“Now I see the by the looks on your faces you think I left something out. You’re probably wondering why nobody went and hunted these beasts down. Well, some did. Some went out to see if they could find anything. Most returned empty handed. At least those that returned. Some never did. It was almost as if the things in the woods knew that if they took too many or were caught themselves then more people would come invading there woods. After a time of searching and finding nothing fewer and fewer people went looking. Everyone stayed to the known roads and pretty much left the woods alone. The ones that did venture in never went out of sight of the road they’d left. Over time people stopped disappearing and it was eventually forgotten. A few brave souls began building houses closer to the woods. They lit fires at night to keep whatever might be lurking at bay. When nothing happened and the terrible events of the past faded to just a memory more and more people started building near the woods. People who just couldn’t live with the past moved away but most ended up staying. They’d traveled far and weren’t going to give up their new home. Where would they go? Everything they had was here.” Grandma stopped speaking to take a small sip of her coffee. The face she made indicated what she thought of it. She got up and went to the sink as she continued her story.
“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.