A Horse with No Name

  It was a Thursday when the horse showed up. Though his memory was fragmented, some lost to the blunt force trauma, some floating away in the sea of pain medication they’d pumped into his veins, Harv remembered at least that much. Thursday was the day he went thrifting with his favorite cousin. He was just stepping out of the coffee shop, an iced coffee for himself and a chai vanilla something or another for his cousin, when he saw the animal. Just standing there in the middle of the street, unbothered by the honking cars and the shouts of frustrated drivers who wanted to get on with their days. 

  A cloud of pain passed through his brain, and Harv clenched his teeth and pressed his hand against his bandaged forehead, waiting for it to pass. Remembering was painful, but the doctors and nurses refused to answer his questions or even look him in the eye. Even the detectives seemed unable to look at him for too long, keeping their interview sessions with him brief and surface-level. If they were all unwilling to fill him in on what happened, he was left with no choice but to delve into his own mind to find answers. No matter how painful. 

  A lifelong city boy, Harv couldn’t recall what possessed him to step out into the street and call to the horse. His exposure to horses was limited to what he’d seen in old westerns and in a fantasy movie trilogy. He’d played a videogame once where he controlled a cowboy, and he’d accidentally run his horse off a cliffside into a frozen river below. He still felt a little bad about it despite the fact the horse wasn’t real. 

  Why then, had he been filled with such confidence as he approached the strange animal that day? Hand raised, a soothing noise he’d never made before spilling from his lips as if he knew the first thing about animals, he remembered it all making sense at the time. Up until the moment the horse looked at him. Harv knew then. This wasn’t a noble steed that carried a knight into battle. This was a bad horse. The kind that wandered into a new town simply because it’d run out of trouble to cause in the previous one. 

  From there, it was chaos. The horse charged him. Some teenager laughed, hanging out the window of his friend's car, filming the whole thing on a cell phone. Harv zigged, then zagged, but the clopping of hooves upon pavement grew ever louder until they were thunder in his ears. The horse ducked its head and barreled into him, sending him flying into a nearby parking lot. The searing pain as his face skidded across the concrete, that he remembered. He reached gingerly toward his cheek, then thought better of touching it, certain it was still ragged and raw. 

  Up until then, the encounter had been a blur, but when he saw the horse slowly approaching, a strange sort of grin on its face. That’s when the terror began. The animal wasn’t just reacting, it was tormenting on purpose and enjoying every second of it. Their eyes met, and he knew his life was in danger. 

  “Nee-hee-hee-hee-hee,” the horse said, followed by a snort.

  Harv started to stand, but with a quick gallop, the horse was upon him. It bit down on his ankle, and bones broke audibly, the sound followed quickly by Harv’s screams as he collapsed onto his face. Craning his neck in the hospital bed, he tried to see the pins and braces holding his broken ankle and leg together, but they were beneath a sheet. Probably for the best. For now the pain medication kept the extent of his injuries masked, but a visual reminder would be a psychic blow he wasn’t in the shape to handle right now. 

  Closing his eyes, Harv tried to remember the rest of it. The horse picked him up by the ankle, its giant square teeth sinking deep as it shook him, swinging him into parked cars. Then it spun and released him, sending him flying through the large plate-glass window of the nearby building. There were more screams then, but not his own. People in white lab coats. A science lab? He couldn’t recall ever noticing it before then. 

  “Help me,” Harv had forced out, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. 

  The people just ran, swiping keycards to open doors and disappearing from view. One of the doors didn’t close all the way, and he crawled on his belly toward it. But then came the sound of hooves crunching broken glass. The horse watched, its lip curled up in a sneer. Harv was trembling, his skin slick with sweat and blood. He reached up and grasped the door handle, using it to pull himself to his feet. Waves of pain emanated from his shattered ankle and leg, and he retched, the morning’s oatmeal, tinged with blood, spilling from him and soaking the front of his shirt. The horse whinnied, looking pleased, then charged. 

  “No!” Harv yelled. 

  This impact was harder than the first, sending him up and over a strange console in the next room. He landed in an open pod of some sort, and sensing his weight, it powered on, displays of twinkling lights and power meters appearing along its surface. Harv was too dazed to make sense of any of it, overcome with pain and fear. 

  The horse entered the room, but instead of coming right for him, it paused at the strange console. Its eyes examined the complex controls, then it began pressing buttons with its nose. A high-pitched whine started to build within the pod, and the twinkling lights changed color. Then the horse gripped a large metal lever with its teeth and turned it, and blaring alarms rang out. Energy surged through the pod, and a blue gas began pumping into it. The hatch started to close. Harv tried to will his body to roll and escape before being closed in, but he simply didn’t possess the strength. 

  He opened his eyes and stared up at the hospital ceiling. Tears flowed freely, and his heart hammered in his chest. He was so close to remembering, so close to understanding, but a new fear gripped him. A fear that the truth was far worse than the not knowing. But with his body trembling, he closed his eyes again, determined to uncover the final moments of the attack. 

  Just before the hatch sealed shut, the horse shoved its head in. As the sickly sweet blue gas filled his nostrils and robbed him of his consciousness, the heavy animal forced itself into the pod, clambering up on top of Harv, crushing him. Then the beams of energy fired from all around them. 

  A terrible scream ripped from Harv, tearing at his throat and filling his hospital room. He rolled to the side, falling off his hospital bed. Tubes tore from his body, little pinpricks of pain that he barely noticed. Alarms began to sound. Nurses would be here soon. 

  Harv crawled on his belly, much as he’d done that fateful day. How long ago had the attack been? A Thursday, sure, but which Thursday? He dragged himself forward, toward the small restroom, shivers running through him not due to the air-conditioned air upon his exposed buttocks, but due to something far worse. A truth his mind refused to accept. 

  “No no no no no no no no,” he muttered, grabbing the bathroom door frame and pulling himself inside. 

  He gripped the edge of the sink and, arms shaking, pulled up onto his knees. Just high enough to see into the mirror. With trembling fingers, he started to undo the bandages around his face. 

  “No no no no no no no no no,” he muttered, somehow understanding in his terrified heart that no amount of denial could save him. 

  The last of the bandages fell away, and Harv screamed. He fell backward, crashing hard to the tile. With shocked fingers, he carefully touched his face, needing a second sense to confirm what his eyes had seen. He found his left cheek, left eye, left everything, all normal and as it should be. But as his fingertips drifted to the right side of his head, gone was the smooth skin. Instead, he felt a velvety carpet of hair and an extended muzzle. 

  “NO!” he screamed, tearing open his hospital robe and seeing that the transformation continued down the entire right side of his body. Half man, half horse.

  As he writhed around in pain and anguish on the bathroom floor, he heard a new sound. It echoed in the deepest recesses of his mind, a sinister and twisted voice. 

  Nee-hee-hee-hee-hee, the consciousness of the horse said. It was in his mind, a part of him now, body and soul, for however long his miserable life would last.