Tales of Halloween, 2024

[ScarlettDeath]

Oh no! Be careful around the trees from now on as the ghosties are among us! OoooOoooo
I love how vivid your posts are! I can't wait to read more!

[BlackOak2]

Oh no! Be careful around the trees from now on as the ghosties are among us! OoooOoooo
I love how vivid your posts are! I can't wait to read more!

More will come.

If there's much interest in this, I'll make other tales for different holidays. But Halloween is my favorite.

[ScarlettDeath]

I hope so bc I really like your stories! I hope to see the forum posts pick up and the comments as well. From what ii can see they are slowly dying here and there and it makes me sad not to see more players interact.

[Tom]

Oh no! Be careful around the trees from now on as the ghosties are among us! OoooOoooo
I love how vivid your posts are! I can't wait to read more!

More will come.

If there's much interest in this, I'll make other tales for different holidays. But Halloween is my favorite.

Larissa and I have been enjoying them!

[BlackOak2]

More will come.

If there's much interest in this, I'll make other tales for different holidays. But Halloween is my favorite.

Larissa and I have been enjoying them!

Wonderful!

I'll keep them up, but nothing new for today, got mowing to do.

[BlackOak2]

Skeletons In The Clos....Stalls
Part Two

Day Four

I stretch and yawn. It's not a bad day. It rained overnight, so everything was chilled and wet. Just what you want when you're mucking stalls. -_-
But some Bigeloil goes a long way to keep the hands warm when they're stiff.
Shh... don't tell anybody my little secret!

I've been eyeing that big barn since I got scared silly. It even made it into my dreams. Was surrounded by ghosties saying 'BOO!' and then laughing when I jumped.
So mean.
Reminding me too much of school days. The nice thing is, I had some good friends and we gave as good as we got.

Anyway, morning chores are done. All that's left is for me to check out the barn.
And cross in front of that tree... again...



That is seared! into my thoughts. Good thing I brought a thermos of my spiced tea today.

So, after taking another couple mouthfuls of the tea, I strut off toward the barn.

It's funny, even today, after sooo many LONG years, strutting always makes me think of Mulan. 'Shoulders back, chest out... now STRUT!'

Still makes me giggle every time.

So, I STRUT up to the barn, STRUT past the tree... it doesn't jump out of me this time...
And STRUT up to the front doors.

One of the doors is off it's tracks. It's hanging lopsided and to move it, it'll have to be manhandled. It's a bit too heavy to do that, and not to mention, big, to be doing that with just one person. Pushing it down and pulling it out of the way would likely result in the glass shattering and anybody with horses knows that's one of the many things we'd like to avoid. These days, plexi- or another type of tough glass is preferable to regular. Means it's more costly (sometimes) but worth it when an accident sends glass shattering... or doesn't.

Luckily, the other door is still hung and should slide, if with a bit of curses, squealing (both from me and the door) and some sheer muscle.

I put my hand on the door and test the weight and movement. As I do so, I hear this eerie thonk-thonk noise.
My hand lifts from the door.
That was weird.
Of all the things to hear from a beaten and disused door on wheels, Thonk-Thonk wasn't one of them.
I place my hand again and test it and again the Thonk-Thonk sounds.

Hmmm....

I test it again and after a few belated seconds, the Thonk-Thonk sound echoes out.

Ooohhhh.... From inside the barn. I feel the smile spread across my face then just as quickly, disappears.

WHAT INSIDE THE BARN MAKES A THONK-THONK SOUND????

-_-

And you know what I've gotta do...

So I put a little shoulder weight into the door and with an absolutely horrible scree-ing sound, I'm able to get the door pushed wide.
...
Belatedly, I remember there's another entrance to my left as my ears continue to ring. I even walked by it when approaching these double doors and, to my utter shame.... and a different style of horror..., I realize that the door on that one, is completely missing.



As I'm stewing over my idiocy, my ears tune in on the Thonk-Thonk noise again as well as a cascade of low-thrumming drums. With my thoughts on halloween and the events of the last few days, I feel my body crouch down in a survivors hunch as I'm suddenly ready to be stampeded.

