The Goat's Head

by Lex Sinclair

  Denial wasn’t an option. Inspector Jones and Constable Mollie Jenkins were dead because they’d discovered something that threatened the dark forces and the rebirth of their lord.

  Letting that though run a full circle through her thought process, Sofie came to the conclusion that no matter what she did next she’d be giving birth to the foetus currently growing inside her with or without her consent.

  Two days later Sofie was transferred from the intensive care unit to a general visiting ward. The doctor had informed her that the baby was fine and that soon she’d be discharged. He also informed of the tragic news of the two officers that had been investigating her case. Of course, Sofie wasn’t surprised. However, the melancholy that left a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach kept her withdrawn from the other patients in the ward and the TV blasting on the wall bracket in the far corner. She couldn’t concentrate long enough on a TV programme, a conversation, or a magazine a lady in the bed on her right let her borrow. Her mind kept replaying that god-awful, harrowing car crash in her mind’s eye on a never-ending loop, almost as if a part of her psyche relished in the destruction.

  She very nearly spilled her cup of orange juice when Reverend Ward stood at the foot of her bed, grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Hello again, Sofie,’ he said in high-spirits.

  Closing her gaping mouth, Sofie sat back against the pillows desperately feeling the urge to yell at the top of her lungs for someone to help her and get this malevolent prankster away from her. But that would only make things worse. As far as the other patients and the doctors and nurses passing by every now and again were aware, this kind man of the cloth had come to visit one his devoted flock in a time of need. If she chose to do what she wanted, she’d be seen as a lunatic. No one in their right mind would believe that Reverend Ward was believer of Satan and performed Black Magic rituals. If anything, they’d laugh at her or condemn her for making such vicious lies.

  The old man chuckled as he pulled a chair out for him to sit next to her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed.

  ‘Came here to see how you were keeping, that’s all,’ he replied.

  Sofie took a sip of her orange juice, quenching her thirst.

  ‘I also wanted to tell what a nice surprise I had when I was arrested by the local constabulary as I was leaving the post office. But we got everything all cleared up when they had no evidence to convict me of such outrageous allegations made against me, by you.’

  The young Swedish woman remained silent.

  ‘In such a rush they were to capture me from these awful crimes that the negligent officer just went hurtling right out in front of that heavy goods vehicle without bothering to look or stop. Of course there were the remains of a tape in the car. But as it was only useful for binning then how could they keep imprisoned. My lawyer is now filing a court case against the arresting officers and the Superintendent.’ Reverend Ward shook his head, still smiling. ‘You’ve caused a great deal of trouble, my dear. But not to worry. This time tomorrow you shall be leaving in the care of friends of mine where you shall be treated like the proverbial princess you so rightly are.’

  Sofie snorted derisive laughter.

  ‘Remember what I said,’ Reverend Ward went on. ‘There are two ways you can go about this. One: you can resist and make life very difficult for yourself and others (to be perfectly honest with you, I thought you would’ve learned from the death of your best friend not to bring outside parties into the situation). Two: you can relent to our wishes, and I guarantee you will find life much easier.’

  ‘You said that before,’ Sofie spat. ‘Then you tried to burn the pentacle symbol into my flesh. All this strapping me down and doing terrible things to me is hardly going to make me join your cult willingly.’ She paused. ‘What if I’d gone into shock? I could’ve lost the baby. Your precious baby. Did you ever think about that?’

  Reverend Ward looked away for a moment. Then he replied. ‘That was the induction our members of the highest order have to prove their loyalty to the cult. We have to do it. It’s to make sure that members of the cult don’t change their mind when there have to be great sacrifices. Your parents showed commitment but only for a short while. Had they been part of the hierarchy, they’d have to be killed outright due to the secrets they’d have knowledge of. I still don’t think you realise how big all of this is - and how imperative it is that you are kept in our care.

  ‘When the time comes, I or one of the members of the hierarchy further up than myself shall show you why it is you need to remain in our care.’

