The Goat's Head

by Lex Sinclair

  Sofie recognised three of the faces (although at that precise, harrowing moment) they were the faces of strangers who stared at her void of any emotion, demonstrating not a sliver of compassion as the tears which burned her eyes rolled sideways into her ears; nor did they speak or even move when she started sobbing, chest heaving much faster than her normal rhythm, suffering from severe palpitations.

  ‘Who are you people?’ Sofie wept. ‘I-I d-don’t understand. What did I do to you to deserve to be t-treated l-like this? Please! Please. Let me go.’

  She did well under the circumstances to get that much out before the involuntary sobs racked her shoulders causing her entire body to quake from the overload of panic and terror. And the real terror of that haunted night had yet to commence.

  ‘I-I w-w-won’t t-tell if you p-promise to l-let me go,’ she wailed in desperate attempt to save herself.

  When she saw through the tears surfacing in her eyes that pleading with them was no use, she began thrashing to and fro manically, screaming, pulling and thrusting her hips up off the floorboards to stretch the restraints taut, hoping the rope would come free of the rusty nails and present her with an opportunity to untie her limbs and escape this house of hell before it was too late.

  Persistence and never-say-die attitude had always been some of Sofie’s best qualities when she applied her hard work and dedication to her studies. Unfortunately, after a good five minutes of yanking, writhing and doing everything she possibly could to achieve her goal left her panting forcefully, perspiring and exhausted. This surprised and frightened her because after all the aerobic classes she’d been to, tied to the floor having not achieved anything, save giving herself skin burns from where the rope had rubbed against her, made her feel like a pathetic weakling, incapable of helping herself when she needed to the most.

  The music that sounded as though it were being played on an electric keyboard sang through the channels of her mind as she lay there helplessly, sweat beads dripping off her forehead and dappling the floor beneath her. In her exhaustion it finally sunk in (the way the lactic acid had numbed her muscles) that whatever was about to befall her tonight she would have to face... endure, and hope that when it was all over that she could still walk away with her body and mind left intact; although somehow she doubted it would be that easy. Her back ached from when she’d lifted her hips off the floor only for her taut restraints to yank her back down. She was in no position to defend herself from what would follow, not after her fall, slamming her head on the unforgiving kitchen surface and the relentless shocks and terror and sobbing that had assailed her thereafter.

  She saw Margaret staring impassively at her, a complete contrast to the woman she’d spoken to that afternoon who would have nearly reached Gatwick Airport had she actually gone. This woman - stranger - had deceived her. But she had done it with so much finesse and nonchalance it had been effortless. That above everything else hurt Sofie more than anything else; the fact that she had been foolish enough to fall for a malicious prank which may very well cost her dearly.

  ‘Why?’ she breathed.

  ‘You are the chosen one,’ Margaret said in a voice which didn’t belong to a normal human being.

  Her answer made no sense whatsoever. It was as nebulous as saying “You are tied up and lying on the floor.”

  ‘I d-don’t understand.’

  ‘You will very shortly. You will understand that you are very special. Far more special than you will ever know.’

  More spine-chilling gibberish that ran through her like long nails being scraped on a blackboard in a classroom. This whole ritual - or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be - was special to them. The only thing that made Sofie special right now was that she was the only normal person in the bedroom, fighting back another surge of tears and sobs escaping her, showing them how vulnerable she was.

  What came to her immediate attention then was how she had stood on the porch watching the Chinese man hurriedly get into his van speed down the drive away from the house and how she had seriously contemplated taking her leave too, and felt a pang of regret as she closed the front door closed on the outside world. Maybe closing it on the outside world for the last time...

  The tallest of the quartet stood up straight, taking his gaze off Sofie and crossed the room to where the staff with a goat’s head made out of pure gold continued to exhale a green vapour and carried it into the far corner of the room out of the young Swedish girl’s peripheral vision. He opened the door to the en suite closet and handed the staff over to someone hidden in the depths of pitch darkness then stepped to the side permitting the individual to emerge from the abyss.

  A smaller-framed and shorter robed figure exited the closet holding the staff enveloped by the green vapour billowing around her head and headed towards the young lady who was too tired to even raise her head (that was until the green vapour dissipated and she saw the hideous, inhuman countenance staring back at her).

  A high-pitched, scream pierced the house but not the night outside where in the town below most of the residents gathered at the local park to watch the firework display. Her oesophagus and lungs burned as she shrieked over and over again, her gorge rising, burning from within. The frail form concealed by the black robe nodded to the other four who then lowered themselves to their knees around Sofie who thrashed wildly, adrenaline and inexorable trepidation the source of her newfound energy and towered over her, arms reaching out like those trees on the country road leading to the house where Sofie now fought for her life and sanity.

  Margaret’s husband removed a pair of sharp scissors from a pocket, and began cutting through Sofie’s woolly jumper and T-shirt beneath, careful not to cut or pierce her well-developed breasts. This sent Sofie into a frenzy of unassailable panic.

  This is not happening! This is not fucking happening! No fucking way! NO! God no!

