Do not feed the horses
by Die Booth
I come out with the first signs of spring. My stitches are healing.
It's warm. The fields are flooded, ditches brimming with brown water that overspills the path to mud. Daffodils drowning. If I imagine hard enough the wind in the trees might almost be the sea.
Footprints and hoof prints; horseshoes. Barbed wire cinching a tangle of ivied bramble. There’s a sign on the gate: Do not feed the horses. Why? What do they eat? The fields are lakes, a mirror shore erupting gusts of gulls and crows, squawking. Cloudy blue sky open too wide. Early sun heat, spring. The catkins are dancing. Dark shapes lurk like threat at the end of the footpath. Man, horse or shagfoal, a shadow silhouette stealing the sunshine. Pulling it back to winter.
I hate the horses. They have too many legs. Each time I look away and back they're closer. Tracking me down the path in a many-legged herd, blurred into one beast by my bad eyesight.
The air goes cold and dark. I get off the path. Back through the gate to the safety of the lane. I can hear their steps, daring me to stay. Can hear their snicker sighs and see flashes of something through the brush too dense to show certainly.
I think they're following me.
A black mound with eight skinny legs, twelve. Bulbous black eyes. Matted hair caught on the wind, whipping. Every time I turn away from the gate, I brace for the thump of feet, for the thing to leap upon my back and cling, sparks chinking from its iron hooves.
A group of girls with two Labradors, one golden one chocolate, jumping. A barrier between me and the horses, laugh-screams, “Not in that water.” There're ducks in the ditch, swimming like it's a stream, hoarse with panic as the dogs bound, shaking off weed-water in greasy fans.
The wind picks up, sounds a gallop through the trees, sends my heart to canter. I can’t run: it tugs a warning at my incisions.
I keep looking back.
The ditch water stills, filmed with shifting rainbows.
The horses wouldn't find their way through the gate, would they?
I still look behind me, even when I reach the street. I know they want to unpick me.
Die Booth is an indie author and editor who loves wild beaches and exploring dark places. When not writing, he enjoys making zines and DJs alongside his boyfriend at Last Rites – the best (and only) goth club in Chester, UK. You can read his prize-winning stories in volumes from The Deadlands, Egaeus Press, Sans. PRESS and many others. His books, including his cursed novella ‘Cool S’ are available online and he’s currently working on a queer coming-of-age folk horror novella. You can find out more about Die’s writing at http://diebooth.wordpress.com/ or say hi at Bluesky @diebooth.bsky.social
