by Sara Clancy
Feeling increasingly relaxed, Benton didn’t try to fight the smile crossing his face. He rested one arm on the back of the booth seat and stretched out his legs. It was curious how quickly good overhead lighting and the promise of caffeine could make the world seem right again. And the company didn’t hurt. Nicole was exhausting at times, but she had a way of making him feel normal. Like being a banshee and all the baggage that went with it was just a personality quirk.
“What?” Nicole said, her lips quickly pulling into an answering smile.
“It’s still weird to think of myself as a banshee, you know?”
“Not exactly, but I can imagine.” She leaned forward again even though it wasn’t likely that many people would be trying to overhear their conversation. “Are you sure neither of your parents are banshees?”
“I haven’t asked them.”
Her eyes widened with far more surprise than he personally thought warranted.
“Come on, Nic, it’s not something that you can easily work into a conversation. And besides, I know they’re not. Neither of them can see Oliver. Or have my nightmares. And they’re both always so surprised whenever a dead body turns up. Which in itself is weird, since it happens a lot.”
“Not that often.” She couldn’t even get through the whole sentence before she lost complete faith in the statement. “How have your dreams been going? It doesn’t look like you’ve slept much.”
Benton rubbed a hand over the slope of his jaw and brushed his knuckles against his slightly pointed chin.
“You haven’t been sleeping, have you?” she pressed.
“I haven’t felt like killing anyone lately.” He raised a hand to cut her off, “I know I’m not. But it doesn’t stop it from feeling that way.”
The memory of last night’s dream broke through into the forefront of his mind and he could almost feel the hot blood on his hands again. He kept rubbing them together until the sensation faded. Nicole didn’t know what to say to that, so she sat silently, waiting for him to give her some sign of where he wanted the conversation to venture to. For all of her empathy, he knew she would never really know what it was like to be forced under someone else’s skin, have them flood all of her senses, and force you to do the most horrific, bloody things one could ever imagine.
But the silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable and he wasn’t in any hurry to disrupt it. Sinking back into his seat, Benton looked out of the window and watched as a group of teenagers headed out into the night. He recognized them from his high school classes and, while he had tried his best to ignore just about every living person around him, he could place a name to all of them. It was a natural talent. As soon as he had the connecting name and face, he never forgot it.
They seemed happy, their constant conversations overlapping each other’s as they lingered just outside, no one eager to head towards their car. As he watched them, Benton tried to imagine what it would be like to be in that group. But, no matter how attractive the idea of being accepted on a more massive scale was, it seemed like a lot of work. All he really wanted was to be back playing midnight catch with Nicole. It had been fun while it lasted.
Rick came back to the table and dropped the different items on the table, deliberately being as loud as possible and throwing a few elbows. It drew Benton’s attention and he had just started to turn when he noticed it. One of the shadows within the group didn’t belong. It was deeper than it had any right to be, dark enough to block his view of the others behind it. Benton focused his full attention back onto the cluster of teens, searching once more for the dark shadow that he had seen.
Nicole noticed his shift immediately and looked out the window as well. “What is it?”
“Not again,” Rick groaned with loud dramatics. “Who did you piss off this time?”
“Go away, Rick,” Benton snapped as something sick but familiar settled within his bones.
Not moving a muscle, Rick began to protest the dismissal with a bit of colorful language, and for once, Nicole didn’t seem to have any intention to correct or soothe him. He could feel her watching him as his eyes drifted over the parking lot. No matter how many hiding places he searched, he couldn’t find it, but he knew it was there. Death. He had seen it before and it always felt the same, looked the same. Like a shadow, impossibly dark, and solid in the middle, even as its edges evaporated like drifting smoke. Indefinable, bone white smudges replaced its hands or face. They never had definition, but he knew exactly where they were looking nonetheless.
“Benton?” It was a rhetorical question, just a gentle reminder that she was there and waiting for some kind of response. When his only response was to press himself closer to the glass, she said his name again.
