Come Get Me

by Michael Hunter

  “Actually I was kinda hoping it would turn out this way,” Johnny said startling him. “See, I hoped you’d come back and not want her. Then you’d be gone again and I’d have her back to myself like before. It’s a little unfortunate you three have to die but that’s how it’s got to be. Who knows, maybe once you’re dead and buried she’ll finally love me and not you.”

  Even though Johnny was telling him they were going to kill him he still almost felt bad for him. He couldn’t imagine what it must’ve been like living with her all these years. If he’d had to do it he’d probably feel almost the same way except without the killing people and stuff. This thought sober him quickly and got him thinking right again. The reasons they had for doing the things they were doing were the reasons of the insane. One wanted to kill him because he didn’t love her and the other wanted to kill him because he’d had to listen to the complaining about him over the years. This really was crazy. He was going to be killed for pretty much nothing. At least if he’d done something maybe it would’ve made a little bit more sense but he hadn’t. There was no real reason except they were crazy.

  “But you didn’t tell him the best part,” Maria said whined. “You didn’t tell him what we did after we had the plan all together. You also didn’t tell him what we did to Tommy and that was one of the best parts. With your little pee sized brain I shouldn’t be surprised you forgot to mention how I, myself, went out in those yucky woods where Tommy was and acted like I was the typical damsel in distress so he would come out of his tree and rescue me. That really sucked by the way, I got all hot and sweaty and stinky but boy was it worth it. You should’ve seen the look on his face when he realized what was really happening. I should’ve gotten some type of award for that let me tell you” She paused to make a few scared-surprised faces, mocking what Tommy must’ve looked like, laughing harder each time she looked at Jim’s face.

  “You also seemed to have forgotten to tell him the rest of your involvement in this whole plan. How once he actually did come down to check on me you came up behind him and cracked him in the back of the head then threw him on that tree stump you’d cut earlier to make it look like some kind of dumb accident.”

  Jim was grateful she stopped to catch her breath for a few minutes. She’d worked herself into such a state of excitement that she was starting to hyperventilate, which wasn’t a bad thing, but he also didn’t really want to hear all the gory details of Tommy’s death. Jim was actually hoping she would pass out then all he’d have to do is deal with Johnny. At least he still might be able to be talked out of what Maria wanted to do. Then again he had already killed Tommy so maybe it was better if Maria just stayed conscious and kept talking. Left to his own devices Johnny might decide to put an end to thing and get out while the getting was good.

  “You also didn’t tell him about what happened to Rob,” Maria chimed in apparently done calming down.

  “That’s because you did Rob all by yourself!” he spit back defensively.

  “Oh yeah, I did didn’t I? Sorry,” she said smiling. “Yes, it’s true. I did call him begging for help with my car. I told him I’d broken down out near the freaks place and I was scared and needed help. Him being the Boy Scout he was he rushed right out to help.”

  “You took advantage of him!” Jim yelled. Pete still needed more time. He had to keep her talking.

  “Of course I did. What else was I supposed to do?” she responded. “I couldn’t very well confess to killing his best friend in an attempt to make you love me could I? Plus Tommy’s funeral was coming up then you’d be leaving. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to find some way to keep you here a bit longer. You needed that extra time to realize where you belonged and that Jill was wrong for you. So to help you out I chopped Rob into little, itty, bitty pieces the first chance I got.” She finished with a giggle. “But,” she started again apologetically, “it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. Sure the screaming was cool and all but you can only take so much of that before it gets boring. You should’ve heard him! When that hatchet hit him he let out such a scream that I thought they’d hear it all the way back at the sheriff’s station.”

  She began limping around and moaning to demonstrate as she was talking. She reached behind her acting like she was trying to pull something out of her back until she finally fell down. She lay with her eyes closed for a moment before they popped open, “And do you know what the best part was?” she asked whispered only a few feet from his face.

  “We weren’t even caught!” she answered gleefully when he said nothing. “I knew the sheriff here was an idiot but I thought for sure he would notice something strange was going on. I mean it was a decent plan but there were at least a dozen things we should’ve been caught on. I mean at the very lest we should be suspects now or something. But as you can see, nothing, nada, zip. They have no idea what’s going on around here.” Jim couldn’t look directly at Pete without giving him away. He decided to try to shift himself to another position more away from him than he already was. If he could keep her attention focused on him then there was at least some slim hope still left that they might survive. He didn’t need to worry about her though. As soon as he moved and got slightly comfortable she smacked him in the head.

