“I’ve got you, Esmie!” the Horseman shouted in her ear, his arm tightening around her as they sailed through the storm ever closer to that awful distortion. “I won’t let go!”
Did his arm feel more substantial around her? Her senses were too battered to be sure. All she could do was hold on for dear life, for dear unlife, whatever she had now that she was banished to the Between.
If she made it that far.
The swirl and chaos reached its epoch. She felt her seat on the saddle slip. She let go of the saddle horn and held onto the Horseman, trusting in the end that he meant what he said. Hoping.
And then, they fell into darkness.
2
The colors were muted. Watercolor washed, but not dark.
Esmie looked around at the world on the other side of the cemetery wall, and she saw mostly what she expected to see—trees and grass and a parking lot, buildings beyond, a lone empty car—except for the colors. It was supposed to be after midnight with the moon playing hide-and-seek with the skittish clouds, but?—
“You can let go now. We’re through.”
She blinked. That didn’t sound at all like the hollow, skulls-falling-down-a-well voice from before. Deep, yes, but not… dead. Surprised, she cranked her head around to stare at the horseman, then almost fell off the damn horse in further surprise, which caused the horse to shy, almost knocking her off again.
The Horseman had no fucking head.
“Whoa, there.” The voice came from nowhere. “Are you okay?”
No head, and no flaming jack o’lantern. Just a hacked-off neck where the head should be, a stomach-turning cross-sectionof the neck’s anatomy laid bare—though thankfully not bloody—across the top.
“What the fuck?”
“We’re not back to that, are we?” the snarky one complained, settling his horse and not sounding undead, either. He sounded… rich. Smooth. Like Keith David or Tony Todd. Rich and resonant. And very much alive.
She boggled, though she managed to stay on the horse this time. Because, despite sounding alive, Tony Todd didn’t have a head, either. And the body she sat back against no longer felt like a bundle of branches wrapped up in clothes. It felt like a full-on human body.
Except for the fucking head.
She bit back another “what the fuck”, though it was difficult.
The last Horseman fell out of midair into the muted, watercolor scenery she found herself in, turned his horse around once as if to take up some of the forward momentum, then came to a graceful stop.
“All here?” he asked, and he didn’t sound hollow or undead, either. His voice wasn’t as deep as ol’ Chad’s, nor as rich as... oh, what was his name… Jerome’s, but it was as alive as hers. Or as alive as she assumed hers still sounded. She hadn’t exactly been listening to herself as she “what the fuck”-ed.
“She’s back to what the fucking,” Mr. Sassypants informed the newcomer.
“Aw, man.”
“Okay, but seriously,” she said, trying to keep hysteria from crawling up her throat and into her voice, “what the fuck? What is happening? Why are you all so… so different?”
“Oh, okay.” The new headless guy—Aaron? Was she remembering that right? She couldn’t be sure—lifted a hand to where his head should be as if tapping his forehead. “You’re absolutely right, miss. We probably should explain.”
“Fair,” Headless Chad said at her back, his low voice rumbling against her, very much alive except for the fact that he had no mouth with which to form the words and very little throat to hold a voice box. “I suppose we do look different from what you expect.”
“Expect?” she scoffed, deeply and truly weirded out by now. She scrambled ineffectively, trying to scoot off the horse without downright falling off, but she was wedged in too tight. “Let me down. Now!”
“I will,” he said in what was probably supposed to be a soothing manner. “Just let me… just wait a second and let me—stop. Just stop for a second. Please?”
It was the “please” that did the trick. It sounded genuine, and she paused her ever more frantic squirming at the seemingly real concern in the tone. When she stopped moving, he leaned back a little, reached across her body, and hooked his right hand under her left armpit.
“I’m going to lift you down to the right. Just lean to the right as I do so, and I’ll let you down. You won’t even have to lift your left leg. Just let it down as you go.”
She looked back at where his head should be over her shoulder. “What, you have superhuman strength, too?”