Such poor survival instincts though. As I'm hunched I can't help but realize, a survivor would've at least darted to the right or left, to the relative additional safety of the walls.

Wow... batting a thousand right now.

-_-

As nothing continues to happen and the sounds from inside the barn disappear, I take a peak through my hunched arms. As is the experience with the other barns, I can see nothing inside. It's a bit more of a dismal day out today, so the complete darkness inside is more of an utter blackness than the other two barns.

Nothing but silence greets me as I'm still hunched.

Reaching for my thermos, I stand slowly and then I step through into the crevice of nothingness and come out on the other side into a black that (as my experience with the other two barns explains) isn't as black as it first seems. Although there's some old posts where the stalls used to be, the walls of those stalls are absent. I wonder... I don't recall if I had them torn down before the barns were demolished. How long had this estate been abandoned before I took ownership?

Today, it seems, my eyes are loath to pierce that black. Shadows move from the other side of the barn. Sliding back and forth, slowly, loathsomely, as if the demons from the depths of h#ll are awaiting the perfect time to strike.

...
Eh...
Ehehe.....
...

As I try to see those demons at the other side of the barn, my eyes adjust enough to pick up a fresh bale of straw much nearer to me. And beside it, a pile of hay. Now that brings to mind the other barns and their recently arrived residents.


Feeling my courage tick up quite a number of spokes, I find myself striding toward the straw bale and hay pile.
I pass the straw without incident and my courage ticks up a few more.

Then as I'm approaching the hay pile, I notice something white is sticking out of it. It takes another moment and my steps slow to a stop as I realize what I'm looking at.

It's another one of those overly massive femur bones. At least I assume it's a femur. It could be a shoulder or something else. I really don't know if I want to meet the horse that once owned this... or maybe it wasn't a horse at all! Which begs the brain to think up something else it might've come from...



No! No! No! Nonononono!!! Go Away!

I quickly wipe such a thing from my thoughts.

Such a vivid imagination isn't always useful and handy.

Anyway... as I'm doing my best to NOT remember what I just thought of, I hear the Thonk-Thonk again and realize it's coming from further inside. This smudge of lightness appears to be not far ahead.

As my curiosity finally overcomes the image, my feet carry me forward.



!!!!!!

Ow... I rub my offended hip. Danged ghosties got me again. I can almost hear the laughter dying as I stand back up. At least this time I didn't also faint... my wounded ego rolls over within me, reminding me that I finally started to recognize what that smudge of lightness in front of me was.

Vague Mirage


And that's where that weird Thonk-Thonk is coming from! She's got a cow-bell on her.

Vague Mirage is a gorgeous blue roan. Stunning and extremely strong roaning on her coat interested me years ago to make her purchase. Although she's an Adoption Centre horse, I purchased her from another stable that simply had no more use of this broad, bulky mare. She was a dame used in my quest-breeding projects. But I liked her color so much, I decided to keep her around to take part in a roan project I never started.

She's sweet and still really young and for some reason, she's taking unusual interest in her cow bell. As she reaches down to snack on the hay pile, she bobs her head, making the Thonk-Thonk sound again.
I rub her shoulder. Seeing her is a pleasure. This roaning is quite eye-catching and a joy to see, even on a dismal day where the heart can't seem to come out of hiding.


But the rest of the barn still awaits...
I peer around her huge hip and into the darkness behind her.
I see a green glow approaching.
This seems familiar... like in that other barn... when those...
Oh!
A ghost costume! But who is this??
I don't recognize them.

???


But they seem to know me. I hear a whicker and the hoofsteps start coming a little faster.

Oh!
It finally hits me. This is Rust And Char!
Rust And Char


But a blue-green eye greets me as I'm nuzzled.

What??
Hidden almost entirely by the glow of the costume, I had to lift up the sheet to be sure.

A smile spreads across my face. It's her daughter, Rust And Char's daughter, Dominion Sentinel. I had hopes that her daughter would prove a better competitor than her mother, but neither really fulfilled what they were bred to be. Neither one was a bad outcome, but both proved far less than what their hopes were.
I have no idea where to take either one from here, so they've been waiting in board until I can decide, or stumble upon a better thought.

