Water Horse
I’ve never been the light-footed-sort. I’m built like a cow, and not the bull kind. My father was the first to originally suggest that particular idea, once comparing me to Mama’s prize pregnant heifer. Mama had grown silent then, lips twisted into a chapped scowl under a weathered, somewhat sparse pepper mustache. We’d gone to be early that night, Charlotte ‘n me. We hadn’t slept well of course- the bed was too hard, the beatings on my Mama too loud.
But if there was one reason I wished I wasn’t as portly as I was, it was because I absolutely loathed the way may very weight tried to drown me with every step into that damned marsh. Everything about it repulsed me. The heavy, rich tang of peat in the air, the deathly silence of the expansive field, the sucking of the mud on my soaked leather shoes, I hated it all. The only reason I was there that day was because of Charlotte.
For every ounce I hated the moor, Charlotte loved it. And if you had known my sister, you would’ve known how persistent she could be. And really, who could say no? She was as portly as I was, and for the moment, it served her well. At only 6, her chub was still subtle and attractive, as soft as silk and as red as rose petals. The blue of her eyes outshone her less attractive features, shoving aside the worse end of our family curse, the infamous buckteeth perched on top of her full bottom lip. Her hair, up now in two matching black braids, bounced around frantically somewhere in front of me, their single conjoined flamboyant crimson ribbon screaming her location to me wherever she went.
“Charlotte?” I faltered, left foot almost entirely enveloped in gray muck, right precariously teetering on a bloated, beached log.
“Jackie, I didn’t know we had horses! Oh hurry up, you’ll miss it!”
“That’s because we don’t,” I grumbled, huffing on another waft of putrid air as I wheezed up the slippery incline. I couldn’t see her familiar splash of crimson anymore, but as long as she kept yelling at me, I wasn’t particularly worried. She’d probably already flounced over the hill and onto her inevitable swampy paradise.
“Hurry up!” She trilled again.
By the time I’d cleared the hill, my throat was burning, my calves throbbed, and I was fairly certain I had at least three pounds of mud in my shoes. Charlotte had no such troubles, though past her Cheshire grin, I could see peat on her dimpled chin and a new grass stain on her elephantine smocked knees. She pranced around my gasping form, obviously thrilled with her new “discovery.”
“Charlotte… I can tell you… r-right... now, there’s no hor-“
“HE’S RIGHT THERE.”
“Oh..!” With that, the air whistled out of my lungs for a final time and my chest stilled momentarily.
Bright as day, there was a horse. Not a particularly attractive horse, but still a horse.
“Well… damn.” I swallowed. “I thought you made it up.”
“You would!” Charlotte snorted, smirk broad on her angelic face.
“Kind of ugly, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
The two of us were silent for the moment, just watching. It was down in the meadow, tucked serenely in the strip of steady ground between the moor and marsh. Ugly wasn’t exactly the right word- it had a beautiful grace about it. It just wasn’t exactly what you’d initially consider a horse. Out of the corner of your eye, one could have confused it for something distinctly predatorial. Upon close inspection, it was once again just a disproportionate horse.
Awkward lengthy legs fluently parted the marshy grass, weaving through the slippery foliage as efficiently as a steamship in the fog. The way it held it’s powerful chest was something entirely unfamiliar, withers rolling more like a cat’s than anything else. It’s milky neck was too long for the body; it drooped almost willow like, dipping it’s head gracefully from time to time into the peat. When it raised its head, the mud-stained gray lips were slender and narrow on a long, graceful delicate head. The mane was long and tangled, a thousand weeds and stems knotted into dozens of intricate, dripping mats.
Our silence went on for about a full minute, at which point Charlotte lost patience. She spun wildly on her heels to face me, braids slapping her back and wool skirt momentarily flying up, startling me out of the dead silence.
“He looks lonely. I’m gonna’ try to pet ‘im,” she grinned, revealing rows of ivory baby teeth and a few sporadic gaps.
“What?! No, Charlotte, wait!” Too late. Either in ignorance or in deliberation, she was off like a shot, shamelessly bounding downhill. I watched wide eyed and alarmed where I was for a moment, then propelled myself down after her. The horse stayed where it stood as we slowed and stopped, resting and wheezing about ten feet away from the dratted thing.
Up close, it was a lot less impressive. It’s size was trickery in it’s self- in my haste I’d automatically judged it as huge. Closer, it stood at about the size of a well-fed pony. Gray shadows highlighted the solemn yellow eyes, fading to white and darkening to black multiple times in a grayscale patchwork quilt of flesh and hide. It’s slender nostrils flared once, twice, as Charlotte edged closer, hand outstretched like she was hunting for cobwebs. Apparently deciding she was taking too long, it huffed violently and stuffed his flaring nose into her tiny wandering pudgy hand.
“He likes me!” She crooned, downright levitating in delight. “C’mon, pet him! He likes it!”
Tentatively, I stretched out my own corresponding palm, tracing it across faintly steaming withers. The hair was certainly curious in it’s self- it bristled and flared around my hand, raising and fluctuating like the bottom of a starfish. Each individual thread felt thick and sticky, as stubborn and unbending as wire. With a frown, I plucked three of them in rapid succession. The muscles rolled under my palm while I investigated my prizes, catching the hyper-aware eye of my baby sister.
