Come Get Me (3 page)

“This was all a total crock of shit from the
beginning!” Rob complained, “Whose frickin’ idea was this crap
anyways?”

“Yours, you dipshit!” they all yelled in
unison. It was almost the first time they’d agreed on anything that
night. They quickly looked around as if they expected someone to
yell at them for being so loud before they remembered they were in
the woods.

“Screw this,” Jim said after a few seconds,
“let’s get out of here and go find something real to do. This
Goatman crap is a bunch of shit.”

As they turned to walk back the way they’d
came another strange noise sounded behind them. They all stopped
and looked around. Knowing it was probably just another deer, they
were a little less worried than the first time. Looking back in the
same direction the deer had come from all they could see was the
fog swaying back and forth. More sounds erupted from the night
startling them. These weren’t like the first ones at all. Shrieks
and grunting noises sounded from what seemed like all around them.
This wasn’t any little deer. This was something else entirely. The
grating sound they now heard were enough to send shots of pure
terror to each of their quickly thumping hearts.

“It’s probably just another deer,” Rob
stammered being the only one able to voice what they all hoped.

The boys listened and waited for the fog to
blow away. Unfortunately it didn’t want to cooperate. Nothing as
lucky as a deer came prancing from the fog this time. Instead what
was birthed was something the fog itself didn’t even seem to want
any part of. It was almost as if it was spitting the thing out and
retreating back from its touch. The fog hovered around its form
like a transparent cloak, never really touching but never going too
far away either. This made the creature all that more eerie to
behold.

Stepping from its shroud not twenty feet in
front of them was something that must’ve been in someone’s
nightmare only moments before. The fog continued to swirl but
revealed vague shapes that resembled a man one moment and an animal
the next. The thing was supported not by the normal legs belonging
to a human that one would expect to see but instead by two hairy,
tree trunk size legs that tapered down to two huge cloven hooves.
They looked exactly like goat legs except for many times bigger and
many times more powerful. As four sets of frightened eyes took in
the terrible sight of its abnormal legs, the thing took a heavy
step forward. Those same eyes quickly traveled up the rest of the
creature as if commanded to. None of the boys actually wanted to
look at the thing’s face but they couldn’t help themselves. When
they finally came to rest on it they found the worst was far from
over.

Standing well over seven feet tall was a
thing made purely from the most twisted of minds. The boy’s small
brains were struggling to grasp exactly what it was they were
looking at. The beast was just so far beyond anything they could’ve
imagined that their minds were at a momentary loss.

Any doubt of the Goatman’s existence was
gone. The smell of ammonia filled the air. There were no longer any
dry pants in the group. They’d never expected anything to appear
when they’d spoken the now terrible words. They weren’t supposed to
work. Now The Goatman had arrived and they were sure they would be
dead before he left.

The next thing they noticed after getting
over the hideous beast was the things chest. It heaved like some
giant bellow as air was swept in and out. It was wider than any two
of them could ever think about wrapping their arms around and
eventually tapered up to its shoulders. The chest, while
impressive, was nothing compared to its shoulders. They were bigger
than any they’d ever seen. They spoke of many years of hard living
and much work. They looked just right for pulling little boys arms
from their bodies. They knew there was no hope of escape from a
creature like this. They’d made the biggest mistake of their young
lives when they decided to call the Goatman.

All eyes were riveted on the creature’s body
until something else caught their eyes when it shook its head. A
light breeze swept what little fog and darkness that still clung to
it away allowing them to finally view the terrible, dark, tree bark
like skin stretching across the things angular face. Tiny bits of
moonlight cast enough light for them to see the many deep scars
crisscrossing its wretched face making it look like a jigsaw puzzle
put back together wrong. Those scar seemed to speak to the
boys.

They listened with shaking knees as the scar
whispered the stories about the many battles their owner had been
through and how he had always triumphed when the odds were against
him. The scars were all that were left of the Goatman’s
adversaries. Little reminders of his conquests.

Seeming to know what images were passing
through their heads the goat- like face smiled, if that’s what it
could be called, revealing teeth that were almost too horrible to
look at. The boys had seen pictures in health class at school but
nothing like this. They were crooked, pointy things that looked
much too accustomed to tearing flesh from bodies and meat from
bones. It licked its lips as if thinking of the tasty meal it was
about to partake of. With all the sights they’d beheld they were
slow on noticing what they soon found to be the worst and most
alien thing about the creature. As they watched it shake its head
again they saw, growing directly out of the top of its forehead,
were horns. These were the horns they had expected to see but much
worse. Each one twisted up and up until it reached the ended in a
sharpened point. Seeing it in the moonlight, it looked as if it
were stained with something dark.

Probably the blood of his last victim, they
thought as one.

The horns were surrounded by greasy unkempt
hair that hung raggedly down over it’s’ face and then continued
down to its’ shoulders before passing out of view. The boys knew
how this hideous creature had gotten its name.

As they faced the creature, having already
pissed out everything in their bladders, it suddenly shook its’
entire body, spraying droplets of sweat and God knew what else in
all directions and startling Pete so bad he would’ve fallen down if
Rob hadn’t been there to catch him. It stared out at them from
beneath heavy brows with green, flashing eyes that seemed to be
judging whether or not they were worthy of living.

After only a few seconds it must have found
them to be wanting in some way because it blew a quick blast of air
from its nose and took a menacing step forward. Snot and other
disgusting fluids trailed from its flaring nostrils and dripped
onto its chest as it took another step. The boys were so transfixed
they didn’t realize each step was bringing it closer to them.

