Michael Hunter - Come Get Me

“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.

Jim had to admit he was slightly stunned himself. He hadn’t thought Pete had it in him. He’d hoped something like this might happen but Pete wasn’t exactly the hero type.

Pete had probably surprised himself too. At least now he had a chance at getting away. He might even be able to find help before Maria decided to cut her loses. Then again who was he kidding? It was Pete they were talking about and they were in the middle of nowhere. Where was he going to find help at?

“Well, that sucks,” Maria said being the first to recover from the surprise. “I guess we better go get him. We wouldn’t want him going and bringing back help would we?” As they turned to leave Jim felt his hopes rising. Left alone for a few minutes he might be able to free himself and Jill then get away.

“Oh! Wait a minute!” Maria said spinning back around and surprising him. “It wouldn’t matter even if he did get back to town would it? Everyone there thinks he escaped from jail so no one will believe anything he said. He’ll be lucky if they don’t shoot him on sight.” Her laughter echoed throughout the house as she turned and followed Johnny out the door. The little hope Jim had was destroyed when he heard her. He’d completely forgotten about Pete’s supposed escape from jail.

After he was sure they were gone he rolled over and sat up. At least he wouldn’t die lying down if at all. He was still alive so far so maybe things weren’t over yet. He glanced at Jill hoping she might’ve woken up but saw instead that she was still mostly out of it. If they were going to get out of there she wasn’t going to be much help. He studied the area immediately around him thinking maybe there was something he’d missed that could help him. He momentarily thought of using the fire from one of the candles to burn through the ropes but was afraid he might set himself on fire in the process. Maria didn’t need anymore help killing him than she already had.

Just when he was about to give up Pete suddenly came rushing through the door. He was waving his hands around his head like he was trying to ward off evil spirits and mumbling to himself as he approached. He was only a few feet away when Jim noticed something wasn’t quite right. His hands and parts of his shirt were covered with some type of dark liquid.

“Holy shit!” he almost yelled before catching himself. “What the hell happened to you? Is that blood? Why didn’t you go get help or something?”

Pete ignored Jim’s question and began untying the knots holding Jim’s hands and feet.

“Lover boy won’t be coming back anytime soon,” he grunted. “He had an unfortunate accident with a freak and a rock.” Jim thought it better not to ask anything else. Pete looked at him vacantly for a minute then laughed and said, “Ya know it’s really dark out there. He never even saw me. I just kinda stood still and he walked right past me then, Whack! He went down and I ran back here. Those two or actually one really aren’t some of the smartest people I know.”

“You don’t know that many people anymore Pete,” Jim reminded him.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said smiling and continued working on Jim’s ropes. He seemed to be having a problem getting the knots undone. Maria must have tied him a lot tighter than he’d thought. He hadn’t really noticed until now but he couldn’t really feel his fingers very well. The tingling sensation he felt was the only reason he did notice anything. He wanted to tell Pete to hurry up but thought it might distract him if he did so he asked him about something else instead.

“Why’d you come back? Why not save yourself or go for help?” he asked calmly not wanting to sound frantic and cause Pete to get upset.

“Couldn’t leave you here by yourself now could I?” he answered with a quick smile. “You just said I didn’t have that many friends left plus there’s no fire outside. It’s all in here. I didn’t have any. I forgot to grab it on the way out. I can’t go wandering around out there without it.”

“What do you need fire for?” Jim asked. “Maria just said that everything that’s been happening to you wasn’t done by the Goatman. It was them. Her and Johnny. Not the Goatman.”

“Oh it might have been them,” he laughed, “but he’s still coming no matter what they say. We called him whether you want to admit it or not we still did it. He’s still on his way. Don’t you doubt it. He’ll be here soon.” Pete quietly started giggling. He’d been working on the knots the whole time he was talking. Jim could feel them loosening as he watched. His fingers were starting to get a little more feeling in them and he could move his fingers freely. He was almost free. Pete was working on the last knot just as Maria stormed back into the room like a hurricane holding a gun in her hand. Pete must’ve had some kind of sixth sense or something because he was up and half way out the window, yelling something about the Goatman and how he was coming for them, when she fired her first shot. Everything happened so fast that all Jim heard was a grunt from Pete as the slug hit him in the back then he was out of view. Jim hoped he hadn’t been hit but knew he almost surely was. It would’ve been hard for her to miss at that range.