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  Feeny was a city guy, but he knew that many such wild places existed in the northland and he wouldn’t want to put his survival skills to the test unless his life absolutely depended on it. Although his only survival experience came from watching reality television, Feeny didn’t believe Kurtis would be able to track him, either, if he got enough of a head start on him. The kidnapper didn’t strike him as an outdoorsman; from what he’d gathered so far Feeny guessed the place had been some kind of writing retreat—he assumed Kurtis was an author—or else an old family plot… but it could have also been an abandoned structure.

  He frowned. He still knew little and a blind escape was risky. Information was purchased only by pain.

  As on the days before, the chains and padlock at the door rattled free and Kurtis entered. He carried a greasy, white sack of cheeseburgers. Their aroma filled the room and made Feeny immediately begin salivating. He’d brought food each morning since the third day.

  Repeating his usual pattern, Kurtis tossed the 6,000 calorie bag of sliders onto Feeny’s lap. Feeny winced in pain when his lunch landed on the seven cuts that throbbed on this thigh.

  Kurtis gave him a stern look of warning; he put his free hand onto his holstered stun gun while he used the other to cut free one hand of the duct tape bonds. Feeny made the mistake of trying to retaliate on the first day his enemy tried to feed him. Every volt of electricity seemed to weaken both Feeny’s heart and his resolve.

  He shoved burger after burger into his mouth as quickly as his hungry mouth could break them down into pieces small enough to swallow. Feeny chugged a bottle of water and put his hand back on the armrest of the wooden chair.

  As Kurtis procured his roll of gray tape Feeny arched his wrist ever so slightly and locked the joint so that it felt firm. Just as planned, Kurtis didn’t notice the slight gap as he taped the fat man’s arm back down in place. The difference was negligible—less than a half inch.

  “Are you a writer?” Kurtis asked the man.

  “What? What gives you that impression?”

  Kurtis merely stared at Feeny.

  “I tried. I started college for it, but my professors all seemed too much like hacks to me… whenever I began to write any story it just… I don’t know. But no. I’m not a writer.”

  Kurtis led him. “You tried to, but you…” He waited for an answer

  Feeny sighed his response. “Failed.”

  “Those of us who can write find that it takes a lot of energy, commitment, and focus. It is an investment—a piece of ourselves that we put into each story. And sometimes it’s an escape from reality.” He whispered that last sentence. “Sometimes we insert ourselves into stories… even if only wishfully.”

  “And what did you write?” Feeny tried to sound sympathetic. Maybe if it seemed like he was learning his “lessons” he could avoid being cut this time.

  “My name is Kurtis Ward.”

  Feeny’s ignorant look was unmistakable. He shrugged as if it meant nothing to him.

  Kurtis pulled out a thick paperback novel. Feeny tensed, expecting the author would strike him across the face with it, but no blow came.

  Nodding, Kurtis said, “I expected as much.” He read the review aloud from a printed paper he’d kept tucked inside the book. “I honestly couldn’t get past the first couple pages,” he stressed the words, and again when he read the comments about wives and children.

  Feeny wore a look of shame as the words burned his ears.

  “Tell me, Mister Feeny, did you even read my book before you eviscerated it in public and drove away any readers, reviewers, or possible advertisers, or did you just tear apart something I loved just for sport?”

  The fat man’s cheeks flushed and he said nothing.

  Kurtis Ward opened his book. “You will at least hear it.” He turned the first couple pages and paused before reading, starting at the dedication. “For Felecia and my kids.” Kurtis refused to look at Feeny, but the bitterness rolled off of him in palpable waves.

  He read aloud for three hours telling the tale of Quintin Hall, a private eye and amateur cryptozoologist.

  A rich and worried man who claimed to be the husband of one Victoria Stroud hired Quintin to find his estranged wife. She’d disappeared one night many weeks ago but seemed to have surfaced in a small Texas town under a new name. She’d had several disturbing encounters in her young life which set her on an unstable path and Mr. Stroud was certain she’d veered off the reservation in the worst sort of way though his love for her remained unyielding.

