Sleepy Hollow: Rise Headless and Ride

by Richard Gleaves

  The Horseman was gone.

  Jason swatted at sparks that caught in his hair and eyebrows and bit his arms like angry gnats.

  “That was – ” whispered Joey. His voice was full of shock and wonder. “That was – ”

  “It was,” said Jason.

  “That – was – was – ?”

  “Let me just sit for a minute,” Jason said.

  “I’ve seen the Headless Horseman,” said Joey, talking to the graves. “The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. I’ve seen him.” He jumped and shouted. “I’ve seen him!”

  “Great,” said Jason. His foot throbbed and he was muddy and cold.

  “I must be asleep,” Joey said, giggling, turning circles and slapping himself.

  “You’re not.”

  Joey collapsed in the grass, leaning against the headstone of Washington Irving. He threw an arm around it and pressed his forehead to the stone. “The goddamn Headless Horseman…” he sighed.

  At the foot of the hill, the bones of the Horseman’s steed rolled along the path, bumping each other, clinging together. The wind kicked leaves up the hill.

  “We need to go,” Jason said, getting to his feet.

  “I can’t believe I – ”

  “You did. And if you want to see tomorrow let’s get the hell out of this cemetery. Look!”

  Jason pointed. The Horseman was re-forming.

  Joey saw the cinders gathering in the air. “I – I – I – don’t need to see him twice,” he said.

  “Go.”

  The boys scrambled away together, up the slope. They turned at the top. The Horseman’s shape was already complete, standing alongside a new steed. They felt rage tumbling up the hill to burn them.

  “We can’t outrun him.”

  “Uh – uh – here,” Joey said.

  “Where?”

  Joey fumbled a key ring from his belt. He ran to a door set in the hillside.

  “Oh no,” Jason said. “No way.”

  “It’s empty. It’s empty. Come on.”

  The metal swung open with a piercing groan. They backed inside and slammed the door – plunging themselves into absolute darkness.

  “Where are we?” said Jason, panting.

  Joey stuck out an arm and accidentally poked Jason in the eye.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry. It’s the receiving vault.”

  “The what?”

  “The receiving vault. Before we had backhoes the ground would freeze and they’d keep the bodies in here – you know, until spring.”

  “Joey.”

  “Relax. We never use it –

  “Good.”

  “ – unless some movie crew needs a scary location.”

  “That’s just great,” Jason said.

  “At least we’re safe.” Joey said. Something crashed against the door. “I hope,” he added.

  “Why didn’t you grab a lantern?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Jason turned and fumbled about, finding cold walls and metal rings. He felt like a bat. The floor sloped down. He felt a drain under his sock. He was becoming claustrophobic. They were both starting to panic.

  “Here – ” said Joey.

  “Here what?”

  A rectangle of light blossomed so intensely that Jason had to whip his head around to look away.

  “My phone,” said Joey. “We can call my dad.”

  Joey turned in circles, trying to get reception. Jason shook his head.

  Something crashed against the door again. A pumpkin? Or was the Horseman hacking through?

  No, the door’s metal. It’s metal it’s metal it’s metal.

  “I’ve got no bars,” Joey said.

  “We’re behind stone, nitwit.”

  “As long as we’re safe.”

  Something groaned behind the marble.

  “What was that?” Joey said.

  “Oh, um – ” Jason said, “Here’s the thing, um – the Horseman can kind of… raise the dead.”

  Joey’s phone went dark.

  “I wish you hadn’t told me that,” he said.

  They felt the ghosts, the wave of melancholy. They were not alone in the tomb. Joey lit the room again. Spectral shapes slipped in through the marble, reaching.

  Joey squeaked and killed the light again. “This was stupid this was stupid this was stupid…” He was freaking. Jason felt his arm go cold as something brushed him. His cheek began to prickle.

  “Shut up,” said Jason. “Let’s just run. Where do we go?”

  “Uh – ”

  “Uh – ”

  “The Horseman Bridge,” said Joey.

