Kelpie—Neil Willcox

a story about drowning

What have you sent me? The video from Dorothy is a bunch of young men, drunk, but not that drunk, walking along a country lane in the twilight. Taken from someone’s phone.

Just keep watching, she replies. The video is vaguely familiar, in a generic kind of way. Some lads on a night out, about to do some hijinks, a painfully funny accident or guiltily amusing vandalism.

It looks like the lane Dorothy lives on, the cottage she and her gran have by the lake. But not exactly. Perhaps the lane you might find yourself on when the satnav sends you down the wrong road, confused by the surrounding hills.

“Ay, ay, watch this,” says one, his hair held perfectly in place with gel, his white t-shirt stained with beer and ketchup. He half-climbs up on the dry-stone wall on the edge of the lane, then loses interest and gets back down. The camera jerkily follows him in case he does something else. He doesn’t, just walks along with the others.

“Got another can?” asks another, half a head taller than the rest, rake-thin. The lad carrying a plastic bag pulls one out and hands it to him. It erupts, and he slurps at it.

I don’t know what to expect.

“Hey, in that field?” This one has a thin moustache and a shirt with a collar, practically a dandy amongst the tired sportswear. The phone remains stubbornly on the lads as they all turn to look off camera.

“Wasn’t there when we came up, was it?”

They all gather by the rough wall. The camera has a look at the edge of a gate, rusty, tied shut with a bungy cord. “It’s old Bunkin’s field, isn’t it? Where’s he got a beast like that from?”

“Maybe he’s rented his land out? To some rich fella.”

Finally the phone turns to see what they’re looking at. A horse.

As the camera stops moving and focusses it becomes clear that the plain word horse is inadequate. A shining dark mass of muscle and speed, mane waving like a flag. Silhouetted gloriously against the reflected last-light coming off the lake. A noble specimen of the equine race.

Dorothy was a good friend. Her gran fell ill and she went back home to look after her. We drifted apart. Then all friendships went online and the two of us were closer together, messaging morning and evening, facetiming at the weekend. She worked from home, I worked from home. We swapped complaints, recipes, jokes.

Videos.

“Hey, I’m going to ride it.”

“The fuck you are.” I nod, the camera looks at him draining a can. That lad’s right. No one’s in a fit state to get on a horse, let alone that one, let alone bareback. “I’m going to ride him.”

Two climb the wall, with more success than the first one, two more go over the gate before a fifth undoes the knot holding it closed. It sags open. There’s one more, perhaps the drunkest, who staggers through. And our cameraman, hanging back as observer. Seven in all.

I know a little about horses, and I’m surprised that it – he – doesn’t run away, startled by the group, or just troublemaking on general principles. He looks the sort. Not this one it seems. He knows that this is his field and the lads are visitors. Guests. Here on his terms, and he’s not going to run.

Not going to kick, bite or step on anyone either. If there weren’t something about the stance, and the way the head sits, watching, almost amused, I’d think the horse supernaturally good-natured.

My brother used to date a detective until he cheated on her with her best friend. My best friend guides ghost tours, and not the bullshit kind that never has ghosts turn up. I once saw a man go into a fairy mound and bring back a child who’d been missing for seven months, and she appeared to be exactly the same as the day she vanished.

None of this qualifies me to solve mysteries. People keep calling me up about them. You get involved with one haunting and suddenly everyone wants you to take a look when ectoplasm comes out the walls. I should tell them no. Call one of the others.

The phone wobbles as the holder tries to catch up. The first lad nearly gets to the horse, but he’s tripped, or has his trousers pulled, or something. He ends up face down in the grass. The sharpest haircut gets there. Puts one hand on the mane, another on the back and heaves himself up. I think he’s going to topple off but then he’s sitting firmly. The right way round even. “Oh yeah!” he says.

It’s a big horse, tall, yet he’s got up fairly easily. I assume he is a rider, at least an occasional one, though his seat isn’t great. No saddle I suppose. The horse is tall, and also long. Too long? A weak back? That might explain why he was in the middle of nowhere up at the lake near Dorothy’s cottage.

