My dad…I loved him, in a weird way. I didn’t love him like a kid normally loved their dad, but still. I didn’t think I’d get a call from his lawyer, saying that he’d died and I was needed in Sleepy Hollow as soon as possible to discuss the will and make his final arrangements. I thought…hell. I didn’t know what I thought. I guess I just imagined that I had more time, many more years left before I’d have to worry about putting either of my parents in the ground.
That was the thing about death. It always snuck up on you, even when you thought you were ready for it. It constantly crept up on you, inching towards you, running at a full sprint at you when you weren’t looking, but you could never tell how far it was. Never tell how close it was.
If I would’ve known my dad was going to die, would I have kept coming to Sleepy Hollow during my time off school? Would I have visited him on holidays and on his birthday? I…I didn’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.
But it didn’t matter now, because he was gone.
I grabbed a few bags of chips and pretzels off the racks, moving to the front of the store. As I set my stuff down, the clerk was slow to draw his gaze off the paper he was reading. No, wait. Not a paper. A comic book. All it took was one quick glance from me and I knew what the comic book was about.
The Headless Horseman.
Of fucking course. Because no one in this town could lay low and be normal, not even the kids. The clerk must’ve been around eighteen or nineteen, his skin pale and covered with acne scars.
“Is this all for you?” he asked, sounding bored and monotone, like he didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t blame him, because I didn’t want to be here either. Who would? Who the hell would willingly want to be here, in Sleepy Hollow?
“Yep,” I said, my fingers tapping the edge of the pressboard countertop as he rung me out. I handed over the money to pay for it, and he was unhurried in bagging it. My eyes flicked to the clock behind him on the wall, resting just beneath a bright, fluorescent light.
Eleven forty-nine. Nearly midnight. This was the latest I’d stayed up in a while. My college years were full of studying, not staying out late and partying. I was a boring person, really. I hated most people, and was much more comfortable at home on the couch, a bowl of snacks nearby, a book on my lap, and a TV show blaring in the background than anywhere that required socializing.
Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to have friends, to talk to someone other than yourself, but most of the time other people were just mean. Mean, awful, and annoying, so I’d rather just avoid them entirely.
I was in the process of grabbing my bags off the counter and leaving the convenience store when the clerk suddenly looked up from his comic book, his cloudy eyes much too intense suddenly. “Don’t cross the bridge—”
Don’t cross the fucking bridge. Yeah, I got it. I didn’t wait for him to finish before heading out the door.
I moved across the empty parking lot, the night air whispering sweet nothings to me as the breeze blew past me. Everyone was always so adamant against crossing the bridge at midnight. Why? It was just a bridge, nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Everyone warned me to stay away from the bridge, especially around midnight? Newsflash: a bridge was just a bridge. No ghosts, no spirits, no fucking Headless Horseman. I’d take the quicker route back to the house by jogging over the bridge everyone was so worried about.
I had no idea why I was so aggravated by it all, but I was. Today I had it up to my neck with the Sleepy Hollow shit, so I was going to walk over the bridge just to prove everyone wrong and make myself feel a little better about being so judgmental towards the townies. Some people might call it bitchy, but I preferred judgmental.
The bridge everyone was talking about was a boring, nondescript bridge. It was literally just a bridge built of stone archways and wooden railings. In the olden days it used to be a dirt road that went over it, but now it was meant for cars, though each side of it had two extra feet for a sidewalk area.
My feet stopped me just at the base of the bridge. Behind me, the majority of Sleepy Hollow sat, its shops and its houses all black and closed in for the night. Ahead of me was mainly just darkness, the only thing lighting the way the moon. If I didn’t spend my summers here growing up, I might’ve thought it creepy, but I knew my way around the town better than I wanted to admit.
When I was younger, my dad had a small shack just outside of town. Nothing like the huge, gothic house he had now. He had little money, worked odd jobs to make ends meet. He was constantly going on and on about whatever new thing he was doing experiments on. One time he even set the living room on fire.
