Dark Out There

Genre: Horror/Western -- About 1,800 Words

Two days have passed and the shot still echoes in Ogden’s ears. The golden ring wrapped around that finger falls to the floor. The blood stains his vision. Still, they move forward.

Snow cascades down upon the mountain. The hooves of the crew’s horses crunch at least three inches under, disturbing the white sheet spread upon the ground around them. The gray light struggles through the clouds and starts to wane. Ennis squints back through the trees and there rides the shape that has persisted: a dark rider on a black horse.

“He’s still tailing us,” Ennis says.

“How’s his horse?” Ogden looks down at the mustang he rides trudging through the snow, head down like a panting dog.

“Same as this morning,” Ennis replies.

“Goddammit,” Frank growls. “Hasn’t he been on our back all day?”

“He’s been on us since yesterday’s moon rose to greet the sun,” Ogden says.

“‘Tire him out, then dash,’” Frank says. “That’s what you said. Our horses are three yards from collapsing, and his rides bull-strong.”

“Don’t know how he does it,” Ennis says.

Frank wraps a hand around the ivory handle of his pistol. A bronze cow skull peaks out from the holster. “I ain’t going to jail.”

“He watched us from the hill all last night as we slept,” Ogden says. “He would have had us already were he a lawman.”

“Who else would he be?” Frank asks.

Ogden looks back at the dark rider. If this were the sheriff, surely he would have ridden back to town for backup last night. As soon as they caught him on their trail, they opened fire. Ennis is the best rifle shot out of Colorado, that’s why they brought him along. Miraculously, not even the rider’s horse flinched. The rider didn’t offer a shot of his own. He just watched from afar. When they fled, assaulting their horses with the spurs on their boots, they thought for sure they would lose him. Still, each time he looked back, the dark rider was there at that haunting distance. Too far to see any detail, just close enough to make out the silhouette of a wide brim hat upon the pursuant figure.

Ogden looks at Frank up front. “We need to set up camp.”

“We’ll freeze in our tents,” Frank says.

“Horses aren’t going much farther, you said so yourself,” Ogden says. “We’ll find a thick tree to block out the snow, start ourselves a fire.”

“I don’t mind taking first watch,” Ennis says.

With one hand still wrapped around the ivory, Frank pulls with the other on the reins of his roan. He looks to the side, denying the crew behind him any satisfaction of a direct acknowledgement. “Guess I could use some dinner.”

***

After half a bag of hard tack and a sausage, Frank retires to the tent that he pitched. Ogden and Ennis sit around the crackling fire in the darkness. The clouds block out the starlight they relied on last night and the fire cowers at the snow each passing minute. Ogden looks around, but the light won’t touch the distance the rider always keeps. He considers igniting a twig and tossing it out through the woods, but it doesn’t matter. Ogden knows the rider is out there. At least he can pretend it isn’t true in the dark around them.

“What d’ya suppose he wants?” Ennis croaks.

Ogden sighs. “Got the feeling he’s the hangman.”

“What makes you say that?” Ennis says.

“Don’t know,” Ogden shrugs.

“Never seen a hangman in a stetson.”

“In a blizzard like this, he’d have to wear one. Keep the snow out of his eyes, like.”

“Weren’t snowing last night.”

“He must’ve known we were headed through the mountain,” Ogden says.

“How’d he have known that?” Ennis says.

Ogden holds his hands to the fire. The leather gloves shield his fingers from the punishing cold, but he feels that they also keep the fire’s heat outside. He removes them, examining the skin already as red as the sinew he knows is underneath. Then, he pushes his hands back to the fire, as close as they can get. If they burn, he thinks it might be a good thing.

Ogden looks at the robber beside him. “Don’t know.”

“Mmm,” Ennis says. “What ya gonna buy with your share?”

Ogden looks back through the dark. Somewhere, underneath the night and the snow already digging a grave for their tracks is the path they followed to get here. “I’d take it back if I could.”

Ennis’ thick eyebrows shoot up. “After what you did?”

“He wore a wedding band.”

“He had a knife,” Ennis says. “Would’ve had ya if you hadn’t fired. He couldn’t accept that, he shouldn’t have tried to be a hero.”

“You don’t think I’m a coward?” Ogden looks Ennis in the eye.

“Had he been out of reach with a bad throwing arm, maybe I would.”

Ogden holds his hands against the fire for a second longer, then stands. He walks over to his tent, passing one last glance at his friend. “Wake Frank up next. I’ll take last watch.”

Ennis tips his hat with a nod.

***

“Ho!” Ennis shouts outside of the tent. Ogden stirs awake, still dressed to his duster. “Ogden, you wake up, now. You got to see this.”