  Quintin’s benefactor was sure that a woman photographed by the local newspaper was, in fact, his missing wife who’d taken an alias. He been increasingly worried about her returning mental health problems and she’d recently entertained recurring, strange dreams.

  After days of observation, Quintin understood why the husband had been so smitten with the woman. She was vivacious, even if much younger than the old man who hired Quintin, but it was something in her essence that called out and connected to the investigator’s soul when he first met her in a “random chance encounter” that he engineered.

  She’d begun working at an animal shelter in the tiny community of Pecos. He also noticed many strange behaviors in the community. The highway split the town into two halves and both sides had new construction at the far reaches, despite very little capital projects in years. At one side of the community, which the library revealed to have a dark history of witchcraft, a utilitarian brick building had been erected by some kind of cult which claimed to be an officially recognized “secret society.” The other side of town boasted a high-security asylum which Quintin couldn’t get access to. However, he was able to get residency and info and found it had practically burst at the seams.

  Peco Texas seemed like a magnet for the crazies. The population had steadily declined until last year when it begin to reverse hard and spike, even—though so much of the influx were mentally unstable.

  The cryptozoologist had his benefactor pull some strings and get him access to interview the asylum residents. They’d all come from nearby counties and claimed to have seen the Black Goat—a half man and half goat creature who they claimed had begun invading their dreams. The dream was the same in each of them and startlingly similar to the story Quintin’s client told him about Victoria before she’d disappeared.

  Soon after making innocent first contact with Victoria, Quintin became romantically entangled with her. He didn’t mean to—it just happened, as if she had been meant for him and he for her. Quintin left that part out of reports to his wealthy patron. Victoria claimed that she had left her native California and moved away from a jealous love interest who’d grown violent. Quintin wore blinders when it came to Victoria and so he assumed her story was the correct version, but he was more than happy to use the wealthy man’s money in the meanwhile to further his growing interest in unraveling the strange goings-on of Peco.

  While Victoria worked Quintin researched. The secretive cult had been around for at least a century in various forms. His gut told him that the group was tied to the many strange stories and sightings of the Black Goat; they believed it to be some sort of fey creature who walked through the dreams of the ones whom he had chosen. The cult believed that if more people dreamed of the goat and believed in his reality it would call him into existence… like faeries, only darker and with a greater chance of human sacrifice. The cult worked on a sort of fatalistic theology, and Victoria had been invited by her boss to join.

  Local news reported on the weird stories of goat sightings—but for the first time that Quintin could determine the beast had manifested itself physically. Police had found hoof prints and physical evidence at the scene of a crime, even thought it was ultimately called a hoax by the empirically minded.

  Using Victoria’s invitation to also join Quintin gained access to the cult. Initiates only had restricted access, but the group made lofty promises which appealed to Victoria and the inner d
emons she battled and refused to share with the detective… at least for now.

  As a new cultist, however, and with access to the asylum, he befriended a thoroughly insane and high-ranking member of the secret society. Quintin learned that as more people dreamed of the goat, it would take physical form and eventually choose a believer to be the sacrifice and vehicle of a new incarnation. The highest clerics used dark magics and dream manipulation to spread the Great Dreaming across Texas—planting seeds of the new birth.

  The Black Goat was the chief herald of their most ancient deity: Sh’logath, Devourer of Reality. The Goat would open a path into the Darque—a sort of alternate realm where he could awaken his six brothers, together they could free the Sh’logath from his ancient, eldritch shackles.

  The inmate cackled that if the goat had left physical evidence behind then he was gaining in power. The end would soon come!

  “Wait,” Feeny interrupted the story after a few hours. “You sound like you believe this mumbo jumbo,” he scoffed.

  Kurtis leveled a stern gaze at him. “Is it that or maybe the convictions of the characters are just that believable?”

  As best as he could despite the duct tape restraints, Feeny shrugged. “Whatever. Anybody can rip off H.P. Lovecraft and add their own unrealistic mythos—that doesn’t make it believable.”

