Come Get Me (16 page)

“All this happened a few months before my
mother was born.” she said. Pausing to look at Jill, she said,
“Your great, great grandfather was one of the people that went
looking and never came back. He was young back then. Just married
and with a little one and another on the way. He wasn’t about to
back down and give up his home. So off he went one day never to
return.” Almost as if caught in a memory she stopped speaking and
just stared off into nothing. Jim was about to ask how she knew all
this but she beat him to it. “The stories of what happened were
passed down. They became things of legend. Urban myths if you will.
But these legends, these myths, were based in fact not
fiction.”

“Mothers used the tales to frighten
children,” she said with a sad smile. “They scared them, myself
included, by telling them that if they weren’t good or if they
didn’t listen and do their chores, then the Goatman would come and
take them away to the woods. If the parent was especially cruel or
the child especially bad they would tell how he’d hang them by
their toenails or strip the skin off their back and eat it right in
front of them. The description of the terrible things that would be
done was enough to make the kids lay awake in their beds for a
week. Needless to say most kids in town were well behaved. Then
again there were a few that weren’t but they never ended up staying
around long.

As far as we know the beast never came out of
the woods but children still disappeared once in a while. No smart
parent would allow their kids to go anywhere near the forest alone.
My mother didn’t need to use things like that to get me to listen.
We’d already lost our grandfather. That was enough. Now after all
these years the damn thing should be dead but from what I’m hearing
it sounds like its back. I knew this day would come and prayed that
it never would. Some damn idiot must’ve called it.”

“What do you mean called it?” Jim asked with
a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Well from everything I heard as a child, the
actual reason that all the bad things really stopped was because of
an old woman who lived nearby. Actually now that I think of it I
think she lived in the woods themselves. Everybody thought she was
a witch or something. Who else could live where she did and
survive? Anyways, the story goes that at some point, for some
reason she put a curse on the creature that was taking our people.
Nothing I heard was really clear on why just that she did. After
that things calmed down. People stopped disappearing and things
returned to normal. A while later, after a particularly bad storm,
someone went looking for the old woman and found her cottage empty.
The person that went looking saw a message scratched in the wood of
the door that said the beast that was terrorizing the town was gone
and would only come again if somebody called it. There was this
stupid little rhyme that could return it to our world where it
could once again terrorize the town. All I really know is that the
disappearances stopped. For all we know the witch was the one
causing everything and the creature was just trying to save us.
Nobody knows for sure except for sure. The only thing we know are
the stories of those it chased. Unfortunately my grandfather was
one of the last few people that disappeared before the old woman
put and end to it. I know that creature was the one responsible and
now it’s back.”

“Yeah but Grandma, you said it was somehow
responsible for Tommy’s death,” Jill said. “What did you mean?”

Grandma looked at them for a moment then
focused on Jim as if she knew something she couldn’t possibly know.
“Do you know if Tommy ever tried looking for or maybe even calling
for the Goatman?”

He could hear his hear thumping so loudly in
his head he was surprised the two women didn’t notice it. As he
looked at them parts of his dream drifted back to him. He heard
four adolescent voices calling out as one asking the creature to
appear. He saw the beast parting the shadows, coming towards them,
answering their call. He saw the axe as it was raised in the air
ready to speed its way to his death. He heard the whistle as it
sliced the air and jumped as it hit its destination. But that was
only a dream he thought coming back to himself. None of it had
happened. Jim thought better of telling them anything about it for
obvious reasons. He knew he and his friends were responsible for
its return. Instead of answering her question he tried to deflect
it.

“Grandma it was just some goat hair,” he
said. “I admit it’s strange that it’s there but that’s all it was.”
He hoped changing the subject to something based in the real world
and not in myth would defuse the tension he felt building. He
didn’t trust himself to start talking about the things Grandma had
brought up. He believed that she believed everything she’d said but
she couldn’t be right. There were no such things as bogeymen much
less Goatmen.

“The Goatman’s just a legend,” he said having
a hard time convincing himself much less them. “I’m not saying that
stuff didn’t happen but it was a long time ago. This is now. People
don’t just walk off into the woods and disappear anymore. We were
all told the stories about the Goatman growing up but that’s all
they were. Stories. None of us believed it. It’s just a legend. How
could it have killed Tommy?” He felt like a shit saying all this
stuff especially since he didn’t believe it but he couldn’t tell
them that he and his friends were the ones who called the creature
back from where ever it had been. He really wanted to believe what
he was saying but he couldn’t. He just had to hope that Jill and
her grandmother did.

“It’s not just a legend!” Grandma yelled
ruining that thought.

Her anger surprised him so much he was at a
loss for what to say. One minute Grandma’d sat across from him
seemingly silently resigned the next she was about coming over the
table yelling at him. He hadn’t been out to upset her but
apparently he had. He could understand why she was upset and wished
he could tell her he believed everything she said one hundred
percent but he also had to try to keep things real. If he sat here
and agreed with her that some mythical beast was responsible for
his friends’ death, Jill might as well call the funny farm for both
of them. Grandma’s outward appearance visibly shrank as Jim watched
her prepare for what she would say next. Her momentary outburst
seemed to have depleted what little energy she had.

“I’m tired,” she said rising slowly from the
chair. “I’m tired and I’m going to bed. All this useless talk of
the old days has worn me out. Especially since it’s fallen on deaf
ears. But don’t forget what I said Jim. All legends are somehow,
someway, somewhere rooted in fact.” With that she turned and wafted
out of the kitchen like a ghost.

