The Worst Horse

This season wouldn't be complete without a horse episode. And this horse is even spookier than The Long Horse was in season one. You could even call it... The Worst Horse. Today's episode was written by Helen Theodora Waite, or as you might know her from reddit; u/PreistessOfSpiders. 

Link to original Story: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/16zv7l8/the_worst_horse/ 

Transcript

Your new house is a curious mix of ancient and brand new. The owners before you had clearly done their damndest to preserve what they could, and what they couldn’t had been brought aggressively up to the present. The roof is still the same slate it had been when it was built over a century ago, but the walls are painted lavender and mint. The kitchen has old antique-looking light fixtures, the gold clashing a bit with the chrome of the brand-new appliances. Your doorknobs look to be salvaged, ancient brass put back onto new white slab doors. It’s a curious mix, but it works, and for the most part, all of these decisions have been made for you. You wanted move-in ready, and there was nothing in the house you had to worry about. The outside, though, was another matter. Your house came with an ancient carriage house in the yard. Country relaxed regulations meant there was no rush for you to do anything with it, and from the looks of it, all the previous owners had decided against making any decisions. It was starting to decay, but not enough to be a true eyesore. The paint was peeling, but the wood had not yet rotted. The windows were cracked in a few spots, but still doing their job. The inside had been cleared of any stables, turned into a hangout spot, but even that was ancient. There was a makeshift bar, and three wooden tables, with the chairs all mismatched but all antique and lovely. You knew you needed to make a decision, restore what you could, or gut and renovate, but part of you wanted to just leave it be, like everyone before you had. The decision is made for you late one night though, when you spot lights and hear some kind of party happening inside. You walk outside, and you hear laughter and clapping. But when you peer inside you realize that it wasn’t clapping, but clopping. The tables are all full of horses, all hunched over and sitting on the chairs like people. They’re drinking and laughing, and playing cards, albeit not well with their hooves. The boards you’re leaning on creak, and they all stop and turn to look at you, the silence heavy, threatening. But the horse behind the bar cuts the tension. He asks you what your poison is, and you tell him to pour you a glass of: The Podcast Inside Your House. 


