Brom road his stallion down the dirt road
leading out of Tarrytown. His horse sped through the night, passing trees that
looked like skeletal hands in the light of the moon. He recalled stories his
friends spoke of earlier around the fire in the Van Tassel estate, stories where
these trees would take on a life of their own, where the dead crept through the
shadows on the outskirts of town, where the ghosts of fallen soldiers beckoned
for blood, all during the witching hours of the night. These tales made grown
men cry mere hours ago, leaving him to question their manhood. They were weak,
they were fools, but most of all they weren’t Brom.
He was a beast in stature, standing
six-foot three, with the chiseled features of a statue. His brown hair
accentuated his baby blue eyes, yet he was never mistaken for a man of a soft
nature. The muscular frame he wore and brute force he demonstrated on a daily
basis saw to that. There was no question why Mayor Van Tassel had elected Brom
the town vanguard. He was strong, he was able-bodied, and he was the one intended to marry the beautiful Katrina. Not
Ichabod. The lanky and superstitious schoolmaster thought he’d make an attempt
for Katrina’s hand, it was obvious with how attentive he was to her every word.
Leaning in to touch her knee, hanging on each syllable she spoke, didn’t the
annoying peasant know that women aren’t meant to be heard, but rather placed
upon a mantle like a conquest? In fact, if it hadn’t been for Ichabod’s clumsy
flirtations at the party, Brom wouldn’t be riding so hard after him now.
Coming to a crossroads, the man had to stop for a moment and listen to
the night. Complete darkness was kept at bay by splinters of moonlight creeping
through the branches and grey clouds overhead. The smell of rain bled into
Brom’s nose, hinting that the clouds carried a downpour for later in the
evening. Patting the horse, he relaxed its breathing so he could make out which
direction Ichabod had gone. There was no way he was going to lose that scrawny
excuse of a man, not after his desecration of Brom’s betrothed.
An eerie silence fell upon the area,
interrupted only by the chirp of a cricket. Brom’s horse circled atop the loose
dirt, causing a small cloud of dust to build. His eyes penetrated it for a
moment, and suddenly Brom found himself seeing things in the forest. No, not
things, men. But they seemed less than that. Their features were dressed for
the grave, their mannerisms, mindless. One in particular stood out, drawing
Brom’s attention to the object dangling from its mouth. Could it be a wild hare which the man chewed upon? Would the liquid dripping from his mouth be
blood? Was the animal still alive?
Unsettled, Brom shook these thoughts away. His task was Ichabod, and besides,
the dust had dissipated; now nothing appeared where he was just looking.
The faint sound of hooves made Brom break
for the right, nudging his horse forward and taking off like a cannonball. The
cape he wore tugged at his neck, making him rethink the whole costume idea only
for a second. Yes, he wanted to scare Ichabod, and he could’ve easily done that
without the aid of theatrics, but somehow the idea of making Ichabod believe
the fabled Horseman rose from the depths of Hell to claim his head was too good
to dismiss.
The Horseman. What was so scary about a
decapitated man riding nightly in search of a head to replace his? To Brom,
there was no reason to be afraid. He didn’t buy into the story. If it could
bleed, it could die. After that, The Almighty takes care of the rest. There
were no such things as ghosts, goblins, or horsemen of the headless variety.
It’s all just men and their imaginations, as he experienced only a moment ago.
But Ichabod seemed to think differently, hence why Brom was now clad as the
ghostly rider.
His horse continued its charge as a figure
appeared in the distance. He kicked at its sides, spurring it to run faster.
Ichabod was in his sights and he wouldn’t let him get away. The horse lunged
forward, suddenly propelled by an unnatural force. Brom’s cape bellowed wildly
in the wind with the new burst of speed, but it got caught on a lone tree
branch, yanking it from his person. Was
it a branch, Brom thought, or a boney
claw reaching out for me? He immediately dismissed the idea, he wouldn’t
let his mind be clouded by such nonsense again.
Ichabod couldn’t have been more than
twenty feet ahead now. Brom grinned for a moment at the thought of his actions.
Sure, part of his costume was gone, but they’re both riding too fast to drink
in all the details. Brom was eager to scare the piss out of the poor man. He
didn’t need a cape for that.
Pulling alongside the schoolmaster, Brom
had to prepare himself. He wanted to laugh right now, laugh at how pale the
poor man would turn once he saw a ghost riding beside him. Brom looked to
Ichabod, and as he spoke he found that all together he lost his words. Ichabod
had no head.
His gaze unwavering, Brom realized he
wasn’t looking at the dismembered body of Ichabod Crane, but rather the ghostly
form his friends had described earlier in their tale of the Headless Horseman.
He was muscular, tall in stature even with having his head severed, and he wore
the bloody war garments of years gone by. The unsettling part of looking at
this man -a man? Or the Devil on
horseback?- wasn’t that he possessed no head, but rather that even with
missing this important part of the human body it still seemed he was looking
back at Brom.
A flash of metal and Brom realized he was
on the ground. He blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming and went
to collect his bearings. He tried to move his hands, he tried to push himself
upward, but found that he couldn’t feel his arms at all. It was at this moment
Brom saw the Horseman ride off in the distance, followed by his own horse…with his
own body still riding along. A dreadful revelation took hold of Brom’s mind,
but only for a moment. You see, a head can only stay alive so long once it’s
been removed from the body…
The
End
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