The Thing Beneath the Hooves Story

Glue was supposedly born cursed. His eyes were too human, too knowing, and his cloak was midnight black. He was the son of Old Marek, a man with a limp and a quietness that went deeper than the forest, and he was raised on the edge of a long-forgotten village. At first, the townspeople referred to the horse as *"Glue,"* in jest, believing him to be slow, stupid, and destined for the glue factory.

But the glue never grew old. He observed in Marek's profession for more than three decades. Awaiting. He would be in the same place every night, motionless, as though he were listening for something under the ground.

Children that ventured onto Marek's property did not return the same. pale. wide-eyed. They claimed to have seen legs when they took a quick look beneath Glue. Not four. Not hoofs. **Human limbs.**

Andrei, one of the boys, vanished for a week. He was huddled in a hollow tree when they discovered him, babbling incoherently about "the thing under the horse" and how it spoke in a voice that sounded like chewing. Hay and hair filled his mouth. He did not say anything else.

Marek did not speak to the peasants at all. However, he was discovered dead in his barn one stormy night, with a horseshoe nailed into his chest and a cut in his throat. The glue was gone.

The horseshoe, which some claim held the evil confined, was still in Marek when he was buried.

Years went by. Despite the land's abandonment, the stories persisted.

Then came Toma, a city guy who believed that stories of haunted livestock were country foolishness and who purchased the farm at a discount. He established a riding school, brought in new horses, and constructed a stable.

The horses began to go crazy at that point. savage. kicking the dark. A mare's legs broke as she attempted to scale her stall's wall one evening. Thinking it might be vandals, Toma put cameras in place. He never drank again after seeing what he did.

The camera at stall four began to glitch at 3:13 AM, causing static to hum through the audio feed. Then a tall, slender figure appeared, resembling a horse on two legs. It sniffed and tapped its hooves lightly as it crawled past the stalls. Each horse froze rigidly as it went by, its eyes wide with a sort of awe. or anxiety.

The sound, however, was the worst.

Chewing.

chewing slowly, deliberately, and wetly.

One of the horses was absent the following day. All that was left was half a horseshoe and a slippery track of slime.

chewing slowly, deliberately, and wetly.

One of the horses was absent the following day. All that was left was half a horseshoe and a slippery track of slime.

Toma searched the old village records with determination. A report from 1891 about a traveling preacher who cursed a family guilty of blasphemy was hidden there, in dusty papers. Under a lunar eclipse, the preacher's horse had been sacrificed. The corpse was interred. Not the soul, though.

Its spirit, they argued, did not go to hell.