Rhett Milner

Cry for the Dead

 

 

In 17th Century New England, a young tailor named John Garston walked home in the dead of night. He was returning from the town where he had held counsel with a wealthy client. There the promise of a prime business opportunity had been concocted for the last month and finally made official that very night. There was a spring in John’s step as he made his way down the path, guided by the light of his candlelit lantern.

 

It was not all good for him though, his wife had been struck very ill a week earlier and her situation only worsened. Now, John believed himself a good husband. For in that entire week he nary left her side, cared for her with all his heart, and hired a maid when he could not. However, this opportunity was madness to be missed, it was far too important to delay. That was what he told her, and Hannah had understood every word. She nodded with perfect compliance as he made his way to leave. So, John could hardly let guilt weigh his happy heart down, yet was it not sadness in her big beautiful eyes he had seen for one dreadful second?  A glint of disappointment in her delicate cheeks?

 

He waved these thoughts away like foul vapors and continued home, for he would be reunited with her in no time anyway. He focused ahead on the road which the night had made near invisible. Overcast covered the moon and stars, permitting his vision to only some ten feet around him. He had no worries, though. He knew the way like a son.

 

Night crept onward and John could not help but to find himself taking his time. The night was dark, yet his hopes were high and well-lit. He soon entered into a deep forest, thick with trees, walls keeping out the world, or keeping something inside contained. It was dark, yet the lights of a few faraway cabins could be seen in cracks through the woods. One flicker of light caught John’s eye. As he turned to get a better look he watched as it moved with unreal speed on a faraway road. The red light flickered out leaving John to wonder and worry.

 

“P’raps a lightning bug.” He thought, “Or a spark from my own lamp.” Despite his best efforts, he was not convinced. His fearful thoughts enlightened him: Maybe it was the Dullahan.

 

“Ridiculous.” He spoke to himself. The Dullahan was naught but an Irish fairy tale meant to offset kids who had an interest in midnight wanderings. The Dullahan, supposedly, was a faerie that took the form of the headless rider atop a black horse. In one hand he held a whip made of human spine, and in the other rested his own head, which grinned from ear-to-ear. The Dullahan was the harbinger of death, for he would call a name and that person would die soon after. His horse rode so fast nearby bushes were engulfed with flames and charred stones lay in his wake, which would explain the streak of light…

 

“Yar,” said John, “and on full moons chickens can talk and argue over theology with the donkeys...” His defiant sarcasm did little to brave him, and he quickened his pace with a raised pulse. As he passed deeper into the trees his paranoia overcame him like a mudslide. Every snap or croak deep in the thick forest surrounding him was the headless rider ready to strike an ambush. Every streak of light was the inferno tailing the Dullahan as he rode to steal John’s soul. Even the speak of owls and crows seemed to warn him: “Run, John! Run! The devil is real! He is coming for you! He will find you and run you down like an animal! He only needs to mutter your name! The devil is real! Run!”

 

John was at a quick jog at this point, his lantern swinging light as though a hurricane would toss a boat. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, and rhythmic pants escaped his mouth. Eventually overcome by exhaustion and shame of his absurdity John came back to a slow walk, quite out of breath and feeling like an imbecile. He had nothing to fear out here any more than anything in his own cellar. The night was full of dark, tense peace. Soon, he thought, this will all pass.

 

At once, the air was cut with the beastly neigh of some faraway horse. It echoed dominantly through through the forest like dark thunder. Shivers crept up John’s spine. The skeptic was gone. The fear was vivid. He felt his confidence shatter like glass. There was nothing like that neigh, for even as he tried to comprehend that tremendous bellow its echo had still not died down.

John tried to move but he knew not where. On all sides his escape was blocked by the towering, terrible trees looking down on him like the judgment of the Almighty.

 

John’s breath ceased, and the night was silent once more. A rhythmic thudding conceived in the distance. The rumbling of the forest’s belly, eager to consume. John listened closer, for it was all he could do. It was not the grumble of hunger, but a gallop. Heavy and growing in intensity. The beast was gaining on him.

 

His head snapped back to the path behind him then at the direction from which the beast was coming. John’s choice was picked without hesitation and he bolted away from the gallops that he might outrun. As he ran his head pumped with fever like his feet pounded clumsily on the ground. John felt as though his heart would burst out of his chest.

 

The horse neighed again, deafening and shrill as though it were laughing at his mock attempt to flee. The gallops grew louder, the hoofbeats sounded like nails pounding into a coffin. Wiping sweat from his brow he could feel his body revolting against his commands to flee, even though the gallops rattled his skull with the noise. He peered over his shoulder and saw it, the Dullahan. There was a flame of red and orange, bright as a sunrise and no more than fifty feet behind him. In the center of it, was a black mass of malice and malevolence. John could not make out the form, for his vision blurred with exhaustion.

