He reached up and flicked off the kitchen light, hoping the darkness would improve his night vision, while making him invisible to the thing outside. Rising from his crouch, he peeked through a slit at the side of the window shade. Evening had just fallen, darkness bathed in blue as the last of the sun's light faded. He could see the sand dunes beyond the cottage's little yard, but his view was limited. Holding his breath he gave the bottom of the shade a tug and let the spring roll it up.
He let his air out, relieved. There was nothing in the twilight but the grassy lawn and the ocean beyond. He looked over at the lighthouse, twenty yards away. No shadows moved in the darkness. Turning his head from left to right, his eyes scoured the property. He nodded, allowing his relief to turn to hope. Perhaps they'd given up their campaign to taunt him.
"Good riddance, you fuckers," he whispered in the darkness.
Giggles sounded beyond the window. The snickers were close, alarmingly close, like they were flattened against the side of the house just below. He had three seconds to process the sound, feel the cold warning stiffen his stance, and then the head popped up on the other side of the glass.
"Shit!" He stumbled backward, bumping into a kitchen chair.
The devious bastard had actually been hiding, waiting for him to relax and raise the shade. Part of the neck was visible, too thick to belong to a giraffe, too long to belong to a horse. Or rather to any normal horse. Sprouting from the trunk of the neck was a vaguely equine head, smooth and pink as a fetus, a pair of tiny pointed ears atop the skull. The eyes were blobs of navy blue, pointed at the edges; no iris, but seeing him just the same.
The most disarming feature was the grin. The big, vertical half-moon grin with giant white horse teeth that took up half its face, a face that was part horse, but part something else. It was the most unsettling smile ever pasted on a face. No demon, nor clown, nor joker, nor used car salesman's leer could ever match its chilling effect. And it never faltered, never hid behind lips, never tilted to a frown. But he couldn't really blame the creature for it. Elliot had painted it that way.
The creature dipped its head and tilted it sideways, closer to the window. "I can seeeeee you, Elliot!" its sing-song voice taunted. It let out a snicker that was part horse whinny, and scampered away. Elliot ran to the window as he heard it clomp off, followed by the twitters and footfalls of the other strange abominations trailing behind.
He watched them move across the lawn toward the lighthouse. The long-necked horse-creature was in front, trotting merrily, pink rump shifting, tossing its curly skin-tail about like a spring that slapped its flanks with each step. The horse rump had a divot running up the center and looked obscenely like an over-grown human buttocks. Elliot couldn't fault it for that either. He'd painted the rump that way as well.
He left the window and stumbled around the dark kitchen, kicking the paints, sketch pads and bits of canvas that covered the floor. The place was a chaotic mess, but he'd hardly been in the mind to clean it up since the night of his episode. The problem now was, with the mess he'd created, he couldn't find his car keys. Lost car keys were normally an annoyance. In this case, a tragedy.
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