  ‘Why can’t you just tell me? Or is that too much to ask?’ Sofie took another sip of her drink.

  Reverend Ward glanced over his shoulder, saw that there were no doctors or nurses in the vicinity then leaned forward. ‘Between you and me - were you at all shocked when the doctor informed of the constable and the inspector’s gruesome fatality while investigating your case? Or did you already know?’

  ‘The dreams and hallucinations you told me about are not like anyone else’s, are they?’ Sofie asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  ‘Hallucinations and dreams mean “seeming to see something that isn’t actually there”. You weren’t dreaming or hallucinating, as such. The thing inside of you grows more and more powerful and influential with each passing day. The BBC nor any other channel didn’t film the wreckage of your friend’s car or her fatality, because our people - I call them “People of the Circle” - cleaned the mess up before dawn, not before filming a make-believe news report for your viewing pleasure with a camcorder. What you experienced was the doing of our lord coming to my and our cult’s protection. I shall be punished for my error of course. But that’s nothing in comparison to what I would’ve faced thanks to you.’

  Sofie fell silent for a while, letting everything she’d learned run a couple of laps through her mind until it committed itself to memory.

  ‘You can to end of the earth but we’ll be waiting for you at the other end with open arms,’ Reverend Ward added. ‘I don’t think you want to find yourself sitting in the back seat of a patrol car, not knowing if it’s real or not, when a terrible accident occurs to two innocent people, do you?’

  The urge to cry and surrender to a tantrum had the similar impact as being struck by a tidal wave. Nevertheless, the young woman resisted. Her nails dug deep indentations into the palms of her hands.

  ‘You’ve proved how resilient you are. And you even savagely killed one of our most important members during a sacrilegious ritual. But now the time has come to face your destiny with the same courage you’ve shown in adversity.’

  Sofie raised her head which had been facing her lap. ‘I really thought I’d beaten you all when I escaped from that church and got to the police station,’ she said, tears bubbling in her eyes. ‘Who was I kiddin’, right?’

  ‘You got vengeance for the punishment you’d received and the injuries you sustained. Our highest leader has told us that we should accept our loss the way you should accept yours. He said it’s fair. And therefore no one holds any grudges. You did what you had to in order to survive.’ Reverend Ward raised his right hand and Sofie noticed the bandage wrapped tightly around concealing an injury. The old man winced as he pulled the bandage to one side for her to see the severe burn in his flesh where he’d grabbed the silver crucifix of Jesus Christ and extracted it from Margaret’s fatal wound. ‘I can’t close it. It hurts too much. Neither can I hold anything. That’s my punishment for being cruel to you, I suppose.’

  Slightly bemused, Sofie watched the old man get to a vertical base and straighten his back with some difficulty. His haggard countenance contorting in agony. She smiled, enjoying his pain and suffering, bringing to mind the sinister smile on his crooked lips when she lay on the altar, whimpering, pleading for her life and sanity, all to no avail.

  ‘A gen
tleman - our leader - will come for you tomorrow afternoon and take you to his home where you shall stay until June 6 1986. The day your son, our lord will be born.’ He looked at her with weary eyes of someone who hasn’t slept peacefully for a couple of days. ‘Goodbye,’ he croaked. And just like that he turned and ambled out of the ward.

  The bone-white face with red-rimmed eyes and bright yellow irises pierced the pitch dark. It was only there for a flicker; not even a second. But the hideous visage of something completely inhuman embossed itself to her mind’s eye thereafter. And had she been asked to describe what scared the wits out of her, Sofie wouldn’t have been able to do so. The description didn’t sound at all frightening or the tiniest bit disturbing. However, it was those eyes and those bared teeth shining in the pitch dark like a flashlight that had woke her up in the middle of the night, wheezing like an asthma sufferer enduring an attack.

