Good evening, it's Spooky Boo Rhodes from Sandcastle, California with another episode of the Midnight Scares podcast. Tonight I have for you a story about a horse that is very very scary and isn't horsing around when it comes to food. You'll find that Andromeda doesn't like to eat oats or alfalfa. No, she doesn't even really like hay. She might like a little bit of brain, I mean grain. Did I say that right? Well, we will see in the story.
Andromeda
by Six96
Now let's begin...
My grandma did favorites. She had her favorite car, color, and even child. Now, usually the favorite child is the “miracle child”, the one is destined to do great things. In my grandma’s case, it was the exact opposite. Her favorite child was aunt Betty, my mother’s younger sister. Aunt Betty was everything but a miracle child. Scratch that, she was nothing. There are many reasons why my grandma’s choice in favorites was wrong.
First, Aunt Betty lived in Nebraska as opposed to our home in North Carolina. It’s also important to mention that my grandma only lived three blocks or so away from my parents and myself. We visited my grandma whenever we could or whenever she needed us. Aunt Betty would only visit twice, and if it was a good year, then three times.
This is the icing on the cake: aunt Betty never came to my grandpa’s funeral. Yeah, her own father; my grandma passed it off as “she was too busy and couldn't show up”. Too busy doing what? Last time I checked, Aunt Betty was unemployed. Oh wait, she isn't. She runs a horse ranch with my uncle Ed. In short, she met Ed after she graduated from college. He was her reason for staying in Nebraska. He was as unemployed as her when they first met. He wasn't a very bright guy either; he dropped out of high school senior year. They were made for each other.
The horse ranch, that damned ranch, is nothing to be proud of considering the fact that my grandma personally bought it for her with the money grandpa left for us. She used it on everything; the construction, horses, supplies, everything. Nothing that woman does make sense. I remember the first and only time I went to that place.
I was eighteen at the time, taking a gap year before heading off to college. Summer had just ended and it was September. My parents had announced that they were going out of town for a business trip. Ever since my grandpa died, my mom made it her life's goal to continue running his small private business, despite my grandma’s suggestions to sell it completely. They didn't trust me with the house for a week, so they sent me to stay at Aunt Betty’s. The red flag had gone up by then. They could have sent me to grandma’s, but she was too sick at the time to look after me. I know, my family tends to baby me.
My parents and I parted ways at the airport; I went on the flight to Nebraska while they went on theirs. The plane ride, baggage claim, and getting a ride to Aunt Betty’s was all a breeze. However, the ride to the ranch couldn't have been longer.
The ranch is located in one of those parts in Nebraska where you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, nothing but the road in front of you. Eventually, the taxi took me down a dirt road after making a left off the main one. The dirt road went on for a mile or two before finally it ended at Aunt Betty’s ranch. The place itself had a very basic layout. The farmhouse was a few meters away from the barn. In front of them, was the fenced in pasture, where they let the horses run freely.
Aunt Betty and Uncle Ed were waiting on the porch of the farmhouse for me. They waved as the taxi pulled up and came to a stop. It was truly hard to believe that the last time I saw them was when I was only twelve. I got out of the taxi and walked over to them as the driver unloaded my bags. Aunt Betty embraced me and marveled at “how big I have gotten”.
They walked me into the house. It turned out I had arrived before their dinner. They seated me at the table and offered me salad, which I accepted. Before I could take a bite, a small child came running down the stairs and into the kitchen. She sat down in the chair next to me. “Oh, Nathan, this is Leah, your new cousin.” Aunt Betty answered the question I was about to ask.
I paused and looked at Leah; she just smiled and waved back at me. She definitely was not new, and had to be at least four years old. “How come I haven’t seen her before?” I asked.
“Didn't Andrea tell you? We had her five years ago.” Aunt Betty said. Andrea was my grandma’s name.
“No…she didn't.” I told her. Why did grandma keep me in the dark about my own cousin?
Leah then lightly hit my shoulder with one of her small hands. I flinched a little in response. “Leah!” Uncle Ed said loudly, “No hitting!”
Leah lowered her head and began eating quietly. “Honestly, where does she get that from,” Uncle Ed said, before trying to swat a fly that was flying around his food.