By Helen Theodora Waite, or as you might know her from Reddit PriestessOfSpiders


From the very first moment I saw one, I have always hated horses. I remember the event clearly, that first meeting with one of those wretched animals which shattered my innocence at such a young age. I must have been about 8 years old, my family was attending a country fair, and there was an advertisement for pony rides.
Now, up until this point in my development, I had never actually seen a horse in the real world. I'd seen them in picture books, sure, I even owned a couple of toy ones, but I'd never seen an actual, living horse. The shock of beholding the actual animal itself was a viscerally disturbing experience.
Everything about it was wrong. The sour, sweaty smell, the too-large eyes that seemed to eye me as though I were prey, the sharp-tipped hooves, and those horrible, enormous teeth. I watched the attendant give the pony a sugar cube from her hand, and winced in terror at the thought of it simply biting down upon her fingers and snapping them like carrots.
My parents must have thought that my wide-eyed, silent terror was due to being overwhelmed with excitement, because they wound up pushing me forwards, where the attendant helped me up onto the pony. I wanted to scream as I felt myself forced onto the hideous monster, I wanted to beg to be let off, but I was still utterly paralyzed with fear. The attendant began to lead the pony forwards, oblivious to my horror, but the pony knew how I felt. It knew I was afraid.
Without warning it broke free from the attendant's grasp, the rope loosely held in her hands slipping free quickly, as the pony galloped forwards as fast as it could. Finally, I found my voice, and began to scream to be let off, to get away from this monster.
I got my wish sooner than I might have guessed.
The pony bucked, and I found myself flying through the air, crashing into a fence with a gut-wrenching snap as my arm broke from the force and I experienced the worst pain I had ever felt up to that point in my entire life. Blinking tears out of my eyes, I watched as the maddened pony began to rush towards me, seemingly preparing to finish the job. Mercifully, it was at that point I fainted.
Ultimately I was mostly okay, at least physically. There was no lasting damage, as it was a clean break which healed up nicely. The otherwise incompetent attendant successfully managed to keep the pony from ramming into me in the nick of time. Emotionally, however, I would never be quite the same again. It was the first time in my entire life that I was actually, genuinely afraid of dying, and that changes you.
My parents never believed me when I told them that I knew I hated horses from the first instant I saw the pony. They always assume it is simply a false memory, that I was projecting my trauma backwards, but I know the truth. From the very moment I looked at that disgusting animal, I knew that there was something terribly wrong with horses.
All this was decades ago of course. I'm an adult now, more than that in fact, I'm retired; a "senior citizen" as they say. I suppose people have started to get offended by the term "old woman". My parents are long since dead and buried and in all honesty I am very likely soon to join them. Perhaps sooner than I deserve.
My home out in the country isn't especially large, nor especially extravagant, and until now it has served its ultimate purpose quite well; to be somewhere cheap where I can live out the rest of my days in relative comfort. It is a simple old farmhouse, small but with two stories, in good repair and relatively easy to maintain, even at my age. The major downside is that it is fairly isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by fields as far as the eye can see, but up until recently that felt like more of a blessing than a curse. Now however, I long to be in the city, surrounded by concrete and people, far far away from this place. All because of the Horse.
I cannot help but capitalize the word when I refer to this animal, for it is surely the purest and most hateful representative of its kind. It is a Horse to surpass all other horses, the most foul and despicable member of a species characterized by foulness and despicability. It is, to put it quite simply, the Worst Horse.
My first encounter with the Worst Horse was a few weeks ago now I think, perhaps a month, though I must admit I am unsure of the exact date. I was out hanging up some clothes to dry, and I recall it was a fairly pleasant, sunny day. Or at least, it was until the exact moment I saw the Horse. Almost instantly, the wind seemed to pick up, rustling the tall grass and putting a chill in my bones. A cloud passed over the sun, darkening the sky faintly as I stared at the creature across the field. It was staring back at me.
Living out in the country, it is not entirely rare to see the occasional horse, it is simply an unfortunate fact of life, and as much as I despise the creatures it is not within my power to criminalize the act of riding one. However, it is considerably less common to see one unbridled and unmounted, standing utterly still and staring at you with assuredly malicious intent.
I was obviously deeply uncomfortable, and found myself paralyzed, as if I were once again the frightened little girl confronted by that fairground pony. The Horse was similarly motionless. I am not a religious woman, laugh at me all you want but it always felt difficult to keep faith after my first interaction with a horse. I couldn't reconcile the existence of a benevolent creator with the existence of horses. In that moment, however, I wished I had something to pray to.
At first, I couldn't tell quite what was causing such an extreme reaction. It was a shock, to be sure, but I am a grown woman, not a scared child. I shouldn't be reduced to a quivering statue from the mere sight of my phobia, hundreds of feet away. It took me a few moments to realize that it was the Horse's eyes that had disturbed me.
Most herbivores, horses and their damnable ilk included, have eyes that face sideways, in order to give them a better field of view to spot predators. The forward facing eyes typical of wolves, lions, and other such animals are due to their need to effectively hunt down and kill prey. The Worst Horse has eyes which face forwards.
As I came to this uncomfortable realization, a crow went flying past the Horse, its cawing echoing back towards me across the tall grass. There was a flash of movement. The bird's cry was interrupted with an abrupt crunch. The Horse chewed the mass of bloodstained black feathers for a moment before swallowing the pulverized bird with a disgusting gulping motion.
It was at this point that I was able to successfully remember how to move again, and found myself running into the house in a daze, locking and bolting the door behind me before running to grab the shotgun I keep in a locked case for emergencies. By the time I had finished fiddling with the lock and loading the shells, the Horse was long gone, thought I can hardly imagine where it could have vanished to. There is nowhere to hide in these vast, empty fields, and I should have been able to see it even if it had traveled a mile away.
I was hesitant to relay my encounter to any of my acquaintances. I have few living friends, and due to never marrying have borne no children, but I do keep in contact with my brother on a somewhat regular basis, and generally try to call him whenever anything interesting happens. In this case, however, I worried that he may question my sanity. Tales of disappearing, carnivorous horses are hardly a sign of mental stability after all. This is not to mention the fact that he is well aware of my aversion to horses, and treats it somewhat disrespectfully as a bit of a joke. Given the probability of being treated like a lunatic or a clown, I decided to keep the entire affair to myself.