  Fortunately, the drapes on the reel had been drawn and no other patient had seen her snap awake, clutching her at her ample bosom, truly believing that if her heart pounded any harder it would either break free of its confines or explode. Of course, neither of those things occurred. Instead she’d flicked the bedside lamp, squeezing her eyes into slits at the sudden luminosity. Once they became accustomed to the brightness, Sofie propped herself up and perused the magazine a fellow patient had let her borrow, until she’d read every article twice. She didn’t remember falling asleep until the nurse pulled the drapes apart at nine o’clock.

  At approximately 2:00pm a tall man with a short grey hair donning an expensive black pin-striped suit entered the hospital through the automatic doors. He stood in the vestibule, scanning his surroundings assiduously. The young boy feeding coins into the slot at the vending machine. The elderly man with a black eye sitting in his wheelchair being pushed gently into the lift by one of the orderlies. The bespectacled woman with cropped brown hair behind the reception desk glimpsed him as he strode forward then quickly averted her eyes when he met her gaze, terrified of him. She was overly glad when he went right past the reception desk and strode down the corridor, his shoes click, clacking on the polished linoleum.

  A nurse at the end of the hall studying sheets of paper attached to a clipboard was walking down the corridor. She looked up, catching fleeting glance at the man, shuddered involuntarily and dropped her clipboard. A doctor walking around the corner in the tall man’s direction, caught sight of him and half-walked, half-staggered sideways into the notice board. He looked back at the man wondering what it was about that stranger that made goose pimples pebble his forearms and make the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck stand to attention.

  The tall man with short grey hair donning an expensive black pin-striped suit (probably Gucci or Giorgio Armani) walked with such arrogance. He had never been to this hospital in his entire life and yet knew exactly where the door leading to the stairway was long before he arrived at his intended destination.

  A door alongside the male toilets gave access to the stairway. The tall man with steely-inhuman eyes marched towards and didn’t even break his stride as he pivoted then pushed the door open and began the ascent to the third floor where Sofie was recuperating. He climbed the stairs two at a time, moving in haste but doing so unobtrusively. Yet he never got out of breath. His left hand remained on the banister; his feet moving mechanically. Something was awry. Once again the girl’s recalcitrant behaviour had thrown the cult’s plans into unexpected chaos. In spite of everything she’d been told, shown and seen for herself, not to mention the lives lost, the mother of the thing with the goat’s head refused to accept her destiny.

  Reaching the third floor, the tall man threw the door open and stormed into the wide corridor, turning right and heading to the ward at the opposite end where an orderly was pushing a an elderly gentleman with colourful contusion completely covering his right eye into a small room where he’d been attended to. He kept those fierce-looking eyes on the ward unblinkingly, making absolute certain that the girl didn’t escape from right under his nose, simply because he hadn’t been paying attention.

  To his left, a female nurse with light brown hair tied in a ponytail who was talking to a visitor glanced at him as he stepped into her peripheral sight and inadvertently dropped her Cappuccino where it hit the polished surface and spilled a brown pool in the main walk path. She cursed, not before staring at the back of the man who’d frightened her by merely striding past, minding his own business. An icy chill ran through. Then she apologised to the woman she’d been talking to and explained that she’d have to get a mop and clean the mess up before someone had an accident due to her negligence. By the time she put the CAUTION! SLIPPER SURFACE board up in the middle of the corridor the tall man had diminished as he reached the other end of the corridor.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ a nurse called out, getting the elegantly dressed man’s undivided attention. ‘May you sign the visiting form and state who you are here to see. Please.’

  The man turned around slowly and met the five foot one female nurse’s cordial gaze. Immediately, she took two backward steps. The bottom of her spine came into contact with the desk behind her where files adorned the white shelves and other nurses and doctors and clerks were busy going about their jobs.

  ‘I certainly will,’ he said in a pleasant, confident voice that froze the short, diminutive nurse into a profound silence. ‘If you so kindly permit me to borrow that blue pen from your breast pocket, that is?’