  In her native language she cussed them quite creatively as well as aggressively, reaching a crescendo as Janice and Charles undone her buckle, removed her belt and yanked down her denim jeans and then cut the fabric of her frilly black underwear until they came loose in their hands.

  ‘YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!’ she shrieked at the top of her voice.

  She spat at each of them in turn, accurately hitting them in their faces with her phlegm, blood and spittle.

  The small, frail form stared at her with pupils the size of specks shinning a crimson luminescence behind sunken cheeks. Its deformed features embedded themselves into Sofie’s mind like the nails jutting from the floor. The horizontal indentation that ran from the parched barely distinguishable lips reached to her pointy, elf-like ears; her jagged teeth rotten and crooked which looked as though they were miniature tombstones in the aperture that widened until it covered the whole lower half of her face. Then she - or it - raised her right arm and a long, gnarled index finger tipped with a nail that ought to have been cut a long time ago pointed directly at the young woman who was currently being inflicted by body-racking shudders.

  The woman, who looked more like a demon, stretched her pointy finger out until the tip made contact with Sofie’s quivering abdomen. She shrieked hysterically. The eyes in her head jostling around, frantic, desperately doing everything left in her limited power to look at something that wouldn’t scar her to the point of irrevocable madness. The nail ran up her abdomen towards her torso then back down, slowly and methodically. Then the pointy, dirty nail stabbed the flesh in one rapid movement, piercing the skin and gradually permitting the - whatever the hell it was - the nail access through the layers, leaking thick, deep red blood.

  A guttural scream that threatened to take the roof off the house emanated from somewhere deep inside the young law student; somewhere in the soul that is aware that its mortal form is in great peril and there isn’t a goddamn thing she can do about it. The witch, creature or demon, or all three, craned her head back and
cried out in insatiable pleasure; the screaming of the sacrificial lamb music to its ears. The top half of the finger pushed through the layers and then instantly retracted spraying splotches of blood across the room.

  Satisfied with achieving the first part of their plan, the demon witch then dipped her finger in the pool of blood now emerging from the gaping wound and drew a large blood-stained circle from the belly button to torso area and then the star inside the circle the ends overlapping. She stood back and marvelled at her creation. The sign of the devil. Her gaze roamed the still form of the Swedish born girl who was too exhausted to thrash and writhe and do her utmost to resist; too exhausted to cry and shriek, and too exhausted to whimper. She merely lay spread out, shivering, her blood filled with the coppery, acrid taste of her own blood spilling out down her chin and cheeks onto the floor around her head. Her mind had reached the point of no return, where even the most experienced of psychiatrists relent because they no their attempts to reach her and return her to normality are all futile. Better to place her in a safe environment for her and everyone else’s best interests - an individual who would spend the rest of their lives as an empty shell, dishevelled, perplexed and utterly lost to even her closest family member or best friend.

  The witch wailed in an exclamation of indescribable ecstasy. She lifted the heavy staff with the goat’s head over Sofie, who now lay on the floorboards, semi-conscious, and watched as blood gushed out of the goat’s mouth into Sofie’s mouth. The green, phosphorescence vapour had a peculiar glow of its own. The mist assailed her nostrils was not only toxic but made her feel lethargic then sleepy, relaxing her numb muscles to the point she felt herself drifting away out of the dim bedroom, out of the Victorian house with twin turrets and up far away from this monstrosity that she had endured from the moment she had arrived.

  Margaret’s voice resonated in the valley of her mind from another realm.

  ‘You are a very special girl, Sofie. The chosen one. You are more special than you will ever know.’

  Then the vortex of her mind was swallowed into a black hole and she remembered nothing more...

  4.

  A girl with a long man of blonde hair ran through the forest away from her log cabin in a beautiful countryside area in the province of Vastmanland only eighty-three miles from Stockholm. Her doting parents couldn’t afford a holiday abroad; staying in the picturesque rural part of their native country was the next best thing. However, the young girl didn’t seem to mind. This was paradise as far as she was concerned. The towering pines were only a half-mile away from their log cabin. Nevertheless, at ten years of age she craved for her own independence in spite of her parents’ protests that they would rather she was with them all the time.

  The pleasant aroma of the pine trees filled her lungs with healthy, unpolluted air which she could quite literally feel. Her world - during this holiday, at least - was enormous, and she was small. Yet, like a lot of children her age her naivety made her unafraid and courage most adults would never possess. Nor should she have anything to be afraid of. She had her entire life before her. There was better place to start exploring it than right here in the pastoral part of Sweden, breathing in the fresh morning air.

  She ran faster and faster, hurdling the fallen trees and branches, weaving in and out the towering pines, not a care in the world, until the ground beneath collapsed and she plummeted into the impenetrable chasm. She was saved the probable death of slamming into the rocky surface by an overarching branch which snagged the material of her hooded sweater and threatened to choke her to death instead before her weight snapped the branch and she fell awkwardly three feet to the ground. Her breath exploded on impact. Then after checking she hadn’t broken any bones she got to her feet and stood aghast at the cave she now stood in.

