The Blackriver Highwayman

By Simon Houghton

Jacob Harris is returning home from a camping trip with his university friends, on New Years’ Eve, when they become lost on a dark and deserted back road in the English countryside. A violent snowstorm suddenly descends and Jacob’s car becomes stranded. He and his friends continue on foot to find help and shelter and stumble across the mysterious village of Blackriver which they cannot find anywhere on their map. The village is eerily abandoned, shrouded in darkness and devoid of any trace of modernity. They search for help and begin to unveil the dark tale of the Blackriver Highwayman and his brutal demise which haunts the village. The five friends soon realise that they have a tragic connection to the original villagers and struggle to understand the chilling mystery before they play out the roles cast for them which may seal their fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805146629

Simon Houghton

Simon Houghton is a Civil Servant and regular commuter into London which provides him with the opportunity to read many books. This inspired him to write his debut supernatural thriller “The Legend of Kirsty Turner”. “The Blackriver Highwayman” is his second novel and continues his love of mystery and horror.  

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Copyright © 2023 Simon Houghton

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781805146629

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Contents

PROLOGUE

DARK TALES

I testify to the reader that this statement is a true and accurate account of the circumstances that occurred between 26th and 31st of December 1999 in the village of Blackriver in Sussex, England. I make this statement of my own free will and being of sound mind and body, although my current situation would convince many to the contrary. I write this statement in the hope that, one day, others like you will choose to consider these circumstances afresh, without the fog of anger and outrage clouding their perspective, and understand the truth behind the events of those notorious few days. But for you to understand fully the events which took place, you must first understand the terrible events 200 years earlier and how they festered over time into the terror of that fateful New Year’s Eve.

Our story began on New Year’s Eve 1799 in the village of Blackriver, which inherited its name from the river that ran through it. A blacksmith’s forge was one of the earliest buildings in the settlement and periodically emptied its forge into the river, turning it black for a short time and suffocating all life within it. Early inhabitants named it the Black River and, as the village was built around it, it took on the name Blackriver Village. Perhaps the sinister undertones of the name gave it the potential to provoke dark tales being spun amongst the villagers. It was on this night, which should have been filled with merriment and hope for the new century about to dawn, that a horseman passed at full gallop along the stone road leading through the village. His coal-black steed pounded the flagstones mercilessly, its iron horseshoes sparking occasionally on bits of flint as it thundered along, steam radiating from its flanks as its sweat misted in the cold night air. Its breath barked in rhythmic snorts with each exhalation of its lungs which, mixed with its saliva, made a predatory snarl. Its eyes were bloodshot with exertion and gave it a demonic stare apparent only to those unfortunate enough to have found themselves in its path. The rider stood on the stirrups to relieve his weight from the horse’s back, his black cloak flailing in the wind behind him and his left hand clenched on the reins in a vice-like grip which wrung his leather gloves and numbed his fingers. In his right hand he grasped a flintlock pistol, its barrel charged and its cock locked back ready to fire. With black riding boots, black breeches and a black scarf pulled tight against his face, he cut a dark and sinister figure, any trace of humanity completely concealed and any consideration for the man inside stampeded out by the horror of his appearance. History would condemn this rider as a highwayman who haunted the roads for miles around the village preying on carriages foolhardy enough to travel the countryside at dusk when he preferred to hunt and could disappear into the darkness. Whilst most gentlemen carried pistols, they preferred to readily surrender their purses and jewellery and retain their most prized and irreplaceable possession, their lives.

