Monsters You Never Heard Of

by Daniel Cohen

  CHAPTER 12

  GOATMAN AND THE GRUNCHES

  Imagine this—a young couple drives out to some deserted road. It is a spot that people call "lovers' lane." They park the car and turn out the lights. Then suddenly, without any warning, a great hairy thing rushes out of the woods and begins beating on the windows and doors of the car. For a moment the couple are too surprised and terrified to do anything. Then the driver starts the car, and drives away as fast as he can. Over the roar of the motor the couple can hear the monster screaming in rage.

  Perhaps you think that's funny. A lot of people think the story is funny when they first hear it. But you wouldn't think it was funny if it happened to you. The fact is that many, many people have reported having that sort of an experience over the past few years.

  While the basic story remains the same, the tale of the monster of lovers' lane has been told with many different variations. And there are different local names for the monster in different parts of the country.

  Goatman is described as being half-man, half-goat—like the nature god called Pan.

  In northern Prince Georges County, Maryland, the thing is called Goatman. It is described as looking like a creature that is halfman and half-goat the legs and feet of a goat, the upper body of a human being, and the horns of a goat. Anyone familiar with the beliefs of the ancient Greeks and Romans will recognize that figure. It sounds like a description of the nature god Pan, or of those wild nature spirits called satyrs. It also sounds very much like one of the more common descriptions of the Devil.

  There are different opinions about what Goatman is. Some say that he is a supernatural spirit like the satyrs or the Devil. There are others who believe that he is real. They even say they know where the Goatman came from.

  Goatman, according to this version of the story, was a scientist who worked at the National Agricultural Research Center, which is located in Prince Georges County. The scientist was supposed to have been doing some kind of research with goats. Then something went wrong with the experiments, and the scientist slowly turned into the half-goat, half-human monster called Goatman. Goatman retreated into the woods where he hides most of the time.

  Goatman has developed a hatred for all other creatures. He is reported to have attacked parked cars with an axe. Though there is no report that Goatman has ever killed a human being, there are reports that he has killed a number of dogs. In fact, every time a dog is found dead under mysterious circumstances, someone will say, "Goatman did it."

  Pan, as shown on an old German drawing. Is Goatman a kind of spirit like Pan?

  A reporter who went to investigate the Goatman story found that local high school students would sometimes spray-paint walls or trees with these words: "Goatman was here."

  Down in New Orleans there are many tales about a similar creature or creatures. But here they are called the Grunches. No one is really sure what the Grunches are. But most local teenagers will insist that they are "real" creatures, not spirits, spooks, or otherwise supernatural beings.

  They live on a deserted stretch of road known as Grunch Road. This road is also a popular lovers' lane. When the Grunches spy a parked car, they try to frighten it away by throwing rocks. If that doesn't work, they come screaming out of the woods and begin beating on the car with their fists. That is sure to send people off in a terrible fright.

  Grunches are impossible to locate in the daylight. In fact, no one seems exactly sure where they live. When an investigator from the University of New Orleans went out in search of the Grunches, she was given at least eight different locations for "Grunch Road." Needless to say, she never found a Grunch.

  But the goatlike monster isn't the only terror of lovers' lane. Consider this report that comes from the town of Elfers, Florida. Four teenagers left a dance. They drove their car down to a dark deserted road and parked. Then they noticed an awful smell. They looked around to see where the smell was coming from. What they saw nearly frightened them to death. It was an animal about the size of a large chimpanzee. But the creature was green, and it had glowing green eyes. The thing ran out of the woods and jumped on the hood of the car.

  "Then we panicked!" said the driver. "I started the motor and the thing jumped off and ran back into the woods. We tore like blazes back to the dance we were supposed to be attending."

  There is the report by two young couples who said that they were sitting in a parked car near Decatur, Illinois, on September 22. 1965. They saw a hairy monster about the size of a large man come out of the darkness and toward the car. The creature didn't do anything; it didn't have to. The young people were so badly frightened by the sight of it that they drove off at once.

  Later, the two boys said they returned to the spot, but found nothing. The police were called in. They didn't find anything either. The police didn't necessarily believe the monster story, but they didn't necessarily disbelieve it either. "We don't know what they saw," said one policeman. "But they appear to have been well-frightened."

  A young couple from Chittyville, Illinois, was also well-frightened on the evening of August 11, 1967. They were sitting in their car when something really huge came out of the woods. They described the thing as being about ten feet tall, "with a head as large as a steering wheel and a dark hairy face." This gigantic creature did nothing more than throw some dirt through an open window of the car. The couple didn't hang around to find out what else it might do.

  This is just a sampling, and a small one, of the types of monsters that are supposed to haunt dark and lonely roads. If the accounts are to be believed, then many young people who have gone out for a little privacy got some very strange company instead.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Daniel Cohen is the author of over a hundred books for both young readers and adults, and he is a former managing editor of Science Digest magazine. His titles include SUPERMONSTERS, THE GREATEST MONSTERS IN THE WORLD, REAL GHOSTS, GHOSTLY TERRORS, SCIENCE FICTION'S GREATEST MONSTERS, THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS GHOSTS, and THE MONSTERS OF STAR TREK, all of which are available in Archway Paperback editions.

  Mr. Cohen was born in Chicago and has a degree in journalism from the University of Illinois. He appears frequently on radio and television and has lectured at colleges and universities throughout the country. He lives with his wife, young daughter, one dog and four cats in Port Jervis, New York.