Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

coastline, there were a few rows of abandoned bungalows.

Sea water seethed around them. Their floors were flooded.

No one came here.

Up the bank, the forest watched.

A car drove along the road.

Inside the car there were a few tins of pet food. There were some packets of crisps, supermarket own-brand, inexpensive. There was sticky tape, duct tape too. There was a phone with a scratched screen. There were keys.

The car stopped in the middle of that road, the engine running for a little while, nothing happening. Then the ignition died. A wave hit one of the homes, the structure’s walls strangely pastel-coloured.

The car door opened.

The driver walked towards a clearing further inland, past the edge of the tall trees on the other side of the road.

In the clearing, there were twelve wooden crates. All of the crates had originally been laid out on their sides. They had stood – and some of them still stood – like miniature doorways. Two of them, far away from the others, were sealed, nailed shut, two large rocks resting on each.

The sun and the shadows danced their rays and reflections across time.

The driver opened tins of food and emptied them into each of the open boxes.

Then the driver sat back down and stared. The driver waited.

After an hour, the driver took out a book and began to read.

When the fourth hour came, the sky had started to grow red. It was dust, the news had said. Blown in from the Sahara desert, changing the light across the northern world. It looked so strange. The red light would remain with them for the better part of a week.

Something moved.

A dog stood across the clearing, right at the edge of the treeline. It was scared, malnourished, mangy, its grey-brown hair all in patches.

‘Here, boy,’ the driver said.

The dog seemed to respond, but only tentatively.

The driver took a treat from the bag and held it out, even with the dog all that distance away, even though it was frightened, even with its teeth so sharp.

After a few minutes the dog limped to one of the two crates and stared at the driver some more. The driver sat unchanged, staring back, still holding the treat. The dog turned and ate out of the crate.

The driver spoke again. ‘Who’s a good boy?’

The dog kept eating. It did not look back when it left.

The next day, later in the afternoon as the red sky grew dark, the car returned. Within half an hour, the same set-up of actions had been completed, and the dog emerged once more.

This time the dog wandered to those crates closer to the driver. These boxes held objects of different kinds. In some of them, treats. In one, a ball that squeaked as the dog took it in its mouth and let go, as if it couldn’t quite remember what toys were for. Its tail began to wag, even so.

The driver talked all the while – gentle, rhythmic.

The dog grew calmer.

The dog limped round sniffing all the crates. It took a last pause, waiting beyond the reach of the stranger, before bravely approaching and sniffing the treat in the still-outstretched hand.

The dog took the treat in a lick that made the driver smile. The driver let out a ‘heh’. The dog’s tail wagged more and more. The driver stroked its head and patted it. ‘Who’s a good boy, you’re a good boy.’ The dog shivered in its happiness.

The third day, the dog was already there when the driver returned. The day was warmer. This time, the dog approached the treat first. There was no food remaining in the crates, of course. The ball had long since vanished in the distant ditches of the forest.

Eventually, the dog fell asleep at the driver’s feet. The driver watched the creature for a while before lifting it like a sleeping baby and placing it in one of the crates.

The driver took an electric screwdriver and some screws. The driver inserted them into the corners, sealing it all around with the dog inside, a single air hole poked through in the side, large enough for the animal to breathe but not for it to see through.

Still the dog slept.

The driver picked the crate up and brought it to the far edge of the clearing, weighing its top down with a large rock.

The driver waited in that place until the dog awoke. Waited until the noise began.

The driver went back to the car.

Back to Ilmarsh, past the sunken homes.

One day the driver would stare Alec in the face.

One day the driver would think back to those weeks of wooden boxes, far from town.

One day the driver would smile, and then cry, and then smile again.

All things died.

One day, the driver would try to die, too.

But not yet.

Day Three

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The phone rang. Alec heard it before he opened his eyes. He didn’t like phone calls, not least when he had to handle them at 6 a.m. Even less so when he’d barely slept.

He was in his car. He’d left the house early, had driven to the bay, had parked right out by the diner, waiting for it to open.

He’d just closed his eyes for a while, and no dreams had come.

‘You’re awake,’ George’s voice crackled down the line.

‘I’m awake.’

‘The pills not work?’

‘They work just fine,’ Alec said, watching the lights start to flicker on along the dark shore. ‘I just didn’t take them.’

‘I don’t—’ George broke into a fit of coughing.

‘You OK?’

George ignored the question. ‘Harry called. Wants us to go out to the riding school.’

‘I thought you’d taken a statement already?’

‘Something new,’ George croaked. ‘The stable owners made their insurance claim.’

‘So?’

‘They tried making it a couple of hours before we’d even spoken to them. We hadn’t even told them where the horses had been found, but still, they knew . . . they mentioned Well Farm in their call. It’s all in the transcript.’

‘We were quite visible in those fields,’ Alec said. ‘News travels fast.’

‘Even so.