Headlights(74)

“What’s that?” I say.

“Visual, physical, verbal,” he says, “they don’t like it. That’s why they respond to it. They don’t like it.”

Ryder’s eyes flick to mine, imparting some great meaning. “You don’t pressure a horse unless you know what you want from it.” He jerks his chin toward Hannah again. “She reminds me of my students. You have to be careful.”

Again, I think, maybe honesty here. “She’s been through some things.”

Ryder takes that in, nods once, and softens. “All the horses here are rescues,” he says.

“Look,” I say. “I’m sorry. I don’t have much time. We do need your help.”

Again, that nervousness, and the horse beside him shifts a little. Ryder nods.

Is it you? Could it be?

“Did you know anyone by the name of Everett Brown?”

He furrows his brow, thinking. Then he shakes his head.

“What about Kimberly Chen? Ross Thompson?”

Same thing, shakes his head no.

“Ramona Lopez? Pete Noland? Tony Howell?”

Again, a shake of the head. The horse beside him stomps its back foot and swishes its tail.

“I don’t know any of these people. Why are you asking me?”

“Can you tell me what a Witchwalker is?”

Ryder goes completely pale. “Did you come here to fuck with me?”

“No,” I say.

“Why would you ask me that?”

“It might have something to do with a murder case.”

He swears. “Is this that Drifter thing? Again?”

After a moment, I nod.

“I told you all I have nothing to do with that.” He shakes his head. “Fuck. Look, I don’t want to invite that shit up here. I’m serious.”

“Have you by any chance heard of a chat room called DRIFTERS: SEEKING THE TRUTH?” I ask.

“Fuck,” he says again, and squeezes his eyes closed. The horse leans into him. “That motherfucker. Did he tell you to come here? Is he fucking with me again?” He’s shaken, scared.

“Who?”

He swears again, breathes. He says, “In jail, people talk. They kept me mostly on my own because of what I did. I wasn’t a chomo or an animal abuser, but … schools have kids in ’em. The guards learned real quick that I needed to be on my own or I wasn’t gonna last long. But before they put me in the psych ward, they’d all whisper about it. Not much in prison can scare people, especially the tough guys, but that … thing…”

“The Witchwalker?”

“Jesus, stop. I’m serious.”

“What is it? Why did it scare them so much?” Why does it scare you?

“I mean, the idea that you might be possessed by something, turned into a killer against your will, what’s scarier than—”

“You don’t think the killers did it?”

“I mean, I don’t know. But in jail, the way people talked, it was like it was real. I had a cellmate for about a month. This motherfucker. He was in for forced labor and SA. Crazy dude. Saw himself as a kind of new Manson. Liked attention, the more eyes on him the better. He would sit there on his bed at night, starin’ up at the little window out to the sky, this intense look on his face like he was waiting. Like he was praying with his eyes open. And right as I was closing my eyes to sleep every night, he’d say, like he was talkin’ to the fuckin’ night, I feel you watching me. Why don’t you take me? Use me too.”

“They didn’t take him to the psych ward?”

Ryder looks at me like he doesn’t understand. “No, you don’t get it. He wasn’t crazy. He acted crazy, like, we knew that, everyone knew. But even the guards didn’t mess with him. He … knew things. He’d tell us the weatherman was wrong about the next day’s report, and he’d be right. He’d tell us what the next ten meals served would be before the distributor had made the drop-off. Sometimes he could even tell you if someone you knew had died and was sayin’ hello.”

I must make a face because he says, “You don’t believe that some people just feel things? That they can access something the rest of us can’t?”

I clear my throat, watch Hannah and the horse. “You were afraid of the … thing? Afraid your cellmate might turn into one?”

Ryder nods. “Afraid any of us might. And it’s not turning into one, it’s like it takes you over. It comes and walks through you. Wears you like a coat. But yeah, he was inviting it in, he wanted it there. And it wasn’t always just him. Everybody talked about it. Sometimes we could feel something, comin’ in through the window. Passing over our skin. This weird sound. Like it was testing us. Like it was looking for something or someone, and none of us were it. It stayed with my cellmate the longest, would hang around our room, but it always left at the end. And he’d throw these insane fits when it did. Punch concrete walls, bang his head against the bars till he bled, yelling. But that sound when it came. I’ll never … Sometimes I still dream about it.”

“What was the sound like?”

“Um … kind of like intense pressure. I don’t know how to say it better than that. Like, um, VOOM. That’s kind of what it was like. Static, and pressure. Like we were sucked into a vacuum. And we were just trapped there, like we couldn’t do anything. Just wait.”