Warning this chapter contains blood, violence, mild swearing and horror

Liam was worried and ran quickly after her. His heart was pounding as he followed the white of her dress, but suddenly it seemed to vanish. He gulped and kept running, now following his mother who was still calling for him.

When he got to her his eyes widened in disbelief.

In front of him was his mother trembling on the ground while Katie sat upon a horse made of bone and flame. She held a chain whip and stared at his mother in deep contempt. Her eyes held a fire that Liam didn’t like seeing there.

“Katie what the hell!?” he stepped in front of his mother, between her and the horse.

“I’ll have you Liam… I’ll get rid of the distractions,” she glared at his mother, almost as if she didn’t see him. Liam felt his stomach twist painfully.

“Stop it, you’re scaring me Katie…” he said lowly as he backed towards his mother, “We can’t be together, I’m sorry. I know it hurts-“

“YOU KNOW NOTHING!!!” Katie hissed and her purple eyes glowed like fire as she looked at him. Her horse stepped closer as he stepped away and he began to realize the utter danger of the situation. He grabbed his mother’s arm and began running.

A cry of anguish rang out behind him and he felt his blood rush to his ears, blocking out every noise save for the rush of hooves behind him and his deafening heartbeat in his head. His stomach dropped when he heard the hoof-beats getting closer and he decided to take a sudden turn to try and throw her off among the trees.

His mother was trying her best to keep up, but as every second passed he felt as though she wasn’t moving quick enough. “There!” she pointed to a mansion in a forest grotto. It looked old and unused with vines growing over the sides, but Liam paid that no mind as he rushed inside, shouting for help with his mother right behind him.

After a moment or two he realized that the mansion was empty, so he made his way upstairs, picking a cluttered room to try and hide in with his mother. When they sank behind a desk, he felt the intensity of what was happening hit him.

“M-mom-“ he looked to her in fear, but she put a hand over his mouth quickly, holding him close to try and soothe any noises that he was making. It was hard to hear past his shallow breaths and heartbeat, but he soon heard the click of footsteps down the hall.

The footfalls were quiet and slow and for a moment… they stopped. But soon the silence was broken when they heard a door down the hall slam open. It was immediately followed by another and another as the loud noises became closer and closer.

Suddenly this didn’t feel like a sweet romance anymore… it turned into a horrible sense of dread and feeling of impending doom. It felt as if each breath he breathed led her closer to them, he held his breath as the banging began to crescendo, reaching a booming volume as she neared the door.

His mother shook against him as the door slammed open and the air around them went stiff. The pause in the noise made for an eerie feeling of death. He could here every little thing in the room, which made his heartbeat loud. He felt like she could hear them…

She stepped into the room leaning over the desk slowly as she surveyed the area…

“Liam… don’t leave me… we could be happy…” she said in a sad tone that almost made him believe that she didn’t want to hurt them. He looked to his mother who shook her head in fear, and he realized she was right. If he gave away their positions, they were goners.

“Liam… do you remember that funny story you told me…?” she hummed, and her heels clicked against the stone floor. He huddled up further under the desk with his mother. “I do. You said that the headless horseman was responsible for twenty deaths here in the past 50 years. If you come with me… the number won’t have to rise to twenty-two…”

Liam’s eyes widened as he looked to his mother. Tears gathered in his eyes and he bit his tongue harshly to hold in the sobs of grief and fear. He felt like a total sucker and a complete fool. They were going to die because of him. His mother rubbed his back and held him close.

“Liam…” she called his name softly yet again, and there was a clicking noise. He knew it well. It was the sound of his zoetrope running, “Please come out… I want to give this back before you go…”

He kept up his silence and heard a growl of frustration from her. She stepped forward for a moment, terrifying him at the sudden lunge, but soon she retreated out of the room. He and his mother hid for three days, waiting for someone to come find them. They could hear the girl’s wails in the distance. She was checking each room thoroughly, which gave them time to move rooms as needed. But Liam was hungry… and tired… he hadn’t slept or eaten or had water. He wondered sometimes if dying was better than this hell. His mother’s soft words always brought him back though. She told him she knew that they would get out and see their father again, and he constantly apologized for everything.

