Judas Goat

by Greg F. Gifune

  “He kept insisting ‘they’ killed her. Never did say who ‘they’ were though.”

  She sipped her coffee. “He say anything else?”

  “Nobody’s what they look like.”

  No response.

  “What’s happening in this town, Meredith?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please.”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “There’s something happening, something strange.”

  “Yeah,” she said in a defeated tone. “There is. What, I don’t know. I only know it’s getting worse, like the whole town’s changing.”

  “Changing how?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of strange things, a lot of weird places over the years. But nothing like this. Sheena got caught up in some unusual things.”

  “I found her notes. She was working on something when she died, researching mirrors, black magic and memory.”

  “I know. She became downright obsessed with all that toward the end.” Meredith stared down into her coffee. “When we first met Sheena and I hit it off right away. We were both alone, and God knows I’m cynical, but Sheena was more than that. She was broken. I’ve never known anyone so damaged who could still function the way she did. Once I got to know her she confided in me, told me about things that had happened over the years, all the loss. Her whole life, whenever she had any happiness at all, it was snatched away. That’s how she saw it, anyway, and it didn’t take long to understand she hated her life and was fixated on getting out of it.”

  “She was that unhappy?”

  “All you had to do was look in her eyes. There wasn’t much left. She was a sweetheart, genuinely one of the nicest people I’ve ever known, but deeply troubled. It was like she was marking time or maybe just working her way up to bringing it all to an end, like she didn’t have the guts to pull it off yet, but it was only a matter of time before she would. Sheena came here to die, Lenny.” Rain spattered against the windows. “And as it turned out that’s exactly what she did.”

  “Only she didn’t throw herself down those stairs.”

  Meredith shook her head no and sipped some coffee, holding the mug with both hands.

  “Was it murder?”

  “The authorities said no.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “I think she was frightened.” She yanked a tissue from a box on the island countertop. “Something in that house, in the bedroom, terrified her so profoundly that she ran, took the stairs too fast and fell.”

  “Something in the mirror?”

  Meredith blew her nose. “I truly believe she had some sort of mental breakdown. She was obsessed with the past and with escaping life, which she’d come to pretty much define as nothing but one catastrophe after another. She told me she was Catholic, but after her husband’s death she turned away from religion and started delving into black magic. Nothing too serious from what I could tell, more a hobby or area of interest than anything else. At least until she stumbled onto those articles about mirrors.” She tossed the tissue into a nearby wastebasket. “The moment she started to research various cultures that believed there were alternate realities in mirrors and that through the use of certain black magic rituals they could be brought to life, it all came apart. She started going through everything she could get her hands on that broke down ancient spells or described how to perform them. Book after book and website after website on the occult, everything and anything pertaining to spells or rituals that might summon life, it’s all she talked about, all she did day and night.”

  “I know from her notes that she had a computer, but I couldn’t find any trace of it in the house.”

  “It was a laptop. She left it to me.”

  “Would you mind if I took a look at it?”

  “There’s nothing to see. When I got it the hard drive was wiped clean.”

  “Who did that?”

  “Alec Kinney, I imagine. He was in possession of it, and he’s the one who gave it to me. Evidently there was something on there he didn’t want anyone else to see.”

  “Like what? Why would he care about what was on her computer?”

  “You tell me.” When he didn’t, she continued. “Sheena eventually decided to try some of the spells she’d found, to test them and see if they worked. That’s when I really started to worry about her. She was serious. She was actually buying into this stuff. And when she started talking about blood rituals I panicked. She’d totally lost it and I was afraid she’d hurt herself.”

  “And did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “She actually performed these blood rituals?”

  “You should’ve seen what she did to her arm. She purposely cut herself.”

  He broke eye contact, sipped his coffee. “Did the rituals work?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did Sheena believe they worked?”

  “I think she did, yes.”

  “But not you.”

  “I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. It’s absurd.” She reached for her mug. Her hands were shaking. “It’s impossible.”

  “Why did she leave everything to me? Why did she want me here?”

  Rain lashed the cabin. Marley’s head popped up, and with one ear raised he stared at the door so intently Lenny fully expected someone to knock. But after a moment the dog relaxed and returned his chin to the floor. Meredith seemed not to notice.

  “She talked about you a lot. In some ways I feel like I already know you.”

  “We were only together a few months,” he explained. “I dropped out of college after our freshmen year. I never saw her again.”

  “She told me she dropped out right around then too. But she described the time she had with you as the happiest of her life. She said until she met her husband she thought you were her one true love.”

  “We didn’t even know each other well.”

  “Are you sure?”

  It was a fair question, and one Lenny really had no answer for. He looked deeper. “She always wanted kids. Do you know why she never had any?”

  “She told me she had an abortion in her twenties and apparently there were some complications that left her unable to have children again.”

  “An abortion?” He felt a tremor ripple through him.

  “That’s what she said.”

  She’d only been nineteen when they were together. “That must’ve devastated her. She always said she wanted a family one day.”