  “You don’t move unless I tell you too!” she yelled. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, then my little Johnny-wonny came up with his brilliant addition to my plan. This in turn brings us to the reason for Pete being here. Deputy Dog’s bright idea was to make it look like Pete was the one that had done everything. He was afraid he was about to have the murders pinned on him so he broke out of jail. Johnny was going to make it look as if Pete had somehow over-powered him and taken his gun when he’d gone to check on him. Then the freak, who probably has no knowledge whatsoever about guns, was supposed to shoot his was out of the station with Johnny as his docile hostage.” Maria chuckled a few times before continuing. She obviously didn’t think Johnny was too bright. Either that or she just liked putting him down in front of others.

  “For some reason,” she continued, “Pete was going to contact you and Jill and talk you into meeting him out here so you could help him escape. But at the last possible minute, Johnny, suddenly being the big strong hero, was going to wrestle the gun away from whoever had it at the time and dramatically shoot everyone before they could escape. Then supposedly all the blame for everything would be placed on you three and we would be in the clear. Sounds like a great plan huh?” Jim thought it did sound like a half decent plan. Not one he would use but it might’ve worked out ok.

  “Oh,” Maria added, “did I forget to mention he didn’t really think of any kind of reason why you might help Pete or why Pete might’ve killed his friends? I mean he was crazy sure but not like that. Everyone knew he wasn’t violent.”

  “It wasn’t…” Jim started to say.

  “Well,” Maria said cutting him off, “I didn’t like it. It wasn’t my plan and my plan was better so I didn’t want to use it. Now I don’t really have a choice.”

  “Well, if that wasn’t your plan,” Jim said jumping in feet first just to keep her talking. “Then what was it? What did you actually have planned? Did you just think killing all of us would be written off to another type of accident? You couldn’t actually believe you were going to get away with it could you? Practically everyone in town saw the display you two made at Tommy’s funeral. They also saw you fawning all over me too. If we were to turn up dead after that it would look mighty suspicious wouldn’t it? How did you think you’d get away with it?” He knew Pete only needed a little more time. If he wasn’t out after this, it was over. The last time he’ had a chance to look at Pete’s way he’d seen he was at the window. Hell, if he stood up he would probably fall out. Jim didn’t know why he didn’t do just that other than his hands were still bound but even they were loose. He should’ve made a run for it but instead he just sat there.

  “Well, all that’s true isn’t it?” Maria said taking his bait. “
But if you remember I did leave enough clues for even a jackass like the sheriff to get some pretty wild ideas about what was going on didn’t I?” Maria said. “I mean I left goat hair at most of the places we did stuff. Then I left the hair and tracks at Petey’s house. We even wrote who we wanted everyone to think of on Petey’s house. If that wasn’t a good enough clue I don’t know what was. If nothing else it would just be written off to one of those strange disappearance types of things.”

  “You actually thought you could blame the whole thing on a legend?” Jim asked incredulously.

  “Why not?” she asked. “You four seemed to believe in him enough way back in the day so I figured why not use that to my advantage? See, I know something you don’t know. Remember when you and your little buddies went looking for him.”

  “How do you know about that?” Jim asked defensively.

  “Oh you know, one of those days you didn’t notice me, you know back in high school, well I saw all of you crowded around each other like you were trying to keep a secret so naturally I had to know what was going on. Don’t look at me like that. I was practically your girlfriend so I felt I needed to know what my man was doing. Boy was I surprised to find out you idiots were going out to find The Goatman.” She started laughing at this. Jim didn’t think it was very funny. The four of them had been very serious about finding proof of his existence. According to Pete they’d found what they were looking for. “Hey pay attention,” Maria said when she saw his blank look. “Anyways, when I was coming up with my plan for getting you back I thought why not use the exact thing that had scared the piss out of you when you were little? Why not just do what I had to do and then blame it? I mean sounds like a pretty good idea right? I thought it was. If I did everything just right there was no way I’d ever be caught. As you can see I haven’t been caught so everything must be working right. Johnny’s little brainstorm threw a wrench into everything for a minute but it doesn’t really hurt any of my plans too much. There’s only one thing left to do.” She started walked over to Jill and grabbed her by the hair. Reaching up and behind her on a shelf Jim hadn’t seen before she took something down. It flashed as it caught the candle light. She had a knife. A big one.

  “Now I just have to kill three instead of two,” she said smiling at his surprise. “I think I’ll start right here.” She put the knife to Jill’s throat. He could see her arm tensing, ready to pull the blade across her throat but it never happened.”

