The Goat's Head

by Lex Sinclair

  The dormitory was approximately three hundred yards from the main building that was the university complex. Sofie didn’t have far to go but had started wheezing and panting after the first fifty yards. Her body hadn’t lain incapacitated for so long that now all of a sudden she was running again as a pregnant woman who was terrified out of her wits of the demon witch. Her ankle still throbbed dully. Sofie realised then that her ankle would never fully recover to its former self. Like the scar on her abdomen it would always hinder into old age. The colouring of her swollen contusion on the side of her head that Charles had inflicted upon her was still burgundy. The swelling had almost gone. But none of that mattered if she could reach the orange-brick façade looming over her as she drew close. The familiar sight of the dormitory abated her bone-trembling trepidation to a minor concern. The ghastly witch that had fooled her hadn’t been quick enough to reach Sofie before she reached her destination.

  She may not have been the most popular or loquacious student on-campus, although Sofie knew for a fact that as soon as someone saw her they’d recognise the dishevelled, haggard mess she’d been reduced to and come to her rescue. Janice Stevens’ untimely passing was still fresh in everyone that knew her minds. The bogus news report she’d watched could still come true. No one knew where Sofie Lackberg was, as far as she was aware. Whether anyone knew about Janice Stevens was another thing. If they didn’t, Sofie would enlighten the headmaster.

  The door with a frosted glass panel was locked. Sofie pushed the buzzer and kept her finger on it until someone answered. She glimpsed behind her and saw that the concrete path was deserted.

  ‘Hello?’ an angry female voice answered.

  Not recognising the voice, Sofie cried out, ‘It’s me. Sofie Lackberg. Law student.’

  A long pause ensued.

  Sofie pressed the buzzer on the intercom again.

  ‘Hey! Quit doing that!’

  ‘Then answer!’ Sofie barked.

  ‘Sofie, is that really you?’

  ‘Yes. Now open the goddamn door.’

  ‘Where’s Janice?’ the voice asked.

  ‘Janice is dead, and if you don’t open this door pretty soon, I will be as well.’

  The door made an audible click. Sofie pulled it open and then closed it behind her staring out through the dusk reducing the daylight into night. She didn’t see the demon witch. However, she also knew that if she stepped out there and went back the way she came it’d be the equivalent of committing suicide.

  A door opened at the top of the two-tier staircase. Sofie could hear the footfalls rushing forth and then Jasmin’s round, brown-skinned face peering down at her, aghast. The white’s of her eyes looked like two cue balls bulging from their sockets.

  ‘Did I hear you right? Did you say Janice is dead?’

  Reluctantly, Sofie nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s gone...’

  Jasmin covered her gaping mouth with her hand, devastated.

  After a few moments of saying nothing, Jasmin at last broke the silence.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Sofie said, leaden with insurmountable grief and weariness. ‘And not a very pleasant one, to put as mildly as I can. Thanks for opening the door when you did. I dunno what I would’ve done if you’d refused.’

  Jasmin descended two steps, grasping the banister in a white-knuckle grip. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said in a faraway voice. How did she die?’

  Sofie crossed the entrance hall and lowered herself with a groan to bottom step. ‘Car crash. Then our assailant slit her throat to make sure she was...’ Her weary voice drifted off.

  ‘Ohmigod!’ Jasmin gasped, incredulous.

  Then, tentatively, she came down the stairs and joined Sofie on the bottom step. She put an arm around the Swedish girl who looked cadaverous compared to the last time Jasmin had seen her in aerobics class.

  ‘Where’ve you been all this time?’

  Sofie told her how she’d been kidnapped by a fellow posing as a local reverend and how she’d fled and then been admitted to the hospital. How she’d been raped and scarred by the crazy family who’d killed her best friend, and how she’d been stalked as soon as she’d departed the hospital. Sagaciously, she opted not to mention the part of devil worship and the death of Margaret.

  ‘Oh, and I’m pregnant.’

  Jasmin’s eyes almost popped out of her head. ‘What?’

