by Jeff Strand
And—what a stroke of luck!—there were the horses. They no longer had a coach to pull, and he could certainly ride them to safety.
Of course, everybody knows that riding a horse is not as easy as simply jumping upon its back and requesting a destination. It is also important to remember that Nathan was only seven years old, and thus rather short. So though he picked the smaller of the two horses, Nathan struggled and struggled but couldn’t climb up onto the animal.
“You stupid horse, let me up there!” he said (something he would later regret, for the horse’s height was not its fault). He desperately tried to imagine himself as a taller person, but that did no good. There was no time to seek out a ladder. No time to seek out a trampoline. No time to seek advice from a cowboy.
“I’ll have your head!”
Nathan glanced back over his shoulder. Steamspell, who was so badly burnt that Nathan would not have recognized him if he had not witnessed the actual burning process, lurched out of the theatre, arms extended.
Nathan grabbed the horse’s tail and, with a sudden burst of strength brought on by desperately not wanting Steamspell to murder him, pulled himself up. He scooted to the center of the horse’s back and tugged on its mane. “Yah!” he shouted.
The horse did not move.
“Yah!” he repeated, tugging even harder.
“It’s all over for you!” shouted Mongrel, also emerging from the theatre. Kleft was right behind him, holding a revolver.
How could the horse not realize the urgency of the situation? Three different men were trying to kill him! Nathan dug his feet into the horse’s sides. “Go, go, go!”
“Shoot him!” said Mongrel.
Kleft extended the revolver and took aim. Nathan had a brief, odd moment where he worried more that Kleft might accidentally shoot the horse. Then, as the bullet nicked his ear, he decided that it was equally valid to focus on the hope that his own body would not get hit.
It goes without saying that when Kleft fired the revolver, he did not have Nathan’s best interests in mind. He wasn’t necessarily trying to shoot him in the back of the head, but nor was he aiming the gun in such a way that shooting Nathan in the back of the head was entirely out of the question. In fact, had his arm not quivered just a bit, it’s safe to assume that he would indeed have shot him there, and Nathan almost certainly would not have survived the experience of the back of his skull being pierced and possibly shattered by a bullet, and the tale of Fangboy would have come to a premature, unsatisfying conclusion. He would never have become a legend. He merely would have been a minor footnote in the saga of mankind: the boy with odd teeth who got shot in the head.
But what Kleft did not anticipate is that though his gunshot had the negative impact of making Nathan’s ear hurt, it also startled the horse, causing the stallion to run.
Nathan raced away, thinking how pleasant it would be if Mongrel, Kleft, and Steamspell all decided to cut their losses and not pursue him.
Though it would be unkind to reveal the secrets of this tale to those reading it, it spoils nothing to say that Mongrel, Kleft, and Steamspell did not decide to cut their losses.
NINETEEN
Nathan decided to name his horse Lightning Bolt of Supersonic Speed. Its nickname would be Pursuer Evader. Other horses would hopefully know it as The Stallion Who Effortlessly Saved Nathan Pepper.
“Faster, please,” said Nathan, tugging on the horse’s mane. “Much, much faster!”
He didn’t look back to see what his enemies were doing. He feared that if he did, he might wet himself, and he was having a difficult enough time staying on the horse without the extra lubrication.
The horse galloped down the path. Cars sped past, but the drivers and their passengers seemed more concerned with fleeing the inferno than trying to kill Nathan, which he appreciated.
Many, many thoughts went through Nathan’s mind as he rode down the path, thoughts that one would normally express in all capital letters, italics, and perhaps even boldface. But he kept himself focused. All he had to do was hold on to the horse and he’d be free.
He stopped focusing for a moment as he realized that there was now a car on each side of him. The car to the right contained a very-burnt Steamspell, while the car to the left contained an unburnt but nevertheless irate Mongrel and Kleft.
“Leave me alone!” Nathan shouted.
Kleft was driving, allowing Mongrel to lean out the window. “We shall not!”
“Your theatre is gone! There’s nowhere to perform! Just let me go!”
“You’ll still perform the show…in hell!”
“Then you’d have to go to hell yourself to see the performance! Find something else to do!”
Nathan realized that Mongrel was pointing a gun at him. He fired six bullets, one after the other, but his aim was abysmal due to a combination of the bumpy road and his blind fury, and none of the bullets successfully punctured their target.
“Quit shooting at me!” Nathan shouted.
“We’ll do no such thing!”
Nathan wanted to explain that he’d spent several days in jail merely for biting another child on the arm, an infraction that was much less serious than shooting a little boy off a horse. From a strict “not spending the rest of their lives in prison” scenario, it made much more sense for Mongrel and Kleft to turn their car around and let him go.
Mongrel began to reload.
Nathan looked over at Steamspell. His hair and clothes were still billowing. He’d rolled down the windows to let the smoke escape.
Nathan pressed himself down against the horse as tightly as he could, and whispered into its ear. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me so far. You’ve been outstanding; I’ve no complaints. And I don’t know if you understand me, but if you do, when I give the signal I ask that you leap into the air as high as you can.”
