“Nanny, you gotta see this. It’s so great.” He kept his girlish nasal laughter low and under his breath, his face near to bursting. Jeff stared at Mrs. Kemp, his arms crossed stiff across his chest, and in a flitting movement he tossed the note over to Billy’s desk so fast he hardly seemed to move.
Billy’s face went red with something other than humor as he opened the unevenly folded paper. A crude caricature of a boy with long hair and glasses and a face full of acne wearing a T-shirt with the word “NANNY” scribbled across its front stood with his arms out, lines coming away from the hands and a cloud of text over his head. “The Goat Man made me shit my pants!”
The two boys were laughing at an audible level now that the butt of their joke had taken the bait. Billy was tired of always getting the hook. He liked Josh and Jeff, but they were starting to get under his skin and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take their shit.
“Ahem… Mr. Baker and Mr. Dower, just what’s got you two in such an uproar?”
Jeff pressed his lips together in silence, but Josh’s laughter instead grew to a near-howling madness.
“You two, out in the hall.”
“But I stopped laugh—”
“I don’t care, Mr. Dower, you shouldn’t have started. Go right now, this instant.” Jeff’s eyes were dark as he shoved his way up from his desk and grabbed his books. A scowl twisted his face as he turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him. Meanwhile Josh was still laughing like a hyena as he gathered up his things and headed toward the door. When Josh left the room and Mrs. Kemp went back to her lecture, Billy let out a quiet sigh and crumbled up the paper note.
The last bell rang and Billy found himself again unable to ward off the blond wonder twins. Instead, he tried to ignore them as they walked alongside him, spouting off gibberish and giggling incessantly. They talked him into ditching the bus and walking with them, something he wouldn’t usually consider given recent events, but he couldn’t get out of his mind the night they went to Four Arches: the yellow light, the goat’s head, and that woman…
On the road, Jeff stopped and lit a cigarette as Josh and Billy kept walking. “That fucking bitch. I hate her.”
Josh waved away smoke from his face. “Who?”
“Mrs. Kemp, that’s who, the fucking cunt. I should go find her car in the parking lot and key it or pop one of her tires.”
Josh stared at Jeff in a rare moment of quiet. Billy took his opening.
“You guys, I think I wanna go back to Four Arches.”
Josh laughed and launched into baby-talk mode: “How come, Nanny? You wanna shit your pants again?” Jeff laughed blowing out a huge cloud of smoke, his laughter ending in a long rasping cough.
“Okay, don’t call me crazy, but I saw something weird when you guys left me there the other night.”
“Oh, maybe Nanny did see the Goat Man,” Josh said, his eyes wide with exaggerated fear.
“I didn’t see no fucking Goat Man.” Billy was trembling, the three of them standing there in the middle of the street, frozen.
Jeff threw out his cigarette, looking at Billy quietly. “Shut up, Josh, I think he’s serious.”
After Billy calmed down, the three of them continued walking and Billy told them about the light in the spandrel. He kept the visions to himself, though, not wanting to sound completely nuts. By the time he was done talking, Josh and Jeff were excited—not that they believed him; it was obvious they didn’t. But the coming Friday was Halloween and Josh had the bright idea of telling some other kids and getting a whole big group together to go that night and check it out. Billy was sure Josh and Jeff would be planning some kind of underhanded prank to pull off when they got there, but he didn’t care. He wanted to go back and he was too goddamn scared to go on his own.
Friday came quickly, the anticipation of going to the Big Four eaten up by the worm in Billy’s stomach that squirmed around every time Josh and Jeff invited another kid to come along with them. It wasn’t that they were inviting more kids; it was the fact that each and every time they told the story they made Billy sound more and more out of his skull.
By the time the final bell rang, they’d talked nearly thirty kids into meeting out by the bridge around 11:30 that night and then heading up into the arches together as one big crowded group.