  “It won’t work. That’s not the real bridge.”

  “Then – holy ground.”

  “Holy ground?”

  “Holy ground. Definitely.”

  “I don’t believe in holy ground,” said Jason.

  The door thumped again.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Joey said. “As long as he does.”

  “Fine. Where?”

  “The chapel.”

  “Can we make it?”

  “Yeah. I know the way.”

  Behind them a piece of marble dropped away and broke. Another piece struck Jason’s shoulder. He covered his head and pushed Joey towards the door, protecting his friend.

  “Fine. Just go. Go.”

  They pushed the door open and blinked against the starlight.

  “I don’t see him…” Joey whispered.

  “Joey… go,” Jason said. The ghost of an old man, not unlike Grandpa John, stood in the vault behind them. He threw more stone at the boys. A bit struck Jason in the temple. His ears rang.

  “This way,” said Joey.

  They left the vault, slamming the door, and turned in the direction of the chapel, but the Horseman rode from the shadows and onto the road. They stopped short and backed away.

  “I guess the chapel’s out,” Jason said.

  They found a long ramp of brick heading back towards the Irving grave. Jason fled to the bottom. But Joey stopped at the top.

  “Wait,” Joey said. He pointed to his phone. “I can get a picture.”

  “No.”

  “We’ll be famous. One second.”

  Joey raised the camera. Jason ran back up the ramp, to grab his friend, to stop him. In the endless time before he reached the top, Kate’s voice came back to him…

  “Watch out for Joey,” she had said. “Because everyone we tell dies.”

  NO!

  With the phone to his eye, Joey didn’t see the pumpkin coming. But Jason did. He threw out an arm to grab Joey’s shirt, but his hand closed on air. The pumpkin cracked against Joey’s head, lifting him off his feet and tossing him like a rag doll onto the grass.

  “NO NO NO NO NO!” Jason screamed. He whirled to face the Horseman. “I’ll kill you!”

  The Horseman drew the hatchet and kicked his horse.

  Oh shit.

  You have to run. You have to run. Lead it away from Joey. Joey might be okay. Please be okay, Joey. Please!

  He turned and sprinted down the brick lane, gathering momentum and speed. When he reached the road he leapt it. The ground threw him forward and he ran. He ran for his life. He ran to keep his heart beating.

  Hooves clattered behind. Headstones flew by on either side.

  Every strike jarred his legs and splinted his shins. He pumped his arms; his hands came up quick and high; he skidded, sprawled and leapt between the graves. He lost the other shoe and ran in stocking feet. The Horseman’s hatchet carved downward and nicked Jason’s shoulder. Jason felt the blood.

  He saw the Old Dutch Church, far down the hill.

  Holy ground.

  I have to make the church.

  I have to make the church.

  He ran diagonally across the rows of headstones. He ducked a branch – the hooves thundered behind and shot bullets of dirt that struck his shoulder and cheek. He found a rut between the stones and brought his legs togethe
r – precise – toe first – and leapt like a gazelle with hunters after.

  The way ahead was clear now – an endless aisle between two rows of headstones – downhill all the way to the church.

  He fell forward – he was falling forward – gravity had taken him. Every step left a muddy footprint across a different grave. Fear pushed him on; the church grew larger.

  The demon spurred his steed and swung again and Jason dodged the blade. It breathed against his cheek – so close so close – he flinched and leapt a root. Something in his ankle tore and oh it hurt but – no, he could not – would not – dared not stop because the Horseman gained upon his left and whipped his horse and hurried ahead – to head Jason off – to lop off Jason’s head before he could reach the church the church.

  Jason’s pelvis struck a stone edge-on and oh, how he suffered but Jason Crane would make the church the church the church. The church became his only thought: the church the church the church. The rhythm thundered in his head beside the hooves the hooves the hooves the hooves. He still could reach the church the church the church – but would he make the door?

  Where’d they put the door?

  He had run straight for the church, straight at the church – not at the door – just at the church.

