The River Rising
By Andy Morris
All five kids were asleep in bed and the home breathed with the brittle stillness that can only be found in the very early hours of the morning. So when the sudden sharp knocking on the front door shattered that silence it brought a sense of puzzlement and mild irritation to Rose. It wasn’t Jean out there because she’d have a key and she’d just let herself in. Jean was running late because of the floods in the town and the initial half-hour wait for her had turned into three and a half hours of Rose being on her own. Claire should have been here but she had been feeling unwell so Rose had sent her home earlier. Rose didn’t mind being on her own, even though it wasn’t strictly allowed. But what she didn’t like was the idea of a visitor coming here at – she checked the time – 1:37 am!
Heaving her stocky well-built frame off the low sofa different scenarios ran through Rose’s mind. It was unlikely to be kids up to no good because the home was quite isolated. Hillside Grange was situated at the end of a long driveway way off the main road, not far from where the river Tees bisected the town. But if it was kids messing around, she’d deal with them: They’d soon regret messing with the captain of the local women’s rugby team. Whatever the visitor at the door wanted, it was most likely to do with the storm. It had been raining for days now and the town had watched the Tees slowing rising day by day. Drains were already overflowing near Rose’s house and it was a miracle that her car made it through the water to get here tonight. Fortunately for Jean, she lived closer to Hillside Grange than Rose. Nevertheless, the river could be treacherous in some parts. Last year when it broke its banks in a similar flood a couple of emergency service personnel were killed, swept away from the bridge at the end of the lane and their bodies still hadn’t been found. It wasn’t uncommon for the river to claim lives though. Countless people had drowned in the swirling waters, entangled in weeds and dragged under by the strong currents. Local folklore told of a river-witch that would leave trinkets near the water’s edge. Then when children came to take them she’d grab their ankles and pull them underwater. That image floated in mind as she turned to leave the lounge. That’s when she spotted the pale figure silently watching her from the doorway.
Rose almost jumped out of her skin and swore under her breath. She was usually so unflappable and rarely felt on edge in any situation. However, for some reason, the floods had brought with them an unwelcome dread and being confronted with Hayden on a night like this really startled her. A cold tingling sensation crept down her spine as she registered the sickly-looking child. It was a sad indictment but Rose had never warmed to Hayden, none of the staff could honestly say they had done. All the children here had special needs and staff had been able to form connections with the other four kids but there was something… peculiar about Hayden that people couldn’t get past. It wasn’t his appearance; the slight frame and sickly pale complexion with red blotches encircling his eyes, which made him look as if he’d been half-drowned in the river. He had a kind of damp aura that he gave off and after spending any time with him staff would often want to sit next to a warm radiator afterwards, even in the middle of summer. To compound this, his skin was permanently clammy and he had an annoying habit of wanting to hold hands all the time. Maybe he was looking for some kind of attachment or comfort having been abandoned as a baby? Whatever it was, physical contact with Hayden felt unpleasant for some reason that she couldn’t articulate. When he took your hand it sometimes felt as if he was pulling you down into a cold dark place. Like a drowning victim grabbing you and pulling you under with them. More than one person described the symptoms of a mild anxiety attack when they held his hand for too long. It was hard to breathe and all you could was to try and get your hand back as quickly as you could before you went under. It was a strange sensation and very unsettling. There was definitely something that was just not right about the boy. Rose also disliked his morbid curiosity around death. Lots of kids catch and kill insects but Hayden would take on a maniacal fascination as he took every opportunity to slowly drowned them in the bathroom or outside in puddles.
The wind pelted the windows with rain causing the glass to creak in the frames. Rose felt a sudden sense of lonely isolation which Hayden’s presence only served to increase. He was drifting towards her now, arms outstretched. One hand twiddled a pen between his fingers while the other reached for Rose’s hand. The night-carer instinctively backed away from Hayden and managed to slip behind him in an effort to avoid physical contact. She was deceptively agile; a rare trait for a fourteen stone Hooker.
“Flicker is coming” Hayden’s shrill flat voice intruded on Rose’s thoughts. “Has Flicker has woken up Riverman?” Hayden rarely showed any emotion but his tone sounded a little different tonight. It wasn’t like him to get up either. “Don’t let the river in”. Rose didn’t want to dwell on it though because at that moment the visitor at the front door knocked a second time and this time Rose really did jump, noticeably.
“Fff… flip” she hissed, only just able to stop herself from using an expletive in front of one of the kids. The creeping anxiety was swelling within her, no doubt mirroring the rising Tees outside. Why was she feeling so restless tonight?
“What are you doing Hayden? Get back to bed; it’s late” Rose said composing herself as Hayden tried to take her hand again.
“No, I’m not going to hold hands, Hayden. Now go back to bed, you pickle”.
“Riverman is coming, Rose”. He had never used Rose’s name before.
“Bed!”
“No good. No.” Hayden pointed to the television. Rose had had Big Brother on in the background to try and take her mind off the weather and the steadily increasing sense of unease. Mind-numbing reality TV was a great way of switching off from the real world.