Mongrel finished reloading the gun, and pointed it at Nathan again.
Nathan tugged on the horse’s mane. “Jump! Leap high into the air!”
Did the horse understand his words? Did it somehow sense his command? Or did it simply feel like jumping at that particular moment? The answer to this will be forever unknown, but the horse leapt into the air, higher than perhaps any horse had ever leapt, and Nathan let out a victorious cheer as they soared through the air, almost as if they were flying.
The bullet sailed directly underneath the mighty steed.
Through Steamspell’s open window.
Past his nose.
And harmlessly out the other window.
Mongrel fired a second shot, but this one was wildly off target and wouldn’t have hit Nathan or the horse even if they hadn’t been in majestic flight.
Though the bullet did not strike Bernard Steamspell, the jumping horse incident did cause him to recall his youth. As a young boy, he’d wanted nothing more than a horse of his own. He’d ridden branches and broomsticks and anything he could find that was remotely horse-shaped, and he’d make the appropriate neighs and whinnies, and he’d pretend that his horse—Thunder—could leap all the way over the sun. But his parents would never buy him a horse. The closest he ever came was when his uncle said “Hey, Bernard, guess what Fido is eating?” So as he watched the horse, his eyes filled with tears at these long-dormant memories, and he felt almost as if he were riding the steed along with Nathan, both of them shouting happily, urging their horse on to greater and greater heights.
And, thus, he was not paying attention to the road.
Had he driven off the left side of the road, he would have crashed into some trees and perhaps lost a limb or two. Not an optimal scenario for him, but something he would have survived and from which his screams of terror and agony would have eventually subsided. Unfortunately, going off the right side of the road involved a much steeper incline. He cried out, said a terrible, terrible word, and then plummeted over the side of the hill, striking the rocky bottom with such impact that the vehicle was crushed all around him.
Were a
ny physicians present, they would have been astounded to see the vast number of body parts it is possible to smash, pierce, twist, remove, and otherwise destroy while remaining very much alive and conscious. Even the most reckless gambler would not have bet upon Steamspell receiving injury to so many different places without dying instantly. Those less experienced with medical matters might even have expressed surprise by how many parts were available to mutilate.
The pain was not insignificant.
As a reminder to those who set this tale aside and returned much later without full memory of the incidents that transpired before, Bernard Steamspell had been burnt head to toe, meaning that his plethora of injuries, which would have been excruciating even on healthy skin, hurt even more.
He would have screamed, had the parts of his body necessary to scream been functioning, or even attached.
His grandmother had always told him that in times of extreme stress, he should imagine a peaceful ocean with waves lapping upon the beach. He tried this, but instead of water the imaginary ocean was filled with acid. Laughing demon faces floated on the surface, their voices mimicking the sounds of those he’d loved and lost. Their giggling grew louder, louder, louder as a spike-laden whirlpool formed, sucking him down into a vortex of serpents and pitchforks.
He returned to reality and cursed his grandmother. Such a foul crone!
The pain grew even worse as some spilled fuel leaked upon him.
The pain grew exponentially worse as his still-smoking hair ignited the fuel.
If you asked most professionals how long a human being could survive a full-body burn, they’d think about it for a bit and then ask why you wanted to know. When pressed, they’d give you an incorrect answer while surreptitiously checking to see if you were in possession of matches. But even the most optimistic estimate would not have come close to the thirty-six days that Bernard Steamspell spent mangled and aflame in that car.
Every day, he prayed that he would starve to death. And every day, the former orphan who lived at the bottom of the hill provided him with a glass of water and a crust of bread, just enough to sustain his life.
Steamspell did not have a last will and testament, nor did he have any living family members. So ownership of his orphanage empire was determined by a grueling race, where ten participants raced across untamed territory for nearly a week to reach the finish line. The winner was to receive Steamspell’s vast fortune, while the losers received death by hanging.
Though Tyler Rothenwurt won the race by committing acts of which he would never speak, not even to his wife, he was a kindly orphanage owner, and the children all loved him and flourished under his care, going on to live long, happy lives. The downside was that most great accomplishments are borne of resentment, and had Steamspell remained in charge, a certain Clovis Hart would have discovered the cure for the common cold as well as a means of healing broken bones in half the time. Instead, he settled for a life of blissful mediocrity.
Elsewhere, Mongrel fired again, the bullet missing Nathan’s head by barely an inch.
“Please stop doing that!” Nathan shouted. “I’m sorry your theatre is no more!”
Mongrel shot and missed again. This had to be embarrassing for him.
“Can’t we bargain?” Nathan asked.
“You’d have to do eighteen shows a day, seven days a week, for fifty years to make up for the damage you’ve done!”
Nathan considered the offer. Then he remembered that he’d burned down the theatre in an effort to get out of doing a mere one show. “No deal!”
“I wasn’t offering you a deal! I was explaining how a deal is impractical, you little fool!”