When its hooves struck the ground sparks shot
up from the gravel creating little spurts of light that left spots
dancing before their eyes. Dust puffed up around each hoof
shrouding it in a cloud of dust making it seem as if the beast was
hovering instead of walking.

Jim alone noticed something else too. There
was a sound, almost like the ringing of a phone but not quite,
every time one of the sparks of light went off. He dared not look
around to see if the others noticed anything. He didn’t even know
if they were still there for that matter. Between the ringing and
what was approaching, his attention was about full. He knew if he
took his eyes off the thing for a second it would surely be on him.
After that he didn’t even want to imagine what would happen. He
knew he’d at least be dead if not something worse.

The beast continued moving towards them,
taking its time, stalking them like the wild animal it was and they
were its prey. Each step brought it closer and closer. Each time a
hoof crashed to the ground the ringing sound echoed in Jim’s head.
Every time he heard it, he thought it sounded more and more like a
phone and not the sound a hoof would make. If not for being so
afraid he might have thought this was strange but as it was he
could think of nothing but the otherworldly animal slowly
approaching him.

Slowly, step by step it came closer. With
every step the fog rolled, wrapping it like some foul cloak, but
still seeming to despise the touch of the dreaded creature. Jim
fervently wished the fog would consume the thing and make it
disappear. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about anything, he’d be
safe. He almost thought his wish had come true when more fog
suddenly swirled across the path in front of the creature and it
seemed to disappear. Straining to see it, he could barely make out
the hideous legs that carried it forward. All traces of hair and
hoof were gone. The only thing that marked its passage was the
ringing. That was still sounding in Jim’s skull. Even though the
legs were gone it still came. If his wish was coming true it sure
was taking it’s time. Unfortunately, the fog was just making it
seem to disappear. It was still there and he was still going to be
dead when it reached him.

The ringing continued getting louder and
louder the closer the creature got. It was now only few more steps
away. The ringing was so loud that Jim was sure his ears were about
to burst. If nothing else they were probably bleeding. He’d seen
that once in a movie and it hadn’t looked pleasant. Curiously he
didn’t feel any pain so maybe they hadn’t burst yet but they were
surely about to. Just as curiously the ringing didn’t seem to be
coming from the creature anymore so much as it did from his own
skull. He almost wished the creature would hurry up and kill him
just so he could be rid of the noise ricocheting around between his
ears.

Having been so preoccupied with watching the
creature lumber towards him Jim hadn’t noticed that it seemed to be
carrying something. The fog obscured it a little making it
difficult to see. It was probably the head of its last victim or
something equally disgusting. As if sensing that Jim had noticed,
the Goatman swung his arm up to give him a better view. At the
height of the swing, just before it started its downward descent,
Jim he finally recognized what it was. The huge, disfigured hand
was holding an axe. But it wasn’t just any axe. Jim had only seen
one of this magnitude when looking through books about Vikings and
the weapons they used in battle. The blade by itself was bigger
than his head. Moonlight gleamed off the blade showing a finely
honed edge. If nothing else the Goatman took care of his tools. Jim
had a moment to think how sad his situation was. They’d finally
found the creature of legend called the Goatman, they’d confronted
him and were now about to die. One of the weapons he’d thought
looked so cool in the books was slowly starting, but quickly
picking up speed, towards its only logical destination, his
head.

The axe cleaved the air as it made its
inevitable way towards him when suddenly the ringing noise cut
through his terror. It echoed so loudly and with such force that
his hands shot up wrapping around his head trying to block it out.
The beast was standing still but his arm still seemed to be moving.
He didn’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. Not that it
mattered much anymore. Jim’s eyes were only seeing one thing. The
axe was only inches from his head and coming closer. He could
almost hear a whistling sound as it parted the air but another
ringing noise struck just milliseconds before the axe hit his
head

This is reality

…and he sat up in bed arms still wrapped
tightly around his it. Sitting up he rubbed his eyes and quickly
surveyed the room. Light from outside made vein attempts at
penetrating the curtains only to be halted just shy of entering.
Only a few vagrant shafts made it in. From this he saw nothing out
of the ordinary. No Goatman, no trees, no childhood friends,
nothing out the ordinary. His dirty clothes still lay were he’d
left them the previous night. It was a dream he thought to himself,
only a dream.

After ensuring there were no lurking Goatmen,
he quickly felt his head to make sure there wasn’t an axe or
anything else embedded in it. Much to his relief he found no
foreign objects of any kind sticking out from where they shouldn’t
be and nothing else obviously wrong. His heart was slowly reaching
a speed that didn’t feel like it was about to crack a rib as he
closed his eyes, propped his head up and thanked God it was only a
dream and he was still alive.

When he had awoken from the nightmare his
poor heart had been trying to pound its way out of his chest. It
still felt a little sore. (Luckily he was still pretty young). If
he was any older he might not have woken up at all.

He swung his legs out from the tangled sheets
but not before feeling a slimy wetness beneath them. Placing one
hesitant hand on the sheets he quickly found out they were soaked
through with sweat. Looking down at himself he found the sheets
weren’t the only thing covered in sweat, at least that’s what he
hopped it was.

The ringing sound from his dream intruded on
his self examination. Looking around he searched for its source, he
was awake now but he still heard the ringing. After a few more
rings he realized it was the phone. That was the noise that had
driven him out of his dream. He’d never been so happy to hear that
sound in his life. He fumbled the rest of his way out of the sheets
and quickly located the phone underneath one of his pillows that
had fallen off the bed during the night. Untangling the cord, he
happily answered it.