It was on New Year’s Eve 1799, so legend would tell, that he stalked carriages leaving the village for the party at Blackriver Hall, which sat on top of the hill overlooking the village. Those unfortunate enough to cross the highwayman’s path arrived at the hall ashen-faced and quivering with fear with dramatic tales of facing mortal dread as they were deprived of their belongings under the glare of his pistol. But he became greedy and complacent and robbed more carriages on the way back from the hall after midnight. However, some gentlemen of the village with stout hearts and unbounded courage rode out together from the hall and happened upon the highwayman waiting at the sound of their horses’ hoof beats, believing them to be another carriage. He fled as if the Devil himself was after him, straight through the village, possibly hoping to lose them at the crossroads on the village square. But they caught up with him outside the Rose and Thorns inn and a volley of pistol shots chased after him, one finding its mark square between his shoulders, eviscerating his evil heart and sending his corpse tumbling to the flagstones. His horse galloped on without its rider and his pistol clattered into the gutter. They hung his bloody and broken cadaver from a gibbet in the village square outside the inn to reassure the villagers of his demise and provide a veiled warning to anyone considering filling the vacancy left by his death. The story could have ended there and been lost to history, along with the village, but for one last footnote to the tale. The following night a young boy who lived in a small house overlooking the square was awoken by the creaking of the gibbet. Looking out of his bedroom window a little after midnight, he saw a black horse standing underneath the gibbet loyally waiting for the return of its master. His parents scolded him for telling such a macabre tale, but the story captured the imagination of the villagers and was consumed into local folklore. Stories emerged that, on New Year’s Eve each year, at midnight, the highwayman rode through the village looking for revenge against the men who chased him down that night to end his reign of terror. Four of the men died in horrific circumstances in four consecutive years after the highwayman’s death and the fifth fled the village in terror the next year. After then, the highwayman’s spirit never returned to the village again. Some said it was because his vengeance had been appeased now that the five men were gone. But others said that it had simply been replaced by a new curse. The village never fully recovered and dwindled in size and prosperity and it was returned to the bare lands from which it had grown.

But the truth of what happened that terrible night was very different. An injustice was conceived which birthed into the bloody events three centuries later when happenstance, or perhaps fate, brought me and four close friends to the village. We were ignorant of the story, or the village we unexpectedly found ourselves in, and oblivious to the roles we were to assume in revisiting the tale. But we were to play parts that only we could fill as the understudies of the original cast, now long deceased, but certainly not at peace. Those fateful days were the defining moment of our lives and would dominate mine to this very day. That was when we met the Blackriver Highwayman.

1

A STORY’S BEGINNING AT A JOURNEY’S END

The drive had been long and tiring. We had spent Christmas camping together in woodland. The five of us had been inseparable throughout the past year at university and we had all dreaded the torture of spending Christmas with our families. The painful small talk, the predictable questions from our parents, spending money we didn’t have buying things people didn’t need and staying in our old bedrooms we had now long outgrown. It was Kieran who suggested we should break with tradition, avoid consumerism and trashiness, and go camping together. It was perfect. The weather was cold and grey, but at least it hadn’t rained. We spent a week walking in the woods, staying up until the small hours talking around a campfire, making plans about our future and just enjoying each other’s company.

We were now filled with a melancholy weariness as we sat in my parents’ car and were gently rocked by the motion of the journey home. My parents had let me borrow it after I begged them to allow me to avoid Christmas with them, as it would be the last one that I would have with my friends until we left university and our lives inevitably took us in different directions. I smiled to myself as I remembered the horrified expression on my mother’s face before my father had agreed, handed me the keys and instructed me to drive safely and return it with a full tank. I now sat at the wheel focusing intently on the road ahead and trying to keep awake. I glanced in the rear-view mirror at Robyn, Kieran and Chloe sitting snuggled together on the back seat. They dozed fitfully and looked peaceful and contented. My mind wandered into a sugar-frosted reverie about our past year at university. Robyn and Kieran had an on-off relationship throughout the year and had now agreed to ‘keep things casual’. I took this to mean they were enjoying having a convenient sexual partner without the inconvenience of being tied into a relationship. Both were on the swim team, where they met, and shared a love of life and a dry sense of humour that forged an instant attraction. But they were also both fiercely independent, strong-willed and committed to their studies, which made it difficult for them to find quality time to spend with each other to maintain a relationship. Robyn was five feet eight inches tall, of athletic build with short, blonde hair and natural beauty that was effortless even without make-up, which she seldom wore. She was studying law, which was an obvious choice as both her parents were successful corporate lawyers and she enjoyed a life of comfort and privilege that such a combined income provided, although she shunned any display of wealth. All who knew her agreed that her tendency to join any argument, irrespective of the cause or whether it had anything to do with her, would make her a great advocate. But she was also polite, down to earth, inquisitive, intelligent and thoughtful. Everyone agreed she would do very well upon leaving university. She was the type of person who was born for success. Kieran was six feet tall, also of athletic build with short, mid-brown hair and a slightly rounded face, which gave him a friendly and personable appearance, despite his powerful stature. He was always confident, well-spoken, sensitive and considerate. He also had a passion for life and all things in the natural world. He was a little older than Robyn, having taken a gap year to work on a wildlife reserve in Tanzania. He was studying environmental science, which came as no surprise to anyone who knew him. Passionate, idealistic and determined, he was a natural campaigner for good causes. Both were outgoing, extroverted and great company in even the gloomiest situations, which was why they were such good companions for camping. They would find a way to make it fun, even in the cold and damp.