His eyes shifted to her, then to Rick, who was still around at the end of the booth. Rick had placed both hands on the table and was leaning in as much as possible, joining their search even though he had no idea what they were searching for.
Meeting her eyes again, Benton spoke calmly, “I thought I saw an old friend.”
He willed with every ounce of his mental strength for her to catch on. There was no need for such effort. Nicole was instantly on the same page. How she had sorted it out from all the other things that Benton could have been talking about, he would never know. But she had and forced a fake but brilliant smile on her face.
“Maybe we should go say hi,” she said without a hint of concern seeping into her voice. “Who did you see your friend with?”
Benton turned back to the window. The group had started to disperse. It only took a moment to see it again. Death was silently following a trio of girls. They were heading towards their car, completely unaware of the specter drifting behind them, never touching the ground, never moving but still leaving a trail of curling smoke drifting behind it. The flock of girls splintered as they moved towards the doors.
“Kimberly Bear Head,” he snapped.
Both of them lunged out of the booth, startling Rick enough to make him yelp, and raced the short distance to the front door. He let Nicole take the lead. She prided herself on being friends with everyone in town. Benton hadn’t had any contact with Kimberly, so there wasn’t really a non-creepy way for him to coax her into his car.
“Kimmy,” Nicole beamed as she jogged out into the parking lot.
The lot was small, making it impossible to grab one person’s attention without getting everyone else’s as well. Nicole didn’t hesitate. Using her positivity like a shield, she headed over to the young woman with a confident stride.
“Hi, can I talk to you for a second?”
Benton remembered a moment later that Nicole was horrible at lying. If she had some wiggle room, she could bend the truth with some degree of success, but all of her straight out lies were accompanied with obvious unease. However, he wasn’t in any position to help her now. Trusting that she could figure it out, Benton kept his eyes on Death. It still lingered behind Kimberly’s shoulder, close enough to touch, but its attention wasn’t upon her any more. Any structure its face might have had was smeared beyond any recognition, and he knew that it was now watching him.
He slowed his pace and moved slightly to the side, but its eyes followed. And, while Benton could sense its presence and his insides twisted up with it, he couldn’t feel any threat from it. He had expected it to be frustrated or enraged by the interruption of its harvest. Its curiosity caught him completely off guard and played on his nerves. Swallowing heavily, he chanced a glance to Nicole and froze when he noticed Rick out of the corner of his eyes.
“So where is this guy?”
Nicole hesitated for a moment but, like the pageant girl she undoubtedly was, her smile remained untouched and pristine.
“What guy?” Kimberly said.
She had taken one step closer but was still near enough to the car to get in before anyone could stop her.
“Apparently, Benny-boy thought he saw a friend of his hanging out with you. And, well, come on, I can’t pass up a ch
ance to see what kind of weirdo would actually like him.”
“I like him,” Nicole defended on a knee-jerk reaction before remembering what they were actually doing. She took another few steps towards Kimberly. “Can I talk to you for a second? It’s private.”
Benton was caught off guard when someone actually addressed him, asking where his friend was. Death crept back, only an inch, its attention still locked onto Benton. Everything seemed to fade back, his world narrowed entirely on the ghostly figure. Then it turned its head as if glancing down the road. Benton looked but couldn’t see what it was looking at. He could hear it though.
Thunder rolled in the distance and rushed towards them in a ferocious growl that consumed the sky. It rumbled just above their heads as if the atmosphere itself had shattered, but Benton was the only one to cringe away. Vaguely aware of his audience, he turned back to Death. It had moved back to Kimberly, the dark cloud of its body rising up to slowly encase her. He took a staggered step towards her, remembering a second later that no one else could see what he did. The grim reaper was coiling around her and she’d never realize it. Not until it was too late.