  “She only talked to me about it once, and she couldn’t get through it without crying. Sheena had a lot of scar tissue.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes I dream about the days when we were together, but the strange thing is, in the dreams I’m the same age I am now.”

  “That’s because even though we get older we feel more or less the same.”

  “But in the dreams I’m happy…until I dream of her.”

  “And then?”

  “Sorrow. Overwhelming sorrow.”

  “She said it ended badly, that something happened when you were together. She never said what, but it was clear something awful took place.”

  He put his mug down, brought his hands to his face and forced the memories away. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Time’s relative.”

  “So is reality.”

  “Meaning you believe the things Sheena did?”

  “I don’t know what to believe, but I can tell you this. There’s something going on with the people in this town. Alec Kinney’s secretary was wearing gloves indoors. She was obviously hiding her hands for some reason. And the cop that came to the house yesterday, there was something moving in his hair or…I know this sounds crazy but…under his scalp even, I couldn’t be sure.”

  She offered nothing in response but a skeptical look.

  “Sheena’s notes referred to—”

  “I heard all about it, OK? Like I said, toward the end it was all Sheena ever talked about. I don’t know the specifi
cs of the blood ritual. I only know what she told me. She said she cut herself and used the blood to write these ancient incantations on the mirror while chanting some spell or something. You have to stop and try to fully appreciate what it’s like to have someone you know and care about suddenly talking this way, and not only with a straight face, but with a passion that was downright disturbing. She said nothing happened at first, but then she started to hear strange noises in the house coming from the mirrors. She said the ritual was meant to awaken and summon…others…and that it would open a portal they could pass through. It was the most ridiculous bullshit I’d ever heard.”

  “I think Sheena may have died for that ridiculous bullshit,” Lenny said.

  “I have no doubt she did.”

  “According to the legends, the creatures begin as our reflections. Once the ritual is performed and they pass through they can spread it from one mirror to the next, and over time the ones who pass through start to revert back to what they really are, what they really look like.”

  “The key word there would be legends.”

  “Do you know who Jeremy Loudon is?”

  “He’s dead. Local kid. Died of a heart attack.”

  “I think I’ve seen him.”

  She shook her head. “He died before you got here, it was a while ago.”

  “Sheena believed he was still alive.”

  “I think we’ve established that Sheena believed a lot of crazy things. She was sick, Lenny, do you understand? She latched onto this foolishness in the hopes it might ease her pain, and all it did was make things worse. It drove her right over the edge she’d been teetering on for so long.”

  “You said yourself there was something strange happening; that people were changing. You said Sheena was scared. Sounds like that Loudon kid might have been scared to death. Pretty rare for a twenty-three-year-old man to drop dead of a heart attack, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, well since I’m not completely out of my fucking mind I’m just not ready to go with the whole monsters coming through our mirrors and dead people walking the streets explanation, OK?”

  “Then why did you suggest I look into things?”

  Meredith wandered away from the island, keeping her back to him. “Because I knew you were a part of Sheena’s past. I knew there was a lot of pain there for her when it came to you, and I assumed there were plenty of unresolved issues on your end as well. You needed to see Sheena was a deeply troubled woman with very serious emotional and mental difficulties. I was her only friend and I feel like I failed her terribly. I couldn’t seem to reach her at the end. I don’t know you from a hole in the wall, but I do know Sheena loved you, and that you’re scarred from this too. She never got any closure. She died terrified and alone. But was she really running from some phantom in a mirror, or was it something else, something real, something from so long ago she’d never really been able to separate it from who she was or what she’d become? You can’t fool the past, Lenny, I know that myself. It kills you if you let it. It bleeds you. Slowly. None of this is any of my goddamn business, but Sheena was my friend, and I loved her too. I hoped you could find the resolution she never did, and in doing that, maybe find some peace.”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Yeah? The line forms to the right.”

  “You can play it cool and be a wiseass all you want. You’re frightened too, it’s written all over your face. You may not know for sure what’s happening here anymore than I do, but you’re not taking any chances. You’re getting out.”

  Meredith put her mug in the sink. “And I suggest you do the same,” she said, finally facing him again. Her eyes were moist. “Forget about this. Forgive yourself for whatever the hell you did and move on.”

  From the look on her face, he knew. “Only it’s not that easy, is it? Especially when you’re more than friends.”

  Her bottom lip trembled. “Things happened, but—it was more mistakenly, I—we just sort of fell into it and…maybe it’s because we were both so goddamn lonely, I don’t know, but there was something about her, this effortless way she had of…”

  “I understand. Believe me I do.”

  “Sheena used sex to some degree with almost everyone she met, but never as a weapon. Maybe more a shield or just as a means to fight those demons away, I don’t know. Maybe that’s why Kinney wiped the computer clean, maybe they’d had something between them and there was evidence on there, I can’t be sure.”

  “Jesus Christ, is there anyone in town she didn’t sleep with?”

