Judas Goat

by Greg F. Gifune

  The look in those sad and pretty eyes breaks his heart, but he cannot allow her to be anything more than a distraction, a sex toy to pass the time.

  This is not me, he thinks. This is not who I am.

  But there he is. There she is. There they are.

  He pushes her head down into his lap and lies back as she devours him. Roughly pushing deep into her mouth then throat, he feels her body go rigid as she begins to struggle. Not to free herself, but to comply, to further allow him whatever he wants however he wants it, to use her as he sees fit.

  There is power here…power she grants him…horrible, crippling power.

  Lenny embraces it, and from that moment forward, damns them both.

  The curtains flutter and catch his eye. Gone is the apartment, and instead, as the curtains part and float free they spiral away into a thick darkness surrounding him, and he finds himself running through a corridor, the ground rough and cold beneath his bare feet. He can feel pieces of rock and glass, dirt and cement as he runs, and just ahead of him in the night is Sheena. Her pale bare buttocks bounce in the near-dark as she keeps pace ahead of him, hands out to her sides, fingertips barely brushing the walls to help her maneuver along the winding corridor at such speed.

  He loses sight of her for a second, but as he runs on he staggers through an opening, the remains of a blown-out doorway, and directly into the path of what appear to be oncoming headlights. Blinded, he holds an arm up to block his face as he loses his balance and falls to the ground. He lands on his side, and the rough ground is painful on contact with his bare skin. Ignoring the pain, he scrambles to his feet and pushes forward. The lights move and glide away, flashing about and moving at strange angles. He loses sight of Sheena but keeps running. He hears voices in the distance, follows the sound to an open area. The ground feels different now, softer, damp and smooth. Sand, he’s on sand. Lenny looks around, searching again for the lights or some sign of Sheena, but there is only night and the faint sounds of something else. It is familiar and yet he cannot quite place it. He can’t think straight. Everything’s in pieces, disconnected and out of synch, out of context.

  The ocean, it’s—it’s the sound of the ocean. Close by, it’s close by, he can hear the waves slapping shore and now—yes—he smells and can even taste the air. Saltwater, the ocean…dunes…he’s standing on the edge of a sand dune.

  “Sheena!”

  No one answers.

  But in the distance, along the beach, comes an explosion of flame. A bonfire suddenly brought to life, its brilliant orange flames cut the night as they reach skyward, illuminating a stretch of sand below. Several dark shapes move about, among them a nude woman running, staggering into the light.

  Something much closer moves through the grass, along the dune, and holds him in check. An odd smell precedes it, an earthy, animal smell; a hay smell, the barn smell of some captive animal. He can hear it breathing; hear its cloven hoofs thumping the sand before he sees its silhouette in the darkness.

  “Who is it?” Sheena’s voice whispers impossibly across the dunes.

  Through the darkness…eyes…

  He backs away. They’re not human.

  “Who is it, Lenny?”

  The beast moves closer. Horns pierce the night, gnarled and ribbed and growing from a long, lean face. Innocence and evil, the sacrificed and the executioner wrapped in the same fur.

  “Who is the Judas Goat?”

  * * * *

  The sky came back into focus first, and it took a few seconds for Lenny to remember what had happened. The punch hadn’t knocked him unconscious but had sufficiently stunned him to the point where he couldn’t be quite sure how long he’d been lying there. The memories and strange visions receded as a trail of breath tumbled from his mouth in thick rolling clouds. He blinked his eyes, and somewhere between sky and breath, a figure emerged: Gus Gauvin standing over him and bent forward for a closer look, the ax back in his enormous hands.

  Instinctively, Lenny rolled and threw a kick that connected with the side of the big man’s knee.

  Gus howled and staggered away, somehow managing to hang onto the ax and remain upright. But the moment Lenny got back to his feet he hobbled off toward the woods.

  Lenny felt along his jaw to make certain it was still intact. It was sore but not broken. “Sonofabitch,” he muttered, opening and closing his mouth until the pain shooting up into his temple dissipated. He shook the cobwebs from his head and watched as Gus, still clutching the ax, limped into the forest.

  Lenny ran for the house.

  * * * *

  From a window in the living room, he saw the Jeep Cherokee outfitted as a local police car come bouncing down the dirt road. It was more than half an hour from the time he’d dialed 911 and reported the attack, but at least there had finally been a response. He’d made himself a Jack and Coke on the rocks to calm his nerves, and spent the rest of the time going from window to window, watching the property for any signs of the madman with the ax.

  The Cherokee rolled into the driveway behind Lenny’s car. The door opened and a stocky dark-haired man in uniform dropped down, one hand resting on the butt of his holstered gun, the other working a radio unit attached to the epaulet on his opposite shoulder. His dark eyes, prominent brow and thick features gave him something of a Cro-Magnon look. He said something into the radio unit then threw on a baseball cap that was part of the uniform and strolled casually toward the house, taking in the property as he went.

  Lenny opened the door just as the policeman crossed onto the walkway.

  “Afternoon,” the officer said, “you put in a call to the police?”

  “Yes.” Lenny held the door for him. “Please, come in.”

