He awoke some time later to the alarming smell of smoke. Opening his eyes too quickly he found he was momentarily blinded by a bright light. Not immediately understanding where he was he tried to sitting up but quickly found he was unable to. As his eyes adjusted he saw that the bright light was just the morning sun. He must’ve been out for quite some time. Making small movements trying to sit up he felt his muscles scream their protest. He was sore from head to toe not to mention spikes of pain still shot through his body every time he tried taking a deep breath. Turning his head slowly to keep the pain to a minimum he found Jill curled up on her side not more than two feet away. He could see her breathing was deep and steady and felt as if a great weight had lifted from his chest. She was ok and so was he. Quickly thanking God that she was ok he looked in the other direction and was greeted by the smiling face of Pete who was propped up against a tree.
“Got any hot dogs?” he giggled pointing towards Jim’s feet. Jim looked down between his legs and saw the house from last night. It didn’t look that bad by daylight he decided. Especially since it was on fire. One of the candles must’ve finally caught on something and then that was all she wrote. It was well on its way to being nothing but a bad memory. As he watched what was left of one of the ground floor walls fell over in a shower of sparks.
Pete began laughing for no apparent reason and for no apparent reason Jim soon found himself joining in. This once again proved to be too much for him. He quickly fell back hitting his head on the soft ground behind him. It was just enough to send stars shooting through his vision and make him pass out again. He could still hear Pete’s laughter and the sound of approaching sirens as he started to dream of a familiar dream but his time it wasn’t scary. This time it was just a normal dream about a walk through the woods. The Goatman wasn’t physically present but Jim’s dream self knew all he had to do was call and he would come.
Epilogue
The two of them sat in comfortable silence on the front porch of their newly purchased old house watching the sun slowly set over the horizon. After all the moving they’d done recently it felt good to be able to just sit and relax a little now and then. It would take a while before the place felt like a home but it was theirs and they were together and that was all that mattered.
The events that occurred over the past couple of months were already fading in their memories and those of the town. For the first couple of days after the events of that horrible night they weren’t left in peace for more than a few minutes at a time. Finding three people in the middle of nowhere next to a burning house was bad enough but after sifting through the rubble and finding two bodies they almost ended up being locked away for good. It was even worse when those two bodies were identified. The police had nothing but questions and threats after that.
They’d finally gotten the hint after about two weeks. The story they heard was always the same with nothing that could be proved or disproved either way. It was their words against those of dead people. This time the evidence had supported the living. The cops were still confused as to what had actually happened but Jim, Jill and Pete had no more answers to give them. They’d said all they could say about what happened. Well, at least Jill had told them everything she knew which wasn’t much. She luckily slept through everything that happened. The one thing that she did shed light on was how she’d been abducted.
Apparently when she’d been out for her walk Maria had come upon her in a hysterical state saying all kinds of crazy things. When she’d finally gotten her calmed down enough that she could understand her what she heard terrified her. Maria told her that Jim found her and demanded to be taken out to the place Tommy had been killed. Jill thought this sounded funny and said so but Maria explained it away saying that her and Jim had been old childhood friends and that they hadn’t parted on the best of terms but that they had made up since he came back and had come to her for help since she knew just about everything that went on in town. After that the scenario played much the same as it had with Jim. She was taken out to the abandoned house and jumped from behind. Instead of leaving her free to wake up on her own though they drugged her. They used a little more than they should of though which explained why she was unconscious for so long.
Jim and Pete, when asked had just told a seemingly outlandish tale of a lover scorned. They said Maria was crazy and had somehow gotten Johnny to go along with her plan to make Jim lover her. They also made sure that the police understood that part of Maria’s great plan was blaming the local legend for everything that happened. At first they weren’t believed. It was too crazy. Most of them knew Maria. A few of them had even dated her. They were ready to throw the both of them in the asylum until they were finally searched Maria’s house. Then the story was suddenly much more plausible.
Upon entering her home they’d first been confronted by a normal everyday single woman’s home. Then one of the officers had been being a bit of a pervert and was looking through Maria’s underwear drawer looking for a souvenir when he’d stumbled across some pretty damning evidence. A nice hefty stack of pictures was found in the back of the drawer buried under everything. Flipping through the pictures they found little notes Maria had made to herself about when she’d taken them. But that wasn’t all they found. In the back of her closet hidden behind a few old boxes they found notebooks filled with love letters and stories all dealing with one person.
Jim Collins.
Apparently Maria had a very vivid imagination and liked committing most of it to paper for later remembrance. After finding all this stuff it was pretty hard not to believe their story.
Then they found the goat.
In the woods behind her house they found what was left of a rotted goat. After doing some checking, the police found that one had been stolen from a town a few miles away. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The police quickly apologized for detaining them so long and released everyone but Pete. They wanted to know what his part had been in the whole adventure. That took a little more explaining but he too was eventually freed with no charges filed against him. The only thing that was ever mentioned about the creature was how Maria was going to blame everything on it. Nothing about how it saved them. They knew if it was ever mentioned that asylum was still out there waiting for them.
Jim knew why he wasn’t talking but couldn’t understand why Pete didn’t. He, unfortunately, was going to be staying in a mental hospital for a while. Not a full blown asylum, but close enough. With Jim’s help Pete’s parents had finally convinced him he needed to get some help. If nothing else he could rest for a while. Jim kept his mouth shut so he wouldn’t have to join him.
When the police and ambulance had arrived at the smoldering ruins and found them, Pete had lapsed back into talking to himself about the damned purple dinosaur again and laughing at a joke only he had heard. Who knows maybe he was laughing at the world around him and the people who thought they were sane. After talking to Pete with his parents Jim didn’t see him again until the day they took him to the mental hospital. Jim went to see him off with his arm in a sling. He tried not to be too sad about the whole thing because he knew Pete would at least have some peace and quiet where he was going. He also wouldn’t have to worry about lighting his nightly fires anymore. But he was still sorry to see him go. Maybe Pete would be sane enough to return to the outside world again someday. Jim wanted to be there waiting for him. He hoped now that Pete knew he didn’t have to fear the creature he would be able to get better a lot sooner than the doctors were telling everyone. Jim wasn’t holding his breath though. This was Pete they were talking about after all. Jim was hoping Pete would say something, maybe act like his normal self, before he left to give everyone a little hope but he didn’t. As he got in the van to leave Jim heard Pete mumbling about the purple dinosaur again and decided he needed to get to the bottom of at least this part of Pete’s problem before he could let them take him away. He walked over to say goodbye and quietly asked what the whole thing with the dinosaur was about. Surprisingly Pete looked at him and smiled like his old self.