by Sara Clancy
“What were you thinking?” she asked for some sense of distraction.
“Supernatural Smores.”
Nicole paused, looked at the mobile phone in her hand, and stifled a laugh.
“You’re so high,” she said as she pressed it back to her ear.
He grunted, “We need to consider all options.”
“Okay, well.” Nicole shook her shoulders but couldn’t dislodge the sensation. Slowly, she walked across the space, checking the usual spots people tended to hide their trash. Each thump of her shoes rolled like distant thunder across the wide expanse of the room. “Maybe the first question to tackle is why he was there? I doubt it was just to grab me.”
He mumbled a reply. At the same time the hospital speaker system came to life. It was impossible to make out what was being said on his side, but it was clear by the tone and rhythm that the nurse’s station was trying to page someone. Tapping her finger against the mobile on her ear, Nicole waited for the noise to die down. There was no way she would be able to hear Benton with all that was happening in the background. It felt like years had passed before his side of the line fell quiet again.
“Was that about you?” she asked quickly. “Is someone coming in?”
“Huh?” he grunted. “Oh, no. Dr. Youngman’s dinner just got delivered. The nurses are threatening to eat it if he doesn’t get there soon. I’m still alone.”
“Good,” she said as she once again switched the phone to her other ear. It wasn’t likely that either of their parents would let the call continue if they found out. “I missed what you said before the food announcement.”
“Is it normal that they announce that over the hospital speaker system?” Benton asked with way more consideration than the question required. His voice became slow and lax as he continued. “It seems really weird.”
“No, Dr. Youngman’s always late for dinner.”
“How do you know that?”
“Everybody knows that,” Nicole replied. She pulled her free hand through her hair, sighed deeply, and placed the mobile phone against her ear. “Benton, please focus. What did you say before the announcement?”
Benton tried to put energy behind his words, but he still sounded on the edge of sleep. “It said your name.”
“What?”
“The horseman. It started to say your name. Please tell me you heard that.”
“I think I heard something,” Nicole said. “But then you screamed and I kind of went deaf for a bit.”
“It said Kimberly’s name, too. Right before it ripped her heart out.” Benton’s words sounded sluggish, like he was fighting to keep his thought as he gave voice to it.
“That’s it!”
“It is?”
“Well, it’s a start,” Nicole said with increasing energy. “You can’t really do an internet search for ‘headless horseman’ and get anything useful in response. But ‘headless horseman that kills by saying your name’ is a lot more specific. There can’t be that many legends of something like that. I can find it.”
“And old stories will be helpful?” he said slowly.
The dragging pace of his voice made her smile.
“Legends often talk about the paranormal creature’s weakness, Benton. It worked for the Leanan Sidhe.”
“Right,” he said softly. “Right, right, right. Wait, you shot the Sidhe in the head.”
“Details. The point is, I’m right.” Checking her watch, she quickly continued before he could correct her. “I need to finish up here before mom picks me up. I’ll hit the laptop as soon as I can and you get some sleep.”
“It pushes me out.” The drug haze in his words couldn’t conceal the hints of growing fear.
“I know,” she said gently. “Be careful, okay? Call me as soon as you wake up.”
Benton agreed, but didn’t feel thrilled with the plan.
“Okay, I’m going to hang up now,” she said.
“Wait,” Benton said sharply, startling her into keeping the phone by her ear. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I don’t intend to,” she smiled with warmth.
“You never intend to,” he shot back. “But you always do. And it always backfires.”
“It does not.”
Benton kept talking like she hadn’t said anything. “Just, keep a tight hold on your stupid impulses until I’m around to absorb the worst of the fallout, okay? Do that for me?”
A cold lump of remorse pressed heavily against the pit of her stomach.
“I’m sorry you got hurt, Benton.”
He hushed her. The silence that followed made her heart ache.
“My parents are coming back. I have to go.”
He had hardly finished the sentence before the line went dead and she instantly missed the connection. Without it, the silence crowded in around her like a physical force. Hunching her shoulders against the encroaching cold, Nicole slowly lowered her phone and put it back in her purse. She stroked her hand over the fur, raking her fingers into the soft material and pulling a measure of comfort from the familiar sensation.
A gasp choked her as an unexpected burst of light blazed through the shadows. An instant later, the building was filled with the recorded sound of the charging herd, the phantom hooves crushing the earth as they charged. Nicole’s hands tightened around the straps of her purse as she fixated on the golden hue of light spilling down over the level below. Something had tripped the motion sensor.
The sound of her footsteps died under the clash and thump of the recording as she slowly backed away from the mouth of the staircase. She waited, straining to hear her mother calling for her, or maybe the sound of a stray worker she hadn’t known was still there. Anything that would prove she wasn’t alone. But there was only the buffalo.
Careful not to get too close to the display by her side, Nicole took another step back, staring at the staircase, not daring to blink until her eyes went dry. The track came to its end and was cut off. As quickly as the darkness had been broken, it reformed to consume the museum. Silence rushed back and seemed to blanket the entire earth. Standing in the middle of the wide, empty space, her light-drenched eyes slowly adjusted back to the dimness while she held her breath.
