“God damn it!” she screamed. The words tumbled away into the wind. Her throat hurt. She’d yelled with all her might. Maybe somehow, across the sea, someone would hear the sound of her frustration.

She took another step toward the dock. She’d found a horse under there, of all things. Then she’d drowned it by trying to save it. What did it say about a night when that wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened?

Her vision was even blurrier now as her eyes watered. Must be the wind. It was so loud. She couldn’t hear anything over it. She dashed a hand across her eyes. Took another step toward the dock and the dark water beyond it.

At that moment, the wind ceased.

With it, so did the noise. For the first time since she’d gotten out of bed this morning, Madeleine was surrounded by absolute silence. Now she could hear only the sound of her heartbeat.

And something else.

Another noise behind her. Clattering. Slow, measured, deliberate. Something…someone…was walking over the rocks.

Walking in her direction. The footsteps were getting closer.

Sudden fear did more to sober you up than wind or water. Was it someone taking advantage of a drunk woman on her own? Her phone didn’t get a good signal out here, but maybe she could still call 911—wait, the UK used a different emergency number, what was it⁠—

Madeleine turned on her heel, barely managing not to fall, her heart in her mouth. Would she see an assailant? No.

She saw a horse.

It stood on the rocks perhaps fifteen feet away, silhouetted by the streetlights above the seawall. It held perfectly still as it stared Madeleine down. It made no sound.

Madeleine was no expert on horses. She’d drowned the only one she’d ever come into close contact with. But she was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be this big. The horse in front of her looked large enough to carry three full-grown adults. It couldn’t be real, could it? Was the whisky making her hallucinate this?

She was drunk enough to wobble when she walked, but she wasn’t drunk enough to hallucinate.

Madeleine raised her phone with its flashlight. Her hand shook so much that the beam darted all over the place. The horse seemed unbothered by this. It began to walk toward her again, its hooves sure and steady against the rocks. Its pace was slow and measured. Its eyes never looked away from her face.

Madeleine could think of nothing so much as being stalked, but that was ridiculous. Horses didn’t stalk people. They weren’t predators. They also weren’t this enormous, and they didn’t randomly appear on beaches in the middle of the night.