  Once inside, the cop removed a small pad and pen from his shirt pocket, glanced around the room and walked just far enough so he could see both the living room and bathroom. “Are you alone here?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You’re Cates?”

  “Leonard Cates, yes.”

  “Officer Meadows. Gonna have to ask you to see some ID real quick.”

  The policeman carried himself with a nearly maddening calmness, like very little bothered him. In fact, considering he was responding to a call regarding a man attacking someone with an ax, he seemed unusually relaxed.

  Lenny produced his license from his wallet and gave it to him. Meadows looked it over for what seemed an eternity then handed it back. “All right then, Mr. Cates, dispatch said you were assaulted. Are you injured? Do you need medical assistance?”

  “No, I’m all right, just a little shaken up.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Doing his best to recount precisely what had taken place, Lenny explained how Gus Gauvin had attacked him. Meadows listened, and occasionally jotted something on his notepad, but didn’t speak again until Lenny finished.

  “From your description, it was definitely Gus. He’s got problems. The poor bastard was already off the farm before he found Ms. McElroy’s body.” He motioned casually to the spot at the foot of the stairs. “But since then he’s been even worse. Ran off not long after and holed up in a little place his family owns way back in the woods. Not sure why he would’ve been here.”

  “Look, I’m sorry this man has some mental issues but he tried to kill me.”

  “Good with an ax as Gus is, if he really wanted to kill you we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. He probably got confused.” Meadows took a step toward the stairs, looked up at the second floor. “From the sounds you got the better of him anyway.”

  “That’s hardly the point. I was defending myself.”

  “I’ve known Gus for years. He’s harmless.”

  “Harmless? The man attacked me with a fucking ax!”

  “Take it easy, Mr. Cates. No reason to raise our voices now is there?”

  “Sorry, it’s not every day someone tries to kill me. I’m a tad stressed out.”

  “Figured coming from New
York City you’d be used to that sort of thing.”

  “I’ve lived there for years and never even been mugged.” Lenny paced back and forth in front of the table. “It’s a much safer city than people think.”

  “Thing is, nobody’s the worse for wear so we might just want to chalk this up to a misunderstanding and be thankful no one was hurt.”

  His patience already shot, Lenny nodded. “OK, fine. Whatever.”

  “I’ll head out to Gus’s cabin and have a talk with him, let him know to stay clear of this place and not to bother you again.” The policeman glanced at the table, noticed the bottle of whiskey, the near-empty glass and the pair of empty beer bottles. “You been drinking today, Mr. Cates?”

  “I had a drink, yes, and a couple beers with lunch, why?”

  “Was that before or after the incident with Gus?”

  “The beers were before, the drink was after. Is there some point to this?”

  Meadows scratched absently at his head through the cap. “I think we can agree alcohol tends to impair judgment.”

  “My judgment’s just fine, thanks.”

  He considered this then moved closer to the spot where Sheena had died, hands resting on his belt. “You know, I haven’t been back here since that day.”

  “Did you know Sheena?”

  “No, but I was on duty the day Gus found the body.” Meadows continued scratching his head, harder now, like he couldn’t quite extinguish the itch. Again, he gazed up the staircase. “Terrible thing.”

  “Gus kept insisting someone had killed her.”

  “She fell, it was an accident. The case is closed.” He scratched manically at his head. “Now if there’s nothing else I’ve got to get back on patrol.”

  Lenny was sorry he’d called the police in the first place. Meadows had been annoying enough, but what the hell was this incessant scratching about? Did he have lice? Lenny walked toward the door in the hopes he’d get the hint and follow him. “I appreciate your time.”

  As Meadows gave his head another thorough scratch, his cap dislodged, slipped free and dropped toward the floor.

  Lenny attempted to catch it for him, but as he did so, something scurried through Meadows’ thick hair, moving just beneath the surface from the crown of his head toward the back of his ear.

  Meadows frantically snatched the hat from the floor and slapped it back on his head, flashing an anxious smile he tried to pass off as embarrassment.

  But his eyes gave him away. It wasn’t embarrassment. It was fear.

  “Have a good evening officer,” Lenny said, trying desperately to hold his voice steady. “Thanks again for stopping by.”

  Meadows offered an officious nod, stepped outside and returned to his vehicle.

  He’d been gone several minutes before Lenny was able to tear himself from the window and even attempt to process what he’d seen.

  Heart racing, he eagerly lit a cigarette. What the hell was happening? He’d seen something moving through that man’s hair, something alive. It couldn’t be dismissed or debated.

  I’m fucking losing it, he thought.

  Lenny moved back into the living room and looked again to the window. The Cherokee was long gone and the dirt road was empty.

  Daylight was dying.

  “Hold on,” he said softly. “Here comes the night.”

  6

  With the events of the day ricocheting around inside his head, Lenny lit both oil lamps, placed one in the living room and took the other with him as he moved through the otherwise dark house. He didn’t know how much more he could take in one day, but was determined to search the cottage all night if need be. Sheena wanted him here and had all but guaranteed it by naming him in her will. But what did he have to do with any of this? There were answers here somewhere, he was convinced of it. Too many strange things were happening, there had to be a connection, a larger puzzle he couldn’t yet see.

