Bogleech.com's 2015 Horror Write-off:
" The Boxes: Horse Hole "
Submitted by Sam Miller (samuel.wr.miller@gmail.com)
A room. The color red. Neighing. I awake. I see a huge thing in front of me. It is freakishly tall, with lanky and knobbly legs covered with pinkish skin and sparse hairs. It has a torso, but it is so far away from me so as to be nigh unnoticeable. Its head, if it even has one, is completely hidden in the reaches of the sky. It bellows.
“HELLO, STRANGER. IF YOU ARE TO BE HERE, I WOULD RECOMMEND BEING WARY OF MY CHILDREN. AH, I HAVE FORGOTTEN TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. I AM h o r s e,”
“Um, hi hors-”
“NO, IT IS h o r s e,”
“Oh, okay h o r s e. Where are we?”
Instead of responding, the equine beast simply gallops and leaps over the immense walls of the chamber I am in, neighing as it goes along. I see a hole in the ground where one of h o r s e ‘ s hooves was sitting, carved from whatever material the floor is made of. Rough stairs crawl around its circular shape, down into the pitch darkness. Since there really isn’t any other way out of here, I climb down the circular staircase.
Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Step. Step. Step. More darkness. More steps. Careful. I see a patch of lit up steps and continue crawling towards them. A hole dug into the side of the staircase. I see light at the end of it. I crawl into it so that I can have something to do besides keep on crawling downwards and downwards. I crawl up into it and keep on crawling through it. I crawl past dirt and roots and worms and things. A single fat grub falls in front of my face and I look down. It has the head of a fat-eyed fetal horse.
The light at the end of the tunnel gets ever closer. I am crawling to it still, and it is beginning to take shape. Indistinct. Shadowy, with the exception of the two orbs of light. They are blind white eyes. I crawl forward even further. I can see the thing’s head. I can see its great flat teeth. I can see its pallid and wet skin. I can see hooves poking out from under its flabby mass. I get close to it and it lurches while moaning. A drawn out neigh. It slowly drags its mass forward, the dirt of the tunnel walls crumbling against the equine mass. I edge away from the immense creature. It speeds up its crawling, its dragging. It nips at my clothing and at my skin with its huge chopping teeth. It speeds up. It speeds up. I crawl, ever frantically. Its pale and flabby flesh rubs against the dirty surface, tearing at the skin and rending the tunnel. It reacts to neither of this. It only continues to crawl at me in ever-increasing speed, ravenously gnashing and nipping and chewing. The pale beast and I get to the edge of the tunnel, but it keeps on crawling and crawling and pushing and pushing. The both of us fall from the tunnel, hit the dingy stairs, and fall down the hole. I can see the immensity of the beast now, its white fleshy body worming its way out of the tunnel indefinitely. We fall.
We fall. We fall. We fall. We hit something soft and solid. I get up and I see. The pale thing’s whole wormy body is still falling. The ground is hairy. The ground is meaty. I can see a shape, turning about in the distance. I walk to it. It is an immense head of some equine thing, a massive mutant tumor covering the area where its eyes would be. The head swivels. It swivels to face me. It bellows. I edge away from the head.
I wander in the horse-scape. I find more heads, some with similar tumors, others with immense bulging eyes, even some which have fangs rather than the usual flat teeth of a horse. I meet a mass of hooves, head nowhere to be found, legs knotted together to form some strange thing. It approaches me and begins to beat in my body. It beats my head in with its flat and hard horse-feet, and I am powerless to do anything. I haven’t had any food for days upon days, the equine mass is too strong and violent for me to eat any meat from the ground. My body is broken and bruised and cut and hurt by the mass of hooves and feet, and I can do nothing. I am killed and I will rot forever and ever in the void of horses I am in.
“WELL, LOOKS LIKE YOU DIDN’T FOLLOW MY ADVICE, STRANGER. OKAY. I COULD HAVE A USE FOR YOU NOW. BILLY!”
The mass of hooves hobbles forward on its many legs.
“TAKE THE STRANGER TO MY ROOM. I MUST WORK ON THEM”
Billy the hoof-thing grabs my pallid and weak body with some of its many legs and drags me away into the darkness.
I open my eyes and look down. My hands are not hands. Hooves.
“AH, GOOD MORNING CHILD!” h o r s e bellows. “WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE YOUR NEW FACE?”
