Jett hadn't seen anything that bizarre on her actual acid trip, and couldn't imagine how a flashback could be so intense and disturbing. But accepting it as a drug-induced hallucination made it somehow easier to assimilate.
Of course there's a ghost in this house. Why wouldn't there be, when creepy scarecrows live in the attic and the barn, when goddamned goats scarf your dope and try to eat your ass, when a man in a black hat peeps in your windows?
Jett was nearly out of breath when she reached the door, but she had twenty feet on Gordon (and thirty feet on the headless ghost). She threw open the door and was racing across the porch when she saw them.
Goats, dozens of them, a veritable army of horned stink factories, staring at her with their weird, glittering eyes. They blocked Jett's path to the driveway and surrounded the car. Mom sat in the driver's seat, clawing her cheeks in anxiety. One of the goats lowered its head and gave the driver's side door a solid thwack with its horns and forehead.
"Going somewhere?" Gordon said behind her, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
Alex had a passing knowledge of tracking and hunting, and though he was mostly a vegetarian, he figured being able to round up meat for the dinner table might be a handy survival skill when the Republicans and Democrats finally toppled the Statue of Liberty. So he'd learned the basics and had even killed some small game with his bow and arrows. Of course, he was a crack marksman. That was required of any member of the antigovernment militia, even if you were only an army of one.
So Alex had no trouble following the goats' hoofprints through the woods. Even his sister, a Boston lawyer, could have followed this trail-the fuzzy beasts had practically trampled a superhighway through the underbrush. The carpet of leaves on the forest floor was scuffled, branches hung broken and nibbled, and of course there was the occasional pile of plum-sized goat turds. In his haste, Alex hadn't paid close attention to the ammunition he'd loaded into his shoulder bag, but he figured he had at least six rounds for each of the goats. Plenty enough lead to teach the Satan-faced little fucks not to mess with his property.
The trail followed the ridge. Wherever they were going, they were making a beeline for high ground. Alex understood the chemical processes by which marijuana played with the synapses. Marijuana required heat before the cannaboids were activated, so you had to smoke it or cook it in brownies or oil for the pot to do its stuff. But maybe goat neurology was different. Maybe goats could get stoned just from the raw green leaves. That seemed to be the only reason they would break into his shed and gobble up good bud that would net twenty grand on the street.
Unless they were smart enough to know what the pot meant to him.
Maybe they were part of some secret government experiment, too. He'd read about how the spooks trained dolphins to carry explosives toward enemy ships and trained chimpanzees to infiltrate bunkers. No doubt the same government that publicly frowned on genetic research was going gangbusters in their underground labs, splicing all kinds of stuff together, putting microchips in the heads of animals, developing entire battalions of remote-controlled killers.
Alex stopped and adjusted the strap of the submachine gun, the Pearson Freedom bow tucked under his armpit. Maybe the goats were fucking with him on purpose. Maybe they were trying to… well, to get his goat. The FBI had found out about his stash and his weapons and his tax evasion, and instead of coming up and knocking on the front door with a warrant, they'd concocted the most screwed-up, expensive, and outlandish revenge possible. Yeah, that was what the U.S. of A. was all about.
Well, revenge worked two ways. Alex patted the Colt Python at his side. The ripped-up ground was moist, the goat shit fresher as he climbed the slope of Lost Ridge. He was gaining on them, even with darkness settling in. And if the universe was as just and fair as Alex always believed it was, especially while brain-basted on a thumb-sized joint of God-green smoke, then he'd have his revenge before the sun surrendered to the night.
An engine roared in the distance. Motorcyclists or kids on all-terrain vehicles sometimes prowled the old logging roads, disturbing the peace, trespassing, and generally raising hell. If he came across one, Alex just might put a slug in a rear tire. From the camouflage of the forest, he wouldn't be seen, and he'd bet his pair of Herman Survivors that the driver in question would fishtail his ass back to civilization, riding the rim or not.
Alex was in a good mood, despite the loss of a season's worth of crops. The evening's events felt natural, as if they had already happened, as if this were a stage play and the parts had been written ahead of time: Alex, the dark storm of vengeance, and the goats in their supporting role of government vermin. He might even encounter Weird Dude Walking, who seemed to be a part of all this craziness. Maybe Weird Dude was some sort of upper-level federal agent, in the National Security Agency, even. Alex realized maybe that particular line of paranoid delusion was probably a bit too extravagant, but it pleased him nonetheless.
He shifted into a double-time jog, eager to catch up with whatever was awaiting him at the top of the ridge.
"Shit, shit, shit." Katy beat the steering wheel as the goat rammed its head against the door a second time. Another goat, this one a hoary old-timer, with gray and white streaked among the brown patches on its face, reared up and settled its front hoofs on the bumper and glared at Katy over the hood.
She'd tucked her suitcase in the trunk and had just closed the front door when the goats appeared. She had looked over the driveway and the gravel road checking things out before fleeing, and the coast had been clear. Admittedly, she'd been looking for Gordon and not goats. She figured he was still out making whatever weird farm rounds he kept on Sunday evenings.
The goats had appeared out of nowhere. First came Abraham, the only one she could distinguish because of the right horn that corkscrewed crazily behind his ear. Abraham had waltzed down like a show pony, in high spirits, even kicking up and clicking his back hooves. Katy had grinned at that one, even though Abraham had broken out of the fence. That was Gordon's problem. Katy mourned briefly for the perennials she'd planted along the front porch, the forsythia, hosta, and snowball bushes that the goat would no doubt munch, but this wasn't her house anymore. If it had ever been.
She'd checked her watch and noted it was a quarter after seven. She debated running into the house and getting Jett. She'd also forgotten to call her mother and announce their unexpected arrival. When she looked up from her watch, three goats came around the house like a gang of gunfighters in a spaghetti western. That was when the first alarm had gone off inside her head, an insistent, irritating beeping.
She was about to open the door when the rearview mirror revealed a half dozen more, popping up as if they had formed from smoke. She didn't like the look of their eyes. And while she hadn't quite believed they were dangerous before-despite her own creepy encounters; after all, a goat was an herbivore, not a carnivore, right? — she accepted it now, because the goats moved with a common intent, as if they shared the same mind and the same hunger.
When Jett opened the front door, Katy wanted to scream at her to go back inside the house. Then she saw Gordon behind Jett, and the ghost-Rebecca-behind him, and figured goats were the lesser of three evils. Jett paused at the edge of the porch, clearly sizing up her chances of making it to the car. By now dozens of goats filled the yard their restless legs kicking in the dusk, their hooves pawing the ground ears twitching.
Katy decided she needed to improve the odds a little. As the butt-head slammed her car door for the third time, she turned over the ignition key. The Subaru engine roared to life, and she threw the gearshift into drive and hit the gas. The goat perched on the bumper (for some reason, the name "Methuselah" came to mind) lost its balance and bounced off the grille with a meaty thump. Gravel spat from beneath the wheels like Uzi slugs, and startled goats emitted bleats of surprise and pain. The fishtailing rear of the Subaru slewed into a small group of the creatures, scattering them like soft bowling pins. Katy heard limbs snap, and a stray horn clacked against a side window and caused the glass to spiderweb.