“Flicker can see in” and the boy went to the television and turned it off. He quickly turned his back to the TV so as not to look at it. He hated televisions, mirrors and baths, just about anything that could show him his reflection.
“Hey, I was watching that ya Grub” Rose complained mildly. “Now get back upstairs this minute”.
“Riverman will come with Flicker”.
“Hayden, what happens when you become too tired?” Rose felt her edginess starting to erode her patience now. “You have seizures, don't you. So get back up to bed. And quietly” Rose steered him into the hallway and he started to go upstairs. He paused once to look at his twiddling pen dancing in his hand before making his way upstairs. As Rose went to answer the door her sense of unease swelled further. Hayden’s words had sunk in and were now sloshing around her head. It was amazing how he could make a person freak out and how easily it was to soak up his creepy damp aura. Rose knew she wasn’t being deliberately unkind either. Most staff felt uneasy around him. One night she had been on a sleep-in shift and she had awoken from a troubled dream. It was the middle of the night and somehow Hayden standing in the middle of the sleep-in room. He stood in the shadow’s watching her like some eerie spectre. She could have sworn she’d locked the door when she went to bed but she must have forgotten that night. It was very unlike her. Since then whenever she did a sleep-in she would lock the door and pull a chair across it to keep it shut. Other staff had similar stories.
The mounting sense of trepidation drifted closer to Rose as she made her way down the chilly hallway towards the front door. She opened the inner porch door and could see the outline of a figure outside behind the frosted glass. Hayden’s concern about a Riverman floated through her mind again. A split-second before the lights in the house dimmed as the power dipped. Rose froze for a moment in the darkness but then they came back on again and she breathed a deep sigh. Whoever was out there it better be important because she was in no mood for games tonight.
After checking she had the staff mobile phone in her pocket she opened the front door and was met by a primal storm raging down the lane. It was as if the diva of weather was throwing an almighty tantrum. Sheets of cold rain slanted at an angle, driven by a fierce banshee wind. Rose’s eyes watered making it difficult to penetrate the dreadful night. She could barely make out the figure before on the doorstep that was only partially illuminated by the outside security light. But her immediate concern was focused on maintaining her grip on the front door while the squally wind tried to prise it from her.
“Evening” she had to raise her voice over the roaring tempest. Her eyes adjusted and she noticed the visitor was dressed in the black and yellow uniform of a fireman. Rain splashed heavily off his faded helmet under which his face was shrouded in darkness. Rivulets of rainwater streamed down his shiny jacket and trousers splashing into the water-logged car park. For a moment it looked like there was a second fireman silhouetted behind him but it was probably just shadows from the trees overhead. It was difficult to see anything clearly out there beyond the pale illumination of the house lights. The fireman cleared his throat loudly and without any preamble gave his muffled assessment: “The River has broken its banks by the bottom of the lane so we’ve got to get everyone out”. The storm was so strong Rose had trouble hearing him over the white noise of wind rushing through the trees that surrounded the driveway. As a result, the distortion lent his voice a rough gurgling quality. So maybe she had misheard him because she observed, there were no vehicles behind him on the driveway to evacuate anyone in. Plus, he clearly didn’t know the nature of the kids who lived here and ‘just moving them out’ would not be straightforward. Rose promptly made him aware of this fact, having to raise her voice over the howling wind.
“Just bring the children downstairs and we’ll deal with them, love”. He coughed again.
Love? Rose would respond to most names and she’d been called just about everything under the sun, but Lovewas pet hate. Her disquiet momentarily forgotten, she drew herself up to her full imposing stature – there was a reason she wore the number one jersey in the pack. She explained again, wincing into the driving rain, that she couldn’t just get the kids!
“The river’s burst its banks and the water is heading down the lane” the stranger burbled again punctuated by an impatient cough. “I’ve come to help evacuate everyone here. How many children are in the home?” he pressed her, stepping past her into the porch. Rose briefly considered pushing him back out of the door. He may be taller but she had the weight advantage. Although, saying that he was here to help them, apparently. Love!
The blustery rain chilled Rose and she wanted to shut the door again. But the drip drip drip of uneasiness that had been slowly rising all evening was now warning her not to shut the door. Suspicion now lapped at the forefront of Rose’s mind, carried by her encounter with Hayden earlier. His words about Riverman coming now returned to unsettle her further. God, she could do with a pint, or six, of Stella. She had to get rid of this man, for some reason he wasn’t being straight with her. Where was his fire engine?
“I’m sorry you can’t come in here” Rose asserted herself, blocking the inner door that led from the porch into the hallway. He wasn’t getting past her into the house. The shadows cast by the outside light danced in the porch again lending Rose the brief sense that the stranger was not alone. It lasted less than a second and was gone like before. But Rose had seen it twice now.
“I can’t just evacuate everyone” Rose stated again. “I’ve got vulnerable children here and I’m… I can’t allow anyone to enter without ID”. She almost said she was on her own with the kids but some paranoid instinct told her to keep that fact to herself.