  ‘They told me in the hospital. And that reverend told me I was too. But I don’t know who the father is. The old man, I presume. The one that struck me on the head when I tried to escape. Janice rescued me, but one of them hid in the back seat of the car and that’s how we ended up crashing. Right up until the very end, Janice had taken care of me, like I thought I was doing for that elderly couple.’

  Rubbing her furrowed brow, Jasmin now understood why Sofie had said it was a long story. And an unbelievable one at that.

  ‘So, what did the police say?’

  ‘Apparently, the two officers that interviewed me when I was in Intensive Care, died in a horrible accident.’

  ‘Ohmigod!’ Jasmin exclaimed. ‘I heard about that on the news. A heavy goods vehicle reduced a police patrol car to a rectangle, ready for the scrap yard.’

  Sofie sighed. ‘So it is true then.’

  Jasmin exhaled deeply. Then she said, ‘Come on. Let’s go upstairs. I’ll fix you a hot bath and see if there’s anything in the refrigerator.’

  When they got to their feet, Sofie staggered and had it not been for the help of Jasmin righting her, she would have fallen.

  ‘So, now one of those crazy people you went to care for is after you?’ Jasmin asked, still perplexed by parts of the yarn.

  ‘I don’t know if she’s part of the family. But I saw her when I got off the bus and she followed me as far as she could until she saw I’d reached here. I think they want to kill me to shut me up.’

  ‘But when you spoke to the police they said there were no records of anyone finding a girl’s body. In this case, Janice’s?’

  ‘Yeah. Neither did they see a yellow Fiat.’

  Jasmin held Sofie firmly as they climbed the stairs. ‘This is very disturbing. Are you sure Janice is dead, though? She might just be seriously hurt.’

  ‘If she was she’d be in a hospital, like me. And the police would have been able to track her whereabouts, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yeah. I guess you’re right,’ Jasmin admitted.

  They reached the landing. Then with no forewarning Sofie lurched forward, bending at the waist, clutching herself. She groaned in agony.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Jasmin couldn’t hide the apprehension in her voice.

  ‘It must be the baby,’ Sofie croaked.

  A minute passed. Slowly, Sofie straightened up. ‘I’m okay,’ she said.

  Jasmin frowned at her. ‘You don’t sound okay, girl.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Running round all day after immediately coming out of hospital is no good for anyone, especially in my condition.’

  Convinced of the rationality of the remark, Jasmin let it drop and escorted Sofie into her flat. She made sure to lock and put the latch on, not taking any chances after what she’d heard had happened to Sofie and Janice.

  Once the door was locked and they were secure on the first floor, Jasmin gently lowered Sofie onto her bed. She gazed at the young Swedish woman whose life would never be the same again after what some sadists had inflicted upon her for their own selfish, sick gratification. Had she not been told the story she’d just heard, she’d be able to tell just by the bags beneath the red-rimmed eyes and pallid, emaciated face that Sofie was under far too much stress for one person to endure.

  Pregnant! Sweet Jesus!

  Jasmin caressed Sofie’s brow, feeling a tremendous amount
of sympathy for the poor girl. Then she picked up the remote control and turned the TV on. She changed channel when she recognised a film starring Jack Nicholson called, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest to a popular game show, as it was inappropriate. Sofie might think she was trying to tell her something if she left the film on.

  ‘How ‘bout I draw you that nice hot bath?’

  Sofie smiled wanly. ‘Thanks, Jasmin.’

  ‘You’re welcome, sweetheart.’ With that said Jasmin leaned over and kissed Sofie on the brow.

  Sofie closed her heavy-leaden eyes, reassured by the sounds of the game show on TV and the sound of running water filling a bathtub in the next room.

  Submerged in the hot water, Sofie lay back, stretched her feet out so they were hanging over the rim. Coils of steam drifted up around her and dissipated into thin air. She’d fallen into a doze on the bed and was only half-awake when Jasmin announced that the bath was ready. Eyelids pressed down on her like heavy dumbbells, and after awhile Sofie no longer resisted. The hot water soothed her skin. The bubbles sloshed around her, flooding into her eardrums, blocking out sound.

