"I don"t know what you are talking about," Patrick grumbled, shaking off Tyler"s arm as he made to run back to where he knew the main event was about to occur. As it happened, the feeling that the air was about to implode stopped him in his tracks and he backed further away and both men felt as if they should duck a moment later, though felt stupid a moment later as the sensation of impending doom disappeared without a trace.
The two men let embarra.s.sed chuckles escape them before Tyler coughed and suggested that they both pretend that nothing happened. Patrick agreed and both men drifted back towards the entertainment room door, which finally opened revealing a calm and content Ren Zexian and a grimacing Dexter, who winced with each movement, the greasy, gritty black substance coating his body making his skin crawl with every motion.
Patrick and Tyler stepped back, holding their noses. "No wonder you asked the boy and I to fill a bath tub," Tyler said and quickly backed away.
"Um... did he fail to level up or something?" Patrick asked with a whisper to Ren Zexian, thinking that the mess that Dexter was in was perhaps a penalty for failing to break through.
"No, he did well," Ren Zexian praised, causing Patrick to glance over the man once more and wonder if it was worth cultivating to the secondary stage after all...
*****
The rumbling thunder soon echoed throughout the sky, the clouds had thickened to the point that no sunlight could hope to peak through, giving the feeling that night had come early. As yet there was no water being shed from the steely grey veil, which flashed for a heartbeat, turning white as the streaks ran through the clouds. A breath or two later and the loud thunder once more echoed through the air.
Nathan clutched at his ears, whimpering from where he huddled. Aslan was pacing around him, not quite protectively, but not due to restlessness either. Lucy tugged Nathan"s sleeve, trying to draw him from his panicked state. The dog approached them and Nathan glanced up to see his shadow cast over him. The dog quietly huffed, his breath disturbing Nathan"s hair and the youth absently set it back in place.
Nathan has suffered through thunderstorms before, but only in the past couple of years did he have to suffer most of them alone. Before, he had had the nanny to gently coax him with words of rea.s.surance or the gardener, who would simply be close by, puffing on his tobacco pipe, the acrid scent somewhat overwhelming, but as it distracted him from the storm, Nathan had tended to feel more at peace. And on a few occasions, his mother and father would be there and mother would count from the moment the light arced across the sky to the moment the thunder made its presence known and tell him that that was how far away the storm was. The longer the count, the further away. That sort of thing gave Nathan back a tiny amount of control, even though it could not stop or make the storm go away and it could not stop the noise from roaring within his ears.
But they were not around any more. Nathan did not know where they were nor if they were alive and it didn"t really matter either way. For as far as he was concerned, they were not here, so all else was irrelevant. However, there was once person who gave him the same feeling of security and comfort as they. He wondered if Ren Zexian might help him through the storm. He curled deeper into his knees for a moment longer as the lightning brought forth its flash once more and he counted to five before the thunder broke shattered the silence in the air. And then, with sudden resolve, he leapt up and grabbed the girl child still clinging to him. Then the three fled to the main house, screaming as another arc of lightning and even closer thunder seemed to chase them.