When Billy arrived at the hill by the bridge, Josh and Jeff at each side, he was the only one in the whole group not wearing a costume. Josh was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster; Jeff pedaled along as Elliot from E.T., complete with a basket mounted on the front of his handle bars and a big stuffed brown ALF doll sitting wrapped in a blanket inside. There was an Axel Rose lookalike, a kid with a werewolf mask wearing a thick gray hoodie with Teen Wolf written with a Sharpie across the front, and several ghosts in long white sheets with eyeholes cut in them.
The buzz going around was that the Banner Graphic had reported a body had been found out by the bridge. Justin Collier said the place had been swarming with cops when he arrived, so he turned around and came back later.
They waited around for about ten minutes for any last-minute arrivals. About half the kids didn’t show, but a few more straggled in just as they were about to leave.
The night was still as the group walked up the inclined road toward the bridge. The sounds of chatter, footsteps on pavement kicking loose gravel, and costume plastic rubbing against costume plastic surrounded Billy. Otherwise, even the crickets were silent. A rare side-hanging orange crescent moon hung in the sky like a fiery sickle raised to strike in battle. And yet, Billy barely noticed, his eyes fixated only on the bridge and the watching spandrels, empty holes of darkness waiting to be filled with something else.
Josh and Jeff led the way, climbing up the hill, pulling themselves along with low-hanging branches. The rest of the kids followed, Billy somewhere in the middle, having fallen behind in his slow awkward stumble. Sweat dripped down his back as he climbed the hill.
The anticipation was aching in his chest, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Deep in the far corners of his mind there was a voice screaming for him to run, to grab anyone who would listen and get the hell out of Dodge. But that voice was drowned out in a pool of growing terrifying fascination inside him. It was as if some magnetic force was pulling him from inside those concrete arches and would drag Billy kicking and screaming if need be to get him back there.
“Look at Billy—look. I think Nanny’s shitting his pants again.” Josh pointed to Billy as Billy tripped his way in between the crowd of kids, who were all now laughing at him. But Billy wasn’t angry; he didn’t take the bait this time. He knew something none of the other kids knew. This place was dangerous. Something was definitely here. Something malign and hungry. And it waited.
On top of the hill, the crowd parted and Josh and Jeff took Billy by the arm and herded him over in front of the first spandrel.
“Is this the one, Nanny?” Jeff asked. Billy nodded. “Okay, Nanny, it’s time to go in there and show the Goat
Man who’s boss,” Josh said, pulling on Billy’s arm weakly. “Yeah, Nanny, go inside. We didn’t see anything here— you did.” Jeff plopped his head upward, sending his long blond bangs to the other side of his scalp and out of his eyes, then grabbed Billy’s other hand.
Josh turned and, in between short fast giggles, called into the dark shadowy opening, “Here he is, we brought him back.” He smiled at Billy with a snide sense of pleasure, then started to chant, lifting his arm up and hammering at the air with his fist along with each syllable. “Sac-ri-fice. Sac-ri-fice. Sac-ri-fice.”
The crowd of teens took up the mantra and started to scoot Billy forward. The initially silent night began to whip and holler with wind. An icy cold gust blasted through the spandrels and out at the kids as Billy had no choice but to step up onto the concrete lip entering madness.
A distant spark in the darkness beyond mesmerized Billy like a cobra trapping its prey in a chill blast of paralysis. The same unseen for
ce pulled him against his will, sweating and trembling. The wind called out in long howls, swirling into one another in the night.
The ground below began to shake as if the gods were threatening to tear open the earth, and Billy realized it was the train. The long blast of its whistle caught everyone’s attention but Billy’s. He couldn’t stop staring at the small yellow glowing dot growing and getting closer.
“Look at Nanny—I think he really is going to shit his pants. It’s just a train, Nanny,” Josh said, the nervous look on his face saying otherwise.
The ground rumbled as the train grew closer, bits of dust falling at random from the concrete above. And all the while Billy stared out at the yellow light, now grown to about the size of a Frisbee and speeding toward the open spandrel. Toward them all. Billy tried to push away, to turn around, even to scream, but his body was pinned, frozen, and not by the kids. The vibration of train wheels on the tracks and the noisy teenagers chattering exclamations grew to a fevered pitch, and in the blink of an eye the yellow light burst open like a huge explosion and everything was bathed in golden light.