I mean I’m pretty sure that’s the lake, it would be strange for her to send me this video if it’s not from near her place.

“Tom!” “Tom Tom.” “Hey Tom, giddy up!”

Tom gives a big grin. “Plenty of room up here. Anyone want to get up?”

The biggest of them steps forward. There is plenty of room, he holds out a hand and Tom pulls him. You’d think that he’d pull Tom off but it’s like he’s glued in place. And then the two of them are sitting up there.

“Hey hey, riding double!” The horse moves one hoof slightly, but otherwise doesn’t seem to mind at all. It’s not in distress, holds the weight of two full-grown men lightly.

Tom looks over his shoulder and laughs. “Hey guys, still got room up here. Maybe we can get a threesome going on!”

“I thought you’d never ask Tommy boy.”

A third guy gets on, swiftly followed by a fourth. I blink at the screen, pausing. Just watching, it seems normal. A horse in a field – a good-looking, powerful horse – with four men riding it. When I concentrate, the horse is clearly strange. Elongated, eyes glowing with a dark fire, the face has purpose, a predatory look. The back is too long, long enough to fit them all on, and room for another.

Who gets on.

And now whoever is holding the camera approaches and holds out a hand, just one, the other still filming. And two guys on the horse lean over, far too far, they should all fall off but they’re gripping with their thighs apparently, and there’s a moment of blurry darkness and swearing.

Then the view clears up, other than the bottom left corner, which is the shoulder of the rider in front. I can see the row of men, and the head of the horse looking out towards where the last of them is bending down, putting down the plastic bag with the cans in. Foreshortened like this, with all of them in a row, it doesn’t look that odd, just six men, sitting on one horse.

Here comes the seventh. No one moves – none of them could, fastened firmly in place on the horse’s back. Yet now there is a space in the middle for him to get up.

 “Hey Tom, we’re all up now.” “Let’s go for a ride.” “Giddy up!”

The horse takes a step, and they sway. “Hey, can I get off? I don’t feel well.” There’s laughter and jeers as the horse walks towards a tall dark fence.

“Oh. Oh. Ugh.” The complainer vomits, the camera following the arc as it catches the last of the light, spilling across the grass. The others laugh.

“Oh, I want to get off,” he says, leaning out, further and further. His seat remains rock solid, stuck in place, until he’s awkwardly horizontal from the waist up.

He really ought to have fallen off, as the horse starts to trot.

“Getting some speed up lads! Hold on tight!”

They’re cantering now, cheering, the ill one yelling, crying maybe. As they head towards the fence the horse turns, neither tightly nor loosely, head coming around to face the lake.

“Hey yeah!” “Slow down!” We’re heading for the water!” “Woohoo!”

They struggle, some flailing arms as the horse breaks into a gallop, racing smoothly for the water. As it gathers itself to leap the shoulder in front moves and the phone flies loose, tumbling through the air. I have to look away for a moment, so caught up I’m nauseous.

There are shouts and screams. The image bounces, there’s one perfect frame of the horse leaping high from the shore, seven figures variously excited or terrified on the back.

Then I can hear a strangely subdued splash. The phone stops moving, half dark, the other half out of focus grass. The video continues. There’s another twenty minutes.

Are you at the end? I’m composing a reply when she messages again. Not the END end, there’s nothing but wind and birds after they go in.

Is this a hoax? I sent back.

Of course it wasn’t. Dorothy didn’t play games like this. If she thought it was fake but interesting she’d have said so.

She sends back a link, one to a reputable news site. Seven Missing After Drunken Night Out says the headline. Names, ages, pictures. Last seen leaving the shop at the head of the lake after a raucous evening at the pub.

Okay so there’s a supernatural horse that drowned seven lads. So what?

Her next message comes with a picture attachment. From out the window of Dorothy’s cottage, the paddock that leads down to the lake. And in it a horse, a fine, dark, powerful stallion.

I think the creature is in my garden.

photo by Erik-Jan Leusink (via unsplash)