The fireman hovered. He could at least take his helmet off – Rose didn’t like talking to someone without seeing their face. Then she saw that shadow again, just to the stranger’s left. It was like the afterimage you get when you stare at a bright light. One moment it was there and the next it was gone. There had been something and she could have sworn it had looked directly at her. Her growing unease would need some kind of release soon before it flooded her completely. Something wasn’t right. She sensed movement behind her, felt someone silently creeping up on her. Things were about to kick-off! A chill, like spiders running down her spine, prickled her flesh. She tensed, ready for the fight. Rose was about to turn around when the power went out. The house was plunged into electrifying darkness; the hallway flooded with menace. She managed to move backwards away from the visitor before her limbs froze in the tense static silence.
Bizarrely, in the darkness, her first thoughts went to Hayden again. Although there was so much that he didn’t understand about the world, he did seem to have an unnatural insight into both life and death. He had a disturbing intelligence; he knew things that he couldn’t possibly know. In split-second clarity, Rose recalled the day her dog Benny had to be put down and Hayden’s words to her. She hadn’t said anything to anyone at work and was doing her hourly room checks. When she had looked in on Hayden to check he was sleeping when he suddenly sat up in bed and looked directly at her.
“Benny’s gone away. He doesn’t hurt anymore”. Rose, stunned had just looked at him. In the morning she’d asked him how he knew Benny but he didn’t answer. His black expression told Rose his mind was elsewhere again. He was no doubt puzzling over another incomprehensible detail of everyday life. Some detail that most non-autistic people accepted instinctively as the norm.
The memory vanished as Hayden wailed loudly from the stairs. The sound bringing a sense of relief, for once, that it was only him behind her.
“It's OK Hayden," she said without conviction, warily keeping her eyes on the outline of the intruder by the door. “You’ll wake the others. The back-up lights will come on in a minute… there” as she spoke the dim emergency lights came on. “Stop being a nosey-parker and get back in bed”. The shallow glow illuminated the hallway and, to her concern, Rose saw the fireman had taken another step closer. He now stood, dripping, inside the hallway. Behind him, a second figure hovered, clearly visible, but just for a moment before it vanished again. Something was in the house that shouldn’t be. From nowhere the word Groac’h splashed into her mind. She had no idea what it meant or where it came from. It was probably something she’d heard Hayden say.
“Where are the children?” the intruder demanded, his wet phlegmy voice beginning to annoy Rose and she decided she needed to end this, now.
“You need to wait outside," she told him firmly, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder searching for the source of that weird flickering shadow. “You can’t come in. I need to phone my manager to let her know what’s happening”.
“No time," the fireman said flatly in a voice that left no room for debate. “The water’s coming for you all”. Odd choice of words, Rose thought with a grimace as the fireman noisily cleared his throat yet again. Then Hayden started shouting.
“No, Flicker” he suddenly yelled in a voice charged with emotion. “No!” Rose turned her head a fraction and out of the corner of her eye, she half-glimpsed the reflection of the shadow again. Hanging in the hallway above the phone was a birds-eye photo of Hillside Grange. Reflected in the glass; Rose saw the dark shape she had glimpsed earlier. Only she could see the sinister apparition clearly now: It’s thin and gangly form was all limbs and long fingers as it flickered in and out of focus. It was almost rippling as if viewed from underwater. Its nightmare form was creeping into the hallway. The phantom image faltered, flashed and, flickered again. Rose guessed this spectre was Flicker.
Above her, on the stairs, Hayden was shouting and Rose realised the boy could see this thing and he was scared of it. Somehow Hayden knew what Flicker was, Rose realised, and he knew what it wanted. But more worryingly, Flicker was coming for her.