Fucking seances. Trying to talk to the dead. It had meant nothing to me when I was younger, but now that I was older there was nothing redeeming about any aspect of my dad, besides that he loved me. His love for me was it. The rest of him? Coocoo for Cocoa Puffs.
I heaved a sigh, telling myself to stop thinking about the past. It was in the past, no changing it now. What was done was done. My dad was dead, and apparently whatever he was working on—something about ghosts—was worth trying to steal. Maybe Bones was right. Maybe I should burn it all, then there’d be nothing for anyone to break in and take.
It would be something to figure out tomorrow, I decided. Tonight, I was going to walk over this damned bridge, go back to the house, eat, and sleep. That’s it.
My fingers curled around the plastic handles, and I threw a look over my shoulder. No one was around. It was late, a school night, I think. Not a single car on the road. All in all, it was eerie. Or perhaps I was letting this town’s superstitious nature rub off on me.
I headed to the center of the road, figuring, why not walk across the bridge like a badass? Ghosts? What ghosts? There weren’t such things as ghosts, and this bridge was just a hunk of premodern construction. What was so special about it being midnight, anyway? What was it about midnight that got everyone’s panties in a twist?
I was about to find out.
By the time I walked to the bridge from the convenience store, it had to have been near midnight. My feet drew me towards the bridge, taking my first official step off the road and onto the wooden floorboards that made up the bridge’s flat top. Step by step, I kept going, feeling rightly proud of myself, considering all I was doing was walking across a bridge. As if it took some kind of special skill.
It didn’t. Anyone and their brother could walk across a bridge, but it took someone from Sleepy Hollow some real guts to do it at midnight.
I was just about to laugh at myself, and at this town for making me feel the faintest trace of unease about walking across a bridge, but the moment I reached the middle of the bridge, the temperature of the air around me changed. Instantly dropped at least fifteen degrees, filling my arms with goosebumps.
Eyebrows furrowing, I glanced down at my arms, noticing the way each and every hair on them stuck straight up, like I’d walked into an electrical field. The hair on the nape of my neck prickled, and I blinked, not having any reasonable explanation for this.
Turning my head up, I took another step forward, but the moment I did, it was like I hit a wall, even though there was nothing in front of me. And then—then the craziest thing happened. The world of midnight turned into day, dark became light, stunning me into silence.
My eyes scanned the area. There was no sun overhead, and when I looked upward, I saw only an off-white haze. The colors of the bridge, of the grass and the water below the bridge—nothing was right. Everything was wrong…beside the fact that it should’ve been nighttime, I mean.
Extra wrong. Things were extra wrong around here.
The hue of everything was too saturated, yet there was a cloud of haze, almost as if a web-like substance covered my field of vision. As far as I could tell, I was alone. I hesitated, about to try to walk forward again. This time I was not stopped by an invisible barrier. This time I was able to walk without any problems. This time I heard something behind me.
The sound of hooves hitting
pavement. The loud exhalation of an angry, agonizingly abrupt breath. The low whinny of a horse that sounded both furious and upset.
I froze, my shoulders straightening. This was not happening.
Somehow, before turning around, I already knew what I’d see. In my heart of hearts, I knew exactly who I’d lay eyes on once I spun towards the horse. As I turned, my breath caught in my throat, the air in my lungs turning toxic as I stared at the black horse with burning red eyes. It stood just off the bridge, not far from where I was, twenty feet, tops, nibbling on its bit, pawing at the pavement over and over, waiting for its rider to give the signal.
And its rider…
Its rider was the stuff of nightmares, or urban legends revolving around Sleepy Hollow, technically. Big, wide, like a fucking linebacker, but all muscle instead of pudgy beefiness, wearing all black, an old and torn uniform…and just as headless as the tales said.
The Headless Horseman.
The Headless fucking Horseman.
“Shit,” I muttered, taking a step back. My heart beat wildly in my chest, threatening to burst out and run away as if it had two feet of its own. This was not real. This wasn’t happening. This was some sort of hysterical hallucination. Was the water contaminated here? Was it something in the air?
