Midnight by Dean R. Koontz

Godiva was ready for her. The mare shook her head, tossing the thick and lustrous white mane for which she had been named, and blew air through her nostrils in greeting.

Glancing back toward the stable entrance, expecting to see Tucker and her parents storm in at any moment, Chrissie unlatched the half-door. Godiva came out into the aisle between the rows of stalls.

“Be a lady, Godiva. Oh, please be sweet for me.”

She could not take time to saddle the mare or slip a bit between her teeth. With a hand against Godiva’s flank, she guided her mount past the tack room and feed shed that occupied the last quarter of the barn, startling a mouse that scurried across her path into a shadowy corner. She rolled open the door at that end, and cool air swept in.

Without a stirrup to give her a leg up, Chrissie was too small to mount Godiva.

A blacksmith’s shoeing stool stood in the corner by the tack room. Keeping a hand against Godiva to gentle her, Chrissie hooked the stool with one foot and pulled it to the horse’s side.

Behind her, from the other end of the barn, Tucker shouted, “Here she is! The stable!” He ran toward her.

The stool did not give her much height and was no substitute for a stirrup.

She could hear Tucker’s pounding footsteps, close, closer, but she didn’t look at him.

He cried, “I got her!”

Chrissie grabbed Godiva’s magnificent white mane, threw herself against the big horse and up, up, swinging her leg high, scrabbling desperately against the mare’s side, pulling hard on the mane. it must have hurt Godiva, but the old girl was stoic. She didn’t rear or whinny in pain, as if some equine instinct told her that this little girl’s life depended on equanimity. Then Chrissie was on Godiva’s back, tilting precariously but aboard, holding tight with her knees, one hand full of mane, and she slapped the horse’s side.

“Go!”

Tucker reached her as she shouted that single word, grabbed at her leg, snared her jeans. His deep-set eyes were wild with anger; his nostrils flared, and his thin lips pulled back from his teeth. She kicked him under the chin, and he lost his grip on her.

Simultaneously Godiva leaped forward, through the open door, into the night.

“She’s got a horse!” Tucker shouted.

“She’s on a horse!”

The dapple-gray sprinted straight toward the meadowed slope that led to the sea a couple of hundred yards away, where the last muddy-red light of the sunset painted faint, speckled patterns on the black water. But Chrissie didn’t want to go down to the shore because she was not sure how high the tide was. At some places along the coast, the beach was not broad even at low tide; if the tide were high now, deep water would meet rocks and bluffs at some points, making passage impossible. She could not risk riding into a dead end with her parents and Tucker in pursuit.

Even without the benefit of a saddle and at a full gallop, Chrissie managed to pull herself into a better position astride the mare, and as soon as she was no longer leaning to one side like a stunt rider, she buried both hands in the thick white mane, gripped fistfuls of that coarse hair, and tried to use it as a substitute for reins. She urged Godiva to turn left, away from the sea, away from the house as well, back along the stables, and out toward the half-mile driveway that led to the county road, where they were more likely to find help.

Instead of rebelling at this crude method of guidance, patient Godiva responded immediately, turning to the left as prettily as if she had a bit in her teeth and had felt the tug of a rein. The thunder of her hooves echoed off the barn walls as they raced past that structure.

“You’re a great old girl!” Chrissie shouted to the horse. “I love you, girl.”

They passed safely wide of the east end of the stable, where she had first entered to get the mare, and she spotted Tucker coming out of the door. He was clearly surprised to see her heading that way instead of down to the ocean. He sprinted toward her, and he was startlingly quick, but he was no match for Godiva They came to the driveway, and Chrissie kept Godiva on the soft verge, parallel to that hard-surfaced lane. She leaned forward, as tight against the horse as she could get, terrified of falling off, and every hard thud of hooves jarred through her bones. Her head was turned to the side, so she saw the house off to the left, the windows full of light but not welcoming. It was no longer her home; it was hell between four walls, so the light at the windows seemed, to her, to be demonic fires in the rooms of Hades.