 

It was not long before the bright hellfire of the rider drowned out the light of John’s candle as the Dullahan closed the gap between him. John heard the sound of a whip cracking and tormented screams which followed. He could keep up his pace no longer, even if he went faster he’d still be run down by that sinister horse. He dropped the lantern to shatter and lept into the thick foliage regardless of his own safety. He tumbled about in the bushes and weeds, tearing open his forehead on a treacherous branch. When he landed he did so in utter darkness, relieved beyond compare and exhausted beyond measure.

 

John crawled back to the road, certain that the beast had passed. There was still a light on the road, but it was no doubt the soft whiteness of his own candle, still in one piece by some miracle. He crawled out of the woods and peeked his head while the warm gush of blood creeped over his face. As he stepped onto the road he looked from side to side to find any sign of the beast. There was nothing. No tracks of monstrous hoofbeats, no bushes engulfed in flames, and best of all no rider. His candle was resting on the road.

 

Taking step after cautious step, he kneeled down to pick up the lantern. As his head and back craned up he came face to face with the decapitated head of a rotting corpse. The face was grotesque and from both eye sockets and gaping mouth that hellfire light glowed like a human jack-o-lantern. Before John had time to register, its slack-jawed mouth snapped into a tremendous and terrible smile. The devilish grin spanned from ear to ear startling John and sending him to fall on his backside, shattering his lantern for good. Here he saw the creature in full.

 

The head was handled by its black, thick hair, grabbed by the gloved hand of the rider. The rider itself was a towering figure, even without a head its height was inhuman and stood like a terrible castle amidst the trees. It was clothed in dark as if it was wearing midnight itself, covered with a dark cloak that cascaded down to the horse's midsection. The horse was just as black and monstrous as its rider. The rough surface of its skin was either exposed sinew and muscle or the tethered shadows and fear the night brings. The horse’s eyes shot out fire to rival its master, and its charred hooves were wreathed in constant flame. The Dullahan was as dark as it was blinding, as dead as it was living, and as unbelievable as it was real. John could not bear to look at it for another moment, yet he could not look away.

 

John began the only defense he could muster and scooted away from the beast, nearly paralyzed with fear and insanity. The Dullahan stayed still and John could see what lay in its other hand, a whip that shined white and bulbous. A human spine. Every foot John gained away from the demon, the horse took one effortless step forward and stole all the progress he had made.

 

When he realized escape was vain he tried any way toward the beast away. He fished in his pocket for gold and tossed it, the fairy tale’s remedy to the dark rider. The gold bounced harmlessly off the horse’s body and clinked on the rocky ground. The steed snorted with disapproval and steam issued from the gaping nostrils like smoke from a fire.

 

John managed to turn away and crawled on all fours to escape its gaze. He clawed at the road, loose rock stabbing at his knees. He could not help but to turn around and saw the detached head had followed him and was still inches from his own face. The rider’s arm had grown and stretched to almost the size of the whip. John fell again on his backside and covered his ears as if it would protect him from the call the Dullahan was doomed to make. The call that would be his own name, penance for leaving his wife. Penance for choosing money over caring for his Hannah.

 

“Please!” His lips betrayed him, he could barely speak. “Leave me be! I-I will ne-never leave my wife again! Please! Spare me!” The head did not move or register at all what he said. It merely continued its devilish grin.

 

Then it changed.

 

The promise of diction formed on its lips.

 

John clutched his ears closed so much he drew blood.

 

He would have also closed his eyes if the swirling fire had not paralyzed his gaze.

 

Then, the name was said.

 

John did not hear it, for so tight was his grip he could not have heard a cyclone.

 

Then the Dullahan laughed. It was a horrible, defiling laugh. It was the sound a mother makes grieving over her stillborn child. It was the sound of a crying child that lost both of its parents.

 

It was a cry for the dead, and John would never forget it.

 

At last, John won the control of his eyes and closed them, gushing out the tears that had formed there. He could not hear himself whimper. All he could hear was that laugh, that cry. Even when the light glowing upon his eyelids dwindled and left, leaving him in darkness, that was all he could hear. As it faded away, John opened his eyes to the dark void of night, opened his ears to the deafening silence the Dullahan had left.

 

He stood up and waited for his eyes to adjust. When they did he found his surroundings by the light of the moon and walked home. He wondered why he was spared, whether his repentance worked, or how the entire ordeal could have been possible at all. John fed these thoughts as he walked the road and once he found his home, his questions were answered.

 

The maid met him at the door, a somber look on her face with eyes red and puffy. No word had to be spoken for John to know.

He ran to his wife’s room to find her still and dead, his legs gave out and he wept harder than he had all his life. John knew the answer now, why he had been spared. It was not his name called, but his wife, Hannah Garston.

 

He stayed in that state of devastation until morning. Even though his emotions lay at rest like his dead wife, his thoughts ran wild like paper in a windstorm. One thought, in particular, stabbed at his reasoning. For it was the Dullahan that called her name, but John wondered: Maybe he was the one who killed her.

 

 

 

Rhett Milner is a high school student in Grand Island, Nebraska. He has had previous works published on various online poetry issues and has been featured in his local newspaper. He hopes to pursue a career in writing as a novelist and enlist with the Peace Corps after college. Bienvenue au Danse, Rhett.