Allure

After one lungful of cold evening air, he decided that Loch Awe had earned its name.

The landscape was achingly beautiful, gigantic hillocks petering down into the longest loch in all of Scotland, still green as summer passed into early autumn. The inn was warm and friendly, its whisky peaty and its food hearty, the ambiance cosy and luxurious. There were boutique cabins nearby, but he was here to experience the raw side of his ancestral home, so once the cheque was paid, he shouldered his rucksack and stepped out into the ageing day. There was a certain misgiving, less of a regret and more of a second thought about not taking a bed since he and his spine were on the wrong side of forty-five, but he adjusted the straps of his pack and began walking along the northern bank of Loch Awe.

He had hiked through Argyll and Bute for the last few days, sleeping in his pop-up tent more often than bed-and-breakfasts. The thick oakwood forests near the northern edge of the shore looked to be a perfect spot to camp, with a great view of Kilchurn Castle and only a half hour or so on foot.

The trees were slim and half-coated in moss, but it wasn’t hard to find enough dry wood for a fire. Every blade of grass was as springy as the last, the smell of petrichor from passing drizzles intoxicating, and all the beauty impossible to deny. His only complaint, unvoiced, was that he wished he had a dog with him. A trusty companion. It got a little lonely, but so were the last few years of his expired marriage, so this trip was also his way of making the loneliness "his. " Isolation was the charm.

The tent was erected with more ease and familiarity than his previous attempts and he sat on a good-sized rock to take in the view while he worked on the fire. The beach, a rocky gradient really, overlooked the Loch’s scattered islands and looming peaks, all lit by a late golden sunset slashed over deepening green. Calmness in a place he’d never been. Tranquillity and adventure.

He felt alive for the first time in years.

One pile of branches was for the fire itself, the smaller pile was to be shaved into kindling with leaves and moss. Whittling as he watched the sky bloom its many colours, tangerine to pastel peach to terracotta, he realised that he couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else on Earth. It was the first time in years that he could honestly -- and confidently -- say that he felt happy. He barely even noticed that the blade in his hand was the pocketknife that she had gifted him for his thirtieth birthday.

By the time he got the fire going, Kilchurn Castle was only a silhouette against the sky, a dark cut-out before deepest plum. Its crumbling towers and parapets were dark grey, almost silvery, against the dark green fields under the moonlight.

More beautiful, and ever more mysterious, was the play of the steely shards of the moon’s reflection on the water. Its elegance deepened with every sip he took from the bottle of Glendonrach he’d gotten at Forgue the week before, when he’d been doing more driving than walking. He’d always wanted to collect fine scotches and whiskies, but they always disappeared a little too quickly when she was in one of her g--

A flash of red caught his eye.

There, along the stony beach, a figure was emerging from the water. Her skin was milky white, shining like a beacon under the full moon. Her curves moved with each step, a strong thigh and ample waist, pale breasts and ghostly visage, even her lips were as pale as the moon itself. Cascading down from her crown were ringed locks of coppery red, leaves and waterweeds tangled in her wet hair. He watched the vision for a moment or so before he sniffed at his wooden travel cup, to make sure the whisky had not turned and become a hallucinogen.

Struck by her, he moved closer to the beach, a few tentative steps away from the fire. He only wanted a closer look; he was not here to hunt but to admire, and his eyesight wasn’t as good as it had been in his twenties. She ran her hands through the thick trestles of her hair, the droplets falling like diamonds, and seemed refreshed by her swim. The night air was cool. He couldn’t see her feet, but she seemed surefooted on the unstable area, agile and lithe, the stones and pebbles clacking underfoot. She had surely bathed there before. He took another step closer, almost unconsciously, and a dry leaf crackled underfoot.

He froze.

She did not so much spot him as acknowledge his presence with a tilt of her head. Continuing to coax the lake water from her hair, she threw a side of it over her waxy shoulder and arched her back, exposing her breasts and a silver necklace that adorned the sternum between them. She stepped behind the bulk of a dead tree truck and disappeared from sight, and he adjusted his weight to follow before he stopped himself. It was an impulse from a younger man, one quickly quelled, and he let her go about her business.

A beautiful sight on a beautiful night. That was all.

He retired to the tent, awed and humbled by the beauty of Scotland, and made himself a promise: tomorrow, when he walked the Tall Trees Trail, if he were to pass a pale lady with red hair, he would stop to say hello to her. He was sure her hair would look radiant in the sun.

And with that, he slept.

******

Dawn was crisp and cold. He reasoned that summer was only a casual acquaintance to Scotland, especially this far north, and it would take quite some time for the stones to warm.