  But he would get inside the church.

  The church the church the church…

  He would get inside the church.

  The hooves the hooves the hooves…

  The Horseman wrenched his reins. The black steed reared and twisted ’round upon the shallow place where the Horseman was buried. The ghost swung his hatchet a final time. Jason saw his only chance and took it. His foot found the top of a weathered headstone and he pushed off from it, feeling it crack beneath his weight. He leapt and his arms flew outward, breaking an invisible tape with his chest. The Horseman’s hatchet came round and sliced the air beneath the boy’s feet.

  The demon rider cried in anger. He and his steed hurtled onward and broke against the stones of the church with a blast of heat and light and scattering leaf. Jason fell through the whipping cloud. He saw his own terrified reflection for an instant. His elbows struck the silver window, something slashed his scalp, and with an explosion of glass and wood, with a spray of blood and plaster, he fell unconscious onto the floor of the Old Dutch Church.

  EPILOGUE

  From the Tarrytown Leader, November 2nd

  OLD DUTCH CHURCH ATTACKED BY HALLOWEEN VANDAL

  The Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, a New York State historical landmark, suffered possibly irreparable damage on Halloween night at the hands of a mindless teenage vandal. The boy, whose name has been withheld pending charges, showed no concern for the three-hundred-year history of the church when he carried out what village historian and SHHS teacher Daniel Smolenski described as a “unforgivable attack.”

  Jennifer Paulding, part-owner of the Horseman Restaurant, described the scene. She and her husband Samuel Paulding had just left the Historical Society’s annual “Horseman’s Hollow” event when they heard “a crash like a china cabinet [that had fallen] over.” They rushed to the vicinity of the noise. They found the church doors open and a tumult occurring within.

  Witnesses say that the vandal threw himself bodily through the window of the church, using a fragile tombstone outside to assist his jump (this tombstone, which has stood in the Old Dutch Burying Ground for three hundred years, was also broken and will need extensive repair). Wood and glass showered down on the people inside who had gathered for a candlelight reading of Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

  “It was just crazy,” said Marcus Fractowicz, 42, who had attended the event with his family. “The reader had just come to the most exciting part. Ichabod crossed the bridge and the Horseman threw his pumpkin and, at that moment, the window cracked to bits and the kid fell through.”

  Fireman Mike Parson, who investigated the case for the Tarrytown Police Department, said that the damage might cost the town many thousands of dollars to repair. “It’s not just the glass,” said Parson. “The windows have to match, the wood has to match. And, of course, we’ll never get that tombstone back to what it was.”

  Local teen and celebrated SHHS trombonist Sally Blatt declared herself shocked by the wanton damage. “It’s bad enough to see our local landmarks crumbling away as a consequence of nature but when someone damages property in this way, deliberately, it is soul-destroying.”

  Once in police custody and conscious, the vandal claimed to be “fleeing the Headless Horseman.” Police investigated the site to determine whether the boy had been subject to a practical joke. Although several days of rain had preceded the holiday, investigators found only one pair of footprints in the mud.

  “No hoofprints, sorry,” laughed Thomas Stafford, Tarrytown Police Chief. “This is a simple case of criminal mischief. The boy cut himself up pretty bad, though, so we haven’t ruled out the possibility that someone tossed him through.”

  No other injuries were reported.

  #

  From the Tarrytown Leader, November 3rd

  CEMETERY WORKER NEAR DEATH

  Joey Osorio, 17, son of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery director James Osorio, was discovered unconscious in the cemetery on the morning of November 1, sources say. The boy was rushed to Phelps Memorial Hospital and is reported stable but comatose. It is not yet known what caused the incident and no connection has been found to the concurrent vandalism of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, which occurred on Halloween night a short distance away.

  Osorio is reported to have been conducting a lantern tour after cemetery hours. Several spilled lanterns were discovered in his vicinity. No attendees of Osorio’s tour have come forward with information as of press time.

  Police are investigating.