  Unable to look away from the steely-blue eyes that looked more like crystals under the fluorescents, the nurse fumbled blindly for her pen, removed it from her pocket after four failed attempts and handed it over stifling a cry with her index finger ever so slightly brushed the man’s frozen hand.

  He leaned over the reception desk for the third floor and signed his name. Then he stood erect once more and handed the pen back to its rightful owner. His bogus smile never reaching those inhuman, piercing eyes. ‘I am here to see a Miss Sofie Lackberg. The young Swedish girl with long blonde hair. She was transferred to this ward from ICU.’

  The nurse shook her head forcefully, breaking out of her unnatural reverie and muttered, ‘She left this morning, after she’d eaten breakfast.’

  The sudden alteration in the man’s face turned the nurse’s bones to water. His eyes protruded in such rage she’d never known existed until at that moment. Her chest rose and fell a little quicker as she sidled away from the tall, elegantly dressed man, using the desk’s barrier to keep her own her spaghetti legs, quivering from head to toe.

  When the tall man refocused and strode towards her, the nurse sincerely believed that he was going to kill her right there and then in full view of her employees and patients. Instead he said, ‘Did she say where she was headed?’

  The nurse shook her head, silently pleading with this tall, dark stranger to leave her and to never return.

  ‘How long ago did she leave?’ he asked, staring at her fixedly.

  ‘Uh... I - uh, about, t-t-t-ten m-m-minutes ago. M-M-Maybe f-f-f-five. She w-went th-that way,’ she stammered, pointing with a trembling finger to the lifts.

  Sighing inwardly, hardly believing the turn of events, the tall man looked away from the lift doors closing shut on him just as he considered getting inside the car and saving himself energy getting to the ground floor. He said to the nurse who was deeply unnerved by his presence, ‘Thank you. You ave been most helpful.’ Then, keeping his rage inside, he strode down the corridor, not moving once for anyone else to pass whether they were a patient, visitor or part of the staff.

  15.

  Wearing an all-white running outfit she’d kindly asked the nurse - who’d dropped her Cappuccino on the third floor at the sight of the malevolent man who performed Black Magic and other sinister rituals - to pay with the money she’d had on her when she arrived (which she’d stolen from Reverend Ward), Sofie exited the lift and purchased a bottle of
Lucozade and a Snickers bar. She pulled the hood up over her head on the warm Addidas sweater, kept her head down and made her shoulders as wide as possible. Hopefully, if whoever was supposed to be coming to get her saw her emerging they’d think she was a man or a masculine woman.

  Satisfied that for the time being, at least, she was clear of imminent peril, Sofie exited the hospital car park and crossed the main road to a park where a cluster of Cedar trees swallowing her into obscurity. A bench two hundred yards in the distance provided a perfect resting spot for her to guzzle the energy drink and devour the chocolate bar. Furthermore, from where the wooden bench was located it offered a perfect view through the wrought-iron fence surrounding the park.

  Through the rosebushes and Cedars Sofie kept a close eye on the hospital’s edifice for the mysterious man who was high up the ladder within the satanic cult. She knew that she was on borrowed time and that not only was she impregnated with God knows what but she had started suffering from visions beyond her limited control. However, Janice had often told her how she was “intolerant”, only now did Sofie see it herself. The thought brought an impish smile to her flushed face. She wasn’t a dishevelled, hollow-eyed, haggard waif on the verge of collapse like she’d been when she’d first been admitted to the local hospital. Now, thanks to lots of rest, food, water and medication, the young Swedish girl wanted to get out in the fresh air and stretch her legs. So what if they caught up with her in the end, which they probably would. To hell with it, she thought. This was her life and she was going to live however she damn well pleased, at least for as long as she could, anyway.

  Janice would have been proud of her attitude and her courage in the midst of extreme adversity. Nothing ever got Janice down. Or if it did, she’d never show it or allow it to deter her for very long. That had been one of the main reasons Sofie had loved her best friend so dearly. Janice was the type of girl to grab the bull by the horns, fearless and ride it the way she wanted to, and to hell with what anyone else thought of her.