HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (52 page)

She rushed back to
her bedroom and stripped off her pajamas. She put on shorts and a
sleeveless shirt.

She almost ran into
Eddie when she hurried into the hall. She grabbed him by the back of
his shirt. "Tell me what it is!"

"No way. Let's
go, they're already in the car."

They drove from the
neighborhood, through the suburbs of Dallas, and south, out of the
city. When the terrain changed to wheat and cotton farms, Dell could
not control her curiosity any longer. "Where are we going? Is it
a long way?" She remembered being a little child again, asking
her parents every few minutes how far it was to their destination.
Vacations must have been tedious for her parents, she realized,
having children whine at them for hours on end.

"It's not far
now," her father said.

"You're gonna
like it," Eddie said, punching her in the arm lightly.

It was a horse! She
knew it was a horse. It had to be! She had begged for a horse since
she was eight years old. They had never had a pet, not even a dog,
and she'd yearned for an animal for years. Her parents told her that
most pets sensed they were different and were never happy around
them. They would cry and scratch at themselves, they would turn in
circles going nuts, and once let outside, they would probably
disappear.

Dell had seen it
happen before her change when Eddie played over at a friend's house.
If his friend had a pet, even if it was a hamster, the animal went
bonkers trying to get away from Eddie and the scent the animal picked
up that he was not quite human anymore. Eddie always made a joke out
of it, saying animals just didn't like him and that was all right,
because he didn't like them either.

Gosh, even Carolyn
had a pet. It was a big, fat, fluffy cat she named VeryPretty.
"That's a dumb name," Dell had said, rubbing the cat's fur
and feeling it purr beneath her hands.

"VeryPretty
doesn't think so," Carolyn said. "She likes it.”

Now, when Dell went
to visit her cousin, she knew VeryPretty would shy from her and hide
beneath Carolyn's bed. It made her sad to think about it.

But she had not
wanted a house pet like a cat or dog. She had always wanted her very
own horse. It might be spooked by her, sensing she wasn't human, but
she knew she could reach it with her mind, make it comfortable with
her.

One of Cheyenne's
cousins had kept a horse where she lived on a ranch outside of
Dallas. Dell had been visiting the cousin with Cheyenne one day and
fell instantly in love. The horse at first shied from her, but after
snuffling through its massive nose and prancing away from her twice
when she neared it, she spoke to it softly until it steadied. He
finally let her rub his nose. She had asked to ride it and Cheyenne's
cousin said sure, why not? She hadn't taken the horse faster than a
trot, afraid she'd fall off, but once out of the range of her
friends' hearing, she had whispered to the horse how majestic he was
and how wonderful it was to ride him.

She had been ten
years old. The horse was just an old gelding that kids had been
riding for years. At home, she had pestered her parents about it.
"Why can't I have one?" she'd asked. She'd been told how
expensive it was to buy a horse, not to mention its upkeep. They
would have to board it at a stable, pay for its food and vet bills,
and at that time they simply could not afford it. Everything they
could earn went toward living expenses and the cost of the blood the
Predators sold.

Crushed, Dell had
stopped begging. Her parents really did work very hard. But she'd
never stopped hoping to one day own a horse of her own. Now they were
driving out of the city and all around them were ranches and farms
fenced off from the road with barbed wire and hollow steel rails.

"It's a
horse!" she cried, unable to keep quiet. She just had to know.
"You've bought me a horse, haven't you?"

Her mother turned
from the front seat, smiling. "We thought it would be good for
you."

"Oh, Mama,
thank you, thank you! Thank you, Daddy!"

"Now don't get
too excited," her father said. "It's not much of a horse.
We knew it would cost a great deal to keep it boarded, so we had to
buy an older one than we would have liked."

She didn't care.
She didn't care if it was old as Methuselah, at least she could ride
it. She could love it. She could have something of her own.

At the stables
where her father turned in, Dell eyed all the horses wandering in the
paddocks and standing by the stalls. When the car stopped, she was
the first one out of the door. She hurried to a man leading a horse
by a halter. "Is that my horse?" she asked, breathless.

"And who might
you be?" the stable attendant asked in a friendly way.

"Dell! Della
Cambian. You have my horse here?"

"Well, shoot,
little girl, I think we just might have it back there in one of those
stalls." The man grinned, and a gold crown shone from an upper
incisor.

Dell turned to the
stalls and saw several horses still closed in there. "Which
one?"

Her father was at
her side then and said, pointing. "That one."

It was at the far
end in the last stall. He had his head hanging over the gate and Dell
saw that he was a roan with a white spot right between the center of
his eyes.

"Oh!"
That's all she could say. To her it was the most beautiful animal in
the world. Her father had said the horse was old, and that made him
cheaper, but to her the horse was ageless and grand. She ran all the
way to the stall, coming to an abrupt standstill just before the
horse so as not to spook it.

"Hey,"
she called softly. "It's me, Dell. Want to go for a ride?"
She telepathically talked to the horse in a soothing monotone that
she knew he could hear inside his mind. She was so afraid he would
fear her. If he feared her, she would never be able to keep him.

Good horse, nice
horse, she thought. I love you, do you know that? I do love you
already.

She felt ten years
old again once the horse was saddled for her and she had climbed
aboard. His name, the stable hand said, was Lightning. "Not like
he's fast anymore," the man added. "He's a little long in
the tooth for racing."

