Come Get Me (21 page)

All in all Jim’s said his visit home was not
going well. Hopefully laying Tommy to rest today would be the end
of the unpleasantness and things would go back to normal. He didn’t
mention anything about the Goatman. If he’d done that his mom might
think he was going to end up just like Pete. The last thing he
wanted to do was have her worrying about him.

Jim finished his breakfast and sat sipping
coffee while trying not to think too much about what he was going
to be doing later in the day. After a long bit of quiet his mother
tried getting him to talk about other things but quickly figured
out he was pretty much having none of it. Giving up on that she
instead sat across from him with a concerned look on her face. He
probably could have told her about his night with Jill but he
didn’t even fell like talking about that. It just didn’t feel right
having something to be happy about when his friends were dieing
around him. After his coffee he told his mother that he was going
to go back to his room and relax until it was time for him to
leave. She tried to get him to stay and talk with her but he begged
off telling her he just needed some time alone and went to his
room. He felt bad and knew her heart was in the right place but he
just didn’t feel like being around anyone right now.

Lying on his bed he thought back to his
childhood with Tommy and Rob. Pete was there also tagging along as
he always had but he was mostly thinking of the other two. They
were gone and Pete wasn’t.

When they’d been little they always talked
about what they wanted to be when they grew up. It had always
seemed to change from one week to the next if not from one day to
the next. For a while they’d all wanted to be firemen. Next it was
a policeman. Eventually it became an astronaut. He thought it was
sad how none of them had ever achieved their dreams. Well, almost
none of them, he thought correcting himself. Rob had achieved his.
He’d made it. He became a policeman like he’d wanted and from what
little Jim had seen of him it suited him. At least he’d been able
to live his dream for a little while before he’d died. Jim didn’t
want to venture to much farther down that road. Rob was gone. He
didn’t want to think of how it’d happened.

Instead he thought about Tommy. He didn’t
even come close to living any of their dreams much less his own.
He’d ended up being a cook at one of the local restaurants. Jim
smiled as he tried to imagine Tommy behind a stove wearing an
apron. It just wasn’t a picture that came to mind easily. Tommy was
always a man's man. He frowned on things like cooking and baking.
He probably hated what he did. But then again maybe he’d changed
after Jim’d left. Maybe he’d tried cooking and found he liked it.
Unfortunately Jim would never know. He’d left the town and his
friends behind to pursue what he’d thought were his dreams.

Thoughts of Tommy and Rob quickly turned into
thought about when they were little. The countryside around town
was their playground. Riding upon the pedals of their bikes they’d
explore every back road, old house or swampy lake they could find.
That was one of the things that made it even harder to believe that
the Goatman was the one killing them. They’d been everywhere and
never seen hide nor hair of him or any other abnormal creature for
that matter. The woods were a vast place where little boys could
roam and pretend to be everything from Robin Hood to Flash Gordon.
Granted it was Flash Gordon stuck in a wild paradise but they made
due with what they had. The woods had never been a place to fear
like they were now. Jim had enjoyed those times. He even enjoyed
them now even though they made him sad but he guessed that what
some memories did. Unfortunately that was all he had left of his
friends.

His mother came in some time later to remind
him that Tommy’s funeral was going to be soon. As if he could’ve
forgotten or something. He forced himself from the past and into
the present where he started preparing for the funeral.

Once out the door and on his way he again
started thinking about the strange circumstances of his friends
deaths. None of it made any sense. All the clues seemed to point at
the Goatman but the cop’s content to just write Tommy’s death off
to being an accident. Jim knew it hadn’t been though. He hopped
that they were at least not dense enough to try and say the same
thing about Robs. He could hear it now. They would try to say he
had an axe with him and somehow fell on it repeatedly until he was
dead or something else just as ridiculous. No, he had to give them
some credit. They couldn’t be that stupid. Jim hopped that the
state police, with their superior experience, would be able to
formulate a better idea than what he and Pete had come up with.
There had to be something better than the Goatman. So what if
everything about both cases pointed to the perpetrator having been
some mystical creature out of an urban legend. What difference did
that make? Any rational thinking person would figure that thinking
like that was just crazy. Unfortunately at this point in time Jim
wasn’t included in the rational thinking people’s group. He was on
the fringe of it though, still hoping someone would figure out a
more plausible explanation than his.

Goat hairs being found in the area of Tommy’s
death, coupled with the fact that the tree had been hacked off with
an axe, then only days later Rob being attacked and killed with
what the police were saying was an axe or a hatchet, pointed in
Jim’s irrational mind, towards the Goatman. Pete had watered the
seed planted in Jim’s mind by telling him that he, himself, had
been under attack by the Goatman for the past three weeks.

As impossible as all this sounded and given
the fact that Pete had gone off the deep end, Jim had seen the
splattered proof against the wall. It could be argued that since
Pete was insane at least to some degree that he’d staged everything
himself but who wanted to think that? He could have easily gone out
and killed Tommy but why? And then a few days later he could’ve
gone and lured Rob to his death but again, why? If you wanted to
believe he’d killed two of his best friend, set everything up in
his yard so that he could have proof that he was under attack by
some unseen force and then have himself arrested as a witness and
not a suspect you still had to ask why. Oh yeah and if you could
believe all that then you could believe in the Goatman too. But
that was maybe giving Pete a little too much credit. He was smart
and all but not that smart. Even if he was faking everything. Jim
quickly put that out of his head. Pete was definitely a goner in
the brains department but not so far that he would do the things
terrible things that had happened.