A mirror in the shape of a horse is placed in front of me and I see what I look like. Three immense eyes with long lashes gaze at me, placed on a mouthless mutant mass with eight knobbly and lanky and awkward legs holding it up. A long tail of meaty quality drags behind me. I am a Horse.
“HELLO, STRANGER. IF YOU ARE TO BE HERE, I WOULD RECOMMEND BEING WARY OF MY CHILDREN. AH, I HAVE FORGOTTEN TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. I AM h o r s e,”
“Um, hi hors-”
“NO, IT IS h o r s e,”
“Oh, okay h o r s e. Where are we?”
Instead of responding, the equine beast simply gallops and leaps over the immense walls of the chamber I am in, neighing as it goes along. I see a hole in the ground where one of h o r s e ‘ s hooves was sitting, carved from whatever material the floor is made of. Rough stairs crawl around its circular shape, down into the pitch darkness. Since there really isn’t any other way out of here, I climb down the circular staircase.
Darkness. Darkness. Darkness. Step. Step. Step. More darkness. More steps. Careful. I see a patch of lit up steps and continue crawling towards them. A hole dug into the side of the staircase. I see light at the end of it. I crawl into it so that I can have something to do besides keep on crawling downwards and downwards. I crawl up into it and keep on crawling through it. I crawl past dirt and roots and worms and things. A single fat grub falls in front of my face and I look down. It has the head of a fat-eyed fetal horse.
The light at the end of the tunnel gets ever closer. I am crawling to it still, and it is beginning to take shape. Indistinct. Shadowy, with the exception of the two orbs of light. They are blind white eyes. I crawl forward even further. I can see the thing’s head. I can see its great flat teeth. I can see its pallid and wet skin. I can see hooves poking out from under its flabby mass. I get close to it and it lurches while moaning. A drawn out neigh. It slowly drags its mass forward, the dirt of the tunnel walls crumbling against the equine mass. I edge away from the immense creature. It speeds up its crawling, its dragging. It nips at my clothing and at my skin with its huge chopping teeth. It speeds up. It speeds up. I crawl, ever frantically. Its pale and flabby flesh rubs against the dirty surface, tearing at the skin and rending the tunnel. It reacts to neither of this. It only continues to crawl at me in ever-increasing speed, ravenously gnashing and nipping and chewing. The pale beast and I get to the edge of the tunnel, but it keeps on crawling and crawling and pushing and pushing. The both of us fall from the tunnel, hit the dingy stairs, and fall down the hole. I can see the immensity of the beast now, its white fleshy body worming its way out of the tunnel indefinitely. We fall.
We fall. We fall. We fall. We hit something soft and solid. I get up and I see. The pale thing’s whole wormy body is still falling. The ground is hairy. The ground is meaty. I can see a shape, turning about in the distance. I walk to it. It is an immense head of some equine thing, a massive mutant tumor covering the area where its eyes would be. The head swivels. It swivels to face me. It bellows. I edge away from the head.
I wander in the horse-scape. I find more heads, some with similar tumors, others with immense bulging eyes, even some which have fangs rather than the usual flat teeth of a horse. I meet a mass of hooves, head nowhere to be found, legs knotted together to form some strange thing. It approaches me and begins to beat in my body. It beats my head in with its flat and hard horse-feet, and I am powerless to do anything. I haven’t had any food for days upon days, the equine mass is too strong and violent for me to eat any meat from the ground. My body is broken and bruised and cut and hurt by the mass of hooves and feet, and I can do nothing. I am killed and I will rot forever and ever in the void of horses I am in.
“WELL, LOOKS LIKE YOU DIDN’T FOLLOW MY ADVICE, STRANGER. OKAY. I COULD HAVE A USE FOR YOU NOW. BILLY!”
The mass of hooves hobbles forward on its many legs.
“TAKE THE STRANGER TO MY ROOM. I MUST WORK ON THEM”
Billy the hoof-thing grabs my pallid and weak body with some of its many legs and drags me away into the darkness.
I open my eyes and look down. My hands are not hands. Hooves.
“AH, GOOD MORNING CHILD!” h o r s e bellows. “WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE YOUR NEW FACE?”
A mirror in the shape of a horse is placed in front of me and I see what I look like. Three immense eyes with long lashes gaze at me, placed on a mouthless mutant mass with eight knobbly and lanky and awkward legs holding it up. A long tail of meaty quality drags behind me. I am a Horse.