While he packed his things away and doused the remnants of the fire, he stowed the knife in his left pocket to free both hands for folding up the tent. He remembered seeing the woman last night and wondered if it had been a dream.

Pack filled and shoes tied, he grabbed his water flask and looked out over the Loch again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement, a white shape moving right to left. Sure that it would be the woman, back for a dawn swim, he stepped sideways to see better around the larger boulder.

It was a horse.

A white horse, almost albino, so bleached that he thought he would blink and the phantom would disappear. His great-uncle had raised horses, so he knew in layman’s terms how rare a perfect white was, but this was not it. A sorrel must have entered the bloodline at some point in the past, somewhere in these wild hills, because its mane and tail were not quite chestnut. Almost a reddish copper. If his great-uncle were alive, the old man’s world would be turned upside-down by the sight of this mare, this genetic absurdity, this freak of beauty. Mesmerised by the sight of it, he walked closer and rounded the fallen tree to the rocky shore, as though his legs brought him independently of his awed brain. A breeze blew down from the peak and lifted his hair, casting a shimmer across the surface of the Loch.

Closer now, he could admire the horse for all its details.

Its pearlescent coat shimmered, and he saw that its skin beneath was not pink like most white horses, but true alabaster. Its side was powerfully muscled, and over an equine shoulder almost the width of his torso ran a hint of a bluish vein.

"Was she only a dream?" he asked himself aloud. "Was it you I saw last night? "

He did not consider himself terribly superstitious, but to be visited by a vision of a beautiful woman and an impossible horse, he had to open his mind and think that he was being told by the universe that everything was going to be alright, that he could move on. The horse lowered its head to him, its coppery mane rustling in the morning breeze. It was unbrushed and had almond-shaped leaves stuck between the shifts, but it wore a steel bridle around its huge face. Or was it silver? It had to belong to someone, some farm nearby, and had gotten loose to roam free by the Loch, running wild and finally stopping by for a drink.

Well, he supposed that’s what he was doing, too.

He took another cautious step forward. The cavernous nostrils widened and flexed, taking in his scent. It smelled no fear, only careful wonder.

As broad as the beach was, he could easily step around the animal and fill his canteen, but what an irreplaceable moment it was. He thought he’d stroke the beast’s side, just a light touch.

For a moment, it crossed his mind that his great-aunt had died from being kicked by a startled horse, wounded so badly that the casket had been firmly closed at the funeral. His great-uncle had been so heartbroken that he never spoke of her again. The thought quickly left again, however, as neither he nor the horse seemed to feel any fear for each other. After all, he’d never actually been this close to a horse: his parents kept him well back from the fence, even before his great-aunt passed.

He extended his right hand and carefully lowered his fingertips onto the side of the horse’s neck. It felt wonderful.

Soft, smooth, firm then yielding.

Too yielding.

The fine fur on its skin shifted and turned, swivelling to point to his fingertips like they’d been attracted by a magnet, and he watched his fingertips sink into the horse’s flesh. For a single instant, he feared that he’d touched a wound on the horse and its rot had given under the slightest touch, before the pain set in.

It felt like each of the thing’s hairs had been a barbed needle, every one of them sinking into him. Three of his fingertips had disappeared past the nail into the white skin of the horse. The pain echoed up his arm, past his elbow, and he felt weak with the shock of it. His body told him to take a step back, but his arm locked straight -- stuck.

He could not pull back.

If not for seeing it in the clear cool light of morning and feeling the smooth rocks shifting under his hiking boots, he wouldn’t have believed it. He dropped his canteen to grab his right elbow with his left hand, groaning with effort and surging fear. The horse whickered at his sudden movement, peeling back its lips and exposing its peg-like teeth, its pale blue eye rolling to look at him, as though it was enjoying its sick little joke.

"Let me go!" he shouted.

It stepped backwards. Clip-clop.

He was tugged along with it, arm already extended straight, and nearly lost his balance. If he had, he would have instinctively reached out to brace his fall with his left hand, which would have first touched the horse’s cursed neck. Instead, he found his feet.

Still his left hand wanted purchase, wanted traction with which to pull his right hand away harder. His blood rushed in his ears, and he cast frantically around himself for something he could use.

Again, the horse took a step back, dragging him with it.

Shining in the softly diffused light of morning, the horse’s silver bridle. Only up close did he see the smoky tarnish and knew that it was silver, not steel, like the necklace the woman had worn last night. His panicked mind saw it as the only tangible and inert thing within reach, saw it as his only chance, and grabbed it. This kept the horse’s head still for a moment, its eye meeting his, the clear blue iris twinkling as it drank in his terror and panic.