Ogden rubs his eyes. He climbs out of the tent with one hand above his pistol. The embers of the fire have diminished tenfold, only offering a candle’s worth of light. “Did Frank refuse second watch?”

“Look,” Ennis points up into the darkness.

Ogden stares. As his eyes adjust to the limited light between them, a shape takes form above them. Frank’s legs hang from the trees. His body rotates in the wind at a minute hand’s pace. A noose suspends his broken neck in the air, his head tilted down in an unblinking stare. Below him, the ivory handled pistol sits half buried in the snow.

“We have to get him down,” Ennis says.

“No time,” Ogden tells him. “The dark rider could be anywhere.”

“You think he did this?”

“Who else?”

Ennis covers his mouth and stares into the dark. “I only woke up because I had to take a piss, only reason I found Frank. Why didn’t he kill us in our sleep? It would have been easy.”

“Don’t know,” Ogden says. He tears a piece of cloth from Frank’s tent and wraps it around a fallen branch. He dips it in the remains of the dying fire, igniting a torch to light the way. Then, he climbs onto his horse.

Ennis rushes over to Frank’s roan and cuts the sacks of money and rations from his saddle. He slaps the horse’s rear, sending it whining into the dark. Then, he rushes the goods onto his own saddle and mounts his stallion.

Frank had organized the job, came to Ogden and Ennis with everything mapped out. After the child’s play heist, the three dashed away, lawmen in hot pursuit. Frank led them into a field of hills where losing the sheriff and his men became nothing more than a game. They divided their shares and continued into the mountains, beyond which Frank’s uncle had a cabin they could stay. The plan was to lay low for a spell, then head to a town that didn’t know their names.

Problem is, only Frank knew the path they needed to take.

The torch barely illuminates enough space for him to see Ennis right behind him. Regardless, Ogden keeps looking back, waiting for the dark rider to appear behind them any second. His head flips back and forth between the darkness behind them and the few feet of light in front of them. He pushes his horse as fast as it will go, but if he isn’t careful, he might spur the mustang right into a tree. Then, they’ll never make it out of these mountains.

Through the night, a steep rock rises before them creating a fork. Ogden brings his horse to a stop and Ennis follows. The two share desperate eyes.

“What now?” Ennis whispers.

Ogden looks up at the slope which fades into the black as if the top reaches into Heaven itself. “Suppose we go left, see where it takes us.”

“And if it leads us to a dead end?”

A gunshot thunders through the trees around them, the bullet cutting straight through Ennis’ heart. Both horses whine, and Ogden’s mustang dashes for the left path. As he races through the flailing snow, two more shots explodes. Soon, another slope rises on Ogden’s left, closing him in on each side.

The sound of rushing hooves pound behind him. Ogden doesn’t need to look back, he knows it's the dark rider. He stabs his spurs into his horse over and over, yet no matter how fast they rush, the sound of horseshoes racing through the snow gets closer.

Before he can pull the reins, the two slopes beside him converge into a dead end. The skull of his mustang cracks against the rock and it collapses, trapping Ogden underneath its weight.

The torch falls into the snow, its embers slowly fading just as the campfire had. Still, he can make out the shape of the dark rider. He dismounts his horse, and lurches forward, reaching a hand into his black cloak and pulling out a revolver as dark as the night surrounding them.

Ogden’s gun is pinned underneath him. He uses a hand to dig through the snow, trying his best to squeeze underneath the crushing weight of the mustang. His body screams in pain. He can only imagine how many bones have broken underneath his ride’s cadaver. He can’t reach his pistol. He uses his other arm to try and push the horse off, and his elbow snaps. His arm must have been damaged in the fall, and now it’s broken, an unbearable ache surging through it.

The dark rider stands above him now. Ogden groans. His eyes follow the black boots leading up to a black body and all the way up to a head like midnight. The fire hasn’t died completely, Ogden should be able to see this man’s face, but he doesn’t have one. The dark rider’s head tilts down at Ogden as he points the revolver right at him. Just like the rider, the gun sucks in all light, not glinting in the firelight at all; however, Ogden notices the reflection of the dying ember in a golden wedding band upon the man’s finger.

“Please,” Ogden cries. “I’m sorry.”

The blank face of the dark rider stares down at Ogden. The sound of blowing wind and his pumping heart are the only sounds he hears. Then, the dark rider looks up at the slope, and fires a bullet into it.

With that, the rider vanishes. Ogden can’t even see its horse anymore. The chaos of the wind and his heart greet the sound of deep breaths fading into smoke right before him. Then, a rumbling growl surrounds him on all sides, replacing all of the noise before it. Ogden can’t even hear his own screams as the mountain itself shakes, an avalanche rolling down these slopes and burying him completely.

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Dark Out There won the Season 10, Round 2 Lunar Award for Horror in 2025.

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