It was happening. She saw Quinn again clearly now-actually felt him in her head-as he fell to the ground after the Horseman went up in flames. It was like it had been before in the hotel room as they made love, only stronger. She knew everything in Quinn’s head-and more. So much more.
She could see Kyle approaching and knew his plans. She could see his thoughts, his past, even where he had been hiding since his “death.” She knew it all.
Just a moment ago, she had been scared, nervous. Now that was gone. The night felt alive around her. She could feel the wind whipping the branches, the snakes on the trees, the worms in the earth. She felt everything.
There was nothing that could harm them anymore. She felt the power in her like a fire. Sadness, anxiety and doubt had been burned away. Kate started laughing and it was a joyous and awful sound at the same time. It was the laugh of someone who had seen the darkness and been consumed by it.
She saw in her mind as Kyle walked toward Quinn with the knife. She wasn’t worried.
(Send him to me.) Kate said in her mind, and she felt the answer hundreds of feet away. She barely needed to bother. Quinn wasn’t Quinn anymore, but her second half: the second part of the Prince of Sanheim.
Kate turned and walked steadily back down the hill.
Kyle expected his knife to go cleanly into Quinn’s neck. It was considerably quicker than he would have liked to be, but he had only 40 minutes left before Halloween was technically over. This whole process was taking more time than it should have. After Quinn had disappeared into the woods, Kyle had lost his trail momentarily before he heard Quinn shouting. He really must have driven the guy crazy. He needed to finish this, find Kate, and move on.
But Quinn moved faster than Kyle thought possible. Quinn stopped the blow and held Kyle’s wrist in his hand without looking up.
When Quinn did look at him, he wished he hadn’t. Kyle looked down into a face he barely recognized. Quinn’s eyes glowed a deep red and there was nothing in them that indicated fear. Or anything at all.
Startled, Kyle tried to free his wrist, but found he could not.
“Am I scaring you?” Quinn said, and the voice wasn’t right either. It was both lower and higher than it should have been. It sounded like the voices of several people talking out of one mouth.
Kyle let the knife drop. Quinn released him and smiled.
Kyle’s mind reeled for a minute.
“What the hell is happening?” he asked.
Quinn’s smile turned into a grin.
“I thought you would have figured that out,” Quinn said, still in that strange voice. “You heard it so clearly with all your eavesdropping.”
“No,” Kyle said. “That stuff was shit. You are nuts.”
But Kyle faltered. Something had come up behind Quinn-a huge black horse whose mouth looked like it was dripping blood.
“Holy fuck,” he said out loud.
Quinn did not turn, even as the horse’s head hung over his shoulder.
“You know, I told Kate recently that our fears do not define us,” Quinn said. “I said it was what you do with your fear that matters. I was wrong. We are what we fear. Or what we fear is us.”
“This isn’t happening,” Kyle said, but he took two steps backward. “This is a trick. You dressed up that horse.”
“It’s just a ghost story, Kyle,” Quinn said. “Only this time it’s Bromm who loses.”
Kyle took another step back. He did not even pause to pick up his knife.
Quinn was changing. For him, it was as it had been in the dream-that brief moment when everything was suddenly right with the world. He was no longer afraid. He didn’t need to be. All the dark places of the world were open to him now. The horse-the horse that had only moments ago terrified him-was calling to him. Quinn knew who he was; what he was.
Before Kyle’s eyes, Quinn began to change form. His image seemed to shudder in the moonlight and transform. Kyle was forced to look away.
“This is a trick,” he said again, but even he didn’t believe it anymore.
When he looked back, Quinn no longer stood in front of him. He had been replaced by another figure, a man in a black fraying uniform. A man with no head.
“Impossible,” Kyle said under his breath.
He kept backing up and nearly tripped over his own feet.
Slowly the Headless Horseman moved to the horse and swung into the saddle. He unsheathed a sword from the scabbard at his side and held it aloft, letting the moonlight reflect off it. There was a terrible ringing in Kyle’s ears. The horse reared back as the rider swung his sword in the air.
The image stayed burned in Kyle’s mind as he turned to run. He could already hear the sound of hooves behind him.
The Headless Horseman was riding again.
“Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this,” Kyle said, fleeing down the hill he had tracked Quinn up just a few minutes before. He nearly lost his footing three times, but stayed moving. He ran through the trees with all of his might, pushing branches out of his way.
He didn’t know what was going on or what had happened. One minute Quinn was kneeling on the ground, just Quinn. The next? He didn’t know. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.
He arrived at the bottom of the hill and looked back. In the moonlight at the top of the hill, he could see the Headless Horseman. Kyle heard a deep laugh that felt like it rippled across the landscape.
For the first time, it occurred to Kyle that he might die. He took off running again, hearing the crash of trees as the Horseman began to descend the hill.
Kyle ignored the bridge, running to where he had parked his car earlier in the evening. If he could make it there…
The laugh followed him and seemed to echo everywhere. But Kyle never stopped running.
He raced down the road and looked behind him. The Horseman came down the hill at a full gallop, his sword slicing through branches along the way.
Kyle saw his car ahead and frantically tried to pull his keys from his pocket. But he had trouble grabbing them and he felt terribly slow.
He could hear the Horseman gaining on him with every step.
I’m not going to make it, he thought.
Kyle wrestled the keys from his pocket and signaled to unlock the car door.
As the Horseman closed the distance between them, Kyle threw open the driver’s side door and jumped inside. He started the car and threw it into reverse, pushing it as fast as he could.
The Horseman was almost to the car.
“Shit,” Kyle said again.
He backed up, trying simultaneously to keep an eye on the rearview mirror so he could see behind him, and look in front to where the Horseman was gaining.
He could not keep driving like this. If he did, he would crash into a ditch and be stuck on foot. Kyle slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel, trying to turn the car around as fast as possible.
The Horseman kept coming and vaulted over the car. Kyle strained his neck even as he shifted into drive to try and see where it was.
When he brought the car forward, he saw the Horseman facing him on the road.
Kyle fought to hold down his panic. The man astride the horse looked more like a decaying corpse than a person, his rotted uniform on and a tattered cloak cast out behind him. As Kyle watched, the Horseman pointed his sword in the car’s direction.
Figuring it was his only chance, Kyle floored the accelerator. Cars can run over horses and besides, there was no other place to go.
The horse stood there, Kyle waiting for the inevitable collision or to see the horse move out of the way. At the last minute, the Horse jumped again, easily moving out of the car’s path.
Kyle pressed the accelerator down and the car lurched forward faster. He would just have to pick up enough speed to outpace the thing.
How far was it to the highway? He cursed the dirt road he was on. He needed to get real speed, but the traction was keeping the car going only 45 miles an hour.