If you disqualified Pete as a suspect then
the question was now; who was doing it? Things flying from the
night, bloody writing on the walls, and dead friends being found
here and there. All this stuff wasn’t happening by itself. Oh wait,
here’s another piece of evidence he thought ruefully. Once the
sheriff had arrived and charged off into the wilderness to see what
,if anything, could be found he’d come back with more support for
the village idiots theory. Goat or deer tracks in the woods around
Pete’s house.

Jim knew there had to have been someone in
the woods when that head took flight and came roaring at them but
he’d been too afraid to do anything when it’d happened. He could’ve
gone after the sheriff left but hadn’t. He was scared not stupid.
Instead he’d left with his tail between his legs and almost no
doubt that the prints in the woods were made by a hoof that
belonged to the Goatman. Nothing else other than a human being or
him could have heaved that head and unfortunately there were no
other humans running about that night that anyone knew of. He
didn’t want to believe any of it, and knew he would go crazy if he
did, but there was only one thing it could be.

Jim’s mind was still whirling as he pulled to
the side of the road in front of the graveyard. Leaving his car and
walking up a slight hill he saw that most of the town had already
arrived. In a town this small everyone had known Tommy and had come
to say goodbye to him one last time. It was slightly surprising to
Jim. Tommy had always had friends but he didn’t think this many
people would’ve shown up. Small town or not.

Tommy’s parents stood next to the grave with
a group of people Jim vaguely recognized as being distant
relatives. The only way he recognized them was that he’d met one or
two of them when he was little at one of Tommy’s birthdays. It was
funny how little some people changed over the years. They were all
dressed in shades of black and gray as befitted a funeral.

The service began as he walked up, almost
like they’d been waiting for him. He knew they hadn’t been and it
was only a coincidence but it still made him feel slightly
uncomfortable.

Looking through the faces of the crowd he saw
many he felt should look familiar but he was unable to come up with
any of their names. Most likely people he’d known in school or
something like that but it still made him realize one thing. He’d
been away a long time. Everybody was a lot different than the way
he’d remembered them. As his gaze traveled around the congregation
he noticed a few people were returning his curious look with ones
of their own. Unfortunately the looks he was receiving weren’t
curious. Instead they were angry and sometimes down right hostile.
The sheriff was one he caught giving him a harsh look but to his
credit his cheeks colored and he quickly looked away when he saw
Jim’d caught him.

He felt out of place. The general feeling of
the place made him feel like he wasn’t supposed to be present. The
glares seemed to say he’d missed his chance to be part of Tommy’s
life so what right did he have to be there now that he was dead.
He’d abandoned Tommy to his fate. Now, when it was all over he
decided to return. What good could he do now? The looks told him
none.

In the face of these imagined accusations Jim
began to think maybe they were right. Maybe he’d never left Tommy
wouldn’t be dead right now. Maybe Rob wouldn’t have died either. It
was crazy to think things like that and torture himself but when
you were receiving the looks he was you couldn’t help but feel that
way. If he’d stayed things might have been different. Then again he
countered; they might just have stayed the same too. He could also
just be imagining it all too, he told himself.

Tiring of the hostility directed at him by
people he once thought of as friends he tried to remove himself
from the group he’d unfortunately become stuck in. He slowly began
to make his way towards the back of the group trying not to jostle
anyone as he did. No need to have anybody any madder at him than
they already were. He took a step a little too quickly and
accidentally bumped in to someone. Looking over his shoulder to
apologize he was startled to see a bright smile. He was dismayed to
see who it belonged too.

The last person he’d wanted to see today was
the only one that seemed to want to see him. Maria stood directly
in his path to the rear of the assembly. Looking for another escape
route he was greeted only with the disapproving looks of the town’s
people. They were definitely not going to let him through. He was
stuck. He resigned himself to standing where he was and enduring
the remainder of the funeral the best he could. After a few minutes
he noticed Maria was standing a little close for his comfort but he
had no real choice in the matter so he tried to ignore her and
hoped the funeral would be over soon.

After a few minutes passed he felt her move a
little closer than she’d been before. Looking back to ask her for a
little room he noticed what she was wearing. It wasn’t close to
what everyone else was wearing. She stood out like a peacock in a
group of hens. Her clothes were in bright blues and purples and
looked as if she were about to attend a party as opposed to a
funeral. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances he would have
thought she was at a party. The only thing she was missing was a
drink and some music. She had the clothes and the look already. He
turned back without a word and tried focusing his attention on the
service but was unable to with her so close. He could feel her
studying him. He knew if he turned around she would be standing
there with a sympathetic look on her face ready to console him in
any way he asked. Most guys would kill for someone like that but
not him. If he’d been attracted to her in any way it might have
brought some ideas to mind but instead it made his stomach
turn.

From what little of the service he was able
to pay attention to, it appeared to be a good one. All the right
things were said to console the attendees and make them think Tommy
was in a better place and that everything was generally alright.
Jim wasn’t much into religion. He never had been. Tommy, himself,
probably would’ve been surprised to find him there. Jim had always
refused church and anything else having to do with religion. But he
had to be there for Tommy.

After the preacher finished speaking he was
surprised to find that he did actually feel somewhat better than
when he’d arrived. He also felt a little batter about saying
goodbye too. He didn’t want to admit Tommy was gone but he knew he
was and he could now accept it a little better than he had. He
still wasn’t comfortable with the way it’d happened or the
circumstances surrounding it but the service made saying goodbye
much easier than he thought it would be.

As Tommy’s body was slowly lowered into the
grave the group of people began breaking up. Most moved forward to
pay their respects to the family members while others moved towards
the road in preparation to leave. They tried not to look hurried
but they couldn’t hide it very well. A lot of people didn’t like to
be around death. It reminded them of their own mortality.