After dinner, Aunt Betty led me up to the guest bedroom or the attic. It was an open space with a makeshift bed with blankets and pillows. Crude nightstands were on each side of the bed. There was also a single window. “Thanks,” I said, trying to be positive and ignoring the sound and smell of the mice.
I played on my laptop until I fell asleep that night. The good part about sleeping in that attic was that there was no air conditioning; the cool air from outside crept inside through the small cracks on the roof above me. It wasn’t too cold or too hot up there.
I was woken up the next morning by honking coming from outside the farmhouse. I looked at my phone: 9:45 am. I got up and got dressed and went down the stairs and out the front door to the porch.
The honk that woke me up came from a large truck. Uncle Ed was standing near the trailer, which was the kind used for transporting cows and horses. My Uncle continued to stand there until the driver of the truck walked out from the trailer. Behind was a new black horse. I got better look at it. The horse had a lighter shaded mane and tail, but was black nonetheless. The most striking part about it was that each of its eyes was completely different. The left eye was green; dark navy green. The right eye was a bright gold color. Each eye had black pupils in the center.
The driver shook my Uncle’s hand and got back into the truck cab, and drove away. I approached my Uncle. He spoke first, “What do you think of the new horse, Nathan? We weren't expecting her to arrive until you left.”
“It’s interesting…” I said, I couldn't stop looking at the eyes, “Does it-”
“She,” My Uncle corrected.
“Does she have a name?” I asked.
“Andromeda.” he said. There was admiration in his voice.
“Interesting name for a horse,” I said, expecting to hear something juvenile or silly like Cowgirl or something. “Where did you get her?”
Uncle Ed thought for a moment. “Some other ranch in Texas. They seemed really happy to be getting rid of her. They even gave us a pretty good deal for her. We didn't have to spend all the money your grandma sent us. Say, why does she send us so much money anyway?”
Andromeda let out a loud whine, interrupting our conversation. My Uncle chuckled at her sound. “She must be hungry. Can you show her to her stable? It’s in the barn, farthest one from the doors. There’s a bag of oats when you first walk in to your left.”
He then slipped a bridle on Andromeda and handed me a reign. “Just walk her like a dog,” he said, getting the idea that I never handled a horse before.
I did as he said and walked Andromeda to the barn. I held the reigns and she followed me, her head facing down towards the ground the entire time. We went through the two big doors and entered the barn. I looked to my left and sure enough, there was a bag of oats next to the light switch. The barn itself was just one big rectangular room with the horses’ stables on the right and free space on the left.
I was unsure of how to feed Andromeda, so I just stuck my hands in the oat bag and grasped a handful. I held my hand full of oats out to Andromeda, like a goat at a petting zoo. She looked at my hand before licking some oats off and swirling them around in her mouth a couple of seconds before spitting it all out at my feet. I wasn’t prepared for what she did next, she snapped at my arm, like she were trying to take a bite out of me. No wonder they were happy to give her to my Aunt and Uncle, she bites. I recoiled, dropping all the other oats in my hand in the process. Maybe she just didn’t like oats, I thought.
Andromeda let out another hungry whine. She had to eat something. I looked around for something else that she would hopefully like. I did find a carrot inside another one of the horse’s stables. I took it and offered it to Andromeda. She accepted it this time without fuss.
Just then I heard my aunt call out, “Nathan! Bring her out! I want to see her!” I waited for Andromeda to swallow the carrot before taking her back outside.
As we exited the barn and walked back to the farmhouse, we passed by the pasture where the horses were roaming. The other horses all stared at Andromeda as we passed by. It wasn't the stare you would give to someone new; it was a stare of cautious anticipation, like you were expecting something bad to happen. Andromeda turned her head towards them, finally catching on that she was being watched. The other horses turned their heads away from her in an instant, some even jumped a little bit before hurrying away.
When we reached the farmhouse, I presented Andromeda to Aunt Betty. “She’s gorgeous,” Aunt Betty said, “She’s really something special.” For once, my Aunt and I agreed on something. I still kept a close eye on Andromeda though, just to see how “special” she was.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday consisted of the same routine of helping Aunt Betty and Uncle Ed out with the ranch and
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The original Spooky Boo's Scary Story Time telling spooky, scary stories since 2016. Here you'll find true scary stories, fiction stories, urban legends, creepypasta, and other tall tales from the darkest corners of the internet.
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