She didn’t want to go down there. And, since the museum had been built into the side of the mountain, she didn’t have to. One more flight of stairs and she could exit out onto the top of the Buffalo Jump. There were dozens of walking paths that led down both sides. It was a steep walk down to the parking lot at the base, but even attempting it in the dark seemed like the better option than waiting for whatever was down there to come up and meet her.
Keeping to the shadows as best she could, Nicole silently moved towards the final staircase. It too was lined with little guide lights; their faint glow just enough to leave her completely exposed the second she set foot onto it. From the base, she could see the exit, but she still hesitated to run for it. Ice encrusted her veins as the metallic click of a lock rattled down towards her. With a soft clack of the latch, the door swung open.
Her heartbeat throbbed with a strength she didn’t know it possessed. She shuddered with every beat of it against her ribs as she nervously edged her feet back. Drums and a chorus of voices broke into existence as light erupted from the exhibit next to her. She whipped around to face the display depicting a scene of family life. A cold sweat broke out on her skin as the lights splashed a shadow across the side of the teepee; a large, broad shouldered, headless man.
Nicole bolted. She almost tripped down the stairs as she pushed herself faster than her feet could move. The gift shop lights were lit brightly before her. The recorded voices filled the space, comforting and terrifying. She had heard the short recording more times than she could ever recall. Still, she couldn’t be certain that one of the multitude of voices hitting her ears wasn’t the voice of the horseman.
Stumbling to a stop, she searched the middle floor in quick glances for any hint of the horseman. She couldn’t hear its mo
vement over the blaring of the stereo system. Couldn’t catch sight of it as she vainly searched every trace of light and shadow. The lighting of the gift shop cast a glow over the distance separating her from the next flight of stairs. Still, the distance felt insurmountable. She was gearing herself up to make the final sprint when the timer ran out and the flaring lights clicked off.
Her ears rung in the presence of the bellowing noise. The only thing she could hear over the piercing sound was her own ragged breathing. She grappled with her purse, yanked it open, and snatched her mobile phone back out. Her fingers fumbled as she hit the speed dial button and pressed the device to her ear. The ring tone repeated in her ear as she hurried into the relative safety of the gift shop, restlessly casting her eyes over everything around her. Finally, the call connected.
“Mom, where are you?”
“What’s wrong?” Dorothy asked instantly.
“It’s here.”
“What is?”
“The horseman,” she whispered.
She eyed the shelves of the gift shop, caught between her desire to run for the stairs and her gnawing need to find a place to hide.
“There is no horseman,” Dorothy said, her voice now carrying a sharp but tired edge.
“Yes, there is,” Nicole said in a hushed voice. “Can you come and get me now, please?”
“You need to stop this right now,” Dorothy quipped back.
“Mom!”
“You need to start thinking about the consequences of your actions. I won’t tolerate you lying to me.”
“Mom!” she raised her voice as loud as she dared. “Someone is going to kill me. You can lecture me later but right now, I need you!”
A booming crash slammed against the top stair behind her and Nicole jolted back with a sudden scream. The sound cut through whatever Dorothy’s next comment was going to be and her mother shifted to repeating her name with a hint of desperation. But Nicole’s attention was focused on the footsteps. They descended towards her, growing ever louder, banging like they should rightfully crack the stone stairs. She didn’t bother to disconnect the call before she shoved the phone back into her purse, leaving her mother’s voice to create a slight buzz in the air.
The resounding footsteps died and she was left grappling for any indication of where it had gone. And any hint of where it was now. No matter how many times she told herself that she had to think, she couldn’t come up with a single idea of what to do next. Run. Hide. Both seemed like equally damning options. Either way, she’d hear its voice. On a split second decision, she broke into a run and sprinted towards the exhibit.
She ran until the sensors picked up on her movement. Noise shattered the silence as lights poured over the area. Standing on the rim of the exhibit, she couldn’t even hear her own panted breath, let alone any whispers. Her momentary sense of safety was destroyed as one of the massive buffalos was flung to the side. The base where it had stood was reduced to splinters as the huge animal hurled across the distance and slammed into the wall.
Protecting her face with both arms, she threw herself back, her feet threatening to slip out from under her with every step. The air itself seemed to hit her, hard enough to shove her cleanly off her feet. The air rushed from her lungs as her back crashed full force against the tiled floor. She managed to curl herself just enough to keep the back of her head from colliding with the floor. With a broken yelp, she instantly forced herself onto her stomach and pushed off like a sprinter.
Even as she fled, the whispering began. The sound crackled along the back of her skull, buzzing in her ears, but unable to compete against the blaring noise from the speakers. No matter how fast she forced her legs to move, she couldn’t escape the earth shaking footsteps that followed. It hunted her down. Pain exploded across her back as something solid struck her.
Thrown off of her feet, Nicole’s momentum slid her over the floor until it dropped out from under her. The sudden plummet made her stomach lurch. Panic rushed through her, promising a scream that the abrupt collision would spurt out from her throat. She crashed into a suspended buffalo with a bone rattling thud. She clawed at the surface. Hunks of the thick buffalo pelted freely as she continued to fall. Her fingers clutched desperately for some kind of support, but it was her leg that found one. She looped her leg around the crooked angle of the buffalo’s right foreleg and jerked to a painful halt.
