Red Horse

He is a grey man. Side-step him on a busy street and you’re faintly aware of his passing no more than that. He has a routine, a daily walk that takes him down to the beach of his small seaside town. A pier floats over the sea on a web of rusting iron and it is home to a theatre that offers a one legged Elvis and a host of forgotten comedians.

October has come and the last of the tourists are back at home. The grey man walks down into the town passing a small zoo where normally the animals screech and snort and try to work out just where they are. Today the silence makes him stop. There are no gulls flying. There are no gull sounds. He looks into the zoo. Flamingos huddle together keeping perfectly still in a slate grey pond and their pink feathers ruffle in the stiff morning breeze. The wind shakes the damp green grass around his boots. He shrugs his shoulders and makes off toward the town.

He turns the corner at the hotel. The rioting sea tries to leap on to land. A steep cobbled slope manages a silver sheen despite the negative light. He licks his salty lips. The promenade pathway shakes with every battering wave and his heart rate picks up as he passes the deserted beach huts. Stepping down onto the wet sand and gravel of the beach he spies a dog walker half blown by the wind and half dragged by a brown Labrador. The dog's head is down and its wet brown fur ripples with the effort of its straining haunches. Its owner, attempting a polite wave and berating his animal calls out over his shoulder: he’s not having it today. He stumbles by bow legged, bent back with the effort of controlling the bolting dog.

The grey man gathers his duffle coat around him and hunching his shoulders against the wind looks up at the gunmetal clouds scudding across the sky. With a smile he turns to begin walking. Eventually reaching the concrete sea defenses he sits in his favourite spot enjoying the wild autumn weather. He sucks in deep breaths and fills his lungs and enjoys the scent of ozone blown in on another punch of north east wind.

The beach is a treasure trove of flotsam and jetsam during the winter months and he begins to scan around for anything that may catch his eye. Something small and square flies toward him a piece of paper flipping and tumbling in the wind. The object slaps into his chest as he scrambles to his feet and it stays there as if held in place by an unseen hand. He picks it from his coat and his mouth drops open with surprise. The picture shows three women, one kneeling and propping a baby up in the sand. A man in the picture stands next to the group he is wearing a Sunday best suit and tie. The photograph is tinted sepia with age and the effect hardens the appearance of the group. The grey man recognises the cloche hats and Beller style suits that the women wore many years ago.

A huge grey wave slaps down on the beach and out of the melee a parasol launches like a javelin and impales itself into the beach three paces from where he stands. Grabbing the parasol he scrambles across to the remains of a barnacle covered groyne and he finds a catch beneath the crook of the handle and the parasol blasts open and he turns it into the wind. A small red object falls out onto the sand. He picks the object up. He finds it fits into his palm. He peers at it. It is a horse. The small red toy fascinates him. He stares out at the glaucous waves and then along the beach as if expecting to see some poor soul running around trying to find their lost property. He is alone, he huffs, confused by this twist of fate.

Pocketing the small toy with the photograph and tucking the parasol under his arm he turns to make his way back. Something registers something in the waves. He looks out into the writhing water trying to fathom what he might have seen and then as one wave dips to reveal the slope of another he sees what caught his eye. Three domed black shapes. They are steady as rocks. Stepping forward as far as he dares he studies them. Could it be seals? They look like seals. The shapes begin to travel forward and a thought slowly surfaces. They look like hats.

His skin begins to crawl and a cold sweat covers his body and he cannot understand his fear. It is as if he is in a nightmare state trying to fight his way out to his conscious mind. The black domed shapes continue their stealthy advance raising slowly each falling wave revealing another frame of movement and he had not been wrong. He could feel hot urine trickling down his shaking legs. They were hats and they were rising out of the water.

They were not wet and the violent action of the waves had no effect on their advance. He knew that objects such as this should be thrown about in the foaming spume and as he looked wildly left then right along the short advancing line their faces were revealed. Pale and vaporous they seemed to glow beneath the dark wide brimmed hats above the black clad shoulders moving forward in the sea. Although they took a human form their hyenic stares left him in no doubt. He was prey and they were coming for him.

☼☼☼

Cold white torch light picks out every detail on the cadaver every twinkling pearl of moisture on the old brown duffle coat. The rescuers look at what was once a living soul. A torso slumped on bended knees with its arms turn outward locked in rigor mortis. Its fingertips are a mottled purple hue and its palms display a gesture of pleading. Its face looks up to the sky fixed in a scream long ago offered up to the wind.

The group of rescuers fail to see a small photograph blowing gently into the sea. They cannot see a parasol flipping around in the surf. They are fixated by the sight of the corpse and browbeaten by the wind that spews a stinging sea spray into their eyes. At least four of the men think they hear a strange low growl and they tell themselves it must be the wind but they know the moan of a sea storm. The wind and sea are to them like their own blood and bones. They huddle together eyes scanning every dark shadowed place and the sound rumbles up around them again and their bodies feel like boneless shivering meat.

©Stephen Pullman 2013
Prologue to a novel: Red Horse.