(Short)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sATpdHgxhP8

The sound of Samuel's flint struck a stifled echo into the fog surrounding the nearby carriage.  Thick, the fog was thick. It had fallen like a sick blanket with the setting of the sun and now chilled the roadways in an eerie, autumn embrace.

“Mother of Christ.”

Samuel cursed as his numbing fingers fumbled with the stone, rushing to get the lantern re-lit before choking on the claustrophobia that came hand in hand with weather like this.

“Everything alright Samuel?”

His evening customer had poked her head out to check over the fuss. Josephine, she had said her name was - coming from town after an evening dinner and happy to pay four pence for the quick ride home.

“Everything’s alright madam, pay me no mind.” Women like her only ever seemed to frequent parties when bachelors had been brought to attention.

“Would you please hurry then sir, my Father will be just riddled with worry.”

Something told Samuel it wasn’t just the Father that harbored worry. He could hear the anxiety fluttering within Josephine’s cadence and after landing a spark onto the oil dampened wick, he caught the sound of his own heartbeat dancing away behind nervous ribs. This fog, it even made the crows uncomfortable.

“Not to worry miss. We’re all set here. Minor inconvenience.”

She turned her nose a little at his prattling reassurance and brought her head back behind the carriage window. Samuel could hear her friends snickering from behind the curtain as she did so and his desire to be done with this multiplied considerably.

“Stuck up prudes,” he thought to himself, “I should have charged four pence a dress.”

He brought a firm whip onto the cobblestones beside his own pair of girls, Darla and Juniper. They were his livelihood, and considering their more than tender treatment, practically his wives. No respectable Woman had ever considered Samuel a plausible suitor and after enough shallow attempts coupled with browned flowers and a dirty handkerchief, he appreciated their company as a much more adequate means of making it through the following week. Besides, horses were cheaper than wives - both for the purse and the temperament.

Just then the carriage bumped a loose stone and Darla gave out a strained whinny between rhythmic hoof-steps.

“Oh don’t worry sweetheart, just a small bump my girl.”

He could hear a snide giggle from one of the ladies and the muffled bite of a coinciding insult.

Samuel tucked his chin and brought the whip for another crack. He long suspected there were rumors among the townsfolk about him and his horses. His girls, he always called them. And only last week he had heard the whispered gossip between a trio of older hens as he was paying a clerk for horse-feed.

“How much time do you expect he spends in that stable?”

“Far too much for simple pleasantries.”

“Good lord, imagine the smell.”

 

“Gaggling chickens,” Samuel muttered.

“A lot of things I might be but horse-fiddler I am not.”

He made very careful with his tone so as not to alert the passengers inside. Despite his efforts, he could hear hoots of laughter and the calloused snort of a woman trying too hard to breathe through too fat a nose. Grumbling, he cracked the whip again and resorted to inaudible curses.

This fog, the best thing to do was to finish the ride in silence, bruised ego or otherwise. He had a stew waiting over his hearth and with these four pence enough to secure next week’s lodging at the local tavern. Twenty-eight pounds the inn-keep charged him, to store the horses, a nightly meal, morning breakfast and a well-kept room. It wasn’t much, but more often than not he was comfortable and despite the local harassment, relatively happy.

Before long he brought his attention back to the murk; it was invasive, it pervaded one’s focus and distracted from the sudden bends that appeared from nothing behind a camouflaged drape. These roads weren’t typically treacherous, in all his years Samuel had experienced no worse than the odd broken wheel, but none the less images of his beloved horses catapulting into oblivion forced him to draw the reigns, slowing a gallop into a cantor. The girls shook their heads as the bit tucked into their cheeks.

“Hush now sweethearts, almost there.”

He had been gradually directing his carriage out of town and by now had entered the wooded bluffs that speckled the country road. During summer it was a beautiful stretch - heavenly foliage and daylight’s fingers, bulrushes and cattails, thrushes and woodpeckers. This night the road had lost all of its healthy allure. Barren trees reached as skeletons from outside the lamplight and distant owl calls pierced an otherwise moonless sky.

Shivering, Samuel brought his shoulders to his ears and felt the goosebumps raise on his forearms. There was a thin film of sweat coating the potbelly hanging over his waistband and despite the chill, he found himself panting from within his patchy overcoat.

“Almost there darlings”, he huffed.

There was something about the air this night, it had a tension, a palpable sense of stress. It had Samuel on edge from the moment the sun went down and seemed to linger around the stagecoach and beneath his clothes. Before long he found himself wondering if the horses could feel it, likely not, they were beautiful beasts but clairvoyance was hardly their strong suit. As if in response Juniper brought her head for a nod.

Juniper had always been his favorite, a cream draft with the appetite to match and a consistently tranquil temperament. Samuel found himself watching her ears for reassurance - if Juniper was calm then he had every reason to follow suit.

There was nothing in her gait that gave any real cause for concern, nothing unusual at least, but that ax overhead sensation continued to gnaw at Samuel’s nerves.