  In her mind’s eye she saw the muscular naked torso gleaming under spotlights, sitting atop an altar in an underground vault. The thing with the goat’s head, four horns protruding in an upright angle, with burning, scarlet eyes stared at her fixedly. Although unnerved by the sight before her, Sofie discovered she wasn’t as afraid as she’d been previously. Mostly due to the fact that she knew consciously that this was a vision and that she was actually relaxing in a bath in Jasmin’s flat/bedroom.

  The thing with the goat’s head grasped the staff with a miniature golden goat’s head that breathed the green toxic vapour into her nose and mouth and spilled thick, scarlet blood down her convulsing oesophagus. However, in this vision the staff was not emitting any substances.

  Apparently, this creature that sat in a gilded-framed chair with red velvet on the seat and backrest was going to be what she brought into the world to unleash its fury and wrath upon believers in Jesus Christ and God. Anyone who had a clear moral conscience would suffer the catastrophic ramifications. The eyes that were not human or belonging to any mammal or anything belonging to the world held her transfixed. Beyond it she saw things that scarred her mind.

  Two armies from thousands of years ago stood in the battlefield at dusk facing each other, armed with long spears. The sun bled the sky a maroon hue. From where Sofie’s point of view all the warriors donning clean white suits of armour and their opponents in crimson red suited armour were silhouetted. Shadows amidst the dust. The wind blew a blanket of dust, shrieking like a banshee. And at that God-awful the sound the two armies charged towards each other, screaming war cries at the top of their lungs, mixed with fear and rage.

  The conflict that ensued was too graphic and harrowing to be a fake. No film director even with all the technology and talented crew team in his arsenal could have made something look so violent and ghastly. This was far too tangible to fool anyone. Men were scythed from their Unicorns and dragons. Geysers of blood spurted in the air with each maniacal stroke, swipe and stab of the long spears and swords. Sounds of jagged-edged metal tore through flesh and bone like knife through butter, followed by the high-pitched shrieks of severely wounded men who knew that death was imminent.

  When the men in red were no more, the few remaining white warriors stood in the battlefield, looking disorientated, desolate and sombre. The brutal slayings of all their comrades and enemies lay sprawled out beneath them, weapons jutting from some; blood leaking out of fatal wounds in others. Not to mention the bodies without heads. They’d won. But like many wars, the warriors that survived physically had died in many other ways on that battlefield too. They’d lost their innocence. Angels of God no more. Yet, paradoxically, that was who they’d been fighting for. Good versus Evil. Good had prevailed.

  But then a figure appeared atop the rise, legs apart, broad shouldered with four horns protruding at upward angles. The silhouette waited with inhuman patience until the three remaining warriors donning white armour suits - now dappled in splotches of blood - charged up the slope, wielding their swords. The thing with the goat’s head reacted with supreme confidence. Each move it made was lithe and graceful. It spun the golden staff overhead, twirled it and then jabbed the first warrior in the face, knocking him backwards. His nose broken, the warrior tumbled until he landed with an unforgiving thud at the bottom of the mountain, unconscious. Then the monstrous beast swept the feet of the next warrior from under him. He went up in the air, arms flailing like an out-of-control windmill, slamming the uneven ground heavily. An audible crunch signified a broken spine.

  Finally the third warrior approached, vigilantly. Frightened by what had befallen his fellow warriors with such finesse and effortless, the warrior held back. He circled the abomination towering above him, swinging his sword when he thought he saw an opening. However, the goat’s head’s staff was much longer than the holy sword and thwarted his futile attempts to the point where the beast found it highly amusing. The warrior feinted to the left and dodged to the right, only to receive a vicious swipe across the side of his head. He heard the ripping of flesh, but was visibly shocked when he saw his ear and the right hand side of his head fall to the earth.