Sitting there for a few minutes, neither knew
what to say. After the conversation with Grandma it seemed a mutual
agreement that neither of them felt much like going out. Jill was
the first to break the spell and busied herself making coffee while
Jim made his way out to the porch and took a seat. It was a lot
darker than when he’d first arrived. They’d spent longer talking to
than he thought they would.

The night seemed much colder now than before.
He didn’t know if it was just because of the season or because of
all he’d heard. Sitting there he realized something else. The night
was quiet. There seemed to be no sounds. Nothing like what he was
used to. There were no sirens sounding in the distance, no
screaming and yelling coming from the apartments around him and no
sounds coming from the mouth of the teenage gang bangers that
seemed to come out like a flock of locusts after the sun went down.
He’d forgotten how nice his home town was. He could get used to a
place like this.

His breath clouded in front of him as he sat
enjoying the quiet night. You could almost imagine that there was
nothing else on earth at that moment. But then Jill came out and
instead of intruding on the moment she only enhanced it. She
carried with her two steaming mugs of coffee that smelled as good
as they looked. As she took a seat close to him she handed him one.
Having her sitting next to him made everything seem complete. He’d
forgotten how nice it was not being surrounded by noise all the
time. He’d also forgotten how nice it was having a good looking
woman sitting next to him.

The thought of buying a house here, again
popped into his mind but he quickly shook his head dismissing it as
nothing more than a fantasy. It wasn’t a bad idea. It was just an
impractical one. There was no reason to do it. To him when someone
bought a house that someone should have a family to live in it with
them. Other wise what was the point.

“Well,” Jill said breaking his inner debate
and bringing his mind back to the present. “That was sorta weird
wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, she did get a little excited didn’t
she?” he agreed not knowing what else to say.

“Do you think any of what she said could’ve
been true?” she asked.

“Well,” Jim said after thinking for a minute,
“it’s kinda hard to believe some of it. I mean I did grow up here
and I never saw anything like what she was talking about.” The
little lie made him feel like a slug but he said it anyways. “Some
monster going around abducting people much less chasing them around
the woods for fun is a little hard to believe. I’m sure something
happened but it couldn’t have been a monster. There must’ve been
some other explanation.” He was still trying to convince himself
and it still wasn’t working very well. The things Grandma talked
about sounded too much like what had happened to him and his
friends when they were little for him to just dismiss it as the
prattling of an old lady. Especially since that old lady was
Grandma. She wouldn’t lie about something like this. What she said
could have some truth to it but he couldn’t admit that to Jill.
She’d never even heard of the Goatman before now. There was no
reason scare her anymore than she already was by agreeing with her
grandmother.

“Maybe it wasn’t some creature,” Jill
ventured. “Maybe it was a real person terrorizing the town. It
could’ve even been that old woman Grandma was talking about. She
said the thing and that old woman disappeared at about the same
time. Maybe it really was her like Grandma said and the lady was
really some kind of Satanist or something. She could’ve been
killing people as a sacrifice or something.”

“That sounds a little more plausible to me,”
Jim said thoughtfully, “Your grandmother is old but she seemed
pretty sure about what she was telling us. I don’t think she
would’ve gotten so upset if she thought what she was saying wasn’t
the whole hearted truth. Who knows maybe she got some part of the
story wrong or something.” They sat in silence for a few minutes,
each struggling to make sense of their own ideas along with what
Grandma had revealed to them tonight.

“So what now?” Jill said suddenly changing
the subject.

“Well, it is a little late,” he said not even
wanting to glance at his watch to see the actual time. “Tommy’s
funeral is tomorrow so, I guess, maybe we should call it a night.”
She looked about as disappointed as he felt which surprisingly made
him feel better about leaving her. Maybe things were looking
up.

“Ok,” she said with a small smile, “but we
can get together again right?”

“Oh, I think that can be arranged,” he teased
as he stood to leave.

“What do you mean you think that can be
arranged? It damn well better be if you know what’s good for you,”
she answered hotly. Trying to hold back his laughter at her mock
anger he turned to leave but she quickly stood up and snatched his
arm.

“Before you leave there’s something I need to
do...” she said as she stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss
that started out as a quick one but ended up turning in to a much
longer one. Stepping back from him a little out of breathe she
looked at him in a way that gave him chills in all the right places
and said “Now that’s a proper goodnight kiss. So are you sure that
it can be “arranged” that we meet again?” He just shook his head up
and down like one of those bobble heads you see in car windows.
Smiling that smile again she turned and reached for the door.
“Watch out for the Goatman on your way home,” she said over her
shoulder before opening the door.

Jim just stood there for a minute with a
dorky look on his face as he watched her walk into the house and
close the door. He didn’t even realize what she’d said. He was
happier than he could remember being in a long time. When he
finally remembered that if he wanted to get home he had to start
walking, he almost had to force himself off the porch.

6

Moving off into the darkness it finally
registered what Jill’s parting warning about the Goatman had been.
Not wanting to tempt fate with everything suddenly going his way he
hurried his steps just a little bit more than normal.

After only a few steps he reached the end of
the dirt road and the beginning of the paved. Looking back over his
shoulder thoughts of the kiss only moments gone floated back into
his head. The piercing whine of a siren brought him quickly back to
reality.

Curious about what was going on he stepped up
the pace to a fast jog, praying he wouldn’t trip over anything in
the dark. He quickly noticed something wasn’t right. Over the
thumps of his feet hitting the ground he heard nothing. The siren
had quickly gone silent along with the night around him. There
wasn’t even a breeze to ruffle his hair. Slowing his pace he found
that the night had, for some unknown reason, gone silent. All the
insects seemed gone; the only sound he heard was his own heart
beating in his chest.