Fire Spirit by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton [Masterton, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Nadine was giving Bronze Star a final polish with a large rubber curry comb when she heard the stable door bang shut. The weather had been squally all morning so it didn’t surprise her, but Bronze Star snorted and whinnied and pawed at the floor of his stall as if something had unsettled him.

‘It’s OK, boy,’ Nadine reassured him, and patted his flanks. ‘Nothing to be scared of.’

Bronze Star had always been a nervy horse, which made him unsuitable for children and inexperienced adults to ride, and last spring Nadine’s father had talked about selling him and buying a more docile animal. After all, at Weatherfield Stables they made their living out of renting out horses and giving horseback riding lessons. A jittery creature like Bronze Star was a liability rather than an asset. If only a few people could handle him, he still needed feeding and veterinary care, as well as insurance. It was only because he was Nadine’s favorite that her father had relented and allowed her to keep him. Nadine believed that Bronze Star could understand everything she said to him, and that he would have answered her, if he could, like a neurotic version of Mister Ed.

The stable door banged again, and then again. Nadine put away her curry comb and her dandy brush and buckled up her kitbag. She gave Bronze Star one last kiss on the nose, and then she let herself out of his stall and bolted the door.

It was then that she looked along the length of the stable and saw three men standing there, posed like gunfighters at the OK Corral. They were all dressed in black ankle-length coats and they were all wearing white masks – one of them fixed in hysterical laughter, one of them scowling, and the third one totally expressionless. Behind them, the stable door was swinging open in the wind, and outside it was dark and raining hard, with intermittent flickers of lightning. Raindrops were sparkling on the men’s shoulders.

‘Can I help you?’ Nadine called out. The men’s appearance didn’t unduly disturb her. Some of the people who came to Weatherfield Stables to rent out horses were wearing the most bizarre costumes, especially when they were out on a stag night or celebrating a special birthday. Nadine had catered for Vulcans, and X-Men, and Flintstones. Last month a party of Knights Templar had turned up dressed as geisha girls.

‘Help us?’ the man in the laughing mask called back to her, looking around. He coughed, and then he said, ‘That depends.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Nadine.

The laughing man slowly walked right up to her, a little too close for comfort. She tried to see his eyes, but the slits in his mask were totally black and empty.

‘I said, that depends,’ he repeated. His voice was coarse and catarrhal, as if he were suffering from a heavy cold or asthma. ‘What I need to know is, are you going to do what we want you to do, without argufying, or are you going to give us trouble?’

‘Why should I give you trouble?’

‘I don’t know.

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