In the reflected image of the hallway Flicker was almost upon her. She spun around from the picture expecting to come face to face with it. But as she turned, she was just met with the empty space between her and the fireman. In that brief moment of confusion, everything seemed to stop. She was aware of the now silent rainfall lashing in from the open door behind the intruder. The mute wind tossed the curtains about along the wall. Nothing else moved in the hallway. There was no sign of Flicker, at first. But then she felt it: A cold torrent suddenly flowed up her arm, as if she’d dipped it into a bucket of freezing cold water. Then the sensation leaked up her arm and spread into her chest, filling her stomach. She bent over coughing violently as the cloying sensation took her throat. Her vision swam and the hallway wavered for a moment and she coughed again sharply. There was something in her throat. Disorientation spun her around as if she were in a whirlpool. Before the hallway lost its focus her eyes caught sight of the fireman’s features for the first time. Confusion quickly turned into horror. She couldn’t dwell on it otherwise she would lose the plot. But she could not un-see what she had seen. The fireman or whatever he beneath that helmet had a pale bloated face was streaked with blue veins. Lifeless milky-white eyes stared at her vacantly. Some kind of algae or pondweed was draped over his clothes in slimy green loops. Thankfully her coughing fit was so severe that she was unable to dwell on the fact that that fireman was dead. Judging by his appearance he had been dead, in the river no doubt, for some time. Yet he had managed to walk up here and had spoken to her. The sudden silence that had filled the hallway was now replaced by the muffled roar of rushing water as if she'd just jumped into a swimming pool. Rose stumbled backwards, colliding with the wall and coughed again, vomiting muddy, sickly liquid. The vile, foul-tasting water filled her mouth again. She couldn’t swallow and then she realised she couldn’t breathe either. She retched hard; twisting her guts as more of the stuff came up, blocking her throat and choking her lungs. She still couldn’t breathe. Panic gripped her. Somehow her lungs were filling with water, horrible rank dirty water. Her heart banged loudly in her ears. She was choking; drowning. She was in the hallway but she was drowning. The heaviness filled her chest and she had no doubt the Flicker-thing was doing this to her. She spun around wildly. Desperate, she thumped on her chest but still, the foul turgid river water poured into her lungs. Choking, juddering, thrashing her arms wildly Rose vomited again, splashing filthy river water into an ever-widening puddle at her feet. Dizziness swayed her balance. In her head, she heard cruel delighted laughter cackling the word “Groac’h, Groac’h, Groac’h over and over again. She couldn’t hold on much longer; her lungs were about to burst. Bright spots flashed in front of her eyes and she felt her consciousness slipping away.
“No, Flicker!” Hayden called loudly, cutting through the deafening echo of rushing water. “Go away Riverman”. His shrill childlike voice suddenly finding an air authority and he spoke in a tone that commanded a confidence way beyond his years. He didn’t sound or even look like Hayden any more. The way he held himself, tall and in control. He had changed. But it only lasted a moment though, before he fell. Through her blurred watery vision, Rose saw Hayden’s limbs begin to tremble as he crumped on the floor like a marionette whose strings have been cut. His eyes rolled up in their red-rimmed sockets and his body slowly began to shake. His transformation slipping away as fast as it had come. His fingers went into spasm and the pen he had been twiddling bounced off the bottom stair and rolled away. Rose recognised the seizure coming on but she could do nothing to help as his body began shaking violently as his epilepsy swept through him. Rose managed to call his name. Then she realised the water had gone – she could breathe again. The hallway seemed to leap back into reality as her ears popped painfully. Swallowing hard and still aware of the threat from the fireman she glanced back to the door and saw he was leaving. He didn’t say a word as he quietly trudged back out into the unforgiving night as if impelled to follow Hayden's instructions. Then she found Flicker, the drowning-faerie again. Reflected in the glass of the picture Rose saw that it had left her and had now turned its attention towards Hayden.
“Oi! Leave him alone” she shouted and ended up coughing up the remains of the dark mire. The Groac’h had slowed down. It couldn’t quite reach Hayden. It appeared to have hit an invisible barrier. As Rose looked on she noticed it seemed to be losing its definition, ‘flickering’ much more frequently and taking longer to reappear. Still trying to catch her breath Rose leaned against the wall and watched in fascination as the drowning-faerie slowly dissolved in front of Hayden. It thrashed about, tried to turn around but seemed rooted to the spot. It was as if Hayden’s seizure was somehow syphoning off whatever power the water-witch was using to manifest in this world. It wavered one last time before vanishing completely. Rose found her strength and charged over to Hayden, still taking deep gulps of air into her sore lungs.
The fit lasted less than a minute and when he came round the usual groggy expression was absent. He appeared normal, for Hayden, as if nothing had happened. It was as if he hadn’t even had a seizure. He simply looked at Rose and said “Flicker’s gone away. Riverman doesn’t hurt anymore”. Then, for the first time Rose was aware of, Hayden smiled. It was just a small, quick smile of triumph before the default blank expression was back in place. Before Rose could respond he got up and retrieved his twiddling pen before taking himself back upstairs to bed. Rose stayed sitting at the foot of the stairs for some time afterwards trying to process the night’s events. When Jean finally arrived she was full of apologies. Rose told her Hayden had got up, had a mild seizure but had gone back to bed again but everyone else was fine. That’s all she needed to know. All anyone needed to know about tonight.
The following morning the river Tees was lapping at the door of Hillside Grange and the day staff safely evacuated the children to another home. After they had all left, the body of a fireman was found floating in the car park. It didn’t take long to identify him as one of the firemen who had lost their lives in the floods last year. Rose was thinking of the fireman as she walked towards the rugby club that afternoon. Huge amounts of water were still puddled across the road, testing the barricades of sandbags people had piled up by their homes in an effort to keep the waters at bay. The rain had stopped now, thankfully, and the thin white clouds overhead were reflected clearly in the flood water below. Rose didn’t know what had happened to Flicker, the Groac’h, or whatever that thing was. But with Flicker gone, it was as if the river hadn’t wanted the fireman’s remains anymore and had given him back to his community. But, she speculated coldly; twofiremen had drowned in the river last year. Which meant; somewhere out there the river still possessed a second body. A breeze rippled the water, distorting the reflection of the houses and clouds. Rose quickly looked away from the water. She felt foolish but Hayden was always nervous of reflections, especially reflections in water because that’s where Flicker could find you. Rose walked on quickly, looking straight ahead of her until she reached the rugby club.