  #

  From the White Plains Daily Voice, November 4th

  STATE SENATOR USHER CONDEMNS CHURCH VANDALISM

  In answer to a question asked at Sunday’s AARP meeting in Boston, State Senator and United States Senate candidate Paul Usher decried the recent vandalism of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, declaring it a “clarion call that announces a nation in decline.”

  The senator pledged to make youth issues part of his campaign.

  “For too long,” Usher declared, “the good people of our communities have been told to step back and let the parents handle these matters. But where are the parents? Where are they?”

  Usher, who seeks the seat vacated by the death of Massachusetts Democrat Frank Slezinski, is a long-time Sleepy Hollow resident.

  #

  Jason pushed the hair out of his eyes.

  He tried not to pick at the stitches on his scalp. They made him feel like a baseball. He was grateful that his hair was thick and tangly and would cover up the scar.

  He folded his hands on the table in front of him and sat up straight. He hoped he looked presentable. He’d ruined his best suit in the cemetery and he was bruised and battered. On the way into family court he’d stopped in the men’s room to check his face. It wasn’t too bad. The shiner that the marble Jesus had given him had almost faded. The stitches on his shoulder itched. He reminded himself not to scratch when the guardianship hearing began. The hatchet-nick on his neck had closed. The Horseman had barely missed his artery. That was lucky. And his ankle had been twisted, not torn. It would heal. He limped for now, but the swelling would be controllable with ice and elevation.

  The worst wound was that Joey was still in the hospital. Jason blamed himself. He had invoked some curse and raised a ghost to strike down his friend. He’d visited Joey in the hospital, mostly at night. Joey’s parents had lost their fondness for Jason now. They saw him as a dangerous influence and suspected him of being responsible for Joey’s condition. After Mr. Osorio discovered Jason’s true age he considered him to be a liar and a fraud as well.

  Joey lay in a room not far from where Jason’s grandmother had died only two weeks before. Joey reminded Jason of her. He w
asn’t wrinkled and his hair hadn’t gone white, but he had the same look of a person fighting a bad dream, speaking to something unseen. Sometimes his mouth would open with shock and surprise and he would stay like that for hours.

  Late one night, Jason had come to the hospital and had seen Zef Van Brunt standing just outside Joey’s room. Zef stood in the empty corridor, clenching his fists. He didn’t see Jason. He wiped his face, hit the wall and left. Jason discovered a new bouquet on Joey’s bedside table that night. There was no card.

  The adjudicator would be deciding the guardianship question today. Jason tried to stay hopeful but the adjudicator looked like a vindictive elf. The man was huddling with the two lawyers at the moment – and berating Anna Franklin, the woman Valerie had hired to represent Jason. That wasn’t good.

  Grandpa John had sent Jason an e-mail via Valerie. It read: “Jason – I’m so sorry but I’m not in any condition to take on the responsibility of being your guardian. Due to a heart condition, I am advised to avoid stress. I do hope that you sort out your troubles.”

  That had hurt, but Jason understood it. He didn’t blame the man for not wanting to get involved with a mess like his. Jason Crane had become a well-known Troubled Kid and Public Enemy since the Halloween incident. He’d spent his seventeenth birthday in a juvenile holding cell.

  “Jason.”

  Kate appeared to his right. He felt himself light up. He hadn’t seen her for days. She looked happy too. She heaved a bright red backpack onto the chair next to him.

  “You found it?” Jason said.

  “Right where you told me.”

  “Thanks.” He had lost the backpack near the broken bridge and he’d hated to think of Absalom’s Sketch-Book being lost or ruined. It was still inside though, with no damage.

  “Guess what else?” Kate said.

  “What?”

  She took a deep breath, leaned down and touched her forehead to Jason’s temple. She whispered the news in his ear.

  “Joey woke up,” she said.

  Jason’s throat swelled and strangled him. He let out a moan that was both happiness and relief – the sound that a pack animal might make when relieved of a burden too great for it to carry.