August 2020
Denton County, Texas
Nighttime
Day 3 of my stakeout and no Goatman. Not sure if that's good or bad. Either this Goatman is just another chilling story, or a real entity whose existence mainstream science has yet to accept. He or it is said to lurk around the iron truss bridge looming within view of my campsite. I banged on that bridge three times last night, in keeping with the lore, but nothing suspicious or unusual happened. Apart from a handful of does ambling on the river's other side a few hours ago.
I wish the Winchesters were along for the ride, but they're currently chasing down rumors of a being the SCP Foundation calls Siren Head. Think a mummified body, forty feet tall and colored like rust, with arms so long the fingers almost scrape the ground. The head is a pole-like growth with two sirens protruding in opposite directions. If ever you've flipped through radio stations at high speed, you have an idea of the sounds Siren Head makes when stalking humans in the forests it typically hides itself. Most people would dismiss it as just another scary campfire story, and I used to think the same thing about various cryptids. But then I started seeing them for myself: the Slender Man, the Rake, the wendigo, the Mothman, the Jersey Devil, and so many others. All of which I've documented with my camera, but I doubt most people will take the images seriously.
I've seen many creatures in my travels and even more stars. Like my ancestors I look at them and sometimes pick up patterns in them. Those vast balls of flaming gas, millions and billions of lightyears away, will eventually follow in the footsteps of their forebears: go supernova and produce elements that eventually go on to form new stars, planets and lifeforms. So when I look at the stars and wonder what I am, like other people have and still do, it would be understandable if someone told me I'm a product of ancient supernovae. Such is what science has taught humanity after a few hundred years of struggle against religious dogma.
Yet so many people turn to that rather than science for answers. My parents, hardcore Bible-thumpers both, were cases in point; they told me I was a shameful, sinful creature willed into existence by an all-powerful and all-knowing god so I could worship and obey him in a lifelong effort to receive his forgives for the crime of being the way he created me. They also told me who to love and hate, what to do and not do, say and not say, think and not think. And on, and on. Yet I was told I was free, that the dogma imposed on me was the only way to meaning and happiness in life. I had to drink the proverbial Kool-Aid, like everyone around me was doing, or I would experience subhuman status in this life and eternal hellfire in the next.
But then, long story short, I started getting older, more educated. I developed a fascination with history and ancient mythologies, especially the connections between them. I learned about the legacies of the world's various religions: mainly violence, division, prejudice, hypocrisy, and oppression. All perpetrated in the name of gods who gave, and still give, no indication they care or exist. Who share the prejudices and desires of those who believe in them. Almost as if they were made up. Yet the insanity continues today; various kinds of harm are repeatedly perpetrated in the name of religious dogma and so-called holy books.
People lose rights and liberties, even their lives, or at least become social outcasts because of who they love or worshipping a different god, or none at all, or whatever. Equally disturbing is how religious leaders keep a hold on power despite their eagerness to abuse it, and how their underlings remain loyal despite being abused themselves. Religion paints everything and everyone not of itself as the sum of all evil, while defending and glorifying its hypocrisy, violence, and bigotry. Like a rotting corpse in the finest clothing.
This realization was enough to make me shiver; today it still does. Only a small twist of fate was all it took for me to be born into one of the three Abrahamic religions; such a twist could easily have led to me becoming one of its innumerable victims. I couldn't shake the impression that I was expected to be part of the problem by making excuses for the bad behavior of fellow believers and maintaining that Christianity was the only true religion; never mind that followers of other religions said their respective faiths had the monopoly on truth. It's possible my ancient Celtic and other European ancestors, before being pressed into Christianity with fire and sword around a thousand years ago, felt much the same about their earth-based spirituality.
Except they didn't go around torturing and killing people for not worshipping gods of earth, water, sky, animals, and plants. When I experience the physical and psychological benefits of being out in nature, I wonder if those ancestors of mine were on to something. I don't seek to emulate them in all matters, but in a way I take a page from their book every time I climb a mountain, camp in a forest, or boat across a body of water. The feeling I get from doing such things is the closest thing I've had to spiritual uplift; I've never gotten it from jumping through the various hoops organized religion tells me to jump through. If I have a soul that needs saving, nature and science helped save it from religion.