Heaving her stocky well-built frame off the low sofa different scenarios ran through Rose’s mind. It was unlikely to be kids up to no good because the home was quite isolated. Hillside Grange was situated at the end of a long driveway way off the main road, not far from where the river Tees bisected the town. But if it was kids messing around, she’d deal with them: They’d soon regret messing with the captain of the local women’s rugby team. Whatever the visitor at the door wanted, it was most likely to do with the storm. It had been raining for days now and the town had watched the Tees slowing rising day by day. Drains were already overflowing near Rose’s house and it was a miracle that her car made it through the water to get here tonight. Fortunately for Jean, she lived closer to Hillside Grange than Rose. Nevertheless, the river could be treacherous in some parts. Last year when it broke its banks in a similar flood a couple of emergency service personnel were killed, swept away from the bridge at the end of the lane and their bodies still hadn’t been found. It wasn’t uncommon for the river to claim lives though. Countless people had drowned in the swirling waters, entangled in weeds and dragged under by the strong currents. Local folklore told of a river-witch that would leave trinkets near the water’s edge. Then when children came to take them she’d grab their ankles and pull them underwater. That image floated in mind as she turned to leave the lounge. That’s when she spotted the pale figure silently watching her from the doorway.
Rose almost jumped out of her skin and swore under her breath. She was usually so unflappable and rarely felt on edge in any situation. However, for some reason, the floods had brought with them an unwelcome dread and being confronted with Hayden on a night like this really startled her. A cold tingling sensation crept down her spine as she registered the sickly-looking child. It was a sad indictment but Rose had never warmed to Hayden, none of the staff could honestly say they had done. All the children here had special needs and staff had been able to form connections with the other four kids but there was something… peculiar about Hayden that people couldn’t get past. It wasn’t his appearance; the slight frame and sickly pale complexion with red blotches encircling his eyes, which made him look as if he’d been half-drowned in the river. He had a kind of damp aura that he gave off and after spending any time with him staff would often want to sit next to a warm radiator afterwards, even in the middle of summer. To compound this, his skin was permanently clammy and he had an annoying habit of wanting to hold hands all the time. Maybe he was looking for some kind of attachment or comfort having been abandoned as a baby? Whatever it was, physical contact with Hayden felt unpleasant for some reason that she couldn’t articulate. When he took your hand it sometimes felt as if he was pulling you down into a cold dark place. Like a drowning victim grabbing you and pulling you under with them. More than one person described the symptoms of a mild anxiety attack when they held his hand for too long. It was hard to breathe and all you could was to try and get your hand back as quickly as you could before you went under. It was a strange sensation and very unsettling. There was definitely something that was just not right about the boy. Rose also disliked his morbid curiosity around death. Lots of kids catch and kill insects but Hayden would take on a maniacal fascination as he took every opportunity to slowly drowned them in the bathroom or outside in puddles.
The wind pelted the windows with rain causing the glass to creak in the frames. Rose felt a sudden sense of lonely isolation which Hayden’s presence only served to increase. He was drifting towards her now, arms outstretched. One hand twiddled a pen between his fingers while the other reached for Rose’s hand. The night-carer instinctively backed away from Hayden and managed to slip behind him in an effort to avoid physical contact. She was deceptively agile; a rare trait for a fourteen stone Hooker.
“Flicker is coming” Hayden’s shrill flat voice intruded on Rose’s thoughts. “Has Flicker has woken up Riverman?” Hayden rarely showed any emotion but his tone sounded a little different tonight. It wasn’t like him to get up either. “Don’t let the river in”. Rose didn’t want to dwell on it though because at that moment the visitor at the front door knocked a second time and this time Rose really did jump, noticeably.
“Fff… flip” she hissed, only just able to stop herself from using an expletive in front of one of the kids. The creeping anxiety was swelling within her, no doubt mirroring the rising Tees outside. Why was she feeling so restless tonight?
“What are you doing Hayden? Get back to bed; it’s late” Rose said composing herself as Hayden tried to take her hand again.
“No, I’m not going to hold hands, Hayden. Now go back to bed, you pickle”.
“Riverman is coming, Rose”. He had never used Rose’s name before.
“Bed!”
“No good. No.” Hayden pointed to the television. Rose had had Big Brother on in the background to try and take her mind off the weather and the steadily increasing sense of unease. Mind-numbing reality TV was a great way of switching off from the real world.
“Flicker can see in” and the boy went to the television and turned it off. He quickly turned his back to the TV so as not to look at it. He hated televisions, mirrors and baths, just about anything that could show him his reflection.
“Hey, I was watching that ya Grub” Rose complained mildly. “Now get back upstairs this minute”.
