Short horror stories

Story 22. Mama's little goat

I left home in a hurry to pick up my son from school. Traffic was flowing pretty well that day, nothing on my way but a few red lights. It was while I was waiting at a red light that I noticed the woman.

I have no idea how long she had been standing there, staring at me, but once I noticed her I just could not look away. She was smiling like a maniac, and waving at me with one hand, while stroking a little boy's hair with the other. The little boy, her son I assume, was wearing baggy brown clothes and a black goat mask. Now that was a very weird costume, plus, who wears a costume the day after Halloween?

He was also waving and staring at me through that unsettling mask but his waving felt uncomfortable and forced. The woman's eyes, they could see right through me and I could almost physically feel her stare fixating on me. She wouldn't even blink. I felt naked and extremely unnerved. Now the boy's eyes, God, the boy's eyes were pleading and begging for help. The woman started to grow impatient, waving harder each passing second.

I looked away. For some reason I was terrified. I had to get out of there. Once the green light was on, after what had felt like forever, I took off. Didn't even dare to look back.

I thought nothing could be more terrifying than that extremely unsettling feeling I had felt under the stare of that woman and her son. But then I got to school, and they told me my son wasn't there. They told me my wife had already picked him up. But I don't have a wife. They handed me a note, saying she had asked them to give it to me. There are no words to describe what I felt when I read the note. "Don't say I didn't give you a chance to say goodbye."