Thoughts of Tommy and Rob quickly turned into thought about when they were little. The countryside around town was their playground. Riding upon the pedals of their bikes they’d explore every back road, old house or swampy lake they could find. That was one of the things that made it even harder to believe that the Goatman was the one killing them. They’d been everywhere and never seen hide nor hair of him or any other abnormal creature for that matter. The woods were a vast place where little boys could roam and pretend to be everything from Robin Hood to Flash Gordon. Granted it was Flash Gordon stuck in a wild paradise but they made due with what they had. The woods had never been a place to fear like they were now. Jim had enjoyed those times. He even enjoyed them now even though they made him sad but he guessed that what some memories did. Unfortunately that was all he had left of his friends.
His mother came in some time later to remind him that Tommy’s funeral was going to be soon. As if he could’ve forgotten or something. He forced himself from the past and into the present where he started preparing for the funeral.
Once out the door and on his way he again started thinking about the strange circumstances of his friends deaths. None of it made any sense. All the clues seemed to point at the Goatman but the cop’s content to just write Tommy’s death off to being an accident. Jim knew it hadn’t been though. He hopped that they were at least not dense enough to try and say the same thing about Robs. He could hear it now. They would try to say he had an axe with him and somehow fell on it repeatedly until he was dead or something else just as ridiculous. No, he had to give them some credit. They couldn’t be that stupid. Jim hopped that the state police, with their superior experience, would be able to formulate a better idea than what he and Pete had come up with. There had to be something better than the Goatman. So what if everything about both cases pointed to the perpetrator having been some mystical creature out of an urban legend. What difference did that make? Any rational thinking person would figure that thinking like that was just crazy. Unfortunately at this point in time Jim wasn’t included in the rational thinking people’s group. He was on the fringe of it though, still hoping someone would figure out a more plausible explanation than his.
Goat hairs being found in the area of Tommy’s death, coupled with the fact that the tree had been hacked off with an axe, then only days later Rob being attacked and killed with what the police were saying was an axe or a hatchet, pointed in Jim’s irrational mind, towards the Goatman. Pete had watered the seed planted in Jim’s mind by telling him that he, himself, had been under attack by the Goatman for the past three weeks.
As impossible as all this sounded and given the fact that Pete had gone off the deep end, Jim had seen the splattered proof against the wall. It could be argued that since Pete was insane at least to some degree that he’d staged everything himself but who wanted to think that? He could have easily gone out and killed Tommy but why? And then a few days later he could’ve gone and lured Rob to his death but again, why? If you wanted to believe he’d killed two of his best friend, set everything up in his yard so that he could have proof that he was under attack by some unseen force and then have himself arrested as a witness and not a suspect you still had to ask why. Oh yeah and if you could believe all that then you could believe in the Goatman too. But that was maybe giving Pete a little too much credit. He was smart and all but not that smart. Even if he was faking everything. Jim quickly put that out of his head. Pete was definitely a goner in the brains department but not so far that he would do the things terrible things that had happened.
If you disqualified Pete as a suspect then the question was now; who was doing it? Things flying from the night, bloody writing on the walls, and dead friends being found here and there. All this stuff wasn’t happening by itself. Oh wait, here’s another piece of evidence he thought ruefully. Once the sheriff had arrived and charged off into the wilderness to see what, if anything, could be found he’d come back with more support for the village idiots theory. Goat or deer tracks in the woods around Pete’s house.
Jim knew there had to have been someone in the woods when that head took flight and came roaring at them but he’d been too afraid to do anything when it’d happened. He could’ve gone after the sheriff left but hadn’t. He was scared not stupid. Instead he’d left with his tail between his legs and almost no doubt that the prints in the woods were made by a hoof that belonged to the Goatman. Nothing else other than a human being or him could have heaved that head and unfortunately there were no other humans running about that night that anyone knew of. He didn’t want to believe any of it, and knew he would go crazy if he did, but there was only one thing it could be.
Jim’s mind was still whirling as he pulled to the side of the road in front of the graveyard. Leaving his car and walking up a slight hill he saw that most of the town had already arrived. In a town this small everyone had known Tommy and had come to say goodbye to him one last time. It was slightly surprising to Jim. Tommy had always had friends but he didn’t think this many people would’ve shown up. Small town or not.
Tommy’s parents stood next to the grave with a group of people Jim vaguely recognized as being distant relatives. The only way he recognized them was that he’d met one or two of them when he was little at one of Tommy’s birthdays. It was funny how little some people changed over the years. They were all dressed in shades of black and gray as befitted a funeral.
The service began as he walked up, almost like they’d been waiting for him. He knew they hadn’t been and it was only a coincidence but it still made him feel slightly uncomfortable.
Looking through the faces of the crowd he saw many he felt should look familiar but he was unable to come up with any of their names. Most likely people he’d known in school or something like that but it still made him realize one thing. He’d been away a long time. Everybody was a lot different than the way he’d remembered them. As his gaze traveled around the congregation he noticed a few people were returning his curious look with ones of their own. Unfortunately the looks he was receiving weren’t curious. Instead they were angry and sometimes down right hostile. The sheriff was one he caught giving him a harsh look but to his credit his cheeks colored and he quickly looked away when he saw Jim’d caught him.
He felt out of place. The general feeling of the place made him feel like he wasn’t supposed to be present. The glares seemed to say he’d missed his chance to be part of Tommy’s life so what right did he have to be there now that he was dead. He’d abandoned Tommy to his fate. Now, when it was all over he decided to return. What good could he do now? The looks told him none.
In the face of these imagined accusations Jim began to think maybe they were right. Maybe he’d never left Tommy wouldn’t be dead right now. Maybe Rob wouldn’t have died either. It was crazy to think things like that and torture himself but when you were receiving the looks he was you couldn’t help but feel that way. If he’d stayed things might have been different. Then again he countered; they might just have stayed the same too. He could also just be imagining it all too, he told himself.
Tiring of the hostility directed at him by people he once thought of as friends he tried to remove himself from the group he’d unfortunately become stuck in. He slowly began to make his way towards the back of the group trying not to jostle anyone as he did. No need to have anybody any madder at him than they already were. He took a step a little too quickly and accidentally bumped in to someone. Looking over his shoulder to apologize he was startled to see a bright smile. He was dismayed to see who it belonged too.
The last person he’d wanted to see today was the only one that seemed to want to see him. Maria stood directly in his path to the rear of the assembly. Looking for another escape route he was greeted only with the disapproving looks of the town’s people. They were definitely not going to let him through. He was stuck. He resigned himself to standing where he was and enduring the remainder of the funeral the best he could. After a few minutes he noticed Maria was standing a little close for his comfort but he had no real choice in the matter so he tried to ignore her and hoped the funeral would be over soon.