Red Writing Hood (1): Struggles

Lillian scanned the woods behind them. She thought she heard branches breaking and feared the small group of Enforcers had caught up. After a minute a deer emerged from the brush, stopped abruptly at the sight of Lillian, and then bolted back into the safety of the trees. She sighed in relief.

Becca and Jason were struggling up the slope towards the next stand of trees. She turned to follow and then quickened her pace at the sound of Becca’s cry. She was bent over in half, clutching her stomach. The contractions had returned more frequently once they began travelling for longer periods each day. Lillian feared they wouldn’t make it to the safe house before the baby arrived.

As Lillian approached she could see Becca fall to her knees. Tears flowed down her cheeks and she sobbed in between the intense bouts of pain.

“Oh God, it hurts! I can’t…I can’t go…oh god…” Becca cried. She rolled onto her side despite the icy snow beneath her and curled up into a ball. Lillian gestured to Jason that they needed Becca standing and he tried to pull her up. In response, Becca deliberately went limp.

“Becca, we have to keep moving. You don’t want to have our baby in the middle of a field in a foot of snow do you?”  Jason chided her. As the contraction eased, Becca glared at her husband.

“Do YOU want to do this?”

“No, darling. Having one crying baby is more than enough. You don’t need to deal with two.”

In spite of herself, Becca laughed, her discomfort forgotten for the moment as she pictured her husband trying to give birth. She raised a hand and grimaced.

“Help a lady up, will you?”

Jason and Lillian pulled Becca to her feet and began breaking a path through the snow once again. It would be obvious to anyone who followed that this was the way they went but it couldn’t be helped. As the group crested the hill and entered into the next grove of trees, Lillian caught sight of a thin wisp of smoke wafting up.

“Not too much further, Becca. Can you move any faster? It’s getting dark and the sky is beginning to look ominous.”

Breathing heavily, Becca nodded. Jason slipped his arm around her waist and the two began to move as one. They pushed on in silence.

As they emerged from the trees, the moon was rising over the mountain range in the distance. The moonlight highlighted the squat stone structure at the other end of the small valley. Lillian closed her eyes and sent out a silent message of thanks.

“That’s where we need to go”, she said pointing. “I think we should just make it before the storm arrives.”

“I see smoke”, Becca huffed. “Are we meeting someone there? Is it safe?”

“As safe as can be expected. I’ve arranged for a doctor to meet us. Considering the issues you’ve had during this pregnancy I didn’t want to be the one delivering your baby.”

Worry creased Becca’s forehead but she trusted Lillian. Her baby kicked high against her ribs and then was still.

This post is one of two as part of the Red Writing Hood. I did this one but it didn’t quite sit with me and then I got a really good idea so I did another You can see that one here.

The prompt this week: write a piece of flash fiction – it should be no more than 600 words and should take no longer than 3 minutes to read aloud. And the requirement for this particular one is a character MUST tell a joke and a character MUST cry. One character can do both.