This…this just couldn’t be real. I refused to believe it.
Still, even though my mind would not compute, I knew I had to get out of there, especially when I saw his chest heave. How the hell did someone without a head breathe? Not something to wonder about right now. The Headless Horseman extended his left arm, and a shimmery, two-sided ax appeared out of nowhere, its blade red and incorporeal, almost like it struggled to maintain its existence.
I didn’t stop to think about whether he was going to attack me. Or throw it at me. Or do whatever it was the Headless Horseman did. In the blink of an eye, I turned around, just as he started to lift the ax.
I was not alone with the Headless Horseman.
Behind me, suddenly and strangely, another figure stood. This one was a woman. Less than two feet from me, her hair was nearly as long as her entire body, floating in the air and defying gravity itself. Her flesh was pale, almost see-through, and her eyes…they were all white. No irises, no pupils. Nothing at all but balls of white. In a swift, flash of movement she lifted her arms and bared her teeth, showing me she didn’t have the typical human bite. Nope.
Her teeth were like knives. Dozens of teeny, tiny knives that I bet hurt like a bitch sinking into skin.
The woman, who wore a shredded white dress, appeared to be both out of her time and out of her mind. She let out a scream, and my ears instantly ached in pain. I stumbled back, tripping on one of the floorboards of the bridge, landing on my ass.
The very moment I tripped and fell, I stumbled back into the real world, my vividly real hallucination nowhere to be seen. My vision took a few seconds to come back to me, the world around me black. As I blinked, I felt tears well up, and I hurriedly wiped them away and onto my jeans.
My bag had spilled open, its contents sitting on the wood beside me. The sky was black and full of silence, no haze, no off-white color. No woman before me with long, flowing hair and crazy teeth—I threw a look over my shoulder, just to be sure—and no Headless Horseman and his demonic steed behind me.
I was alone once more. Alone and utterly terrified.
As I hurried to shove all of my things back in the bags, I felt my chest. My heart refused to slow down, and my blood pressure felt like it was through the roof. I wasn’t one to make things up, but that felt so real, not imaginary at all.
I hurried back to the house, locking the door, breathing hard, for some reason. I went into the living room, setting the bags on the coffee table, plopping myself on the couch. It was an uncomfortable thing, full of springs and a few stains that were questionable, but my mind was elsewhere.
On what I saw.
On what I felt.
I saw the Headless Horseman. He was real. He had to be. Either that, or I was losing it just like my dad did. I would say it was this place, but I spent months here every year growing up. Bones and I got into some wild shit, playing in the cemeteries and all that. Not once did I ever hallucinate.
Granted, I never walked over the bridge at midnight, but…
Damn it. Listen to me, talking about that bridge like it was some gateway to…what did Crane call it? The otherworld? Screw that. I didn’t believe in any of this. What just happened was…I didn’t know how to describe it; all I knew was that I wasn’t hungry anymore, and my eagerness to go through my dad’s stuff was gone.
I needed to sleep this off. I needed…well as much as I hated to admit it, I needed to talk to Crane.
That would be a job for tomorrow, I decided, getting up and heading to the stairs. I went into my old room and got ready for bed. I crawled in the sheets, expecting to smell dust on them, but they smelled clean, as if someone had washed them not too long ago. Like someone had expected me. Creepy.
I flopped onto my side, staring at the wall. The comforter was up to my chin, completely covering my body up to my shoulders and neck. I closed my eyes, wishing I’d wake up in the morning and all of this would be some sick, bizarre dream. No Headless Horseman. No bridge. No Sleepy Hollow.
It was a useless wish, and my dreams—once I actually fell asleep—were spent lost in a haze, off-white field, running from something I couldn’t see. Even my dreams in Sleepy Hollow were messed up. As I woke up the next morning, light streaming through the window, I knew one thing.
I had to leave this town as soon as possible.
