My eyes were dry but still wide open by the time the sky grew into a light blue. I hadn’t dared to use the washroom. I would just have to relieve myself when I got back to the city. 

 

I got out of bed and threw my possessions into my shoulder bag. I slipped out of the room, taking care to be extra quiet as I ran down the stairs. I approached the main door, and half expecting it to be locked, twisted the knob.

 

The door swung open. Relieved, I took a deep breath and left, closing it softly behind me. 

 

I walked briskly towards the stables, where I knew the mare was being kept. But when I got there, the entire block was empty. I passed by each stall until I found the one that was marked with her name. I fiddled with the gate and squinted at the elaborate locks on the door. The latch was securely in place. It would’ve been impossible for the mare to escape if it hadn’t been opened at all. Someone had let her out before closing the gate.

 

I looked into the distance, where I could see nothing but a flat green field against an endless sky. It was a day’s trek on horseback; on foot, it would be midnight by the time I could make it back to the man’s ranch at the end of the road. 

 

I turned around and headed back into the house, making my way towards the sitting room. 

 

Holden was already perched on the green couch. He looked up and flashed me a brilliant smile, his teeth twinkling in the sunlight. His hair was combed back neatly into place, and his suit had been straightened out. Not a piece of the crazed man from the previous evening remained.

 

“You woke early today,” he grinned.

 

“So did you,” I said, edging my way towards the telephone on the wall. I remembered seeing it there on my first day, and wondered how I could call for help discreetly. I unhooked the telephone from the wall and began punching in the number of the man from the ranch.

 

“I’m afraid that is no longer a working model,” Holden said sadly. “The shop that used to fix it for me had gone out of business a long time ago. But I just couldn’t bear to throw it away.”

 

I gawked at him, then put the phone back on its hook. Then, taking a deep breath, I faced him directly. “Holden, my mare is gone.”

 

His smile dropped. “What?”

 

“I don’t know. There’s no way for me to go back.”

 

“Go back?” Holden’s eyebrows shot up, as if that were the more pressing issue. “But the alloted date for your check out won’t be till the end of this week!”

 

“There’s been an emergency back home,” I lied. “I regret having to go so soon, but I have no other choice.”

 

“This is exactly why I moved out into the countryside,” he sighed, exasperated. “Everything is so urgent in the city! I don’t know how you bear it.”

 

I stared at him. He looked back at me spiritedly, as if trying to invoke the camaraderie we had shared a few nights ago. It was really like nothing had happened last night. It was like he couldn’t remember.

 

“Holden,” I began cautiously. “Did you sleep well last night?”

 

“Well enough,” he exclaimed. “And yourself?”

 

“Well, you saw me,” I said. “I suppose you can make that judgement.”

 

Holden’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean, Sophie?”

 

“If it wasn’t you,” I cried. “I don’t know who came to my door last night!” Now that I thought about it, the man from last night couldn’t have been Holden. Holden’s hair was short and well-kempt, whereas the man had long, wild hair — like a crazed, homicidal clone. 

 

“Holden,” I pursued. “I truly believe that there is something wrong in this house. Something is amiss! I need to leave. Can you help me?”

 

He shook his head sadly, and turned away from me. “There is nothing wrong with this house. It’s been the same as it ever was.”

 

I glanced at the way he folded his hands behind his back, and the way he stared so pensively out the window. He wouldn’t believe me. 

 

“You have to listen to me,” I begged. “I can’t place it. There is a danger about this place. Come with me, please. It’ll be a long walk before we can get back, but we should be able to manage it if we set off now. And we have the long summer hours to work with.”

 

“I-” Holden faltered. His bubbly voice dropped for the first time. “I can’t.”

 

I was sure that there was something dangerous about this place. I was sure that even he felt it, though he wouldn’t admit it; something had compelled him to scatter copies of the New Testament all around the house. But he was too attached to his property to leave for safety. It made too much sense. The same breakfast, lunch, and dinner; the old and dysfunctional telephone; the stuffed taxidermies on the wall, as if he couldn’t let go of a single object. The man couldn’t stand change. But in the end, it would be the death of him.

 

“Well then.” I steeled myself, adjusted my bag, and stood up straight. “I will be making my way. May I please have an early check-out?”

 

“There will be no refunds,” Holden only murmured.

 

“Right.” I turned to go.

 

But before my hand could even touch the doorknob, I heard the room come to life. There was an incessant click, like a hundred shoppers were ‘tsk’-ing at me for taking too long at the till. Then there were other sounds I couldn't place at all, like a constant chitter, and some scratching, and a muted screech. I spun around.

 

All around the room, the taxidermies had miraculously woken up. They looked like real, living animals now, pawing at their glass cages, hooting and calling, flapping their wings or lashing their tails. I stared in horror as the great horned owl spun his head round and round, and the bat flapped around in its cage, and the stuffed fox growled and bared its teeth.

 

I turned back to Holden, terrified.

 

“See, see!” I cried. “These dead animals have come back to life. At least now, now you see that something is really, really wrong!”

 

“Why, Sophie,” Holden said. He barely gave the animals a second glance, as if they never began to move at all. But like the fox, his eyes were trained on me, and his face wore a subtle smile. “You really should’ve been quiet.”

 

I watched him, shaking my head. A bad feeling dawned upon me.

 

But then the laughing began.

 

A grating, thunderous noise issued from Holden’s mouth, jolting with each violent heave of his chest. But it wasn’t the noise that frightened me. More terrible than the haunting, creaking laugh, more awful than his crazed, wide-eyed smile — his mouth was a dark pit, an empty, gaping hole with no teeth at all. 