“Riverman will come with Flicker”.
“Hayden, what happens when you become too tired?” Rose felt her edginess starting to erode her patience now. “You have seizures, don't you. So get back up to bed. And quietly” Rose steered him into the hallway and he started to go upstairs. He paused once to look at his twiddling pen dancing in his hand before making his way upstairs. As Rose went to answer the door her sense of unease swelled further. Hayden’s words had sunk in and were now sloshing around her head. It was amazing how he could make a person freak out and how easily it was to soak up his creepy damp aura. Rose knew she wasn’t being deliberately unkind either. Most staff felt uneasy around him. One night she had been on a sleep-in shift and she had awoken from a troubled dream. It was the middle of the night and somehow Hayden standing in the middle of the sleep-in room. He stood in the shadow’s watching her like some eerie spectre. She could have sworn she’d locked the door when she went to bed but she must have forgotten that night. It was very unlike her. Since then whenever she did a sleep-in she would lock the door and pull a chair across it to keep it shut. Other staff had similar stories.
The mounting sense of trepidation drifted closer to Rose as she made her way down the chilly hallway towards the front door. She opened the inner porch door and could see the outline of a figure outside behind the frosted glass. Hayden’s concern about a Riverman floated through her mind again. A split-second before the lights in the house dimmed as the power dipped. Rose froze for a moment in the darkness but then they came back on again and she breathed a deep sigh. Whoever was out there it better be important because she was in no mood for games tonight.
After checking she had the staff mobile phone in her pocket she opened the front door and was met by a primal storm raging down the lane. It was as if the diva of weather was throwing an almighty tantrum. Sheets of cold rain slanted at an angle, driven by a fierce banshee wind. Rose’s eyes watered making it difficult to penetrate the dreadful night. She could barely make out the figure before on the doorstep that was only partially illuminated by the outside security light. But her immediate concern was focused on maintaining her grip on the front door while the squally wind tried to prise it from her.
“Evening” she had to raise her voice over the roaring tempest. Her eyes adjusted and she noticed the visitor was dressed in the black and yellow uniform of a fireman. Rain splashed heavily off his faded helmet under which his face was shrouded in darkness. Rivulets of rainwater streamed down his shiny jacket and trousers splashing into the water-logged car park. For a moment it looked like there was a second fireman silhouetted behind him but it was probably just shadows from the trees overhead. It was difficult to see anything clearly out there beyond the pale illumination of the house lights. The fireman cleared his throat loudly and without any preamble gave his muffled assessment: “The River has broken its banks by the bottom of the lane so we’ve got to get everyone out”. The storm was so strong Rose had trouble hearing him over the white noise of wind rushing through the trees that surrounded the driveway. As a result, the distortion lent his voice a rough gurgling quality. So maybe she had misheard him because she observed, there were no vehicles behind him on the driveway to evacuate anyone in. Plus, he clearly didn’t know the nature of the kids who lived here and ‘just moving them out’ would not be straightforward. Rose promptly made him aware of this fact, having to raise her voice over the howling wind.
“Just bring the children downstairs and we’ll deal with them, love”. He coughed again.
Love? Rose would respond to most names and she’d been called just about everything under the sun, but Lovewas pet hate. Her disquiet momentarily forgotten, she drew herself up to her full imposing stature – there was a reason she wore the number one jersey in the pack. She explained again, wincing into the driving rain, that she couldn’t just get the kids!
“The river’s burst its banks and the water is heading down the lane” the stranger burbled again punctuated by an impatient cough. “I’ve come to help evacuate everyone here. How many children are in the home?” he pressed her, stepping past her into the porch. Rose briefly considered pushing him back out of the door. He may be taller but she had the weight advantage. Although, saying that he was here to help them, apparently. Love!
The blustery rain chilled Rose and she wanted to shut the door again. But the drip drip drip of uneasiness that had been slowly rising all evening was now warning her not to shut the door. Suspicion now lapped at the forefront of Rose’s mind, carried by her encounter with Hayden earlier. His words about Riverman coming now returned to unsettle her further. God, she could do with a pint, or six, of Stella. She had to get rid of this man, for some reason he wasn’t being straight with her. Where was his fire engine?
“I’m sorry you can’t come in here” Rose asserted herself, blocking the inner door that led from the porch into the hallway. He wasn’t getting past her into the house. The shadows cast by the outside light danced in the porch again lending Rose the brief sense that the stranger was not alone. It lasted less than a second and was gone like before. But Rose had seen it twice now.
“I can’t just evacuate everyone” Rose stated again. “I’ve got vulnerable children here and I’m… I can’t allow anyone to enter without ID”. She almost said she was on her own with the kids but some paranoid instinct told her to keep that fact to herself.