Chapter Four
I waited until ten the next morning to head to the police station. I knew I had his number, but I didn’t feel like calling it. I had no idea where Irving Crane lived, but I figured as a local, Bones would. The problem would be to convince Bones to tell me the address, hence why I thought going to see him in person would be better than texting or calling.
I made sure to look nice, doll myself up a bit. I applied a bit of makeup, mostly eyeliner and mascara, and ran my fingers through my auburn hair to undo the knots. Tight jeans, too. Couldn’t forget those. Jeans so skin-tight they could make any man do what you wanted him to.
Sleepy Hollow during the day was livelier than it was at night. There were actual cars on the road, people walking on the sidewalks—and of course, it was like they all had to stop whatever it was they were doing and stare at me, mouths agape. They all knew my dad died, so it wasn’t a surprise I was here. They really should’ve expected me, since I was the only family Dad had left.
I did my best to ignore them as I went into the police station. It was a small building that only had about ten squad cars. There wasn’t much crime in Sleepy Hollow, mostly because everyone here knew each other—except for break-ins that apparently ghosts were responsible for.
After what happened to me last night, that explanation was beginning to sound a bit less outlandish, I had to admit.
An older woman sat at the reception desk, her silver hair twisted in a low bun. Her eyes flicked up behind thin-rimmed glasses, and she immediately brightened when she saw me. “You’re Phil’s girl, Katrina,” she said, giving me a warm, wrinkled smile.
“Kat,” I corrected her. I refused to be called Katrina ever since I learned who my dad had me named after.
“I’m so sorry to hear about Phil,” she went on. “When will the ceremony be?”
“I haven’t spoken to his lawyer yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll let the town know.” My dad, for his strange antics and weird experiments, was loved in the town, I guess. Weird. But then again, practically everyone here believed the legends. I…after last night, I wasn’t sure what to believe.
The woman nodded, sympathetic. “What can I do for you today, Kat?”
“I was hoping to talk to one of the officers,” I said, glancing behind the reception desk. The desk sat in front of a wall of windows, allowing you to see the station’s desks behind it, where the off
icers that were not out on the streets sat and did their research or their investigating. Whatever it was cops did when they weren’t pulling you over for speeding. I didn’t see Bones.
“Do you need to file a police report?” the woman asked, trying to be helpful.
I shook my head. “No, I need to talk to one officer specifically. Brom Brunt.” Brom Brunt. You can see why he liked to be called Bones. It was better than the name he was given, that’s for sure.
Suddenly the look on the old woman’s face changed, and the smile she gave me made me think she had the wrong idea about why I wanted to see him. “Ooh, sure, sure. Go on back. I’ll make a note that you’re here for the log. He should be in the office somewhere, unless he slipped out the back door.” The woman let out a girlish giggle as she jotted something down on the piece of paper where visitors were meant to sign in.
I really wanted to tell her that I wasn’t here for that reason, but I didn’t, figuring it’d be too much to explain anyway. Heading around the reception desk, I moved to the door that led to the offices, turning my head as I gazed at the cluttered space. The other officers stopped what they were doing, all of them looking at me.
I really hated how everyone in this town knew me. It was why I did my best growing up not to learn anything about them. Bones had been the only friend I’d needed, and Bones was who I needed right now, not any of these other people.
Bones walked out of a side room, carrying a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. A woman was beside him, wearing the same uniform. She had no coffee in her hands, and she was busy looking up at him and laughing, batting her eyes a bit too hard. My jaw clenched, and I resisted my urge to head over there.
I was not jealous; I was…
Okay, maybe a part of me was jealous, mostly because I was sure he’d been flirting with me yesterday. Maybe he wasn’t flirting; maybe that was just Bones trying to be nice. I didn’t know why the thought of him flirting with a pretty coworker riled me up, but it did. Stupid, really, because he wasn’t my boyfriend, and he never would be. This town—I’d have it in my rearview mirror soon enough.
The Cursed Hollow (Return to Sleepy Hollow Book 1) Page 3