Nicole startled him, as she rested her hand against his arm. He whirled around to her, eyes wide as another clap of thunder swelled towards them. But, before he could think of a single thing to say, a way that he might be able to tell anyone around him what was going on without sounding like a lunatic, a new sound dominated the other noises. The sound of pounding hooves ascended as a monstrous roar. Within moments, it was loud enough to drown out all the other sounds around him and rattle within his chest.
He watched as Nicole spoke. Her mouth moved, but her words were lost under the crashing noise that split painfully within his skull. The resounding clash of the metal horseshoes against stone made him stagger towards the road. There was no real reason for him to bother with a façade. He had already built a decent reputation of doing weird things, and Nicole was more than capable of distracting the others. So he focused his attention on the land that Death was looking at.
The highway stretched out in each direction, a straight narrow path that was swallowed up by the night before it reached the horizon. Across the strip of pavement, there was a groove that ran the length of the town, a small stream nestled at its bottom. Beyond that, there was only the consuming darkness of the untouched grassland. It was from those dark recesses that he first saw it.
His chest heaved as he watched the blanket of nothingness shift like someone had thrown a rock into a lake of ebony ink. As the wave of air rolled out, the complete nothingness was disrupted by a burning patch of flame. Then another. The twin eyes blazed, growing steadily larger. It took him a second to realize they weren’t getting bigger, but instead were barreling towards them. The fires sparked and spewed embers into the air. A new blast followed every resounding crash of the invisible horse that was bearing down upon them. Benton staggered back, one hand blindly reaching out for Nicole, his eyes never leaving the patches of fire.
Her slender fingers wrapped around his palm. Warm and solid, they served as his only tether to reality as the veil, separating the real world from the world of his mind, crumbled like broken stone. She squeezed, hard enough to make him turn to her. But her words were still hidden under the whine and grunt of the charging beast. His own fear was mirrored back within her eyes. Too shocked to think of anything to say, Benton turned back to face what was coming for them.
A startled cry escaped him as he dropped to the ground. The massive beast of the horse was closer than he had thought. It leaped over his head, the fire clinging to its hooves scorching his skin as it passed an inch from his face. Rolling onto his stomach, he meant to push himself up instantly, but his limbs froze as he caught his first real look at the animal. The horse was a towering, massive creature with muscles strung over old and tattered bone. Both were exposed as its skin, rotted and frail like parchment paper, pulled taut over its body. Fire crackled within the gaping sockets of its eyes and glowed through the gaps of its exposed teeth. Cages made from human finger bones swung from its saddle and draped from its harness. Each one was filled with a hunk of flesh, all in different states of decay, barely recognizable as internal organs.
But it was the rider that kept Benton frozen in place. Blackened slabs of flesh, sewn together by what appeared to be long tufts of human hair, served as his clothes. The weeping chunks draped from his colossal, towering form. Bones were latched together to create an armored chest plate, while others were latched to his boots. They clacked softly against each other as it moved. A human spinal cord served as his whip and he thrashed it with every step he took. Benton’s breath turned into a choked whimper when his gaze lifted enough to see. The rider didn’t have a head.
Black mucus of rancid blood bubbled up from the severed remains of its neck and spewed down its body in chunky trails. Bile rose within Benton’s throat at the sight, urged on by the repulsive stench of bad blood and decaying flesh. Beyond it, Benton saw that Death had cocooned Kimberly in a thick, shifting pillar of smoke. Benton couldn’t see within the shroud but the headless man could. It stalked towards her without a moment of hesitation. Every few steps, as if spurred on by anticipation, it would crack its spinal whip. The resulting sound was ear-splitting, a twisted sound that blended the crack of leather and a shatter of bones.
Benton’s feet slipped over the loose gavel under him as he hurriedly tried to get up. Vaguely, he was aware of Nicole casting him an odd look, trying to steal glances while she kept everyone else’s attention locked onto her. But it took too much effort to put one foot in front of the other for him to try and calm her. A few people staggered back from his broken lurch. He noticed their odd looks, but if they were speaking to him, he didn’t hear a word.