Josh and Jeff each put a hand up to shield their eyes from the bright intensity of it. The train crossed overhead, shaking the inside of the arch like an earthquake. But all the children stood still, staring into the light.
The woman from Billy’s visions stepped out of the glow, naked, as if gracefully coming up from a river or an ocean, hair tangling about her, the light dripping off her body like beads and streaming lines of water. Her eyes were filled with the same yellow glow. Someone from the crowd screamed in a long carrying pitch, yet still none of them moved.
She reached out her hand and Billy took it in his. Her touch was cold but soft and gentle, just as he remembered it now. She smiled and what must have been a thousand hooves clattered against the concrete as dozens and dozens of small goats came out of the light behind her bleating with hunger in their goat voices as they made their way toward the teenagers.
All around Billy the children screamed as the small goats bit into their flesh and bone and chewed and chewed and chewed, blood dripping from their furry chins and splattering everywhere. One minute they were goats; the next Billy saw them as something else. Tall black grotesque things of mostly rope-like tentacles, each one standing on two tiny hoofed legs. Billy grinned in unison with Her and she gripped his hand tightly. Even Jeff and Josh’s screams, as they were torn apart, didn’t cause his gaze to waver. The power within her was creeping through their touch and entering Billy. The faint outline where the hieroglyphic symbols had been on Her chest caught his attention and he could read them now.
Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat.
And just as soon as the words went into place Her hand locked down on his like a vice and Her flesh trembled as it flowed into something else. The smile remained but the head was now horned and covered in black fur, the eyes still emitting that eerie yellow glow. The thick furry neckline slid down to meet charcoal-colored human-like muscular flesh. The huge, now-masculine body was covered in only a loincloth of dry dirty leaves.
Hooves clattered in droves as the horrid black creatures shrank back down into little goats and scurried back into the light from where they came, slipping here and there in puddles of blood. The Black Goat grabbed Billy by the throat and pulled his limp, scrawny body into the light, glasses, blue jean jacket, and all.
Then the light faded until only the stars and the orange crescent moon remained.
The Old Schoolhouse
Gwyneth Jones
Ten days after Eliud’s plane vanished I drove to Norfolk, with my cello and Fenris in the back of the car. It was a warm, dull August day; the sky over Eastern England the colour of dust. Driving in silence (no music, no news or chat I wanted to hear), I felt strongly that I had company. Over and over I’d glance at my rearview mirror, wondering who was in the back seat. My black cello case and the little black dog gazed solemnly back, puzzled by my unease. Of course I thought I had company: I’d probably never been alone on this journey before. At least one of us, usually Renton, would always have been with me.
The garden looked tended, and was just as I remembered. The wildflower beds had gone to seed, in a mad tangle of baked stalks and tottering poppy-heads, but the swathes of grass between them were neatly shorn. I’d collected the keys from Eliud’s house-agent. I let myself in, dumped my bag and the cello beside a stack of flat-packed storage boxes, and walked around in the cool gloom. Nothing seemed to have changed. The Victorian Board School’s single classroom, long and high, was all the living space. At one end, French doors opened onto the brick terrace. At the other, between his study and the kitchen, rose the white-painted, crooked stairs to Eliud’s bedroom suite. I would sleep up there. The house agent hadn’t been keen on making a bed in the studio for me. The outdoor buildings, our summer camp, had probably been allowed to go to seed, like the flowers.
The floors shone, the rugs were brushed. The kitchen, and that inconvenient little lower-orders bathroom next to it, sparkled. The piano was in tune: which startled me, though I knew Eliud had been here. He’d called me from the schoolhouse three weeks ago.
