The horseman - part 3

Perhaps it was just some hallucination brought on by the fever ...

I was sheltering in the ruin of an old plantation house, my stricken fellow-residents dropping like flies. That night, I remember a fearful thirst driving me down to the river bank where he was waiting.

He drew out a long knife, blue flames playing along its blade. The ground swayed beneath me and I saw unearthly shapes crawling out of the water, raising their heads to a sickly grinning moon. The drums of the underworld filled my ears.

‘Go on,’ I said, kneeling before him. ‘But you’re still a coward.’

He paused, his hand held high.

‘How so?’ he whispered in a voice like drifting sand.

‘You refuse to face me.’

He moved the blade to rest against my neck; I could feel its sharp, burning chill. The stars began to slide down the sky.

‘Give me a weapon to fight you,’ I insisted, unflinching. ‘Or accept that you’re afraid.’

How long he stood and waited I don’t know. When I woke the fever had departed from all of us.

If he imagined that this would appease me, he was wrong. If Hell followed him then so could I.