Robyn rested her head on Kieran’s shoulder, his thick hoodie providing a pillow for her soft cheek. Kieran had his head rested on top of hers and occasionally nodded forwards, jolting him awake. He sat in the middle with Chloe on his opposite side. She was curled up against the door with her head resting on the fleece she had removed and scrunched up against the window as a pillow. Chloe was Robyn’s best friend since they first met on freshers’ week and instantly hit it off. Chloe was plainer than Robyn, with freckles and auburn hair, a slightly fuller figure but about the same height. She was on the school football team but could not always guarantee to play as she was seen as a good team member but not one of its stars. She was intelligent but not as gifted as Robyn and Kieran and sometimes seemed frustrated at playing ‘wingman’ to them. She was studying aeronautical engineering but struggled, particularly with the maths elements of the course. She was single and there were persistent, but uncorroborated, rumours amongst her peers of her sexuality and whether she was more into Robyn or Kieran or both. If she knew of it, she never picked up on the gossip and seemed indifferent to the rumour. She and Robyn were both somewhat tomboys who rarely dressed up and seemed more comfortable in T-shirts and jeans, hanging out in mixed company at gatherings around a campfire in the woods with a few beers rather than at nightclubs or parties.

Paul sat in the front passenger seat and was dutiful in his role as my co-pilot. He made small talk and navigated using a pocket torch and an Ordnance Survey map spread across his lap. He was of heavy build, about five feet nine inches tall with a chubby face and close-cropped hair. He was the group clown, always good-natured and making jokes, slightly goofy and occasionally tiresome when he did not know when to rein it back. He did not engage in any sport and enjoyed playing computer games in his spare time. He was studying computer science and was something of a geek. He was drawn into the group when his IT skills brought him to the attention of Kieran, who asked him to make posters and flyers for various environmental causes he was passionate about. Paul eagerly joined in, more out of enthusiasm for the social group he now found himself inducted into rather than out of any genuine interest in the issues. I don’t believe Kieran was fooled, but Paul could be fun to be around, so he tolerated his dispassionate engagement as long as it provided what he wanted.

I found myself drawn into this group because Kieran lived across the hall from me in the student residence. We passed each other often in the hallway and I bumped into Robyn and Chloe a few times when Robyn came to see him. I gave him a hand carrying boxes of beer and snacks to his motorbike one evening when he was planning a party in some nearby woods and he asked me if I wanted to join him. I accepted automatically without considering if he was just being polite and sat wedged between him and the boxes lashed precariously to the back of his bike. There were about a dozen people there he knew and it was clear he was the nucleus of the group. I got on well with Kieran, Robyn and Chloe but it was Paul who I really hit it off with. Our mutual love of computer games and loathing of sport brought us close together. We spent many evenings playing online games late into the night. We were all different people but were joined by our mutual love of hiking and camping. It was a great pastime for students on a budget, particularly around the English countryside. We would try and get out once a month on an excursion, usually jointly planned by Kieran and Robyn. We had bonded over these trips and were aware that there would be few of them before we left university and our lives diverged into our separate ambitions. The thought made me feel depressed and melancholy. We needed to treasure moments like these, which we would look back on fondly as the best days of our lives.