Nathan felt a bit sheepish. Then Mongrel fired more bullets, missing with every shot and emptying his gun, and he didn’t feel so bad.
“That’s it!” shouted Mongrel. “I have become so frustrated that my own safety has stopped being important!” He grabbed hold of the steering wheel and twisted it to the right.
“I still care about my safety!” Kleft said in protest, but it was too late.
The art of the Unreliable Narrator is a tricky one. When the narrator has specifically said that a noble horse will survive, is it wrong to later reveal that the horse did not? Would this sever the bonds of trust between the storyteller and the reader, or would it perhaps strengthen them, causing the reader to realize that this is a tale without a safety net, where anything could happen, where perhaps even Nathan himself might perish with dozens of pages remaining?
Most likely the reader would hurl the book against the wall in anger and never purchase another tale from anybody associated with its telling.
Once again the horse leapt into the air, as if it had wings.
Mongrel and Kleft’s car swerved underneath the mighty stallion.
And then it landed upon the roof.
Nathan could not hear what the men beneath him were screaming, but it seemed to be variants on “There’s a horse on the roof of our car!” The horse’s hooves had left a very deep dent, which may or may not have been near one of their heads, so it was also possible that they were screaming about that.
As the horse leapt off, the car plummeted off the side of the road.
Mongrel and Kleft were not as villainous as Steamspell, and did not suffer so horrific a fate. Which is not to say that things did not work out badly for them. The car landed at the bottom of the hill, bounced thrice, and came to a stop. Kleft, shaken but mostly unharmed, peered out the window.
“Does that look like quicksand to you?” he asked.
“It does,” said Mongrel.
Their slow descent offered plenty of time to share their feelings and discuss where they’d gone wrong in life. It is safe to say that if they’d been rescued, they would have emerged from the quicksand as better people. Instead, their improved personalities were to be forever submerged in the muck.
Nathan, of course, knew none of these things, and assumed that his enemies were merely unconscious at the bottom of the hill, awaiting arrest.
He was free!
He could return home to Penny and Mary!
He could see Jamison again if he hadn’t died yet!
For the first time since being dragged off to jail, Nathan felt as if things might be working out in his favor.
Except that the horse wouldn’t stop.
“Whoa, boy,” he said. “We should turn around. Home is the other way.”
The horse continued to gallop straight ahead.
He tugged on its mane. “Let’s turn around. When we get home I’ll give you carrots and I’ll brush you every day and we’ll get you a proper saddle. Such fun we will have!”
The horse continued to gallop straight ahead.
“I don’t think you’re understanding me. There’s nothing for us this way. In the opposite direction, now that’s where good things await. I’ll bet that Penny and Mary love horses. How can you not love a horse? Please turn around.”
The horse continued to gallop straight ahead.
“Argh,” said Nathan.
Jumping off the horse seemed like a good way to break a leg, and breaking a leg seemed like a good way to starve to death all alone, so Nathan decided to stay put until the horse got tired. Before too long, the stress of the evening overpowered him, and Nathan wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck and went to sleep.
When he woke up, the horse was still running and it was daytime. He wasn’t sure if it had run all night, or if he’d slept through its resting period.
“Please turn around,” he said, nudging it on the sides with his feet.
The horse continued to gallop straight ahead.
It ran throughout the day, galloping across fields, through two different forests, and through a town where all of the residents thought he was kidding when he shouted “Stop the horse! Stop the horse!”
He fell asleep again.
When he woke up, it was completely dark out and the rotten horse was still running.
“At l
east let me stop to get something to eat!” he begged.
Again he considered just jumping off, but if he wasted this much time only to end up breaking his leg anyway, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to bear it. The horse had to stop eventually. He’d just force himself to stay awake, no matter what.
Night became morning.
He grudgingly admitted that he had to admire the horse’s unwavering dedication to running in that particular direction. It was certainly not a wishy-washy creature.
Morning became late morning, which became early afternoon, which became afternoon, which became late afternoon.
He wished he had something with which to club the horse over the head.
Late afternoon became early evening which became evening which became late evening which became night.
Nathan fell asleep.
When he awoke, it was daylight and the horse had stopped running.
TWENTY
It was very cold.
In fact, Nathan was surrounded by ice and snow. There was nothing but blinding white as far as he could see, except for what appeared to be a seal off in the distance. A brutal wind tore through him like frozen daggers whose tips had been dipped in liquid nitrogen.
He wanted to jump off the horse, but he could barely move. His hands were frozen to the horse’s mane. Using every bit of strength he could summon, he leaned to the side until he finally fell off the horse, landing in a patch of snow.
The horse turned around and ran off.
Nathan got to his feet and looked around in a complete circle. Was he at the North Pole? He wasn’t even sure which direction he’d come from, since the snow had covered up the horse’s tracks.
This felt like exactly the kind of circumstance that merited a lengthy, primal scream.
He let one out and felt better.
His teeth were chattering and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to feel his tongue if he bit it, so he tried to be careful. He wasn’t dressed for this kind of weather at all.