For a while I stared at the journal entry in silence, then stashed the journal itself in my backpack alongside my pen. Shifting orange light danced and shifted all over the campsite, which amounted to little more than a single camping chair, a mobile home, and a stack of firewood a short distance from the campfire serenading me with a familiar symphony of crackling and popping sounds as flames danced around a handful of logs. Mixing with that medley was the soft burble of a river and the calls of various unseen creatures seeing mates.
Nothing I hadn't heard plenty of times before; as long as the animals in the forest avoided my campsite, I would have no issue with them. It felt good to escape, if only temporarily, the insanity consuming the world. Hope County getting nuked, al-Qatala exporting terrorism, biological outbreaks reducing Washington DC and New York City to virtual ghost towns. Maybe Joseph Seed had been right when asserting the world was on the brink. Then again, maybe the world had already gone over it. And I wasn't feeling confident it would go back to what it was before.
Glancing at my watch, I noticed it was about 11 PM, the time I usually turned in for the night. But I was, and still am, a night owl. And that's probably not going to chance any time soon. Throwing on my backpack, I picked up my modified AK-74 and hiked back to the bridge; I was there in minutes. Setting foot onto the wood, I felt a chill run through me because of a sudden breeze making a soft howling sound against the metal frame.
Stories of occult rituals and other macabre occurrences ran though my head; I reminded myself of similar things allegedly occurring on Clinton Avenue, up and down which I'd driven with no problems. In minutes I was at the center of the bridge, metal looming over me and river flowing below, while the trees seemed to watch me like the stars overhead. Trying to keep my imagination from going into overdrive, I rapped three times on a metal beam with my weapon's rear end. Nothing. Another bust, it seemed.
Turning in silence, I began walking back the way I'd come. A few strides later, another gait filled the air, like large heavy feet were on the bridge's opposite end. Actually they were cloven hooves bearing oversized versions of a goat's hind legs. A human torso, muscular like the arms coming complete with long filthy fingernails, bore a goat's head with gleaming eyes and massive horns curling backward.
Already I had my weapon leveled, creature in my sights as I slowly inched backward with the intention of leaving the bridge. The Goatman clopped slowly toward me, staring intently at me while his, or its, hands twitched like he had a mind to grab me and drag me off to do any number of unspeakable things to me. I wouldn't have that; the primal urge to run or fight was becoming impossible to ignore. Especially after hearing the noise coming from the Goatman's mouth; like the noise a typical goat would make but deep and guttural, harsh and grating.
Usually running was my plan A, but having a weapon made fighting feasible. So I leveled my rifle and went full automatic, spraying the monster with thirty-caliber rounds. Some hit the metal beams and dazzled the Goatman with showers of sparks; others bit into his flesh and caused spots of blood to blossom on it. Still making his blood-chilling howls, the Goatman staggered backward and bounded back into the dark forest after my magazine ran dry. For a short while I held position, then rammed a fresh magazine into my rifle before sweeping the spent rounds off the bridge.
A hasty gait carried me back to my campsite, where I had some whiskey stashed away. More than anything else, it would help me fall asleep after that hair-raising encounter. Not like I needed to go yet another night without sleep. But first things first. I fired up my laptop and shot the Winchesters a message by E-mail, detailing my brush with the Goatman and letting them know I was fine, albeit shaken with a whole ammo magazine spent. But it could've turned out worse. A lot worse, if a handful of the Goatman stories I've heard have any truth in them. And I've heard only a relative handful of such stories.
After locking the door and downing several shots of whiskey, I soon drifted off into dreamless slumber. To this day I have a hard time saying exactly where the Goatman is, if not near that bridge. But it's probably safe to say he's still out there, as is Siren Head.
