“Would you please shut up about the fucking purple dinosaur! That’s enough!” he yelled and immediately felt bad about it. Pete stayed in his world and ignored him. Not having anything else to do Jim turned towards the woods watching for the Sheriff’s return.
After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only about ten minutes he came stumbling out of the bushes near the other end of the house. There were a few braches stuck in his hat and one coming out of his shoe making him look somewhat comical. Jim was too worn out to laugh so he just watched instead as he walked up cursing a blue streak.
“There’s not a damn thing back there!” he yelled as he yanked the branch out of his shoe.
“Nothing?” Jim asked. “There had to be something. Maybe you scared it off with all the noise you were making. There was definitely something in there before you go there. I mean, come on, something threw that damned head at us.” Jim didn’t believe that he’d found nothing. There had to be something. Blood from the raccoon, the body, something. It couldn’t’ve just disappeared.
“All I saw were some animal tracks and not much else. Waste of my damn time. They looked like deer or something close to it. Had hooves, whatever it was,” he said straightening his clothes. “But now this shit is over. I looked in the woods like you wanted and didn’t find anything. That’s it. I’m taking Pete for a ride down to the station and I don’t want to hear no more about no damn Goatman.”
He grabbed Pete by the collar and started walking to the front of the house where his car waited. Jim almost wished one of those heads would come flying right now and smack the Sheriff in the back of the head. Maybe then he would believe them. Then again he would probably just blame Jim and take him in too. It didn’t seem like anything was going to happen so he quickly followed the two of them to the front. He watched Pete get shoved into the back of the car and the Sheriff make his way to his door. A chill ran down his spine again causing him to look around. The feeling of being watched was back. Studying the night he saw nothing that might cause his feeling so he wrote it off to nerves being tired.
The sheriff climbed in the car and drove off leaving Jim in a cloud of dust. He didn’t even ask if he needed a ride. Looking at the retreating tail lights, Jim was half tempted to stay the night in Pete’s place but since the outside looked so bad he figured the inside would be worse. Plus the thought of all the dead animal head made his stomach do flip flops so he decided against it. He saw the police car reach the end of the road and decided it was time for him to leave. The dark wasn’t getting any lighter with him wasting time standing around. It was a long way back to the main road and the safety of light but he figured it was safer running then walking. The Sheriff’s idea of going home sounded like a real good idea.
9
Jim’s muscles were screaming at him when he woke the next morning as they remembered the previous nights’ adventures. All the running around was taking its toll on him now. Muscle that had been unused now played holy hell with him as he rolled out of bed. Thinking about it now in the light of day everything seemed like some kind of bad nightmare but he knew that wasn’t the case. He dressed gingerly and walked down to the kitchen already able to smell the bacon his mother had made for breakfast.
Taking a seat at the table his mother asked about his evening and he told her what had happened. He left out the parts about the heads but told her of the fires and how bad Pete had seemed to him. She was horrified to find out about Rob. Jim guessed she hadn’t read the morning paper. He figured something like that was sure to be front page news. After taking a few minutes to collect herself she asked how he was taking it. He gave the only answer he could. Two of his childhood friends were gone. He would never see them again and there was nothing that he could do about it. So all in all he was handling it but that was about it.
The last thing he told her, almost as an afterthought, was about Pete being in jail. When she asked why he told her it was just for questioning. He hadn’t done anything wrong but the Sheriff finally decided to bring him in for the fires if nothing else. The good part was that he wasn’t a suspect in Rob’s murder. Even the Sheriff was able to see Pete was a barely functioning person. He sure wouldn’t be able to kill anyone like Rob. They just wanted too ask him a few questions since he’d been nearby when it had all happened. Jim told her he didn’t think they’d get too much out of him though since all he seemed to do when confronted with any kind of stress was mumble. Maybe if they figured out what it was about a purple dinosaur that ticked him off so much he would tell them what they wanted to know but he doubted it.
All in all Jim’s said his visit home was not going well. Hopefully laying Tommy to rest today would be the end of the unpleasantness and things would go back to normal. He didn’t mention anything about the Goatman. If he’d done that his mom might think he was going to end up just like Pete. The last thing he wanted to do was have her worrying about him.
Jim finished his breakfast and sat sipping coffee while trying not to think too much about what he was going to be doing later in the day. After a long bit of quiet his mother tried getting him to talk about other things but quickly figured out he was pretty much having none of it. Giving up on that she instead sat across from him with a concerned look on her face. He probably could have told her about his night with Jill but he didn’t even fell like talking about that. It just didn’t feel right having something to be happy about when his friends were dieing around him. After his coffee he told his mother that he was going to go back to his room and relax until it was time for him to leave. She tried to get him to stay and talk with her but he begged off telling her he just needed some time alone and went to his room. He felt bad and knew her heart was in the right place but he just didn’t feel like being around anyone right now.
Lying on his bed he thought back to his childhood with Tommy and Rob. Pete was there also tagging along as he always had but he was mostly thinking of the other two. They were gone and Pete wasn’t.
When they’d been little they always talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up. It had always seemed to change from one week to the next if not from one day to the next. For a while they’d all wanted to be firemen. Next it was a policeman. Eventually it became an astronaut. He thought it was sad how none of them had ever achieved their dreams. Well, almost none of them, he thought correcting himself. Rob had achieved his. He’d made it. He became a policeman like he’d wanted and from what little Jim had seen of him it suited him. At least he’d been able to live his dream for a little while before he’d died. Jim didn’t want to venture to much farther down that road. Rob was gone. He didn’t want to think of how it’d happened.
Instead he thought about Tommy. He didn’t even come close to living any of their dreams much less his own. He’d ended up being a cook at one of the local restaurants. Jim smiled as he tried to imagine Tommy behind a stove wearing an apron. It just wasn’t a picture that came to mind easily. Tommy was always a man's man. He frowned on things like cooking and baking. He probably hated what he did. But then again maybe he’d changed after Jim’d left. Maybe he’d tried cooking and found he liked it. Unfortunately Jim would never know. He’d left the town and his friends behind to pursue what he’d thought were his dreams.