“You feel that June?”

(Break)

Upon hearing her name the horse brought her head around to look. She was a clever horse, and Samuel never felt it appropriate to give her nor Darla blinds.

“Too cruel,” he always thought, "they had every right to see where they were going."

Just then the road straightened before a shoddy wooden bridge.

In the daylight the faded red paint had always been a welcomed sight, its gentle border of soft grass and faded timber had always marked a well deserved deliverance from the village behind him, but now, on this night, the hanging rafters and loose nails brought fresh pictures of hooves falling beneath floorboards and the sickening snap of bone before the splitting of a horse-scream.

The idea ladled Samuel’s guts.

“Not my girls,” he thought as he brought the horses to a near stop.

The bridge seemed longer than it had prior, tunnel stretched and bleak, with hanging moss dangling through the mist. Its gape sent another chill down Samuel’s spine.

“Samuel, if you would please sir”, Josephine’s annoyed face had reappeared from behind Samuel’s shoulder, “it’s nearly midnight.”

Usually Samuel prided himself over his patience, but not in this fog and not before this bridge. He opened his mouth to placate her and nearly jumped from his skeleton at the words that left it.

“Ma’am, if you don’t return that scowl to it’s seat it’ll be the damned whip for you.”

Samuel couldn’t believe his ears, he had never in his life spoken to a woman like this.

“Excuse me? Do you have any idea who I am sir?” The carriage door swung open and a laced foot took the first step before the road.

“I don’t give a Father’s f**k who you think you are. I am not taking that bridge.” It was as if another Man had climbed into Samuel’s bones and had brought with him the hangman’s rage, “one more step madam and I’ll have the meat from your back.”

Samuel felt as if he had become a tiny voice watching the heat rise from within his own chest - as if he could feel something bubble from within his belly but could not control the outburst.

He could hear the shocked gasps from inside the carriage and the terrified whispers of women unaccustomed to this sort of violent talk.

Behind him the bridge creaked.

“How f*****g dare you.”

Josephine's face was contorting as she stepped from the carriage - eyebrows twisting into narrow sabers and eyes sparkling with that twinkle of hate that rarely graced the pupils of people in these parts. Her shoulders had come up into hackles, her hands fell threateningly beside her hips and she flexed her gloved fingers like the claws of a cornered alley-cat. He could hear the others whine as they asked her to return to her seat.

“Come back Jo.”

“It’s not like you to curse.”

Something had come over the both of them - something alien and unusual, something animal and something visceral. From the carriage head the horses whinnied, neighed and scratched anxious hooves against the bridge’s gravel welcome mat.

Samuel felt cold air lift his locks as he leapt from his seat towards Josephine. Again, he heard himself as a tiny voice pleading against his own silhouette. It was as if he was watching himself move, towing against limbs and begging his fist as it raised itself slowly behind his head.

The whip took a snake’s tail as it flashed towards cream colored tresses and the sound it made brought a crawl to Samuel’s skin.

It was a snap, a snap coupled with the beat of wet laundry.

The instant the lash landed the horses reared, took off and galloped in horror, vanishing into the bridge’s tunnel and carrying the coach and passengers with them.

Red was now coating Josephine’s face, a scarlet cleft ran the length from ear to chin and as a snarl twisted her already twisted expression, she took a feline lunge towards Samuel and his waiting whip. As she moved, a soft, hollow laugh took form from within the surrounding trees; it had a vengeful, venereal tone and seemed to be crawling from the bridge’s mouth.

Neither Samuel nor Josephine could hear it, nor would it have mattered if they could. In a flash Josephine locked with Samuel’s squat, round shape and otherworldly violence broke between the pair. Fingernails made a home in an eye socket, knuckles planted in ribs and somehow the whip found itself around Samuel’s neck. Her movements were jerky and imperceptibly fast - blood had soaked into the lace of the dress’s bodice and a cataract cloud had taken hold in her eye.

“F*****g B*****d!”

The words fell from Josephine’s lips but they were not her own.

“B*****D!”

“How dare you! How Dare You! HOW DARE YOU!”

Samuel’s boots kicked and his lips purpled - his remaining eye bulged and his hands flailed.

The inaudible laughter grew stronger.

            “HOW F*****G DARE YOU!”

“HOW COULD YOU?!”

Josephine’s screaming hit a pitch that only cats, dogs and the dead could hear, and in a feat of strength that did not match her stature, she hit a jerk and twisted Samuel’s head directly from its shoulders. As it rolled from the road and into the adjacent ditch, the laughter rose into the ravings of a mad-woman’s crescendo.

 

And Josephine took off into the fog.

Author's Note

Not my best work.

Reviews

[Shep]

I enjoyed reading this. Loved the length of it too. the images the smells the laughter was un surreal. It was if I was actually there on those same streets on the carriage ride. Nicely done.

[Ookpik]

Hey thanks again, was a sleepy hollow/Halloween attempt and as before I appreciate your time

- Ook