Chapter 2
The colors were muted. Watercolor washed, but not dark.
Esmie looked around at the world on the other side of the cemetery wall, and she saw mostly what she expected to see—trees and grass and a parking lot, buildings beyond, a lone empty car—except for the colors.
It was supposed to be after midnight with the moon playing hide-and-seek with the skittish clouds, but—
“You can let go now. We’re through.”
She blinked. That didn’t sound at all like the hollow, skulls-falling-down-a-well voice from before.
Deep, yes, but not… dead. Surprised, she cranked her head around to stare at the horseman, then almost fell off the damn horse in further surprise, which caused the horse to shy, almost knocking her off again.
The Horseman had no fucking head.
“Whoa, there.” The voice came from nowhere. “Are you okay?”
No head, and no flaming jack o’lantern. Just a hacked-off neck where the head should be, a stomach-turning cross-section of the neck’s anatomy laid bare—though thankfully not bloody—across the top.
“What the fuck?”
“We’re not back to that, are we?” the snarky one complained, settling his horse and not sounding undead, either. He sounded… rich. Smooth. Like Keith David or Tony Todd. Rich and resonant. And very much alive.
She boggled, though she managed to stay on the horse this time. Because, despite sounding alive, Tony Todd didn’t have a head, either. And the body she sat back against no longer felt like a bundle of branches wrapped up in clothes. It felt like a full-on human body.
Except for the fucking head.
She bit back another “what the fuck”, though it was difficult.
The last Horseman fell out of midair into the muted, watercolor scenery she found herself in, turned his horse around once as if to take up some of the forward momentum, then came to a graceful stop.
“All here?” he asked, and he didn’t sound hollow or undead, either.
His voice wasn’t as deep as ol’ Chad’s, nor as rich as.
.. oh, what was his name… Jerome’s, but it was as alive as hers.
Or as alive as she assumed hers still sounded.
She hadn’t exactly been listening to herself as she “what the fuck”-ed.
“She’s back to what the fucking,” Mr. Sassypants informed the newcomer.
“Aw, man.”
“Okay, but seriously,” she said, trying to keep hysteria from crawling up her throat and into her voice, “what the fuck? What is happening? Why are you all so… so different?”
“Oh, okay.” The new headless guy—Aaron? Was she remembering that right? She couldn’t be sure—lifted a hand to where his head should be as if tapping his forehead. “You’re absolutely right, miss. We probably should explain.”
“Fair,” Headless Chad said at her back, his low voice rumbling against her, very much alive except for the fact that he had no mouth with which to form the words and very little throat to hold a voice box. “I suppose we do look different from what you expect.”
“Expect?” she scoffed, deeply and truly weirded out by now. She scrambled ineffectively, trying to scoot off the horse without downright falling off, but she was wedged in too tight. “Let me down. Now!”
“I will,” he said in what was probably supposed to be a soothing manner. “Just let me… just wait a second and let me—stop. Just stop for a second. Please?”
It was the “please” that did the trick. It sounded genuine, and she paused her ever more frantic squirming at the seemingly real concern in the tone. When she stopped moving, he leaned back a little, reached across her body, and hooked his right hand under her left armpit.
“I’m going to lift you down to the right. Just lean to the right as I do so, and I’ll let you down. You won’t even have to lift your left leg. Just let it down as you go.”
She looked back at where his head should be over her shoulder. “What, you have superhuman strength, too?”
“Undead strength, yes.”
“Oh.”
With the wind neatly taken out of her sails, she did as he instructed and leaned to her right as he gently lifted her off the horse and lowered her to the ground.
It was a long way, as the horse was ridiculously tall, but he barely jostled her as he settled her on her feet.
Then, wonder of wonders, he simply let her go.
Of course, she’d already tried to run, and where would she go now? She was in the Between, with a supernatural hurricane portal between her and home.
“Thank you,” she said when she felt less off-balance.
“No problem,” he said, finally letting some of his formality slip. He dismounted, too, though he kept the horse’s reins in hand. “I assume you have questions?”
“Only about a million.” She looked around, then decided to get the first, most important ones out of the way. She looked right at them as the other two dismounted and moved in closer, their horses at their backs. “What are you?”
“Headless Horsemen,” Jerome, the smartass, answered. Unfortunately, he didn’t sound like he was joking this time. “Emphasis on the headless part.”
Aaron sighed. “There’s an explanation, but it’s a long one. Maybe it could wait until we’re back at camp?”
“Where’s camp?” she asked, frowning.
“It changes,” Chad answered, stroking his horse’s nose. “We move around to avoid discovery. We don’t want the other Horseman’s infamy. We just want to be left alone and do our duty as rarely as possible.”
She blinked. “Yeah, I’m gonna need an explanation there.”
“At camp,” Jerome said, sounding put-upon.
“Fine. Whatever.” She grunted. “But why are you human… well… headless, but with human bodies, I guess… here—wherever here is—but you’re like bundles of twigs in the real world?”
“Because we’re nothing but bones there,” Aaron said, fidgeting with his horse’s reins. “Is it gross? I bet it’s gross. We’re really sorry. But the jack o’lantern heads are cool, right?”
“Um.” She thought it prudent not to mention she’d just about peed herself while they’d thrown them around her. “One more thing, and then I guess we can go. Where….” She gestured around the watered-down landscape. “Where are we? The Between, I mean? Where is it?”
Chad sighed. At least it didn’t sound like lonely wind blowing over an empty eye socket now.
“Between, as in between moments. We’re outside of time.
We’re cursed, you see, to never rest, to be ever wakeful for foolhardy souls alone.
To usher them into the Beyond, where they learn forever what lies past time, past the Between.
That’s what happens to people who wander alone and fall upon a Headless Horseman’s sword. ”
She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.
Jerome, on the other hand, snorted. “Well said, Fancy Pants. Putting that history major to good use again. Why don’t you just use real words like the rest of us, dude?”
Aaron tsked. “Forgive them. Chad wanted to retire as a writer and made the mistake of telling us once when he was drunk. Jerome never let him live it down. Even now.”
“That is privileged information,” Jerome said, though he sounded amused.
“And Jerome, as you can probably tell, was in law school.”
But Esmie was still stuck back in the Between, the Beyond, and what happened to those wandering alone. Because she had been wandering alone, and look what had happened. She should have died on a Horseman’s sword. Why hadn’t she?
Because these Horsemen didn’t kill women? Because they were ASP men, frat boys from her own campus? How was that even possible?
At camp, she could hear Jerome say in long-suffering tones.
“Hey, are you okay?” Aaron asked, his voice gentle and considerate.
“No,” she said honestly.
“Oh. I’m—”
“I know.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to say it.”
He subsided, fiddling with his reins again. Jerome tapped his booted foot impatiently. Chad stood still, tall and broad as a football player but apparently a history major. What had he wanted to do with that degree? Teach? What did one do with a master’s degree in history besides teach?
None of her business. Although, she supposed she’d get to know these Headless Horsemen pretty well now that she was trapped in the Between with them. Unless she was allowed to wander around on her own, which sounded as if it was frowned upon.
Forever. The word clanged like a funeral bell in her mind, the resonance aching in her bones. She couldn’t stay here forever. She had plans. She had her mom and a friend who loved her. She had classes and papers to grade and lectures to write and—
Chad held out his hand, and she stepped forward and took it. He helped her back up onto the massive horse, then adjusted around until they both fit into the saddle. It was a squeeze, but they made it.
Without another word, they set off for the camp. Wherever that was.