They heard her at the end of the third day in a distant room and Liam decided that tonight they were making a run for the door. He led them to the hall and slowly crept down the stairs, they were home free, the door was right there… but…

Liam looked out the opened doors and saw yellow glowing eyes in the distance. It was the horse, staring them down from he woods. He gasped and turned to his mother, but it was too late.

With a sickening grunt a knife plunged itself through his mother’s chest. Her eyes widened at the sight and Liam reached out to her before the knife was pulled out harshly. The woman fell to the floor with a thud… blood pooling around her as she gasped for air.

He grabbed her and shook her a little, “Mom! No!” he was in complete shock, body freezing up as she went limp before he could even turn her over. This wasn’t supposed to happen on their vacation. He was supposed to spend time with his family… and grow closer than they had been at home.

He felt his stomach wrench at the awful smell of blood that seemed to cling to her and to him and he gagged, turning away to empty the contents of his stomach harshly. His head spun at all the things happening at once, discombobulating him.

“Liam… I solved the problem…” he looked up to her when her voice rang out, her white scarf was gone, revealing horrid stitches that kept her head attached to her body. The once beautiful tone made his ears feel as if they were about to bleed. Fear shot through him as his blue eyes caught her wide purple ones. Her face was formed into a grin and she held the large knife that cut his mother.

“Twenty dead… none were compatible. I tried so hard to have a friend that I could keep,” she stepped towards him and he stood to run back up the stairs since her horse was blocking the door. “How many steps did the man in your zoetrope take before he fell?”

It was as if fate had shackled his legs, after his third step he tripped on the stairs, and he felt her sit on his back, “I like you Liam… you don’t have to leave…”

Then blank. He felt a horrible pain in his neck that surpassed anything he had ever felt before in his life. He sobbed and waited for himself to join with his mother in the afterlife. But the warmth never came. The pain never ceased. The smell never dissipated.

Liam opened his tear-filled eyes to see the carpet of the main hall. His head wasn’t sitting right though… he could see his arm, but it was like it was settled around his head.

He looked to a broken mirror and realized that his head was clutched in his arms and being held to his torso by his body as if to protect it. His hair had turned a stark white and his eyes glowed pink and shone with fear.

“It worked!” the girl cried in relief and went over to hug him, “I love you Liam! I love you so much!”

He sat there, processing the horrors that had just gone on. Realizing what she had done his voice and eyes faltered, “What have you done to me…?” his intonation took on a new low that the soft boy had never reached before.

“I made you like me, we can be together now,” she smiled and held him more, stitching his head on lovingly like her own.

“You’re a monster…” He growled deeply then pushed her away while she stitched, causing his head to sit at a gross angle, “I could never love a beast like you!” he spat. Rage filled his pink eyes and all he saw was red.

Between the heartache, his mother, and now this he was torn apart mentally. The next think he knew he was on top of her, viciously plunging her knife into her chest over and over again. She was a supernatural being, and she struggled for a long while, tears streaming from her face as she yelled at him, saying she didn’t understand. But finally, she stopped moving… and Liam dropped the knife.

For the first time in his life, especially in the past few days, he went totally numb. His tired eyes dulled and looked upon the corpses of those he loved most. His aching knees sank further to the floor. His hollow heart settled down for the first time in days.

There was noise at the door, and he turned to see his father looking on in horror.

“Son… what have you done…?” his voice shook, but Liam’s dead eyes seemed distant and almost looked past him. The man ran off without his son, and he never came back. Nor did anyone.

He laid there for weeks, unmoving as he sat within the mansion that had symbolized the end of his natural life.

The boy’s head looked over to the zoetrope, and he reached a shaky arm out to spin it. The man tripped, and fell, and lost his head. Instead of symbolizing the gift that his mother had given him the zoetrope now felt like a sick play by play of his death. She ruined everything for him. Even this.

“Hey there…” a quiet voice called out into the mansion, “You alright?”

Liam looked to a taller man with glasses, his expression hadn’t changed much over the past few weeks he had laid here, but the threads in his neck had begun to rot and his head tilted to the side. Blood still soaked his shirt, a gross mix of his mothers, his own, and Katie’s.

Liam shook his head slowly in response to his question. Nothing would ever be okay anymore.

“Right…” the man looked to the two corpses, then back to Liam, “Lets get out of here and get you cleaned up for now okay? You can pay me back later.” The man held out a hand for Liam to take, “My name is Eli.”

“I’m Liam…”