Her chest wheezing with each breath, she struggled to get her mind to catch up with what had happened. Her fingers burrowed deeper into the buffalo’s pelt until the solid surface met them. Then she clenched. Her fingers vibrated with the force she made them exert, her leg pulsed with sharp pain as she wrapped it tighter, but she still didn’t feel stable. Pressing herself against the side of the colossal animal, Nicole lifted her eyes to seek out how far she had fallen.
The fall hadn’t been as far as her body had suggested, but still, the buffalo she now hung from was fully suspended in the air, leaving the rim of solid ground she had dropped from just out of reach. Nicole steadied herself, bit her lips, and looked down. There was nothing to catch her. There was only a sheer drop to the hard tiles below. Small traces of water marred the surface, making them glisten in the dim display lights below. She instantly squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face against the soft tuffs of the buffalo.
It took an enormous amount of will power to keep herself from looking back down. Instead, she looked up. The wires that held her and the stuffed animal up stretched an insurmountable distance from the ceiling above. She wasn’t sure how much weight it could hold. Tears burned her eyes, blurring the edges of her vision before they ran free. You need to move, she told herself. She had to repeat the command a dozen more times to summon up the courage to actually move.
Every muscle in her hand screamed as she carefully forced herself to let go. She brushed her hand along the side of the animal. Despite all of her efforts and convictions, she was only able to gain a few inches before she surrendered to the need of clutching the fur again. It wasn’t enough. The ledge still seemed a world away. No matter how far she stretched, she couldn’t reach the edge. It glistened tauntingly, beckoning her forward. But there was no way she could reach it without releasing the unrelenting grip her legs had on the buffalo. Bit by bit, she shuffled over until it felt like her hip was about to pop from its joint. She stretched out again until her shoulder joint ached and her fingers shook. For all of her efforts, she was just barely able to brush her fingertips over the edge.
The footsteps came again. She scrambled back along the buffalo, abandoning the edge until she could hook her arms around the buffalo’s thick neck. Step by step, the invisible horseman drew closer. The buffalo shook with every step. The wires that were keeping her from plunging to her death whined with the strain. Nicole tightened her grip until her arms throbbed, every muscle in her body straining until they felt on the edge of tearing. The horseman’s footsteps ended at the rim. All Nicole could do was wait to see what it would do next, but it seemed content to leave her hanging in uncertainty. The sound of the blood rushing through her ears rose to rival even the recorded herd. Still, the familiar sound was clearly distinct. Unmistakable. It was the soft cry of the ‘hunters’ that was at the end of the tape. It was going to cut off soon and she’d be left to silence. And the whispers of the horseman.
With frantic jerks and sharp yanks, she tried to work the strap of the purse free from her shoulders. The task was made all the more difficult since her survival instinct wouldn't allow her to release her grip. Letting go was a desperate measure. Tossing her purse, phone included, felt like she was willingly ready to sacrifice a limb. She could live without an arm, but she couldn’t live with her heart ripped from her chest. Barely able to keep her balance, she clutched the thin chain of the purse and worked it carefully from her shoulders. Tightening her legs and her hand, she steadied herself and forced her hand off of the buffalo. Quickly, she began to swing the purse, building up the momentum. That proved easier than actua
lly letting it go.
She threw the purse at the exhibit and the motion sensor. It should have been a hard enough throw to start it once again and ensure that the recording played again. That the light remained, but more importantly, the noise continued. The bag sailed in a wide smooth arch. Then it stopped.
Caught by its strap, the purse swung wildly in mid-air, as if held up by an unseen hand. It took her a heartbeat of gawking, her gut plummeting to the heels of her feet, before she realized that it wasn’t hovering. The horseman had caught it. It was standing on the edge of the precipice, watching her, holding her last hope in its hand. Her mouth dropped, her heart sunk. Helpless, fear drenched tear-blazed paths down her cheeks. Then the bag dropped.
She watched it as it plunged into the waiting shadows, tumbling over and over, the brass buckle glinting with every flip. It hit the stone floor with a soft, timid thud. It was a completely underwhelming sound for something that could very well signal the end of her life.
“Fight or flight,” she muttered to herself.
The barely whispered words were hollow to her own ears, but she made her burst forward anyway. The buffalo rattled under her as she clambered over it, forcing herself on top of it until she could make a final leap for the edge. Her upper body landed hard against the unforgiving tiles. There was nothing to hold onto, leaving her body weight to drag her back down. Her feet kicked wildly in the empty air as she slipped. The soles of her shoes squeaked and scraped against the smooth wall, desperately looking for even the slightest nook or cranny that could serve as a foothold. But there was nothing, and her efforts made her slip all the more.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she caught a glimpse of shifting lights, a dancing pattern of red and blue. Hope sprang within the hollow cavity of her chest as her nails cracked against the tiles. She had never been so happy to be derelict in her duties when she heard the front door, the one she should have locked at least an hour ago, fling open.
“Mom!”