Chapter 27

Every spring, the riders of Bracken Ridge drove their horses across the valley to reach the mountain pastures.

It was an old tradition.

The elders would bless the saddles, the children would weave flowers into the horses’ manes, and before they departed, someone would always whisper the same words:

“Keep riding. No matter what you hear beneath the hooves.”

No one ever explained why.

The year I turned seventeen, I finally asked my grandfather.

He stared into the fire for a long while before answering.

“Because if you stop,” he said quietly, “they’ll know you can hear them.”

I thought it was another story meant to frighten children.

Until the crossing.

By midday, we were deep in the valley. The grass swayed like waves beneath a gray sky, and the only sounds were the rhythmic thuds of dozens of horses.

Then…

Help us.

I looked around.

“What?”

The riders continued forward.

Please.

The voice was faint, muffled.

It seemed to come from below.

My horse tossed its head nervously.

It hurts.

I glanced at the ground.

For the briefest moment, I thought I saw a human face beneath the earth, pressing upward from under the grass as though trapped beneath thin ice.

I blinked.

It was gone.

The whispers grew louder.

Don’t leave us.

We can’t breathe.

Dig us out.

Panic seized me.

“Don’t you hear that?” I shouted.

No one answered.

No one even turned around.

Then my horse stumbled.

The earth beneath its hoof split open.

A hand shot out.

Its skin was gray and stretched tightly over bone. Mud clogged its fingernails as it clawed desperately at the air.

Then another hand emerged.

And another.

The valley erupted.

Thousands of hands burst from the ground, grasping at horse legs, boots, and reins. Faces pushed through the soil with mouths hanging open in silent screams.

The riders never stopped.

Their expressions remained blank as they urged their horses onward.

I screamed for them to help me.

My grandfather rode past without looking at me.

“Keep riding,” he said.

The dead weren’t trying to drag us under.

They were trying to climb out.

I kicked free and forced my horse into a gallop. Around me, the valley writhed as the buried reached toward the living, their fingers brushing my boots.

One caught my stirrup.

Its clouded eyes locked onto mine.

“We were the first crossing,” it whispered.

Its jaw cracked wider.

“They rode over us too.”

I didn’t look back after escaping the valley.

I never returned to Bracken Ridge.

But some nights, when rain taps against my window in a steady rhythm…

I wake to the sound of horses running.

And beneath the thunder of their hooves, I hear thousands of voices whispering from under my floorboards.

“Keep riding.”

“Keep running.”

“Don’t look back.”

“Please don’t stop.”