  At the end of the cave two boulders stood either side permitting access down a makeshift alley. Looking over her shoulder at the spot where she’d fallen to Sofie saw that it was too high to climb and even if she did attempt to do so, if she did fall this time there would be no overarching branch to break her fall. She didn’t have a choice. There had to be a way out of the cave and she didn’t believe the exit was where the earthen floor had yielded.

  Having decided on what course of action she was going to take, Sofie crept down the dark alley, only fitting because of her slender, ten-year old frame was small enough and reached the other side where a labyrinth of tunnels were mapped out before her. The stone walls were marked with a configuration of unrecognisable symbols that made no sense to her in the slightest. Nevertheless, she understood that her parents would start to wonder where she had disappeared to before long and in haste made a choice and began jogging down the meandering tunnel only to come to a dead end where a cross jutted from the ground. Beneath the cross covered in dust and soil was a plaque. She bent down and swept the dirt away and read the inscription.

  He who lies beneath will rise from within.

  Sofie reiterated the inscription in her mind, frowning in utter confusion. All she knew was that being here made her feel something she’d never felt before.

  Afraid?

  Yes, for the first time in her life Sofie knew what that meant.

  Rising, she hurried down the tunnel and chose a different route only to come to a halt at another dead end.

  There was no cross jutting out of the ground at this dead end. Instead there was a small boulder and a plaque in front of it. Sofie hoped that if she cleared the dirt off this one it might give her directions on how to get the hell out of here before day turned into night.

  He who takes what lies within shall be rewarded.

  Sighing, the young girl started to turn around and then reiterated what the inscription said. He who takes what lies within shall be rewarded. Did that mean she would be rewarded by being allowed to leave this cavern? She didn’t want any other type of reward. Nevertheless, the only way she was going to find out was if she plucked up the courage and pushed the boulder off its plinth to one side and took whatever lay beneath.

  At first the boulder didn’t budge an inch. However, when Sofie placed her hands further apart and planted her feet into the ground and used her legs, back and arms the stone yielded, scraping the plinth it stood upon, concrete on concrete. Eventually, after much exertion the young girl managed to push the boulder off to one side. She regained control of her breathing and regarded the circular hole she had uncovered. Leaning forward, mindful not to get too close in case she fell headfirst the second time that morning, she squinted through the dimness and saw something white in contrast to the black.

  Submerging her arms into the hole, Sofie grabbed hold of the handles of whatever it was she couldn’t quite make out and lifted it out into full view. She leapt backwards landing on her bottom when she saw the goat’s head with dark empty holes for eyes staring back at her. A cold, deliberating dread she couldn’t fathom let alone endure if she stayed here any longer enveloped her like an invisible cloak. There was being afraid and then there was this brand new sensation with terrified her because of its nebulousness. The whole eerie scenario would rotate in her developing brain and imagination like a unicorn on a merry-go-round in the annual fair that came to their town in September.

  For the second time the young girl ran back to the entrance to the labyrinth, placed a trembling hand to her brow, becoming more and more frightened with every passing minute she stayed in this cavern beneath the world where her mummy and daddy were most likely wondering where she had disappeared to. There was one more tunnel at the far end that she hadn’t explored. If that one didn’t give her access to the outside world she didn’t know what she would do. Screaming would do her no good unless her parents happened to be in the forest where the earth had crumbled and their little girl had fallen to be able to hear her cries.

  Never one to quit something just because it was arduous, the ten-year old girl headed towards the third and
final tunnel and read the inscription on the plaque fitted to the stone wall.

  Remove the cross from the ground and place the goat’s head atop the plinth. The chosen one is the only one who is granted departure.

  Her mouth twitched and then broke out into a broad, cherubic smile that lit up the spark inside her with joy. This labyrinth was nothing to be afraid of. On the contrary, the labyrinth was something she embraced with the same eagerness and vivacity she had experienced when she had been running in the pine woods, inhaling the sweet air that was the countryside. Not wasting any more time to complete the enigma, the little girl ran back to the first tunnel and ran full force at the cross still in its vertical position knocking it over so that only the bottom half remained firm inside the soil. She pulled with a newfound vigour and finally tore the cross from its bed and threw it to the floor then hurried on, not seeing the piercing red light shinning through the hole of something that had been buried for longer than Sofie or any other living person would ever be aware of even with all the knowledge of history combined.

  Her long mane of blonde hair tied in a ponytail bounced up and down on the back of her shoulders as she jogged down the next tunnel, bent down, lifting the goat’s head up by the horns and placed it ever so gently right in the centre of the plinth. She caught her breath and then sprinted to the third tunnel, squealing with unattainable delight at the passageway meandering to the left, ascending a rise where natural light from the outside shone down.

  Running on pure joy now, the adorable and beautiful young girl ran up the incline which grew steeper as the light and fresh air blinded and filled her lungs simultaneously. She reached the summit, which of course wasn’t really a summit, but the ground itself she had fallen through how long ago she couldn’t tell. But it mattered no more for she had escaped, thrilled to bits at herself for overcoming her first bout of fear and solving the conundrum, trying to think of the thunder of her heartbeat.