A few days passed before I saw the Worst Horse again, although that didn't stop me from feeling paranoid whenever I dared to go outside in the meantime. It was around 11 o'clock at night, and I had woken up in bed with the most unnerving feeling of being watched. My bedroom is on the second story of the house, perhaps not a good idea at my age but frankly I always liked the slight bit of exercise from going up and down the stairs. This made it particularly disturbing to see the Horse's long, terrible face staring at me hungrily through my bedroom window.
I found myself once again paralyzed, feeling rather as though I were a rat staring up at a king cobra. I must have sat there for minutes, eyes wide in pure terror of that awful, terrible Horse. It was slightly too dark to get a very clear look at it, but I could make out those evil, predatory eyes and the faint gleam of its teeth. I could swear neither of us blinked during the whole time we watched one another. Eventually, the face lowered down beneath the windowsill, slowly, maintaining eye contact until the last possible moment. I heard a faint snort that, for the life of me, sounded like laughter, followed by the clopping of hooves as it rode off into the night.
I didn't see the Worst Horse for a while after that, but I could tell it was still lurking around the property. I would find piles of dung with shattered bits of bone sticking out of them, and would occasionally hear the faint sound of whinnies or the clopping of hooves drift down on the breeze. On one occasion I heard it skulking about the back of the house, snorting with that derisive, almost human laughter. I just kept very still, waiting for it to go away. There was another sound, a sort of gagging, retching noise followed by a wet splat that made me feel sick to my stomach, and then I could hear the Horse galloping off. I waited for quite a while before checking the back door to make sure it was gone.
When I did, cautiously creaking open the door ever so slowly, I found a pile of hundreds of faintly yellowed horse teeth on the back porch, covered in a thick translucent slime. I put on some disposable rubber gloves and tossed them all into the garbage.
I took to leaving the gun case unlocked, and would frequently wander around the house with the loaded shotgun in my hands. I didn't leave the house very often anymore, I was always just waiting and listening for that infernal Horse to come back. I still didn't tell my brother. This was just something I felt that I had to deal with on my own.
It was 3 days ago that I woke up in the middle of the night to loud thumping hoofbeats, as if the Horse was trying to break down the walls. This time, I was prepared, I had fallen asleep with the shotgun leaning upon the wall by the bed, and I was fully ready to use it. I had taken to sleeping fully clothed, so after putting on my shoes I marched outside, looking for any sign of that awful, terrible, wretched Horse.
I found it. It stood atop the house, silhouetted against the full moon, staring down at me with those ghastly forward facing eyes.
This was the first time I'd seen the Worst Horse up close and clearly, and it was so much worse than I could have ever imagined. It opened its jaws in a wide yawn, revealing rows upon rows of blunted, huge teeth, seeming to occupy almost the entirety of its mouth. Its fur was covered in the thick frothy sweat typical of horses, but it seemed slightly yellow in color, and gave off a noxious steam in the night air as if it were some sort of acid. The worst part, however, were the legs.
Did you know that horse legs are, anatomically speaking, toes? The reason there is but a single hoof is because that is its toenail. There is a medical condition called polydactyly, in which one possesses additional fingers or toes. In horses, this typically results in additional, smaller hooves sticking out at odd angles from the rest of the leg. In the case of the Worst Horse, however, it just meant that it had multiple stunted, twisted limbs branching out where they ought not to be, some just twitching faintly, others sprawled against the roof of the house like some sort of horrible spider.
I wanted to kill it. I wanted to unload two barrels of hot lead into the thing's disgusting, horrific form, to end this nightmare and allow me to live out the rest of my life in peace. I raised the gun to my shoulder and took aim, lining up both barrels to the horse's general direction as best as I could with my shaking arms. The horse took a step closer, still staring, daring me to act, daring me to pull both triggers.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't will my fingers to move. It was as if I was a statue. My mind screamed at me over and over again, overwhelmed with hate and fear, shrieking out kill it kill it kill it but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't do anything.
The Horse whinnied with cruel, inhuman laughter before scuttling off the roof and galloping away, the echoes of its foul giggling fading away into the night. I fell to the ground on my hands and knees and began to sob.
As soon as it was morning, I went to go call my brother, to tell him everything that had happened and to beg him to let me stay with him and get away from this awful place and the Worst Horse. I didn't care if he laughed at me, I didn't care if he tried to get me institutionalized. I just wanted to be out of this place. I dialed his phone number, but nothing happened. There wasn't so much as a dial tone. I tried again. And again. And again. The phone line had been disconnected. Something had cut the wire. I was certain that if I ran outside to check, I would find that it had been severed with a set of far too many blunt, equine teeth.
I decided to simply drive down to the city, get a hotel and call my brother from there. I packed a small bag and was about to get into the car when I noticed how low it was sitting upon the driveway. I inspected closer to find that each and every tire was completely flat, as though they had been kicked repeatedly by sharp, stiff hooves. I was stranded.
I'm trapped here. I don't know why I've been writing this all down. In all likelihood none of this will ever be read. I suppose I just want to get it out of my head, to set everything down on paper to organize my thoughts.
The Worst Horse has been circling the house for a while now, day and night, just running around it in circles and whinnying. At first it was perhaps a hundred yards away, but it's been getting progressively closer and closer, spiraling in towards the house. I keep the shotgun with me at all times now, though I'm not sure if I intend to use it to fend off my tormentor, or in case I prefer an easy way out rather than being left to the mercy of its sharpened hooves and rows of blunt teeth.
I wrote earlier that I didn't believe in God, but that's not entirely true anymore. I think that the Worst Horse is God, and I know in my heart of hearts that it hates me just as much as I hate it.
- - -
The above note was recovered from the home of Gladys Rosewood in the summer of 1990, after a wellness check was called for by her brother, Stephen Rosewood. Police found that her home appeared to have been broken into, with the door smashed in and significant signs of struggle within the house itself. A double barreled hunting shotgun was found on the premises, one shell fired, and pellets of buckshot were found embedded in a wall nearby. There was no sign of Ms. Rosewood anywhere on the property, and it is unclear where she could have gone. Most curiously, dozens of muddy hoofprints were found through the premises, including on the walls and ceiling.
Further investigation has failed to locate Ms. Rosewood, and due to the absence of any additional evidence the case is considered cold and she has been declared dead in absentia.


Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the podcast inside your house! To hear every tale of terror as they are released, subscribe to our show on your podcast app or on Youtube or follow us on Facebook and Bluesky. Until Next Time: Remember to always do a quick horse check under your bed at night before you hit the hay.