“You also didn’t tell him about what happened to Rob,” Maria chimed in apparently done calming down.
“That’s because you did Rob all by yourself!” he spit back defensively.
“Oh yeah, I did didn’t I? Sorry,” she said smiling. “Yes, it’s true. I did call him begging for help with my car. I told him I’d broken down out near the freaks place and I was scared and needed help. Him being the Boy Scout he was he rushed right out to help.”
“You took advantage of him!” Jim yelled. Pete still needed more time. He had to keep her talking.
“Of course I did. What else was I supposed to do?” she responded. “I couldn’t very well confess to killing his best friend in an attempt to make you love me could I? Plus Tommy’s funeral was coming up then you’d be leaving. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to find some way to keep you here a bit longer. You needed that extra time to realize where you belonged and that Jill was wrong for you. So to help you out I chopped Rob into little, itty, bitty pieces the first chance I got.” She finished with a giggle. “But,” she started again apologetically, “it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. Sure the screaming was cool and all but you can only take so much of that before it gets boring. You should’ve heard him! When that hatchet hit him he let out such a scream that I thought they’d hear it all the way back at the sheriff’s station.”
She began limping around and moaning to demonstrate as she was talking. She reached behind her acting like she was trying to pull something out of her back until she finally fell down. She lay with her eyes closed for a moment before they popped open, “And do you know what the best part was?” she asked whispered only a few feet from his face.
“We weren’t even caught!” she answered gleefully when he said nothing. “I knew the sheriff here was an idiot but I thought for sure he would notice something strange was going on. I mean it was a decent plan but there were at least a dozen things we should’ve been caught on. I mean at the very lest we should be suspects now or something. But as you can see, nothing, nada, zip. They have no idea what’s going on around here.” Jim couldn’t look directly at Pete without giving him away. He decided to try to shift himself to another position more away from him than he already was. If he could keep her attention focused on him then there was at least some slim hope still left that they might survive. He didn’t need to worry about her though. As soon as he moved and got slightly comfortable she smacked him in the head.
“You don’t move unless I tell you too!” she yelled. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, then my little Johnny-wonny came up with his brilliant addition to my plan. This in turn brings us to the reason for Pete being here. Deputy Dog’s bright idea was to make it look like Pete was the one that had done everything. He was afraid he was about to have the murders pinned on him so he broke out of jail. Johnny was going to make it look as if Pete had somehow over-powered him and taken his gun when he’d gone to check on him. Then the freak, who probably has no knowledge whatsoever about guns, was supposed to shoot his was out of the station with Johnny as his docile hostage.” Maria chuckled a few times before continuing. She obviously didn’t think Johnny was too bright. Either that or she just liked putting him down in front of others.
“For some reason,” she continued, “Pete was going to contact you and Jill and talk you into meeting him out here so you could help him escape. But at the last possible minute, Johnny, suddenly being the big strong hero, was going to wrestle the gun away from whoever had it at the time and dramatically shoot everyone before they could escape. Then supposedly all the blame for everything would be placed on you three and we would be in the clear. Sounds like a great plan huh?” Jim thought it did sound like a half decent plan. Not one he would use but it might’ve worked out ok.
“Oh,” Maria added, “did I forget to mention he didn’t really think of any kind of reason why you might help Pete or why Pete might’ve killed his friends? I mean he was crazy sure but not like that. Everyone knew he wasn’t violent.”
“It wasn’t…” Jim started to say.
“Well,” Maria said cutting him off, “I didn’t like it. It wasn’t my plan and my plan was better so I didn’t want to use it. Now I don’t really have a choice.”
“Well, if that wasn’t your plan,” Jim said jumping in feet first just to keep her talking. “Then what was it? What did you actually have planned? Did you just think killing all of us would be written off to another type of accident? You couldn’t actually believe you were going to get away with it could you? Practically everyone in town saw the display you two made at Tommy’s funeral. They also saw you fawning all over me too. If we were to turn up dead after that it would look mighty suspicious wouldn’t it? How did you think you’d get away with it?” He knew Pete only needed a little more time. If he wasn’t out after this, it was over. The last time he’ had a chance to look at Pete’s way he’d seen he was at the window. Hell, if he stood up he would probably fall out. Jim didn’t know why he didn’t do just that other than his hands were still bound but even they were loose. He should’ve made a run for it but instead he just sat there.
“Well, all that’s true isn’t it?” Maria said taking his bait. “But if you remember I did leave enough clues for even a jackass like the sheriff to get some pretty wild ideas about what was going on didn’t I?” Maria said. “I mean I left goat hair at most of the places we did stuff. Then I left the hair and tracks at Petey’s house. We even wrote who we wanted everyone to think of on Petey’s house. If that wasn’t a good enough clue I don’t know what was. If nothing else it would just be written off to one of those strange disappearance types of things.”
“You actually thought you could blame the whole thing on a legend?” Jim asked incredulously.
“Why not?” she asked. “You four seemed to believe in him enough way back in the day so I figured why not use that to my advantage? See, I know something you don’t know. Remember when you and your little buddies went looking for him.”
“How do you know about that?” Jim asked defensively.
“Oh you know, one of those days you didn’t notice me, you know back in high school, well I saw all of you crowded around each other like you were trying to keep a secret so naturally I had to know what was going on. Don’t look at me like that. I was practically your girlfriend so I felt I needed to know what my man was doing. Boy was I surprised to find out you idiots were going out to find The Goatman.” She started laughing at this. Jim didn’t think it was very funny. The four of them had been very serious about finding proof of his existence. According to Pete they’d found what they were looking for. “Hey pay attention,” Maria said when she saw his blank look. “Anyways, when I was coming up with my plan for getting you back I thought why not use the exact thing that had scared the piss out of you when you were little? Why not just do what I had to do and then blame it? I mean sounds like a pretty good idea right? I thought it was. If I did everything just right there was no way I’d ever be caught. As you can see I haven’t been caught so everything must be working right. Johnny’s little brainstorm threw a wrench into everything for a minute but it doesn’t really hurt any of my plans too much. There’s only one thing left to do.” She started walked over to Jill and grabbed her by the hair. Reaching up and behind her on a shelf Jim hadn’t seen before she took something down. It flashed as it caught the candle light. She had a knife. A big one.
“Now I just have to kill three instead of two,” she said smiling at his surprise. “I think I’ll start right here.” She put the knife to Jill’s throat. He could see her arm tensing, ready to pull the blade across her throat but it never happened.”
“Goatman, Goatman, Goatman,” Pete yelled exploding off the floor, “come get me!” Then he was jumping through the window into darkness. Their two captors had been caught completely off guard. They stood there with their mouths hanging open looking at where Pete had been only moments before. All that was left were the pieces of rope that had held his hands.