The horseman reached the swirling, black mass that now covered Kimberly. The white disk that served as Death’s face rolled up from the depths to meet it. For a moment, the two entities glared at each other, a being with no eyes and a monstrosity with no head. Their clash allowed Benton the time he needed to shake off the crippling layer of shock and finally get his feet firmly under him again. In a staggered lurch, he rushed towards Kimberly, hands outstretched as if he could pluck her from the predators that were posed to sink their teeth in and tear her apart.
He was still a few feet away when the headless man thrust his hand deep into the black mass of Death’s form. It splattered back, like traces of oil meeting water. Peeling aside, it revealed Kimberly to the horseman. Benton caught a glimpse of her expression. She had no idea what was swirling around her.
A disembodied voice echoed to him from all around him at once. It rose out of the gusting wind itself, the ghastly whispers combining and bleeding together to create words.
“Kimberly Bear Head.”
Kimberly’s back jerked at the sound of her name being spoken by the disembodied voice. Her body became rigid. Her eyes grew wide. And for one alarming moment, Benton knew that she saw the horseman. No one else did. Just them. Benton tottered forward, but the movement was pathetic. Fear swelled his throat shut, while his head started to spin. It didn’t seem to matter how many steps he took towards her, or how fast he took them, he was always too far away.
A sudden crack of crimson lightning severed the sky. It crackled down like a living creature and split her in two. Electricity charged the air, forcing it out in a blast of static charge that prickled at Benton’s skin. He winced, teeth gnashing against the sensation. When he forced his eyes back open, the world had lost its color. Everything was muted and dulled into shades of black and dirty gray.
But not Kimberly.
Light sparked and clashed around her in vibrant swells, as if her life was gushing from her wound like crackling livewires. The headless man didn’t hesitate to reach into the burning cavity of Kimberly’s now open torso. One sharp twist of his mammoth wrist was all it took. When the horseman pulled his hand free, Kimberly’s heart fluttered within his palm. Exposed to the air, the organ didn’t j
ust blaze with color. It vibrated. The sensation slammed against Benton until he could feel each pulse, each squeeze. It poked against his sides, rattled against his ribs, and swept over his skin like heated air. And the pulse was starting to slow.
Benton’s useless feet finally brought him within reach of the creature. He didn’t know what he could do, but his lungs burned with the violent need to release the sound raging within his chest. He opened his mouth and the horseman spun around. Even without a face, the force of its gaze rattled Benton to his core. It hollowed him out, ripping him apart until only icy fear remained. He knew, without question or hesitation that the headless monster was looking at him. That it saw him. That it knew what he was.
With Kimberly’s heart still in one hand, the horseman struck out with the other. The bones of the spinal cord rattled together as the whip lashed forward. The hard bones cracked against the side of Benton’s skull. His teeth rattled from the sheer impact. An agonizing explosion of pain blurred his vision as he crumbled to the ground. For an instant, he felt the gravel as he hit the turf, but it was soon lost as he stumbled into darkness. Nicole’s scream followed him into his dreams.
Chapter 3
Nicole’s hands trembled as she paced around the nurse’s station, her footsteps still audible under the dim bustling sounds of the hospital. Her knees ached from her time spent kneeling on the gravel beside Benton’s unconscious body. It had felt like hours before the ambulance arrived, although it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes, given that only a few blocks separated any two points in Fort Wayward. She had spent the whole time with one hand pressed against his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall, needing the reassurance that he was still alive.
Kimberly had been declared dead at the scene, leaving a thousand questions with a distinct lack of answers. At first, everyone who had witnessed the death had flooded to the hospital, cramming themselves into the tiny waiting room, their numbers only growing as more people heard about what had happened. But, after the police had interviewed everyone who had been present, and the doctors still hadn’t released any information, it became clear that they weren’t going to learn anything new. With that, the numbers had begun to dwindle. When it was after midnight, only Nicole and Benton’s parents remained.
