Halloween to my kids means candy and costumes, but this year it meant NaNoWriMo prep for me. So this is how I spent my Halloween. It was supposed to be a flash fiction story, but apparently I don't have a gift for getting a story out in 1,000 words or less. I'm not that pleased with it, but for only working on it for a day it's passable.
Without further ado:
The Goatman
by Bethany Valles
Some cities celebrate their founding, others the harvest of
their local crop. But no one knows when Goat, Texas, a tiny ranching community
in the Valley, began, and the only thing that grows well here is cactus. So we
celebrate Goat Day. It’s not usually a big deal. There’s a Tilt-a-Whirl, a
Ferris wheel, deep-fried candy bars, and carnival games. I was tired of it by
the time I was six, but my parents kept dragging me through the gaudy display
every year anyway.
The day before the festival my parents sat me down. They’d
already been pushy at dinner, saying I needed another helping, that I was too
skinny. It was annoying. So when they each sat down beside me on the couch and
turned off the TV, I knew nothing good could come of it.
“Casey, you know Goat Day is tomorrow,” Mom said.
“Yeah, so? What’s up, Mom?”
“Let’s just
tell her,” Mom said over my head, looking directly at Dad with one of those
stares that meant something to him, but not me.
“Honey, you’ve been chosen to be the Cheva!” Mom said after a pause. Her tone was excited on the
surface, but her eyes didn’t match her voice. They were cold.
“Oh, great. Cheva,
that’s cool,” I said, trying not to sound too bored. The Cheva was sort of like the Goat Day queen. She led the parade in a
white dress, and then went to sit on her throne. She has ropes tied to her
hands, and then she waits for this guy dressed like a goat to come take her
down, sort of a goat-hero rescuing the damsel-in-distress. It was the lamest
tradition I could imagine. But it’s the best a town called Goat could come up
with.
Maggie Cervantes was the Cheva
last year, and she acted like she’d been elected homecoming queen. I guess I
should be excited, but I wasn’t.
The day of the
opening parade dawned way too early. Mom woke me up at six and told me to get
cleaned up.
Then the primping began. Mom and the town beautician,
Leticia, were plucking, buffing, waxing, and polishing anything that was
exposed.
Before I knew it, the dress was on and it was time for the
parade. I stood in front of the whole thing. The war veterans marched behind
me, and everyone in town who owned an instrument was behind them. The football
team came next, and then lastly, the cheerleaders.
I waited for the cue from the guy directing the band before
I started walking. When he waved at me, I walked around the corner of the bank
where we’d been waiting, expecting applause.
None came.
It felt like I was part of a funeral procession. The crowd
was solemn. It was weird. I’d planned on smiling and waving a lot, but suddenly
it seemed a much better idea to get to the end of the route fast.
I did my best not to run, but when I heard my mother’s wail
from the crowd I couldn’t help it. I ran, and not for the end of the route, I
ran for the first door I saw. I sprinted toward Flor’s, a Mexican diner I knew
well. But suddenly there was a wall of people in my way. I slowed, looking for
a way around them, but before I could dodge them there were hands on me,
turning me around and shoving me roughly back into the street, to the
humiliating parade.
I tried again and again to escape, each time I was pushed
back into the procession. Finally, I just stopped. I stood still, and waited
for the veterans to go around me.
Instead, fingers wrapped tightly around my arms and began to
propel me forward. I looked around me to see an old man on each side. Each one
had a pistol, but the one on my right actually took his out and held it to my
ribs, pushing the barrel against me to move me forward.
“Please,” I begged. I don’t know when I started crying, but
I noticed now that my voice was wavering.
“You got to,” was all he said.
I looked into the crowd, trying in vain to find an outraged
face, someone who would help.
And then we turned the corner, onto Main Street, where the
throne stood. I didn’t know why, but I suddenly understood that under no
circumstances would I go up those steps and sit on that chair.