  She liked me.

  Had Sheena left him the property because she knew she was in danger? Could her death have been something other than an accident? Had she stumbled onto something horrific in this strange little town?

  He’d quickly scanned the bookshelves in the living room and then the utility closet in the kitchen, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Short of coming across something in the kitchen cupboards, which seemed highly unlikely, there were no other areas of interest downstairs, so he decided to start with the bedroom and go from there.

  With lamplight illuminating the narrow passage, he climbed the stairs, each step creaking beneath his weight as he made his way to the second floor.

  Lenny placed the lamp on the desk and increased the flame. The room brightened, awash in soft yellow light which reflected off the windows and mirror over the bureau. He glanced at his own image reflected in both, then sat at the desk and began going through the drawers. There were three large drawers along the right-hand side of the desk and a single long and narrow one just beneath the desktop. After rummaging through two larger drawers and finding only office supplies, a phone book and some old checking account statements, he came across a large manila folder in the third.

  Inside, he discovered several laminated sheets of paper. Newspaper articles, seven in all. Freelance filler pieces published a few years prior in an array of Massachusetts papers, they covered everything from a resident of a nursing home who had won the lottery, to an interview with a local singer set to sing the National Anthem at a Red Sox game. Sheena had written them all, but under the name Sheena Belmont. Must’ve been her married name, he thought.

  She’d kept up with her writing after all. He smiled. Good for her.

  He slid the sheets back into the folder, returned it to the desk then pulled open the narrow center drawer. Scraps of paper and sticky notes; loose rubber bands; paperclips, pens and pencils; a takeout menu for a local pizza place, and near the bottom, a framed photograph. Lenny pulled the picture free and held it up. A wedding photo of Sheena and her husband, she dressed in a beautiful gown and headpiece and he decked out in an ill-fitting tuxedo.

  It was the first time he’d seen her in twenty years.

  Wracked with emotion, Lenny choked back tears as the distant and vague memories of her face he’d relied on for so long dissolved and drifted away. He no longer needed them. She, and by extension much of their past together, had come to life again right before his eyes.

  In the photograph, she looked to be about ten years older than when she and Lenny had known each other, which would’ve put her in her late twenties at the time it was taken. Sheena was beaming. He couldn’t remember her ever looking quite so content. The man by her side was short and overweight, with a kind, boyishly chubby face and a head of curly blond hair. They looked so happy together; blissfully unaware that death had conspired to steal them both within a few short years.

  Maybe by now they’d been reunited in some other, better place.

  Lenny hoped so.

  As he put the photograph back he noticed another, this one smaller, unframed and scarred with numerous creases like it had been folded and kept in a wallet for a long while before being stored in the desk. The edges were curled and discolored with age. He brushed an old Post-it note and a roll of tape out of the way and realized it was another picture of Sheena. This time he was the man standing next to her.

  He couldn’t remember the exact day it had been taken, but he recognized the setting as the apartment Sheena lived in while they were in school in Boston. They had their arms around each other and their heads together, she with one of her typical shy, reserved smiles while he attempted his best James Dean look of unaffected cool. My God, he thought, we were so young. We look like children. Though the photograph had obviously been tucked away somewhere, she’d kept it all these years, so it must’ve meant something to her, he reasoned. Good or bad, she’d never forgotten him either. He stared at her smiling face from all those years ago. Had forgetting ever truly been an option for either of them?

  Deciding t
o keep it, Lenny tried to pick up the photograph, but it stuck to the drawer and nearly ripped in the process. Perplexed, he carefully peeled back an edge and felt around underneath it. The photograph had been glued to the bottom of the drawer.

  He slid the tip of his finger further beneath it and pushed until the gum-like patch of glue gave way. As the photograph dislodged, he noticed a small hole in the thin layer of particleboard that lined the drawer beneath. Sticking out of the hole was the edge of what appeared to be a scrap of folded paper. Managing to pinch the corner between his thumb and index finger, Lenny pulled it free.

  The paper was roughly the size of a matchbook, but had been folded in half and had some weight to it. As he opened it, a small key fell out. He could find no markings that identified what it might be for, but the size indicated it was most likely to a locker, a padlock, or something similar. Clearing a little space around the hole in the drawer, he smoothed the paper out and saw two words neatly written in block letters.

  THEY’RE WATCHING.

  Jesus. He looked over his shoulder.

  Nothing there but his own worried reflection in the mirror.

  He turned the paper over.

  DON’T LET THEM SEE. LOCKBOX, WORKSHOP.

  They, them—who were these people?

  Gus had used the same term: They killed her.

  Keeping it out of sight and in the drawer, he refolded the paper then nonchalantly slipped it and the key into his pocket. He felt ridiculous, obviously he was alone in the room and alone in the house, yet he still couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that, just as the note suggested, he was being watched. Nonsensical as it was, it shook him to the bone. His instincts told him to get the hell out of this town and never look back. But Sheena had left the photograph and key behind for him to find, clues she knew he’d pursue. Even now, with her cryptic notes and hidden keys, she was whispering to him from the grave, drawing him closer and closer to the flame.

  He couldn’t walk away. Not now.