The fireman hovered. He could at least take his helmet off – Rose didn’t like talking to someone without seeing their face. Then she saw that shadow again, just to the stranger’s left. It was like the afterimage you get when you stare at a bright light. One moment it was there and the next it was gone. There had been something and she could have sworn it had looked directly at her. Her growing unease would need some kind of release soon before it flooded her completely. Something wasn’t right. She sensed movement behind her, felt someone silently creeping up on her. Things were about to kick-off! A chill, like spiders running down her spine, prickled her flesh. She tensed, ready for the fight. Rose was about to turn around when the power went out. The house was plunged into electrifying darkness; the hallway flooded with menace. She managed to move backwards away from the visitor before her limbs froze in the tense static silence.
Bizarrely, in the darkness, her first thoughts went to Hayden again. Although there was so much that he didn’t understand about the world, he did seem to have an unnatural insight into both life and death. He had a disturbing intelligence; he knew things that he couldn’t possibly know. In split-second clarity, Rose recalled the day her dog Benny had to be put down and Hayden’s words to her. She hadn’t said anything to anyone at work and was doing her hourly room checks. When she had looked in on Hayden to check he was sleeping when he suddenly sat up in bed and looked directly at her.
“Benny’s gone away. He doesn’t hurt anymore”. Rose, stunned had just looked at him. In the morning she’d asked him how he knew Benny but he didn’t answer. His black expression told Rose his mind was elsewhere again. He was no doubt puzzling over another incomprehensible detail of everyday life. Some detail that most non-autistic people accepted instinctively as the norm.
The memory vanished as Hayden wailed loudly from the stairs. The sound bringing a sense of relief, for once, that it was only him behind her.
“It's OK Hayden," she said without conviction, warily keeping her eyes on the outline of the intruder by the door. “You’ll wake the others. The back-up lights will come on in a minute… there” as she spoke the dim emergency lights came on. “Stop being a nosey-parker and get back in bed”. The shallow glow illuminated the hallway and, to her concern, Rose saw the fireman had taken another step closer. He now stood, dripping, inside the hallway. Behind him, a second figure hovered, clearly visible, but just for a moment before it vanished again. Something was in the house that shouldn’t be. From nowhere the word Groac’h splashed into her mind. She had no idea what it meant or where it came from. It was probably something she’d heard Hayden say.
“Where are the children?” the intruder demanded, his wet phlegmy voice beginning to annoy Rose and she decided she needed to end this, now.
“You need to wait outside," she told him firmly, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder searching for the source of that weird flickering shadow. “You can’t come in. I need to phone my manager to let her know what’s happening”.
“No time," the fireman said flatly in a voice that left no room for debate. “The water’s coming for you all”. Odd choice of words, Rose thought with a grimace as the fireman noisily cleared his throat yet again. Then Hayden started shouting.
“No, Flicker” he suddenly yelled in a voice charged with emotion. “No!” Rose turned her head a fraction and out of the corner of her eye, she half-glimpsed the reflection of the shadow again. Hanging in the hallway above the phone was a birds-eye photo of Hillside Grange. Reflected in the glass; Rose saw the dark shape she had glimpsed earlier. Only she could see the sinister apparition clearly now: It’s thin and gangly form was all limbs and long fingers as it flickered in and out of focus. It was almost rippling as if viewed from underwater. Its nightmare form was creeping into the hallway. The phantom image faltered, flashed and, flickered again. Rose guessed this spectre was Flicker.
Above her, on the stairs, Hayden was shouting and Rose realised the boy could see this thing and he was scared of it. Somehow Hayden knew what Flicker was, Rose realised, and he knew what it wanted. But more worryingly, Flicker was coming for her.
In the reflected image of the hallway Flicker was almost upon her. She spun around from the picture expecting to come face to face with it. But as she turned, she was just met with the empty space between her and the fireman. In that brief moment of confusion, everything seemed to stop. She was aware of the now silent rainfall lashing in from the open door behind the intruder. The mute wind tossed the curtains about along the wall. Nothing else moved in the hallway. There was no sign of Flicker, at first. But then she felt it: A cold torrent suddenly flowed up her arm, as if she’d dipped it into a bucket of freezing cold water. Then the sensation leaked up her arm and spread into her chest, filling her stomach. She bent over coughing violently as the cloying sensation took her throat. Her vision swam and the hallway wavered for a moment and she coughed again sharply. There was something in her throat. Disorientation spun her around as if she were in a whirlpool. Before the hallway lost its focus her eyes caught sight of the fireman’s features for the first time. Confusion quickly turned into horror. She couldn’t dwell on it otherwise she would lose the plot. But she could not un-see what she had seen. The fireman or whatever he beneath that helmet had a pale bloated face was streaked with blue veins. Lifeless milky-white eyes stared at her vacantly. Some kind of algae or pondweed was draped over his clothes in slimy green loops. Thankfully her coughing fit was so severe that she was unable to dwell on the fact that that fireman was dead. Judging by his appearance he had been dead, in the river no doubt, for some time. Yet he had managed to walk up here and had spoken to her. The sudden silence that had filled the hallway was now replaced by the muffled roar of rushing water as if she'd just jumped into a swimming pool. Rose stumbled backwards, colliding with the wall and coughed again, vomiting muddy, sickly liquid. The vile, foul-tasting water filled her mouth again. She couldn’t swallow and then she realised she couldn’t breathe either. She retched hard; twisting her guts as more of the stuff came up, blocking her throat and choking her lungs. She still couldn’t breathe. Panic gripped her. Somehow her lungs were filling with water, horrible rank dirty water. Her heart banged loudly in her ears. She was choking; drowning. She was in the hallway but she was drowning. The heaviness filled her chest and she had no doubt the Flicker-thing was doing this to her. She spun around wildly. Desperate, she thumped on her chest but still, the foul turgid river water poured into her lungs. Choking, juddering, thrashing her arms wildly Rose vomited again, splashing filthy river water into an ever-widening puddle at her feet. Dizziness swayed her balance. In her head, she heard cruel delighted laughter cackling the word “Groac’h, Groac’h, Groac’h over and over again. She couldn’t hold on much longer; her lungs were about to burst. Bright spots flashed in front of her eyes and she felt her consciousness slipping away.