I fought. I kicked the men holding me. I pulled with all my
strength against their grasping fingers. I screamed.
“Please, someone, help me!” I yelled at the onlookers. But
all the eyes I met looked away.
I thought of my parents’ faces as they explained my role this year, and a new horror overtook my frantic mind. They knew. They
knew, as I knew now, that something bad was coming.
All the fight went out of me then. I sagged in the hands of
men I didn’t know, and they dragged my limp body up the steps, turned me, and
sat me on the throne.
The hands didn’t release me as someone new, the mayor, I
realized, began tying me to the throne. I wasn’t the least bit surprised when
the ropes were pulled so tight they bit into my skin. I remembered, idly, that
the ropes were so loose for Maggie Cervantes they’d actually fallen off early.
I looked up from my lap to stare at the crowd. Last year the
crowd pressed up against the steps to the throne. Now they were still flanking
the street, like the parade wasn’t over yet. The local sheriff’s department had
joined the veterans and they were all standing in front of the people, like
they were trying to protect them. They were all armed. They were all silent.
I could hear the wind whistling through the streets, blowing
plastic bags and fliers advertising the sales at the local grocery store around
in circles.
The weight of the stares aimed in my direction felt like it
was pinning me to the chair, a separate restraint from the ropes.
I heard someone gasp. I looked toward whoever it was but
before I could locate them, I heard something else.
I heard a snuffling sound. It sounded like an animal
following a scent. I remembered last year, when the captain of the football
team had played the goat hero. A guy dressed like a goat, playing a role…
Oh no…
My imagination didn’t have time to run amok, because the
monster was coming up the street now, following my scent.
It had thick, dark hair, or it could have been the thing’s
skin. It was easily eight feet tall, even hunched as it was. It’s legs bent
backward when it walked, like an animal taught to walk upright. I heard a
clicking when it stepped forward in its jerky, crouched gait. It was narrow;
it’s shoulders as wide as it’s hips. As it came closer, I could tell that its
skin was not as dark as its hair. It grew like fur on its legs and mid-section
and thinned over its chest. Its arms bent in a more humanoid way at the elbows
and for one second I felt reassured by that.
And then I saw the thing’s hands.
Two very long, very narrow fingers protruded not from a
wrist, but from the elbow. The digits didn’t seem to bend, for when the
creature bent to crouch and sniff the places I’d been it leaned on them like
crutches.
The beast’s head was shaped like a goat, with a longer
muzzle and protruding ears. But its eyes… the eyes were slit like a goat’s. And
red.
I screamed. I couldn’t help it. I thrashed against the ropes
until blood flowed from my chafed skin. It was a mistake.
Its eyes focused on me. The goat-man shuddered in a long
rippling motion along its back. It crouched, and leaped, farther than should be
possible, and landed on the stairs to the dais where I was trapped.
It stood at the foot of the steps and watched me as I
watched it. I heard a high-pitched noise, like a tea kettle whistling. It was
coming from me.
The goat-man’s features were too animalistic to be attached
to a mostly humanoid body. My mind couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. I
tried to see the costume, the individual pieces that made up the whole.
But there was no seam to find. This was real. I felt cold
all over as I realized the whole town play-acts this scene every year.
It smiled at me, as these horrifying pieces began to fit
together in my head. It was intelligent enough to understand I was terrified,
and it enjoyed that.
The teeth inside the muzzle didn’t belong. They were far,
far too numerous and tiny, like hundreds of needles lining its mouth.
Hide. Make myself small. Don’t look, it’s not real it can’t
be real. Mommy help me. Wake me up Mommy I’m asleep. Hide hide hide…
“Well, that’s over,” Sheriff Riggs said to Oscar. Oscar
nodded slowly. “Wish she wasn’t a screamer. I hate it when they scream,” was
Oscar’s only reply.
They both watched as the fire chief opened up the hydrant
and washed what was left of Casey down the storm drains of Main Street.