  Meredith glared at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he sighed.

  “She once told me that she’d done a lot of things sexually, had a lot of partners and experiences over the years and didn’t always know why. She wasn’t proud of it but she seemed resigned to it in a way, like it was just the way it was for her. I think she felt a need to do these things. I never have, but I was drawn to her somehow. It was confusing and exciting, frightening and empowering all at the same time. It felt so good to feel something again. For her I got the feeling it was all she thought she had left, that it was the only way she could still express love and truly feel alive and loved herself. And there was something terribly sad about that.”

  “Whether she meant to or not, Sheena caused whatever’s going on here.”

  “We can’t be certain of that.”

  “Do you think she was trying to hurt me by making me come here?”

  “Maybe she brought you here to die too. Or maybe you brought yourself.”

  For a while, there was only the sound of rain.

  He walked to the door, pulled his coat from the hook. “If I don’t see you…”

  She nodded awkwardly. “Yeah, take care of yourself.”

  “One more question,” he said. “Do you know what a Judas Goat is?”

  “It’s a trained animal slaughterhouses and farmers use. It leads animals onto trucks or platforms and into pens, that kind of thing. It also leads them to slaughter. It betrays its own kind. You know, as in Judas Iscariot? Why?”

  “I saw mention of it in Sheena’s notes,” he lied.

  “It’s curious she’d use such a term. What was the context?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  This time she knew he was lying. He could tell.

  “I’m moving on,” she said, letting it ride. “If you’re smart you will too.”

  “What if the blood rituals worked?”

  “I don’t believe in magic, black or otherwise.”

  “But Sheena did.” He put on his coat. “Tell me, Meredith, do you have any mirrors in the house?”

  Her face turned to stone. “No.”

  9

  Gripping the wheel tight, he drove toward town along the winding country road, the windshield wipers working furiously to repel the onslaught. There hadn’t been another vehicle on the road, and he’d seen no trace of anyone else since he’d left the house.

  His head swirled with endless thoughts and scenarios, with fear, confusion and even newfound resolve, and it wasn’t until he’d finally reached town that his focus returned. As he pulled onto Main Street he realized nothing had changed. A few cars were parked but his was still the only one on the road. There was no one on the street and many of the businesses were dark and appeared closed.

  The rain continued to pour.

  Lenny parked near the corner, made a mad dash to Kinney’s office and found the same woman he’d met the day before sitting at her desk. She looked considerably paler than when he’d seen her previously. Her hands and arms remained covered with white gloves, and now, she’d added a scarf to the ensemble. Normally a woman wearing a scarf wouldn’t have raised any suspicion, but it was a heavy garment clearly designed to be worn outside. She had it casually slung around her neck when he first walked through the door, but the moment she saw him she hastily repositioned and tightened it so her entire throat and neck was covered.

  “Mr. Cates,” she said nervousl
y. Her voice was lower and raspier than before, like she was battling a case of laryngitis.

  Lenny kept his distance. “Is Kinney in?”

  “He’s at home today. He isn’t feeling well.”

  “He was going to get me in touch with a real estate agent if—”

  “Certainly,” she said, quickly removing a business card from her Rolodex and offering it up to him. “Archambault Realty is a few doors down. Ask for Jean, she’s the owner. I’m sure she’ll be happy to help you.”

  He took the card, careful not to touch her gloved fingers. He remembered Kinney’s unusually strong grip when they’d first met and shook hands. “I’ll be leaving town later today.”

  “I’ll let Mr. Kinney know the moment he calls in.” The woman’s attempts at pleasantries were replaced with a dull stare. “It’s been so nice to see you again, Mr. Cates. Take good care now, won’t you?”

  With a nod and a dull stare of his own, Lenny backed his way out the door and hurried away through the rain.

  He’d nearly reached the real estate office when he saw him.

  Dressed in black as before, his dark sunglasses in place despite the weather, Jeremy Loudon walked purposefully along the opposite side of the street then disappeared into an alley between two storefronts.

  The street was still empty. No cars, no people.

  Keeping what he hoped was enough distance to remain undetected, Lenny followed, tailing him through the driving rain.

  * * * *

  Slipping into the alley, Lenny moved as stealthily as possible, hunched forward for a better view through the downpour. When the man in black cleared the narrow passage and vanished around the corner, Lenny increased speed, his feet splashing puddles as he went. At the mouth of the alley he hesitated, leaned against the corner of the building to his left and peeked around the side of it.

  An open paved area housed a loading dock at the rear of a feed store. Unless one ventured through the alley, there was only one other way in or out and back onto the street, that being a delivery avenue along the side of the store itself. A small patch of grass led directly to forest on the opposite side, so the area was contained and effectively hidden. Everything dripped and ran with rainwater as it gushed from gutters and streamed along the pavement into drainage grates. Occasional bursts of cold wind blew the rain sideways, spraying it about and making visibility of more than a few feet difficult, so Lenny crouched down and remained where he was.