  “Unbelievable? You’ve never heard of the Goatman from Texas? Things don’t become urban legends because nobody believes in it.”

  Feeny laughed derisively. “Yeah. Mentally unhinged people, maybe.”

  Kurtis closed the book.

  “Felicia’s father swore by the Goatman. He’d seen it and barely escaped with his life; I’ve even seen the scar it gave him when he fled a campsite as the lone survivor.” Kurtis’s demeanor suddenly shifted from excited to malevolent. “You know nothing,” he spat as he stood. “Maybe if you used the internet for things other than destroying lives or misleading young women your world wouldn’t be so small.”

  Feeny recoiled slightly from the enraged author who spun wildly. He sat rigidly in the seat as his captor raged.

  “Felicia believed his story and believed in the Goatman. She believed in my book and in me!” He whirled around and headed for the door; fuming, he slammed it shut behind him.

  Finally, once he heard the car start, Feeny relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Two seconds later Kurtis kicked the door opened. “I almost forgot,” he snarled. The author pulled his knife and slashed Feeny across the leg. “Today’s lesson is over.” With a wicked smirk, he locked the door and departed.

  14

  Mark Feeny’s wrist bled. They’d rubbed raw where the tape touched his skin; the wound looked like leprosy and felt like fire. His arm had gone weak and tired from wiggling his arm back and forth all night as he tried to loosen or break his bond. The tape’s glue gelled thick and stung with every movement he made since sometime after midnight.

  He sighed and groaned as the unyielding restraint refused to budge. Despite working at it all night he’d made too little progress. The sun had been up for at least an hour and his kidnapper would return soon, though Feeny didn’t know when exactly to expect him. No clocks hung on the cabin walls so it didn’t matter anyway—he only knew it would be soon.

  The tape began binding up and rolling onto itself, actually making it stronger than before. Feeny cried out as his friction-burned skin tore open. He thrashed in frustration; the cut worsened, spilling blood down over the joint. He pulled and his blood-slicked hand nearly came free.

  Feeny knew he had to escape and as soon as possible. He couldn’t imagine any conditions where the deranged author would release him alive. Though he couldn’t guess the circumstances, he was sure Kurtis Ward’s wife and kids were dead; maybe the author killed them—maybe some tragedy struck and he’d been unlucky enough to insult a man who’d lost his grip on reality. Whatever the case, he was sure that man would kill him. After all, Feeny had suggested Felecia kill herself and that the author’s kids be taken from him in the online post. Even Feeny knew he’d crossed that line.

  He pulled harder and groaned as the wrist popped, possibly dislocating. He strained even harder, feeling the powerful need to escape his prison before the psychotic warden cut him again.

  Surely Ward had lost his mind entirely, even begun to believe that aspects of his paranormal fiction had become real. Whether or not Feeny lived was moot if Ward was ever caught. He would probably go unpunished by reason of mental defect and all because of a stupid urban legend!

  His chubby hand suddenly slipped free and Feeny cried out for joy. He tore at the other bonds and freed his other arm and legs. He knew he had to get away immediately and lunged for the door.

  With legs so numb and stiff from nine days on a wood chair, he crashed face-first to the floor. Feeny’s lower body cramped and refused to respond; his urine and crap stained pants cracked and stank, filling his nostrils with disgusting fumes.

  Feeny convulsed and tried to vomit from the stench. Instead, he dry heaved—he hadn’t had enough water to allow him enough excess fluid to puke. His heart raced when his ears picked up sounds of a distant automobile.

  Feeling the endorphins of a runner’s high, Feeny pounded his hurt hand on the floor and realigned the bones and then willed his lower body to work. He stood on uneasy legs. The front door was locked; shaking the handle only jingled the heavy chains. Feeny ran to the back of the tiny cabin and looked out the window: more greenery. As suspected, the place was in the middle of a forest!

  He snatched up the fire poker and broke the glass out of the window, throwing the rebar tool through to safety. Paying little attention when the broken glass cut his hands and body, he hauled his portly frame through the escape hole and tumbled to the ground.