Another step back. Clip-clop.

Another two steps back. Clip-clack, clack-splonk.

His boot nearly slipped on the mossy stone beneath the shallows. He tried to push the bridle away while pulling his seized fingers toward himself, the silver under his hands poor leverage as the horse snickered again and shook its head, making its coppery mane -- waterweeds! Waterweeds in its hair! -- dance and jostle. It was no use. He could get no purchase.

The horse’s hooves now made hardly any sound at all when it took a step back, pulling him deeper, and the water was almost to his knees, filling his socks.

One last option seized him.

"Where? Where is it?" he muttered, breath coming thin and reedy.

Left pocket.

He dug his hand into his jeans and pulled out the pocketknife. Opening the blade with his teeth, then locking it into place against his thick leather belt, he held it up in front of the horse’s face. "You want this?! LET ME GO!"

It threw back its head and tugged him again.

He stabbed at the horse’s face, but the blade passed through the skin as though it was nothing. Nothing but smoke in the shape of a mare gone mad. It might have slowed the beast a little, but not deterred it.

No other choice.

"God help me," he panted.

He slashed at the fingers of his right hand, exposing flesh and veins, the blood quickly coating his hand and wrist like a scarlet glove. The pain was only equal to the agony he already felt from the barbs sunk into his fingertips, so his resolve did not shake.

The blade was not sharp enough, nor heavy enough, to get through bone. He knew that. Aiming at the first knuckle, he hacked deeper and deeper, frenzied sawing and prying, revealing the joint beneath. His teeth gnashed together, his pupils narrowed to pinpricks, his drive absolute.

Dragged another step forward, he missed and sliced the webbing between thumb and forefinger.

Ignoring this new cut, he worked the blade between the bones and slashed at the cartilage. Blood dripped into the agitated water of the Loch in dribs and drabs, a steady stream down his arm, soaking the sleeve of his knitted jumper.

With a POP more felt than heard, his first finger came away, shorter than it was before. The agony was obvious now, soaring above the pain he had felt from the demon horse seizing him, but he knew he could not stop.

Frenzied and ravenous with the smell of his blood -- copper and salt, like her hair -- the thing let out a noise that was unmistakably a snarl. He had never heard a horse make that noise before, never imagined one could, and he felt his sanity slip like a stone underfoot. It took another step back, the water splashing around its powerful white legs, and he felt the cool water soak his pants, shrivelling his testicles with fear and cold.

POP again.

He screamed through clenched teeth.

The horse opened its mouth, jaws unhinging to let out a monstrously long tongue. It was pink, tapered to a point, and unrolled two feet long from its gaping mouth. The writhing tentacle stretched another few inches and began to probe around in the beast’s blind spot, trying to lap up the streaming blood from his two severed fingers. Its glistening tip inched closer to his hands.

The water warmed around him a little as his bladder let go. He felt his knees go weak, as if injected with oil, and he knew he was about to fall.

A third and final POP.

He staggered back, slipping and sliding on the wet stones, his raging and screaming hand slipping under the cool water in his haste to pull it back, striking like a bolt of lightning, but he was free. He struggled back to shore, turning to lean his weight into each measured step, trying not to stumble and fall. He dared not look over his shoulder, wanting to know but unwilling to slow, sure the horse was right behind him and stalking its meal. A keening snarl near his shoulder told him not to stop, not for anything.

The splashing was not only from his hurried steps up onto dry ground, it was his hunter, then he heard horse hooves clacking on the shore as his sodden boots splattered onto smooth stones, the snarling as close as it ever was. Now free from the Loch’s heavy waters, he ran for all he was worth, butchered hand clutched to his chest but elbows pumping.

Once in the taller grass, barely fifty feet from the water’s edge, he chanced a look behind him.

She stood on the beach.

Her long, slender legs ended in hooves as grey as the morning sky. She had her hand to her mouth, chewing on her snack, grinning as coyly as any milkmaid. The snap and crackle of his fingernail and distal phalanx between her teeth was audible across the distance. He panted for breath, shivering from head to toe, bleeding profusely from the stumps that were once his fingers, but could not look away.

She stuck the tip of his index finger between her lips, sucked on it until it popped into her mouth, and bit down.

With a wink, she turned and waded back into Loch Awe.

THE END

Bio: Written by Matt Hampton in Brisbane, Australia during December of 2022 as a gift to his future wife Mina, who is terrified of horses...

E-mail: Matthew J. Hampton

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