But they were both inspiring products to the line they were bred into. Sweet and willing to faults. Nobody could ask for better personalities in any horse. And maybe that's where the failure was, they were so sweet and willing, that they lacked any type of competitiveness at all.

Who knows.

My reverie is broken by a high-pitched whistle and drumming that had me ready to duck down like earlier.
But Dominion Sentinel's ears plastered themselves and out shot two barrels from her backside. Her lips peeled back and she threw her head backward as she let fly another, this one single barreled.

And all was again silent.

With my fluttering heart realizing I was staring at a pair of bright eyes from a dark face I still couldn't quite make out.



There were hints of color that were only just different from the darkness as I continued to stare. Then the face bobbed left and right. Seeking acceptance from the mare in front of me, the head twisted, tossing itself downward and away.

She fell silent and tipped her rear leg, resting it.

And I was approached by a skeleton from the darkness.

Clarity Facet


Recognizing him instantly, I also realize just why the mare had acted so combatively toward him. He's a young stallion but his saddleseat breeding suggest a much more fiery temperament, both in foaling and in specialty discipline.
I'm not yet sure he's learned completely how to act in a herd. Two very different breeding outcomes, it surprises me how much difference, even though they are, in fact, related. After all, her grandmother, is his great grandmother.

Eternal Rain was a top mare, great and still holds the record for being the fastest record holding mare in poles.

The dark skeleton paint on him is eye-catching. It really makes him look like something else. I may need to give the stablehand doing these painting jobs on these horses, a bonus or... maybe just make him (or her) do all of my horse painting jobs...

My eyes are finally adjusting to this shadowed barn. I can just about make out two more forms still at the far side of the barn. One disappears within the shadows, but the other carries striking and blinding white paint across a striking frame.

Much like my leopard tarpans, I also had a hand in breeding competitive, racing thoroughbreds and that one is one of my breeding mares for that Lp Tb club.

Bathing In Blood


Bathing In Blood is a mare from the Violence bloodline of that club. She wasn't the most perfect for conformation for speed and stamina, but she proved worthwhile enough, holding a final score of 10:40 in steeple and a 2:43 in harness. Nowhere near record statuses but more than enough to keep 100% WPS in five and four starts respectively.

She was one of the last produced for the Lp Tb club and hadn't been requested for babies yet. But her color is still quite incredible and she'll always throw leopard babies no matter the cross.

Lastly, my eyes strain to see the shadow in the shadows at the end of the barn. My feet carry me further forward, toward a form I haven't seen in quite some time.

... Years....

My thoughts spoke to me as if the whispers where hitting my ears.

... Years and Years....

As if my ears could hear the words, the quite munching of the hay from the other horses seem to disappear into nothingness.

... Years and Years and ye.... Shut UP!

As annoying my thoughts can be, it's a struggle sometimes to stop them from spiraling.

Oh!

No wonder it's so hard to see her. Double pearl on black her coat really does disappear into the shadows. Not black coated and disappearing as another shadow in shadows, but she kind of just smudges away into the shadows.

Bubbly Blueblood


If it wasn't for her socking, I would've never recognized which one of the herd she was. They weren't all double pearls but just about the whole herd were pearl carriers.

She's a gorgeous representative of them... and although she's supposed to be an ugly horse, a part of the crummy GP project, I can't help but think she's absolutely stunning.

As I rub her shoulder and back, I look around the large barn. Nothing else seems to be here.

I haven't sent any of the other horses back yet, I might as well let these hang around for a little longer too.

I just hope my coming days toward Halloween are still all in good fun. Still plenty of time to have something happen where I end up in the emergency room. It was close the other day with the other ghostie, but all's well that ends well... or something like that... right?

Eheh... eh...

[BlackOak2]

Sweet Cemetary

Day Five
Final Day

Whew! What a week!