“Did you just pluck his hair? Stop it! You’ll startle him, and I wanna’ try to ride ‘im!”
“Charlie, hold on,” I began, too late again as she scrambled awkwardly over it’s low-slung sloping back. Giving up, I turned back to my prizes, absentmindedly winding my free fingers through it’s matted mane. A slight putrid, rotting odor was created with the movement, but I ignored it.
The ends of the hairs were unique. So fine there were almost invisible, a tiny barb sat snugly on each strand.
“Jack, do you see me?! I’m on it! I’m riding it!”
“Charlotte, you should see these hairs,” I replied, not looking up. “They’re weird. They look like little fishing hooks.”
“You’re weird. Jack, does this feel weird to you?” Her tone wavered a bit, but I continued staring into my palm, scrutinizing the purpose of the two things.
“’Not even sharp, not really, ‘just kinda like the tendrils on carnivorous plants, you know? The ones that just grab and hold you down, like the flytraps?”
“Jack!”
“WHAT? I snapped, glancing up furiously.
“Jack, your hand!” Attention fully caught, my head snapped to attention, gaze lingering a second before I could digest what I was seeing.
“And my… l-legs…” Charlotte whimpered once, miniscule in volume and nearly inaudible. Looking at our skin, it was like the horse’s very hide was slowly ensnaring us, hairs and black horse flesh alike twisting in unnatural patterns and oozing to mold between fingers and flesh. Charlotte’s legs were almost entirely ensnared, as well the two sweaty hands she’d stuffed into the pony’s mane. The mane it’s self was viciously knotted through and around her fingers, the thick mats of hair as impenetrable as any solid wall. As I watched, her pale, fleshy fingers began to turn a maroon, then a deep purple. Her circulation dwindled and died in her hand as I watched, leaving her hands limp on a questing quilt of snake-like silver hairs.
Tugging at my hand resulted in an earsplitting shriek as cables of pain snaked throughout my arm. The blood in my captive hand felt icy, barely leaving me any sense of motion through the throbbing pain, but my palm felt fresh and raw, bloody anew each time a too-determined razor-like blade of hair scraped away another scrap of flesh. Charlotte whimpered again above me.
A steady stream of warm liquid dwindled gradually down her leg, urine stinging on my captive hand, and down onto the pony’s hide, glinting amber in the early-morning first rays of sunlight. It shimmered for a second, then dispersed, absorbed by the hide.
The horse tossed it’s head, twisting the long neck to look me almost dead level in the eyes. Gone was the gaze I’d thought so solemn. The eyes were alight now, glassy ochre yellow and as slanted and as exotic as a frogs’.
“J-Jackkkk! D-Do something!” Charlotte caterwauled, voice found but trembling and broken. The sound cracked through the air like a bullwhip and the horse snorted, throwing back the long predatorial head. And then it began to move. The motion was like nothing I’d ever felt before. The ground shattered under my feet- or was it my feet on the ground?- knees kissing the ground and shredding into tender strips. Each step was a silent avalanche, exploding with power and force.
Charlotte wailed above me, the sound resonating across the moors in terror. My hand dove for my pocket sloppily, body flouncing and sliding like a doll’s across mud and rock. When I finally had the penknife in my palm, I nearly dropped it again, fingers too slick with sweat. Furiously, I propelled the blade into my captive wrist, crying out at first from the white flash of pain. Underneath my trapped, now crimson-coated hand, I could feel muscles gliding and swinging, back and forth in time with the pony’s steps.
Blindly, I continued to hack at my hand, oblivious to my sister’s screams and the blood streaming down my ashen hand through a through a veil of tears. I was serrating flesh when my limp knees left the cold marsh and my Charlotte’s scream hit my ear again, followed shortly after by a cold blast.
Hitting the water was almost a relief. The frigid water slowed everything and erased the pain to almost nothing. Everything seemed to just lie still as time stopped, our actions suspended in water like a gruesome ballet. A cloud of red encircled us like a single massive aura, following and weaving through the dark with us like a veil.
The monster looked back at me when I started grating on ivory. I barely recognized it in my state of blood loss and terror- the flesh was green and hallow, the bones sharp and gaunt. Gone were the equine lips. Rows of shard-like teeth sat embedded in black gums, a pointed purple tongue regularly cutting it’s self over the sharp points. The slender nostrils were sealed tight and flat, leaving a near seamless expanse of gaunt skin up to the two massive amphibious eyes, glowing a faint, luminous green in the blue muck and mess.
With a final, desperate rip and an explosion of air bubbles, I was helplessly drifting away, watching as my baby sister watched me on the back of a devil horse. Her braids cast two loose, wispy shadows over her shoulders, her bow winking at me one last time before sinking into the deep.
When I emerged gasping on the soggy peat, the sun was still glorious, the sky now an endless azure blue. I collapsed into unconsciousness with only a stump and a story to tell.
Submitted to Pseudopod (R) on 1/21/2012.