Dell waved to her
beaming parents and to her brother, who looked like he would split
open with joy. She turned the horse with the reins and locked her
legs around him. He started walking slowly, and that was all right
with her. She was communicating with him silently, knowing he could
read her thoughts. Good horse, she thought again. What a fine horse
you are. We will be friends, we will be pals forever.

He took her across
a field and to a riding path. He didn't move fast, never went into a
trot, but Dell felt she was kissing the wind on the back of a giant,
valiant steed. She was free! They were one, she and the horse, moving
under the dappled shade of the path, all alone.

She forgot that she
was unnatural trying to live a natural life. She was not a vampire
who depended on blood to live, but just a girl riding gently through
a forest on the back of her very own horse, Lightning.

Time stopped and
she had no idea how long she'd been riding when finally the horse,
knowing where he was to go, returned to the stalls. Her parents sat
at a concrete picnic table in the shade of the stalls, while her
brother stood trying to pet a goat tied to a stake. The goat was
bucking to free himself, whinnying at Eddie's strange scent.

Dell rode up,
pulling at the reins and calling, "Whoa," to Lightning. She
dismounted, her legs shaky, the reins in her hand. "This is the
best surprise I've ever had," she said.

Her father came
over and when Lightning shied from him, jerking his head back, waited
for the horse to calm down. "He's twenty years old," he
said. "He was owned by a family whose children all rode him, but
now they're all grown and didn't want him anymore. I thought since
you always wanted a pet, he'd be just right for you."

Dell kissed her
father's cheek. "I love him," she said. "He's
wonderful."

"Well, you're
going to have to come out here and take care of him. He needs
grooming and needs riding to get his exercise."

"Don't worry!
I'll come see him all the time. I can get a job this summer and help
with the costs."

Her father waved
that off. "It's not so expensive. I think I can afford it."

On the way home
Dell couldn't stop chattering. She was going to braid his mane. She
was going to brush him and get to know him and together they'd wander
all over the riding paths at the stables. One day, she'd get her own
place where she'd have a stable built, and put him where she could
see him every day. How long did horses live anyway? Wouldn't
Lightning live for a long time yet?

Despite hearing
most horses didn't live as long as thirty years, she thought she'd
never been so happy before. She knew her parents had done this to
help her adjust into her new life. They knew she needed something of
her own to love and cherish, something she could talk to that would
never betray her secrets. They were the best parents in the world,
she thought, the best there ever were.

That night in her
bed she relived her joy in how the horse had been comfortable with
her despite what she was. She remembered the excitement of riding
Lightning and recalled how time had stopped, dropping her into a
timeless world where there were no worries or problems. As the horse
walked, she had grown accustomed to his pace and let her body go
loose so that finally she hardly bounced in the saddle, but rode
Lightning's back as if she were a part of him.

She thought she
could probably sneak out of the house and go to Lightning without
using a car at all. But she didn't know how to do that yet, how some
of them could transform into something else that vanished and
reappeared elsewhere. But when she did know how, when she did learn
how to vanish and reach her horse without the benefit of human
transportation, she could visit him at night when no one was around.
She'd make him her best friend of all, her confidant, her closest
ally in a world where she was an aberration, an abomination, a . . .
dead girl.

He already knew in
some way that she was not like others who rode him. Yet he'd accepted
her strangeness once she'd spoken to him telepathically, and he had
taken her willingly down the riding path just as if she were still
human, still just a young woman out for a trail ride.

She fell into a
deep sleep while happiness flooded her and burned away all her
questions and fears. She would never forget this kindness of her
parents and never take for granted whatever sacrifices they were
making in order to give her what she'd always wanted.

She might be
vampire, she might not be permitted to live as a mortal being, but as
long as she had Lightning, she thought she could find a way to cope.
Only once did the thought occur to her that because the horse was
already twenty, he might live only another ten years or even less and
then she would lose him. She banished the thought immediately, not
wishing to let reality intrude on her bliss. Deep down, she knew
there were going to be a great many losses over the years to come.
Not just beloved horses, but friends and relatives who had never
contracted the disease. One day she'd lose Aunt Celia. And Carolyn.
Like all humankind, she would have to bear those losses and go on,
somehow. That there would be more of them than any human ever faced
wasn't something she could think about right now.

All that mattered
was that she had been given a wonderful gift and Lightning was his
name.

13

Bette Kinyo lived
alone in a small house she'd purchased in an ethnically-mixed
neighborhood. It was inexpensive and at the time, ten years before,
she had not been making as much as she did these days. Nevertheless,
she hadn't moved, even though she could have afforded a nicer place.
She'd never felt an urge to abandon either the neighborhood or the
home she'd made in the little house. In the privacy-fenced backyard,
she had a Japanese garden that had taken her two years to construct.
It was ringed with small conifers and miniature viburnums and holly.
In the center of the greenery was her masterpiece, a raked bed of
white pea gravel that she tended once a week, changing the rake marks
and praying small prayers for a continued peaceful existence as she
worked.

Inside the house
she had stripped and refinished the stair rails and spindles that led
to a loft bedroom she'd decorated in Victorian style with bouquets of
roses from her gardens and flowered chintz easy chairs facing a
slanted rooftop window overlooking the Japanese garden. She took tea
there in the late evening just before sunset, after a spare dinner.
In her living room light glowed like gold, reflected from
Tiffany-style lamps, and bookcases overflowed with well-worn volumes
of history and poetry.