Young Writers Society

He leaped onto the motorcycle behind Monica, flinging his arms around her waist as she revved the engine and took off.

“Wait!” Finnley yelled frantically. “We’ve got to get to my mom and Mia! We can’t just leave them.” He looked left and right, searching the strange woods for his mother’s familiar face.

Monica looked behind them just once, purposefully, and what she saw made her mouth clamp into a hard line. As she turned around again and sped faster, Finnley looked where she had just a second ago and his heart went cold. The horse was chasing them, hooves thudding against the earth in time with Finnley’s scattered heartbeat. Its eyes were burning with a bright, inhuman light, and its nostrils were flared. As if it had caught their scent.

“We can’t lead it right to them,” Monica called to Finnley over the noise of the engine. He looked forward again, where the prospects were equally frightening. They were riding downhill at breakneck speed — a speed the horse was somehow keeping up with — and barely dodging the pine trees. Finnley’s stomach flipped as Monica swerved around a particularly tight corner.

“Do we have a plan?” Though he shouted, the wind ripped the words from his mouth and he had to repeat himself a few times for Monica to hear. When she shook her head, Finnley’s grip on her waist tightened. They had nothing, but they needed something if they were going to help his mother and Mia escape.

Risking another look back, Finnley saw the demonic horse gaining on them. It opened its mighty maw and released a jet of flame that was blue at the core. It didn’t reach them, instead lighting several trees on fire, but Finnley could see the shimmering wave of heat, could feel it hit his exposed neck and face. He pulled up the neck of his sweatshirt to ward off the heat, though his eyes still watered.

When Monica glanced back again, Finnley saw fear in his eyes, the flat-out terror he was certain showed up in his own eyes. The word “plan” flitted through his brain, along with a bunch of meaningless images from old detective shows or conversations with Mia. He couldn’t organize his scattered, panicked thoughts enough to formulate an actual plan.

Monica reached a hand back and held it against his forehead. Her skin was cool — of course the heat wouldn’t be affecting her the same way. He closed his eyes, and the cold radiating from her hand seemed to be saying “Calm. Breathe.” Finnley did his best, but his breath kept snagging on the smoke filled air. Still, he was able to call to mind a map he had seen of the area.

“Ravine,” he gasped. It was more like choking, and he had to spit the words out. “Isn’t there a ravine somewhere around here?” He didn’t know what good it would do, but it sounded more promising than any other idea he’d had. “I think it’s more… south?” It was a guess, and they both knew it, but Monica turned south anyway. They had no more choices.

Finnley could feel how tense Monica was, something that the situation didn’t seem to call for if you were already dead. But now was not the time for questioning. His stomach practically dropped out as they started descending more rapidly.

“I think you were right!” Monica yelled back at him, and she leaned forward over the handlebars. Finnley heard the crackling of flames devouring the trees behind him and knew that the horse had shot flames again — closer this time. It made a shrill whinnying sound which more closely resembled a scream. Finnley shuddered involuntarily and pulled closer to Monica.

Finnley could just see it now, through the trees. The ravine. It dropped off a little ways ahead, but Monica didn’t slow down. Finnley hollered her name. “Monica! Stop! You need to stop now!” She was deaf to his cries, and just as he closed his eyes and braced himself for the fall, she jerked the motorcycle to the side in a vicious turn so tight Finnley’s leg nearly brushed the ground.

As the motorcycle finally slowed, Finnley, still clutching his chest above his heart and breathing as heavily as if he had run the distance, checked behind them again. There was no sign of the horse. Monica, now going at a normal speed, drove the motorcycle over to where they’d skidded to the side. The burning hoofprints looked like they went right off the edge.

They pulled to a stop, though the adrenaline was still pumping through Finnley’s veins almost as hotly as the horse’s fire. “I don’t see anything down there,” he said, peering over the edge. “Wait — there’s a fire. I can’t make out the horse…”

“We need to go, take advantage of this,” Monica instructed him.

“Go where? Find my mother?” Now that the immediate danger was gone, Finnley’s clarity of mind had completely broken down. He was surprised he could still form coherent sentences.

Monica shook her head, violet dyed hair flying free of its ponytail. “To the town. To get Uncle Fred and Henry. Anyone who can help.” She squeezed his hand gently, though he hardly acknowledged it. Then she started the motorcycle again and headed on through the woods at a less break-neck speed. Finnley wiped the sweat from his face, trying to stay focused on the situation. He was so spent, though, and his chest ached in a way that didn’t feel at all normal.

Finally, the light seemed to filter back into the forest, just a little at first, but then more and more after that. As the darkness of the forest lifted, so did the darkness on Finnley’s heart. His mind relaxed, just a slight bit.

Then they broke through the trees, and Monica was tearing through the streets of town — it was still mid afternoon, and the sheer normalcy of it all was a shock to Finnley’s system. Monica skidded to a stop right outside the antique shop, and Finnley wasted no time in hopping off and bolting for the door, though his legs didn’t quite want to cooperate. Monica grabbed his arm and together they made it, opening the door to the shop only to find Mr. Vaughn, looking grim.

He took one look at them and it was as if he’d known everything that had happened. “Where is it?” he asked sharply, but it was as if the sharpness was not really intended for them.

“We lost it at the ravine,” Finnley said, his voice scratchy and horse. He cleared his throat for a moment. “My — my mom, she’s still out there with Mia —”

“I’ll handle it.” Mr. Vaughn’s voice was strict and sure, and though his hair was still a shade of silver, the weight of age had somehow fallen from his body. “Henry, you stay here and take care of them. I’ll be back within three hours. Do not let them leave. They’re probably in shock.”

Finnley was quite certain that he was in shock, and just nodded along to Mr. Vaughn’s words as he lifted something long and heavy from the table. “And call up Freddy. Let him know that I’ll be needing him.”