 

All those moments that I had felt safe in his company, all those nights I had been convinced that he could protect me from the horrors of my own imagination: in all that time, as I was now, I was chillingly, woefully alone. I had danced between the jaws of a tiger, fooled by its welcoming purr. The realization shook me down to the bone.

 

Holden made the first move. He lunged at me, causing me to jump and stumble for the door. I could barely slip away before his crooked fingers tried to grab my hair.

 

I dropped all my books — my Sydney Cartons and Jay Gatsbies and Mr. Darcies — and I ran. Behind me, I could hear him hollering between growls and the slurping of excess saliva. 

 

“You have violated the rules!” he screamed after me. “Hee-yeh-ah-cho!”

 

The weeds beneath my feet blurred into one great green mass. I could barely feel the wind on my face or the jolt of my heel in the ditches of the uneven terrain. Stabs of pain shot up my knees as I cut across through the field, though I didn’t register it as pain. Keenly I felt the sweat on my neck, which a few strands stuck to in spite of the wind flowing through my hair.

 

“Hee-yeh-ah-cho!” Holden screeched. His voice was not his voice anymore. “You broke the rules!”

 

I dared to look back once. He followed me at a superhuman speed, his fists clenched by his sides. His head jutted forward and his mouth hung open. A soundless cry clawed at my throat. I was thrusting my legs into one wide stride after another, and there he was, barely breaking a sweat. 

 

“You should have been quiet! Hee-yeh-ah-cho!” he bellowed. It was that strange, guttural noise again that I didn’t recognise. All I knew was that he was getting louder. And that meant he was getting closer.

 

My throat began to close up from the dryness of the air. My knees buckled once or twice. My lungs burned. Nothing appeared on the horizon. In seconds he would have me. I closed my eyes and my legs faltered.

 

At that fatal moment, the sound of a revving engine shook the plain. I looked. A four by four had burst onto the scene, its heavy, grooved tires crushing the dirt beneath it. 

 

I tried to raise my arms and call for help, but I could barely catch my breath. I focused instead on making it towards the car.

 

All of a sudden, it swerved to the side and stopped. The car door opened, and a face shot out of it.

 

“Get in!” shouted the man from the ranch. The same man who had lent me his mare had come to save the day.

 

At the sight of him, my legs buoyed me over in a flutter of hope. I stumbled over and had barely dove into the passenger seat before the man footed the pedal.

 

We had to do a full U-turn in order to drive in the right direction, and for a terrifying moment, we came face to face with a disheveled Holden, who was still screaming and walking after us at an impossible speed. I slammed the car door shut just in time, the man completed the spin, and we shot off.

 

I turned in my seat to see if we had finally outrun him, only to see the creature I knew as Holden swing its arms by its side and lift its knee high — assuming the pose of a pole vaulter about to take to the air. With that crazed look in its eye, and the dribble frothing at its mouth, it gave an angered cry, and leapt toward us.

 

We felt the impact. The powerful four by four jolted, lifting us from our seats for a split second. I screamed. The man cursed and leaned forward, willing his car to go faster.

 

“You- have- broken- the- rules!” the creature screeched. It held on to the back of the car with whitened fingers, digging into the metal. The man spun his driving wheel over and over, and the car swerved this way and that, but Holden held fast.

 

We sailed over the plain. The man’s truck was well adapted to the terrain, crushing the uneven ground and speeding onwards.

 

Eventually, the ranch came within sight; my little car was still parked where I left it. We drew onto the gravelly road, and only then did we turn back.

 

There was no sight of Holden in the back. He had disappeared swiftly and noiselessly. It was as if we had imagined him.

 

The man threw himself back and slumped against his headrest. 

 

“Thank you,” I managed, panting hard. “You saved me.”

 

The man grunted.

 

“How-” I wondered. “How did you know to come for me?”

 

The man shrugged and gestured for me to exit the car. We both stepped out onto the road. Then, he pointed towards the house; there, tied loosely to a lamp post, was the noble mare that had taken me to Holden’s Holiday Home.

 

“When she came back without you, drenched in rain, I knew you were in trouble.”

 

“Well, if you didn’t, I might have died. Seriously.”

 

The man insisted on a stoic goodbye, so I settled for a hearty handshake. I thanked him repeatedly, telling him that I would recommend his ranch to all my friends. I found my car keys in my pocket and sighed. It felt good to be back. Being back at the end of the road, and enroute to the city center, it was like I had woken from a terrible nightmare. Even now, the horrors of Holden’s wide-eyed stare were fading into the back of my memory.

 

But as I passed the back of the man’s car I saw something that made me stop for a minute. I looked back at the man, who had begun to make his way into the ranch. I turned to the sky, and I saw that it was already afternoon. I still had quite the drive to make before it got dark. With a shudder, I hurried to my own car, buckled my seatbelt, and double checked my locks. Then I drove off on the long path, feeling more relieved with every car that I saw, until at last, I was stuck in traffic again. Even my sense of annoyance was comfortingly familiar.

 

But that didn’t erase the unease that swirled in my stomach. Somehow, I knew in my heart of hearts that Holden had only been outrun, not destroyed. I wondered if I would have to keep running from him for the rest of my life.

 

Because before I left, I had seen ten little divets in the back of the man’s truck. Ten little divets, evenly spaced, like the fingerprints of a vengeful man.