Page 4 of Bewitched By the Headless Horseman
Well, then… “I was going to see if you needed help with any unfinished business, but since you have the mostwonderfulattitude I’ve ever come across, you can figure it out yourself.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that,” he grunted and flipped her the bird, then chose to ignore her.
“Good luck to you then,” Stevie sang.
“He’s a fool. Ignore him,” a female voice said from behind Stevie, her small form hidden behind a tree a few feet away. The ghost was maybe in her forties, her hair in a long braid down one of her shoulders, and an ill-fitted dress dwarfed her body.
Stevie stepped toward the woman. “Not that I can for sure complete your unfinished business, but do you need anything?”
“No thank you.” The woman shrugged. “I’m waiting until after the second Eye opens. I want to tell my daughter I’m sorry. That’s my unfinished business. It’s a shame that a lot of the ghosts are trapped inside their own minds, believing they are still alive or already in Heaven or the Hollow. With the Eye open now, some will continue to not see what’s right in front of them.”
The Hollow was really what Hell was to outsiders, only the fiendish things that were down there were far worse than any book or movie had ever described. Demons in the Hollow could shift into any horrific creature they wished.
“That’s good she’s still here for you to find.” For others who’d died longer ago, they wouldn’t be so lucky. But on the bright side, they could possibly meet up with another blood relative.
Stevie studied the Eye of the Hollow, the night surrounding the town, knowing the Headless Horseman would slither out sometime soon since darkness was here. As though her thoughts had summoned the psychopath, a horse’s hooves pounded in the distance, the ominous sound filling the air. Since everyone drove cars these days, she couldn’t chalk it up to just any randohorse, not in this tech-driven century. The bridge was just across the street, and the hoofbeats of the horse picked up, thumping across the earth.
“Go!” the woman slipped from behind the tree, shouting at the ghost still standing in the middle of the road.
“Yeah, you don’t want to be caught up in that maniac’s head-stealing game,” Stevie added half-heartedly since he’d been a dick.
She stepped back into the foliage, listening to the hoofbeats slowing against wooden planks, becoming measured when the vengeful spirit broke out from the enclosure of the bridge, appearing in all his narcissistic glory as his cape billowed behind him. The Headless Horseman and his stallion were both the same translucent shade of white as every other ghost, not swathed in black as memorabilia liked to show. The only colorful thing about him was the glowing orange jack-o’-lantern in his gloved right hand. A sword hung at his hip, and Stevie couldn’t pinpoint exactly how he could see or hear without a head. It had to be the vibrations which was why the jerkwad in the road needed to remain still. Even then, without a brain, how could the Horseman think? Or did the stallion just guide him to pluck a toy of his choice? Unless the pumpkin’s cut-out eyes were like his own? Stevie was leaning toward the second option.
But before she could think on it more, the ghost in the road seethed at the Horseman, “Ah, fuck you, asshole.”
The Horseman sat taller, his shoulders squaring as the stallion turned to face the idiot. Puffs of air escaped the horse’s nostrils, and brilliant white eyes glowed bright while it focused on the Horseman’s prey.
Stevie gazed at the scene, unable to turn away. “This point now goes to the Headless Horseman,” she whispered to the woman.
“You should leave,” the woman stuttered, her body trembling while creeping toward the darkness of the woods.
Stevie didn’t need to be as wary as this woman. First, Stevie wasn’t a ghost, so he couldn’t just choose her head for the picking. And second, that was it. She’d never seen firsthand a head taken by the Horseman before. Only caught sight of him galloping through the streets when she’d been driving to or from somewhere at night.
The horse whinnied, and Stevie craned her neck to get a better view as the psychopath hopped down from his stallion, the sound of his boots against gravel crunching. Her gaze raked down his muscular form, and she set the thought on fire that his body lookedgood.
As he edged toward the ghost, it was like a scene from a movie, the anticipation, the wondering which direction this would play out even though she had a pretty decent hunch. If there was a bowl of popcorn beside her, she would’ve been reaching for it as she watched on.
The Horseman lifted his pumpkin, his bicep flexing beneath his tight shirt, while the other ghost flipped him the middle finger the way he had at Stevie. Taking a cocky step forward, the Horseman hurled the flaming jack-o’-lantern at the ghost’s chest. The guy stilled, his body frozen, his coloring changing from ivory to orange like flickering embers.
The Horseman effortlessly freed his sword from the sheath at his hip. With one fatal swing, he sliced it clean through the ghost’s neck. No scream. No blood. Nothing.Not gruesome at all, to be honest. The Horseman reached into the ghost’s chest and ripped out his pumpkin. He then picked up his prized head from the ground before placing it on his own neck.
“Real tough guy,” Stevie muttered under her breath as she stepped back onto the pavement to get to her house.
The Horseman whirled around, the head he’d just placed on his neck no longer there, seeming to have vanished.What in all the witchy magic? He faced her, and she blinked, realizing that even though he was without a head again, he could sense her, possibly somehow hear and see her, since the Eye was open.
“He’s such a tough guy that he stood me up for our date,” Stevie rambled while fishing out her phone from her purse and walking at a normal pace, pretending as though she was like the general public, unable to see ghosts. “This world sucks sometimes. Sucks the life right out of people.” Unless they’re taking heads instead of sucking. The Horseman’s boots didn’t crunch across the gravel, nor did his stallion’s hooves. Yet she could feel them both watching her.
Trying to appear casual, she whistled to herself as if she didn’t notice he was somewhere behind her being his head-stealing self.
And so what if he could notice her? It wasn’t like he could touch her and rip her head off for himself. Her head would remain happily in place.
Yet she still didn’t want him to follow her home and get stuck with a demonic spirit who was akin to something that would come straight from the Hollow. As she turned the corner, she lost her cool and took off running in case he decided to tag along. Her boots weighed her down, and she stumbled, but it didn’t stop her from hurrying to the duplex on the next street.
Roxy stood outside Stevie’s door on all fours, wagging her fluffy tail.
Stevie drank in deep breath after deep breath, her chest heaving, perspiration dripping down the back of her neck. “Looks like you beat me again. Sorry it took me so long. I got caught up with Sleepy Hollow’s nightlyguest.”
Stevie’s phone dinged, and she glanced at the screen. Reese. The edges of her lips curled up.