“No, Flicker!” Hayden called loudly, cutting through the deafening echo of rushing water. “Go away Riverman”. His shrill childlike voice suddenly finding an air authority and he spoke in a tone that commanded a confidence way beyond his years. He didn’t sound or even look like Hayden any more. The way he held himself, tall and in control. He had changed. But it only lasted a moment though, before he fell. Through her blurred watery vision, Rose saw Hayden’s limbs begin to tremble as he crumped on the floor like a marionette whose strings have been cut. His eyes rolled up in their red-rimmed sockets and his body slowly began to shake. His transformation slipping away as fast as it had come. His fingers went into spasm and the pen he had been twiddling bounced off the bottom stair and rolled away. Rose recognised the seizure coming on but she could do nothing to help as his body began shaking violently as his epilepsy swept through him. Rose managed to call his name. Then she realised the water had gone – she could breathe again. The hallway seemed to leap back into reality as her ears popped painfully. Swallowing hard and still aware of the threat from the fireman she glanced back to the door and saw he was leaving. He didn’t say a word as he quietly trudged back out into the unforgiving night as if impelled to follow Hayden's instructions. Then she found Flicker, the drowning-faerie again. Reflected in the glass of the picture Rose saw that it had left her and had now turned its attention towards Hayden.
“Oi! Leave him alone” she shouted and ended up coughing up the remains of the dark mire. The Groac’h had slowed down. It couldn’t quite reach Hayden. It appeared to have hit an invisible barrier. As Rose looked on she noticed it seemed to be losing its definition, ‘flickering’ much more frequently and taking longer to reappear. Still trying to catch her breath Rose leaned against the wall and watched in fascination as the drowning-faerie slowly dissolved in front of Hayden. It thrashed about, tried to turn around but seemed rooted to the spot. It was as if Hayden’s seizure was somehow syphoning off whatever power the water-witch was using to manifest in this world. It wavered one last time before vanishing completely. Rose found her strength and charged over to Hayden, still taking deep gulps of air into her sore lungs.
The fit lasted less than a minute and when he came round the usual groggy expression was absent. He appeared normal, for Hayden, as if nothing had happened. It was as if he hadn’t even had a seizure. He simply looked at Rose and said “Flicker’s gone away. Riverman doesn’t hurt anymore”. Then, for the first time Rose was aware of, Hayden smiled. It was just a small, quick smile of triumph before the default blank expression was back in place. Before Rose could respond he got up and retrieved his twiddling pen before taking himself back upstairs to bed. Rose stayed sitting at the foot of the stairs for some time afterwards trying to process the night’s events. When Jean finally arrived she was full of apologies. Rose told her Hayden had got up, had a mild seizure but had gone back to bed again but everyone else was fine. That’s all she needed to know. All anyone needed to know about tonight.
The following morning the river Tees was lapping at the door of Hillside Grange and the day staff safely evacuated the children to another home. After they had all left, the body of a fireman was found floating in the car park. It didn’t take long to identify him as one of the firemen who had lost their lives in the floods last year. Rose was thinking of the fireman as she walked towards the rugby club that afternoon. Huge amounts of water were still puddled across the road, testing the barricades of sandbags people had piled up by their homes in an effort to keep the waters at bay. The rain had stopped now, thankfully, and the thin white clouds overhead were reflected clearly in the flood water below. Rose didn’t know what had happened to Flicker, the Groac’h, or whatever that thing was. But with Flicker gone, it was as if the river hadn’t wanted the fireman’s remains anymore and had given him back to his community. But, she speculated coldly; twofiremen had drowned in the river last year. Which meant; somewhere out there the river still possessed a second body. A breeze rippled the water, distorting the reflection of the houses and clouds. Rose quickly looked away from the water. She felt foolish but Hayden was always nervous of reflections, especially reflections in water because that’s where Flicker could find you. Rose walked on quickly, looking straight ahead of her until she reached the rugby club.