  Wounded badly, the warrior’s coordination was completely out of sync. He saw three ghastly figures before him. Nevertheless, demonstrating a tremendous amount of fortitude, he came back swinging his sword like a madman. This time when he got struck to the left side of his head, the warrior managed to get an arm up to shield the blow. The sword clattered to the ground still in his hand of the arm that had been severed from the elbow below. Blood gushed out of the stump like a tap turned on to full power.

  Collapsing to his knees in a gesture of complete surrender, the warrior gazed upon its adversary with pleading eyes. His weeping was that of a man who’d been bested by an unstoppable force. Had they fought a thousand times with different weapons the result would have always been the same. He realised this. His right hand clamped down on the wound, temporarily stopping the flow of blood.

  The thing with the goat’s head stood victorious before him and with one merciless strike, took the warrior’s head clean off the body where a heart thudded into the chest walls. The rest of the anatomy toppled forward. The head, with tears in terror-stricken eyes rolled down the short incline. The thing with the goat’s head finished off the first assailant by stomping his face into a bloody pulp. Then it picked up the cadaver like a rag doll and impaled it upon an upright spear. The body slid down a third of the way then stopped. It did the same with the other two bodies. Then rammed the decapitated head atop the spoke of the last spear.

  Raising its golden staff overhead it let out a guttural cry. Thunder moved the earth’s foundations. Lighting forked the darkening sky with the most brilliant luminescence. The inexorable downpour from the roiling battleship-grey clouds washed away most of the spilled blood and soaked the battlefield into a swamp. The impaled cadavers silhouetted by the flashing images looked like something from the most spectacular horror art presentation ever seen.

  When the forked lighting flashing in her retinas ceased Sofie noticed that the thing with the goat’s head was gone...

  Opening her eyes, Sofie squinted until her vision became accustomed to the unexpected light. Her skin was dotted in goose pimples. The water cold. The frothy bubbles melted. She sat upright, leaned forward and pulled the plug out of the drain hole. The gurgling of water being swallowed away was the first sound Sofie heard as she stepped out on the rubber mat and wrapped a towel around her waist.

  She leapt backwards at the hideous white face with crimson eyes bulging from the sockets; lips peeling back baring grimy-yellow teeth, dripping with saliva. The image was not her reflection she realised but that of the face she’d seen in her haunted dreams. It soon faded. Her own reflection wasn’t much better
, although she did still look human.

  As she vigorously dried and got dressed, Sofie thought about the vision she’d seen.

  Did it mean anything? Was it some sort of precognition? Or was its sole purpose to frighten her?

  Not only hadn’t she afraid of the graphic violence that had played out in her mind’s eye like a reel of film but a part of her actually enjoyed it. She found it slightly amusing that it was like the film A Clockwork Orange. Only what was happening to her was in reverse. Janice had always called her an “angel” before all the madness and being kidnapped by members of satanic cult who performed Black Magic on her. She’d been young, innocent, just like the warriors on the battlefield. And even though she was in no actual conflict, there was a conflict taking place in her mind. At times, Sofie had really sensed another side of her she never knew existed reaching to the surface into her consciousness, trying to dictate.

  Every time her hopes were dashed a sinister side of her hidden personality showed itself. Now that she’d found a temporary safe haven the good might prevail. However, the evil side of her was equally as persistent, and as she’d been told a couple of times by Reverend Ward - it was her destiny.

  A gentle rap on the other side of the bathroom door brought her thoughts back to the present.

  ‘You all right in there, Sofie?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sofie called.

  ‘Are you out of the bath yet?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good, ‘cos I just put a Chicken Korma Curry in the microwave. Hurry up drying yourself. You’re food’ll be ready by the time you get out.’

  ‘Okay.’ Sofie smiled at her reflection, thinking what a benevolent person Jasmin was. They hardly spoke more than a few words, apart from the obligatory “Good morning”, “Good night”, and yet she was taking care of her, like Janice used to.

  She folded the towel and placed it over the radiator. Then Sofie flicked the lock and stepped out into the bedroom.

  PART THREE

  There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be...’