Sixteen Horses

SIXTEEN HORSES
GREG BUCHANAN


Contents
1.
2.
PART ONE: ILMARSH
Day One
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
Day Two
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
One Month Ago
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Day Three
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Two Years Ago
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Day Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
PART TWO: THE HOLE IN THE WORLD
Day Four
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Two Weeks Later
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE HORSES
Day Twenty-Four
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
Day Twenty-Five
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Day Twenty-Six
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
PART THREE: A BIRTH OF SMILES
Day Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Day Twenty-Eight
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Day Thirty
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Day Thirty-One
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Twenty Years Ago
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Day Thirty-One
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Day Thirty-Five
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Day Thirty-Nine
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
CHAPTER EIGHTY
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Day Forty
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
PART FOUR: SIXTEEN HORSES
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
CHAPTER NINETY
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWO
EPILOGUE
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


For Charlotte


The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’
Robert Frost (1922)


1.
Tufts of cloud burned black before the sunrise, the horizon littered with the flotsam of old and rusted silhouettes. They were alone.
‘Chemtrails,’ the farmer had said to Alec, early on their walk. Other than this, he had been silent.
And now their torches revealed the edge of a bank, right before the crest of a shallow stream that cut through the farmer’s reclaimed marshland. Along its muddy edge and all around, the reeds sang with flies and crickets and buntings.
‘Where are they?’ Alec asked, shivering. It was 6.55 a.m. He’d left his jacket in his patrol car.
‘There weren’t any sheep over here,’ the farmer said, ignoring the question. He leapt over the bank, his boots slipping slightly on the incline. ‘They normally love coming over here.’
Alec stared at the mud, and the farmer grinned, his cheeks ruddy beneath his dirty white beard. With that thick wax coat and that gut and that voice, he could have been a lunatic Santa Claus. ‘You won’t fall,’ he said. ‘Not afraid of a little dirt, are you, Sergeant Nichols?’
‘No.’ Yes. ‘I just hope you aren’t wasting my time. And these flies . . .’ Alec swatted one away from his rolled-up sleeve, a great bulbous thing that had nestled on the hairs of his forearm. He was food for this whole place.
‘Try covering up next time,’ the farmer said.
Alec grimaced. He stepped back, tensing before rushing over the ditch. He came down with a thud, right into the thick and gelatinous mud. He splattered his black trouser legs and the farmer’s jeans.
The other man tutted, smiling. ‘What have we come to, eh?’
Alec brushed at the muck around his ankles, but this only spread it further. His palms grew filthy.
The farmer walked on.
He gestured past a large, half-empty water tank around two hundred feet away, its translucent plastic grown stained with time, the smear of a smile where fluid had lapped within. ‘We found them near there.’ His face fell.
Alec checked his watch. 7.06 a.m.
The sun would soon rise.
They kept on, the silence drowned out by the buzzing of the flies and the distant hellos of scraggly sheep out there in the semi-darkness.
‘Jean’s moving out,’ the farmer said. ‘Did you know?’
‘Who?’
‘Jean . . . The lady who lives down the lane,’ the farmer said, frowning. ‘She’s moving out, selling up her farm.’
‘Oh yes, Jean . . .’ His voice drifted. ‘I saw the sign.’ Alec had driven past it on the way here, a farm twice the size of this one, its animals and land and people in far better condition. He had not known the name. He knew few out here. One more reminder that he did not belong, he supposed.
‘They’re selling up to live with family, so she says.’
‘I think I saw them in town a few times,’ Alec said. They were almost at the water tank, at the smile. ‘Were they the ones who made those wagon wheels? They’d mix sausage meat into a kind of – well, kind of cinnamon swirl, I suppose. It’s delicious. Did you ever try one?’
He swatted another fly away from his face.
‘No,’ the farmer said. ‘I’m a vegetarian.’
‘Really? My wife tried doing that a few years back, and—’
‘No,’ the farmer said, and the conversation died.
The world was still dark, even if only for a little while. The sun was almost free. The day had almost begun.
Fifty feet away, the field gave way to freshly tilled brown soil, forming mounds everywhere on the uneven earth. Chalky rocks littered the plot in every direction. Each step in this place was as muddy and wet as the last.
Further still, a thin metal fence marked the edge of the land, clots of wool decorating the wire like fairy lights where the sheep had once tried to break through.
But there were no animals in sight now. There was nothing but detritus.
‘I don’t see what—’
‘There,’ the farmer interrupted. ‘In the ground.’
Alec looked down. For a moment, he saw nothing but dirt.
‘I don’t—’
Alec stopped talking, a breeze moving past them both. Something shook along the soil.
He removed his torch and stepped forward, pointing its light at the source. Just three feet away, almost the same colour as the mud itself, there lay a great mound of black hair, coiled in thick and silken spirals.
He moved closer and knelt down. He wiped his hands on his trouser legs, reached into his pockets, and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. He tried to pull them on in one smooth motion, but his fingers – clammy, damp from the walk – clung to the latex before he could get them fully in. He had to inch each one into place before he could touch those cold dark circles. He stared at them all the while.
He lifted some of the hair up, surprised