  The sounds of the approaching vehicle were distinct now, and growing louder—there was no time for Feeny to rest. He scrambled to his feet, kicking up clods of moss and shed pine needles and plowed headlong into the wilderness. The citrus smell of broken greenery drowned out the fecal odor as whip-like fronds slashed at his face and eyes; Feeny pushed ahead all that much harder. He didn’t know anything about where he was going except that it would be away from the psycho who’d taken him.

  Someone shouted in the distance behind him. He couldn’t discern the words but Feeny thought he recognized Kurtis’s voice. Huffing and puffing, Feeny felt his heart race harder than it ever had in his life as he left behind a wrecked furrow of a trail in his wake.

  He pushed and pushed, tripping on stray roots and unsure if the stinging in his eyes was from sweat or the burning oil from a copse of nettles he’d tumbled through. A clearing lay immediately ahead; he burst through the underbrush and out from the canopy of the trees. The sun hurt Feeny’s eyes but made every square inch of the glen highly visible.

  Feeny rushed ahead, panting. No roots or thorns would trip him up there! Nothing grew within the circular glade; the soil itself was stripped of nutrients and the fine silica recorded footprints of whatever manner of beasts dared traipse through.

  The escapee slowed his gait as the sand choked his footsteps to a slog. Besides his feet, only one other kind of creature had been through, animal feet covering the opening in prints: some kind of cloven-footed beast. A ram… a goat? Feeny scoffed at his own oxygen-starved mind as he entertained the wild notion. The Black Goat—the Goatman?

  Suddenly every muscle in his body seized. He heard the pulsing static sound of the stun gun and felt the piercing hooks of the weapon’s clawed probes as they bit into his rear-side flesh. His taxed heart felt like it had finally burst, and then Feeny passed out

  His jowls shook as he convulsed in the sand, face-first in a group of deep hoof-prints in the glade. He slipped far beyond consciousness and dreamed… of a black goat and a seven pointed star.

  15

  “The people are all having the same dream,” Kurtis explained excitedly while he paced back and forth. He bantered w
ith Feeny who was still restrained but seemed to show a greater interest after the previous day’s unpleasantness.

  Besides a renewed vigor, little had change. Of course, both windows had been boarded up with rough lumber and sixteen-penny nails.

  Feeny was pantsless and a large hole had been cut from the center of the rickety, wooden chair. An old wash basin with heavy patina rested below the legs as a waste catcher. “But what does the symbol look like exactly?” He asked as if genuinely curious.

  Kurtis stepped away, towards the door. With three long scrawls he drew the seven pointed star on the back of the wooden panels in black, permanent marker. It looked like a modified and inverted pentagram from some kind of heavy metal album cover. “One point for each for each of the heralds attempting to cause the rebirth of Sh’logath… one of them is the grand jester, the Black Goat, ‘little brother.’ He is their chief.”

  “But how is Quintin not affected if all the other believers are going mad?” Feeny asked. “He’s having the same dreams that affect everyone else in the areas nearby.”

  “The amulet—the crystal one around his neck—it’s of unknown origins which we will get to soon. It is actually a shard made from the inverse material of the great Tesseract: a reality controlling gem. I’m working out the larger mythos for it in the sequel and in future books. One of the amulet’s abilities is that it negates mystic energies…”

  “Like what the cult leaders use when they manipulate the dreams of the sleepers in the community.” He said it like a moment of epiphany; truth be told Feeny was only putting on a show for his captor—trying to fake Stockholm syndrome. Still, though, he couldn’t shake those thoughts about what he’d seen before blacking out in the woods. Feeny had seen goat tracks at a petting zoo before and knew what they looked like, but the coincidence of their timing and placement was unnerving.

  “It also helps that Quentin has an A-type personality,” Kurtis continued. “The local artists and the creative types were the first to begin succumbing to the visions of the Black Goat and see his sign. Of course the local police wrote off the reports as low-key hysteria. Many of them are A-type by nature and artists and musicians often have a history or suspicion of drug use. Truly, though, creative minds were just more receptive to the call of the Beast.”