*

Paul said something which broke me out of my reverie. I glanced briefly at him before returning my gaze to the road ahead.

‘Sorry, Paul, what was that?’ I enquired.

‘Have you come off the main road?’ he repeated.

I paused for a moment to recount the last thirty minutes of our journey, which had been on the same single carriageway.

‘I don’t think so. I’ve been on this same road for the past half hour. It should lead us onto the motorway at some point,’ I replied.

Paul looked again at the map on his lap and squinted to read the road names as he tried to keep the torch still.

‘It doesn’t look right,’ he said, in a puzzled tone.

There was not much I could do whilst driving, so I kept quiet for a while to allow him to concentrate on the map. He ran his finger down the road he thought we should be travelling along and looked up to see if he could identify a landmark that he could use to find our location. But the night was inky black and our visibility was limited to the beam of our headlights. There was no lighting along the road and I didn’t remember seeing a sign for miles. He traced his finger back to the last junction we had taken and looked back at the road in confusion.

‘We should be joining a motorway about now,’ he proclaimed. His finger then found a point on the map. ‘Or at least we should have passed a service station,’ he added. ‘Are you sure you haven’t taken a wrong turn somewhere?’

I was starting to get a little frustrated at the implicit blame on my driving when Paul was the one navigating.

‘I’m sure. We’ve been on this same road,’ I replied, a little abruptly.

Paul picked up on my irritation and paused to consider his next words to avoid us getting into an argument. The trees on either side of the road thinned out until we were crossing open farmland and noticed the wind beginning to pick up. I was conscious of the centre line on the road beginning to thin out until it disappeared completely and the road became slightly narrower. I put the lights on full beam to try and reveal more of the road. It did not help. I glanced in the rear-view mirror at the others on the back seat who were still asleep and blissfully unaware of our predicament. Low cloud cover blotted out any illumination from the moon or stars and, with no other lighting, the night seemed to swallow us up. The wind continued to pick up into an occasional howl around the bodywork and I could feel the steering tug gently as the wind pulled at the car.

‘We shouldn’t continue if we’re lost,’ I stated confidently. ‘We should stop and see if we can find our location on a mobile,’ I added, pleased to have found a plan.

Paul nodded and I looked for a convenient place to pull over. There was a shallow, grassy embankment on either side of the road which did not leave much choice of where I would be able to pull off safely from the carriageway. But, after a short distance, a narrow clearing appeared and I braked hard to turn off. I brought the car to a stop and looked up into the rear-view mirror to see if the uncomfortable manoeuvre had awoken my friends. It had not and they remained slumped together. I got out of the car to take welcome advantage of the opportunity to stretch my legs. Paul grabbed his phone from the passenger door pocket and joined me. He unlocked the screen and brought it up in front of his face to inspect the signal strength.

‘Nothing,’ he replied disappointedly.

I exhaled deeply and looked around to survey the countryside. I could see nothing but darkness.

‘Where the hell are we?’ he asked the universe in general.

I shook my head without speaking. Paul still held the map flat in the palm of his other hand, the torch balancing on top of it. He pocketed his phone so he could refer again to the map. He breathed heavily before holding the map up so I could see it.

‘We turned onto the carriageway here.’ He indicated by waggling the torch on the part of the map where our last junction was pictured. ‘This service station is only about twenty miles, give or take, down the road and the motorway only about ten or twelve miles beyond that. There should be some sign of life here but I can’t even see any lights on the horizon.’

