“This shit is boring!” Rob whined. “He ain’t ever going to show himself if he’s even real. You ask me I think he’s chickenshit!”
“He ain’t chicken,” Tommy argued coming to the monster’s defense, “you just have to wait a little while. He has to have time to get here.” Tommy had a thing for monsters. Ever since the first time he’d heard about the Goatman, he’d been hooked. In Tommy’s opinion every other creature of horror paled in comparison to the Goatman. He was, hands down the best. Tommy wasn’t fond of the idea of a monster living so close by, but if there had to be one then the Goatman was the best one it could be. Goatman was a local monster, not like Bigfoot or the Yeti, which made it better. All kid dreamed of find a monster but the other two were too far away. Goatman was accessible, he was a possibility. They weren’t.
“You guys just aren’t calling him the right way,” Jim volunteered, trying to stop a fight before it began. “My uncle told me you have to call him a certain way or he won’t come. We didn’t do it right the first time. We didn’t say everything we were supposed too. We left a few words out.” He paused then added in a quieter voice, “But if I tell you how and he does shows up you’d all better be ready to run your asses off cause you sure as shit won’t want to stay anywhere near here.”
“Well,” Rob said sarcastically, “if you’re so damned smart why don’t you just tell us, using all your infinite wisdom, how we’re supposed to call the damn thing the ‘right’ way.”
“Didn’t any of you ever pay attention to the damn story we were told?” Pete asked rolling his eyes, not that they could see it in the dark. “Or were you to chicken to listen to the whole thing without hiding in your sleeping bags and covering your ears?”
“About damn time you opened your mouth Pete! Almost forgot you were there, you were being so quiet,” Rob bellowed slapping Pete on the back hard enough to make the other boy stagger a few steps. “Why are you being so quiet anyways?”
“I just don’t think we need to be so loud,” Pete said glancing at the woods to either side of the road, “you never know who or what might hear us.”
“What’re you scared?” Tommy teased.
“We’re in the frickin’ woods Pete!” Rob yelled louder than before. “Who do you think is going to hear us? The rabbits?”
“Enough of this crap!” Tommy said as he turned to Jim. “Now how do we call him? We need to get this show on the road! The nights a wasting. All this yelling and hollering might’ve woke someone. We aren’t that far from my house ya know. So let’s do this the right way before it’s too late.”
“I don’t think we should call him,” Pete said before anyone else could say anything, “I think he’s dangerous. I think if we do call him we’ll regret it.”
“Oh, how the hell would you know?” Jim said beginning to get a little bit pissed. Pete was always being a little bit too careful. When the guys wanted to do something that might even be the little bit dangerous it was always Pete that didn’t want to do it and ended up ruining the possible fun. “Who the hell cares what you think anyways?” he continued before Pete could protest, “Have you ever called him? Have you ever seen him? What’s that? No answer. Well I’ll give you one. The answer to both those questions would be a big frickin’ NO! So if you don’t want to call him fine, go home and hide but if you stay at least be quiet so that those of us who want to call him can, ok?”
“Alright,” Tommy said cutting in trying to bring a little calm to a situation that could easily spin out of control, “Jim was right, I don’t think we did it the right way the first time. Luckily what he said reminded me of the right way to do it,” he said pausing to look at each of them before continuing, “the only thing is we all have to say it, and you,” he said pointing at Jim, “have to lay off of Pete. He’s just a little bit nervous is all. We all are. He’s just the only one saying anything about it.”
After thinking about it for a few seconds Jim half-heartedly agreed and apologized to Pete. Now that everything was back to normal Tommy went to each of the boys pausing for a few seconds to whisper something in their ear before moving on. He had just told Rob and was leaning towards Pete when Rob’s hand shot out and grabbed his shoulder pulling him back.
“Is that it?” he asked with a laugh. Without waiting for an answer he continued, “Hell, if I knew that was all there was too it I’d’ve done it the right way the first time. Forget waiting for you pansies. I’ll do it myself.” Before Tommy or any of the other boys could stop him Rob took a deep breath and screamed.
“Goatman,come get me!!”
Each boy froze as they listened to Rob’s voice echo through the woods all the way back, they were sure, to each of their houses and right to their sleeping parents ears. It was funny how parents always seemed to know when their child was doing something they weren’t supposed to. In this case, Rob had pretty much just announced it to anyone who happened to have a set of working ears. Rob stood smiling at each of them until he saw the looks on their faces. All at once each of them threw a punch at a different part of his body.
“Hey!” he yelled trying to swat their hands away. “Knock that crap off! What are you hitting me for?”
“Because you’re a dumbass!” came one reply.
“You probably just woke the whole damn town!” sounded another.
“Now we really should leave.” came the last one.
Rob stood sullenly looking at each of his friends wishing he were bigger than he actually was. He couldn’t understand what they were so ticked about. He’d only done what they were going to do anyways. So what if he hadn’t waited for them, it was too late anyways. There was no reason for them to hit him.
As the boys stood looking at a pouting Rob and listening to their shouts fade into the night they slowly realized something was different than it had been a few minutes ago. Before Rob’s stunt they’d been able to hear the regular nighttime noises of bugs and wind and things like that. Now there was nothing. It was as if Rob’s yell had stolen all sound from the world, there was nothing. No sigh of wind through the trees, no chirp of a cricket calling to another. Nothing at all.
This was a spooky nighttime quiet. A things coming to get you in the dark type of quiet. A type of quiet that told little boys they should’ve stayed home under the covers and not come messing around in the dark type of quiet. This type of quiet that came to mind when you heard someone say it was as quiet as a tomb.
“You’re a frickin’ idiot!” Tommy whispered after a few uneasy seconds without some type of sound. “We were all supposed to say it at the same time!”
“It didn’t even work,” Rob said shakily trying to blow off Tommy’s anger. “Maybe we should try again or something. I don’t think I was loud enough.”
“Not loud enough?” Pete exploded. “You could’ve waked a dead person as loud as you were! Hell, for that matter you probably did. They’re probably on the way here right now! If there is a Goatman he sure as shit heard you. God, you are so frickin’ stupid sometimes!” Disgust thick in his voice Pete stalked a few steps away from the group kicking at the ground trying to calm down.
The three remaining boys stood looking at each other for a minute before breaking into laughter. Pete glared over his shoulder for a few seconds before shaking his head and slowly turning back around and joining them. After they’d calmed down a bit they all decided to give it another try. Pete’s earlier reluctance evaporated after seeing that nothing had happened. Nothing had come storming out of the night to attack them at least so they might as well try again just to make sure. Maybe Rob hadn’t done it right or something or maybe it was just all some old legend, which was more probable, that didn’t really work after all.