The great man had finally agreed to let his official biographer get to work. He’d wanted someone to help him sort his old papers: pack everything up and send it to his new house outside London. I’d agreed to meet him here, after his trip to Sydney. But Eliud Tince had vanished, along with his current entourage and a planeload of other passengers and crew, over the Southern Ocean (where the plane shouldn’t have been at all). In the end, failing all news, I’d decided to come alone, and tackle the job myself. Probably, mainly, because I couldn’t face cancelling his arrangements—
I didn’t know who the biographer was. Before their break-up it would obviously have been Michael Renton, Eliud Tince’s amanuensis, his éminence grise; the “torturer” who got the best out of him, as Eliud used to say. But Renton was gone, Renton could no longer be mentioned, so who? I’d been wondering, picking over the eminent specialists who might be in line, and thinking it had better not be me the master had in mind. I’m an instrumentalist, not a biographer. I wouldn’t know how to begin. But you never knew with Eliud. He had strange ideas. I unlocked his study; I checked his desk; I climbed the crooked stairs and poked around in his suite. There weren’t many places to hide a mountain of paper in the schoolhouse: the task looked manageable.
I wandered, studying framed photographs, mostly black and white; so much better-looking than colour. I found myself in a dark smock under an apple tree, long thin arms and a shock of short dark hair; legs like two white, tilted sticks propped against my cello’s flanks. And here was Maria Wenger, Eliud’s stepdaughter by his second marriage: not yet the wonderful, the unique soprano, but already my best friend; in a summery dress all over roses. Yellow roses; I remembered it… It was usually Maria who took the pictures. She was a good photographer. The rest of us were rubbish: Maria was lucky she’d kept her head. Here was Rikard Glode, the pianist, throwing Frisbee with Renton and Julia while Julia’s daughter, Perseis, aged about two, sat by on a rug. My ex-boyfriend in that shapeless green polo shirt and the baggy shorts with the frog-pattern… I recognised my friends by their clothes, the way people recognise relatives after a disaster. Only Eliud, grinning in a deck chair, those famous plaid trousers secured around his scrawny waist by an enormous leather belt, hadn’t changed at all. I wondered how old he’d been then, more than two decades ago, when I was nineteen. He’d started admitting to “the mid-eighties” nowadays, but he was notoriously hard to pin down. He wanted us to believe he was immortal, the vain old turtlehead.
We’d been like family, like courtiers, with Eliud as our ruler and Renton his grand vizier; reigning here in deepest Norfolk, and all the luminaries of the avant-garde music world came to us… But nothing lasts forever. After the big fight Eliud returned to the U.S. to take up a prestigious post in California, not his native New England, and we all went our separate ways. I’d had my successes
since then, but never again known such a magic circle. And here I was, drawn back to the source: staring at a black and white photo of my ex-boyfriend at thirty, his merman eyes reduced to punctured grey. His tarnished-gold hair, already receding even then, flew around his head in thick metallic scales; so soft to the touch.
I set the photograph down, making a mental note to find the digital copies of all these pictures: save them off and put them with the biographical material.
Later, in dusty twilight, I whistled Fenris from wherever he’d been roaming. We walked up the lane to the Flint Barn—like the schoolhouse, a relic of the former agricultural community of Hindey—where I knew I’d get a signal. Connectivity at the old schoolhouse was as dire as ever. There was no news: just the same figures, diagrams, and graphs; the same rumours that went nowhere. I knew that Maria, an Australian herself, was at the airport, keeping vigil with the horde of dignified, tearful, terrified relatives, lovers, and friends. I was glad Eliud had someone on the spot. His third wife, Lucia Ventto, had been on the flight with him, along with her son, Martίn, and Martίn’s newly pregnant girlfriend Annemarie; Maria’s sister, the choreographer Judit Saed; and Maria’s dear friend, ex-husband, Mel Colman the operatic conductor… Almost a clean sweep. It was eerie. I thought of trying to send Eliud a text, hope you’re okay, but that would be ghoulish. I texted Maria instead.
The harvest was over. The old barn stood foursquare, a monument to the days when farm labour was plentiful and poor, facing the remains of sunset on a vast, stubbled, prairie horizon. It was still empty, just as it had been in our day: unconverted, un-reclaimed. I sat with my back to a flint wall that held the heat of the day, waiting for Maria to respond and reading an article that listed all the vessels, air and sea, that had crashed, been turned back by extreme turbulence, or plain vanished over the Southern Ocean recently. The phenomenon was blamed on climate change. Or sunspots. Or both.
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