There was no doubting his analysis. We were well and truly lost but we shouldn’t be on such a simple road after a well-signposted junction we knew we had reached. I looked around at the night and could not see beyond a few metres of where we were standing. I looked again at the map. We were definitely on that road, but the road was clearly not where we were. It was confusing. I considered the option of driving back to the junction, but what would we do when we got there? We had to turn right, which was what we had done; there was no other way we could go. The left turn would have taken us miles out of our way. There was little point in retracing our steps, particularly as it would take us another half an hour to get back to that point. But what else could we do? Continue on a road that was no longer a single carriageway? I looked at the map again to see if there was any road leading off the carriageway we could have inadvertently taken in the dark, particularly as I was so tired. The map flapped around as a strong gust flipped it over and I turned my back to the wind to shield it. Paul moved to the side of me and huddled in tight so his bulky frame could provide more shelter.

‘There’s nowhere we could have accidentally turned off,’ I observed, looking at a single plain line that was our road with no other junctions, or even another road or track, close to it.

Another thought occurred to me and I looked at the legend of the map to check its age. Two years old. It was unlikely another road would have been built in the middle of nowhere in that time, particularly without a sign. I walked around to the other side of the car, partly to view the road surface and partly to provide more shelter from the wind, which was picking up each minute we had been standing there. The road was tarmac but with no markings on either side and no centre line. I looked up and down the road in both directions but there was nothing. A large gust of wind caused me to lean backwards to brace myself and Paul pulled up his hood to protect his bare head from the cold. As I accepted the reality that I had now completely run out of ideas, I felt the first drop of water on my face. I looked up at the heavy sky, not a sign of any natural light through its thick canopy.

‘All we’re achieving out here is freezing to death. Let’s get back in the car,’ I concluded.

It was the only good idea I had left. We climbed back inside and the sudden blast of cold air which accompanied the doors opening woke Robyn up, quickly followed by Kieran and Chloe.

‘Why are we stopped?’ asked Robyn, not unreasonably.

‘We’re lost,’ replied Paul.

Robyn glanced around as her eyes took in the surrounding view, such as it was. Kieran leaned forward.

‘Where are we?’ asked Kieran, his mind still coming up to speed from his slumber.

‘We don’t know, that’s why we’re lost,’ I snapped.

Paul smirked as he glanced at me. Kieran joined Robyn looking around at the total darkness which surrounded the car since I had turned the headlights off. Chloe took out her mobile phone and quickly saw that there was no signal.

‘Great,’ was all that she could add.

Kieran leaned forward and ordered Paul to hand over the map, clearly thinking it was now up to him to take charge. He snatched it from Paul’s unresisting grasp and scrutinised the details. His finger moved across the paper and he quickly found the junction on the carriageway we turned on to. He moved his finger up the road and hovered briefly over the service station and the motorway junction which we should now have just about reached.

‘Did you see the service station?’ he enquired, a little condescendingly.

‘Nope,’ replied Paul.

‘Well, it’s got to be ahead of us. There’s nowhere else to go until we reach the motorway,’ he declared, as if we had not been able to reach such a conclusion on our own.

He handed the map back to Paul and leaned back in his seat. Robyn glanced over at him and Chloe stared out of her window.

‘There’s no point in sitting here. Drive on and see where we are in another fifteen minutes,’ said Robyn.

Kieran nodded and Chloe looked round at me.

‘The weather has taken a turn,’ Chloe remarked.

A drizzly rain had started and the wind was whipping it across the windscreen. I turned the engine back on and turned on the heater, headlights and wipers. I pulled out of the clearing and back onto the road. I stepped through the gears under the watchful eye of Kieran and Robyn as the car resumed its passage through the night. I checked the fuel gauge. Still a quarter of a tank of fuel; should be enough to get most of the way home before I would need to fill up. The rain became heavier and turned into a faint sleet which came in horizontal with the wind, which was now blowing a gale. The road continued to disappear under the headlights of the car and I checked my speed at sixty miles an hour. I glanced in the rear-view mirror to see the mildly concerned frowns of Kieran and Robyn. Chloe had returned to her nap, clearly deciding that enough people were focusing on the problem without her needing to get involved. Robyn muttered something to Kieran I could not hear and, whatever comment she had made, Kieran responded by shaking his head and mumbling something back to her. The temperature in the car began to fall and Paul nudged up the heater control to compensate.

‘The road will have to come out somewhere,’ he said in