Here, sitting and sipping my spiced tea, I brood over what's happened, the horses I've met and the memories they've dredged up. A smile crawls across my face as though some of them were rather shocking, none of them have an awful story.
There are a couple of projects that failed so spectacularly I'm rather ashamed of them. That said, those projects were proof of concept that had uncertain outcomes at the start. And that proof was rather the bad conclusion and not a positive one.

Ah, yes.
I stand and stretch, finishing off my tea and starting toward my chores.

As my eyes scan over the estate, letting my first looks go through my mental checklist, I find my thoughts settling on the unusual coloration of one of my paddocks. Not quite visible from this distance, the smudges of bright colors have made me pause in my strut toward my morning chores.

My feet change direction and I find myself trotting toward the paddock. It's the one out front, the very first one that everybody sees when they drive down the driveway. The same one that everybody is always staring at when they're riding in the rings. The same one that new arrivals and for-sale horses use.
I can't have anything wrong in that pasture!

By the time I reached the fence-line, my hummingbird heart had already started to slow. Although I wasn't calmed by what I was seeing, I was relieved that, for the most part, it looked like a happy paddock.

The first horse had already approached me as I started to pick out and recognize the new tenants.

I scratched Forever Object's nose.
Forever Object

Being an old man of the pasture, his bumpkin hat and cob pipe had me smiling.

I see all sorts of flowers, from Snapdragons, Woodland Sage and all manner of tall grasses and reeds.




And then my eyes hesitate a moment on the stone wall and a conical shrub.




Not exactly appropriate for a pasture, but not likely to cause the horses any problems.

Then I see some notorious items from my recent past that made my skin crawl a little.
I eye up the large femur bone and the other gravestones.
Nope! Not going near them today!
Luckily, the horses seem entirely unbothered by them. I might have a faltering heart, but at least the horses are more stalwart than I.

I wonder if Forever Object was playing the part of the sexton instead.

Overall, however, the pasture looked bright and cheery and I began to smile larger as I recognized the horses and found their attire as amusing as the previous days.

There is A Freak West, sporting a horned zebra costume.

A Freak West


What else could be more perfect? After all, zebras are never depicted as unicorns, let alone coming from the 'West' of anything.

Then there's Western Curse and Doomed But It's True, both wearing bee costumes.

Western Curse


Doomed But It's True


I wonder, again, if they'll ever figure out why the worlds bee population is in severe decline?

Then, over there, near the flowers, Triple Blender and Sacred Velocity are both having a wonderful time, flitting about, chasing butterflies and trying to fit in as a couple of them.

Triple Blender


Sacred Velocity


They have absolutely no interest in me, but that new line of halloween colored horses is rather aloof yet. I think it's the turkmene in them. I don't know if I should breed it out, encourage it or just leave it to bloom or die without influence.

Then my eyes alight and freeze on... eh...

eheh...

One last nod to the horror that halloween can bring to mind. Although I wouldn't have ever thought the name I bestowed him with, would be like a revenge to me.

The Colonel Lucifer


He's gorgeous! But still scares me from time to time. Even as a newborn the flair for the buck was strong in that one. Star Wars reference. And wow! did his name match him.

After throwing around his head, half-rearing and kicking out at some butterflies (or maybe they were bees, haha!!!), he freezes and locks eyes with me.



Makes my blood run cold for a few. But with all his... everything, exuberance, excitement and [still being an intact male], he surprisingly doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Sweet, sweet stallion, if a little alarming at times.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, a big, broad mare pushes up between the other horses and puts her nose against my chest. In so doing, she nearly pokes out my eye with a hat.

A Brazen Fascination


Luckily, I turn my head, well practiced in avoiding the swinging sledgehammer horses possess and scratch behind her ears.

What's this she has on?

What's this, what's this???

As if she wears it to celebrate the closing of the season, a sash sporting the words 'Happy Birthday HWO' are emblazoned in gold detail across her chest.

Wow! That's right! It's HWO's birthday month!

Wow... November.

Halloween's over!

Oh...
I feel the fleeting regret and sorrow settle a little heavily on my heart. I may be a bit of a lost heart type when it comes to scaries, but it's still my favorite holiday!

Ah, well, there will always be next year.



--END--