  “Goatman, Goatman, Goatman,” Pete yelled exploding off the floor, “come get me!” Then he was jumping through the window into darkness. Their two captors had been caught completely off guard. They stood there with their mouths hanging open looking at where Pete had been only moments before. All that was left were the pieces of rope that had held his hands.

  Jim had to admit he was slightly stunned himself. He hadn’t thought Pete had it in him. He’d hoped something like this might happen but Pete wasn’t exactly the hero type.

  Pete had probably surprised himself too. At least now he had a chance at getting away. He might even be able to find help before Maria decided to cut her loses. Then again who was he kidding? It was Pete they were talking about and they were in the middle of nowhere. Where was he going to find help at?

  “Well, that sucks,” Maria said being the first to recover from the surprise. “I guess we better go get him. We wouldn’t want him going and bringing back help would we?” As they turned to leave Jim felt his hopes rising. Left alone for a few minutes he might be able to free himself and Jill then get away.

  “Oh! Wait a minute!” Maria said spinning back around and surprising him. “It wouldn’t matter even if he did get back to town would it? Everyone there thinks he escaped from jail so no one will believe anything he said. He’ll be lucky if they don’t shoot him on sight.” Her laughter echoed throughout the house as she turned and followed Johnny out the door. The little hope Jim had was destroyed when he heard her. He’d completely forgotten about Pete’s supposed escape from jail.

  After he was sure they were gone he rolled over and sat up. At least he wouldn’t die lying down if at all. He was still alive so far so maybe things weren’t over yet. He glanced at Jill hoping she might’ve woken up but saw instead that she was still mostly out of it. If they were going to get out of there she wasn’t going to be much help. He studied the area immediately around him thinking maybe there was something he’d missed that could help him. He momentarily thought of using the fire from one of the candles to burn through the ropes but was afraid he might set himself on fire in the process. Maria didn’t need anymore help killing him than she already had.

  Just when he was about to give up Pete suddenly came rushing through the door. He was waving his hands around his head like he was trying to ward off evil spirits and mumbling to himself as he approached. He was only a few feet away when Jim noticed something wasn’t quite right. His hands and parts of his shirt were covered with some type of dark liquid.

  “Holy shit!” he almost yelled before catching himself. “What the hell happened to you? Is that blood? Why didn’t you go get help or something?”

  Pete ignored Jim’s question and began untying the knots holding Jim’s hands and feet.

  “Lover boy won’t be coming back anytime soon,” he grunted. “He had an unfortunate accident with a freak and a rock.” Jim thought it better not to ask anything else. Pete looked at him vacantly for a minute then laughed and said, “Ya know it’s really dark out there. He never even saw me. I just kinda stood still and he walked right past me then, Whack! He went down and I ran back here. Those two or actually one really aren’t some of the smartest people I know.”

  “You don’t know that many people anymore Pete,” Jim reminded him.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said smiling and continued working on Jim’s ropes. He seemed to be having a problem getting the knots undone. Maria must have tied him a lot tighter than he’d thought. He hadn’t really noticed until now but he couldn’t really feel his fingers very well. The tingling sensation he felt was the only reason he did notice anything. He wanted to tell Pete to hurry up but thought it might distract him if he did so he asked him about something else instead.

  “Why’d you come back? Why not save yourself or go for help?” he asked calmly not wanting to sound frantic and cause Pete to get upset.

  “Couldn’t leave you here by yourself now could I?” he answered with a quick smile. “You just said I didn’t have that many friends left plus there’s no fire outside. It’s all in here. I didn’t have any. I forgot to grab it on the way out. I can’t go wandering around out there without it.”

  “What do you need fire for?” Jim asked. “Maria just said that everything that’s been happening to you wasn’t done by the Goatman. It was them. Her and Johnny. Not the Goatman.”

  “Oh it might have been them,” he laughed, “but he’s still coming no matter what they say. We called him whether you want to admit it or not we still did it. He’s still on his way. Don’t you doubt it. He’ll be here soon.” Pete quietly started giggling. He’d been working on the knots the whole time he was talking. Jim could feel them loosening as he watched. His fingers were starting to get a little more feeling in them and he could move his fingers freely. He was almost free. Pete was working on the last knot just as Maria stormed back into the room like a hurricane holding a gun in her hand. Pete must’ve had some kind of sixth sense or something because he was up and half way out the window, yelling something about the Goatman and how he was coming for them, when she fired her first shot. Everything happened so fast that all Jim heard was a grunt from Pete as the slug hit him in the back then he was out of view. Jim hoped he hadn’t been hit but knew he almost surely was. It would’ve been hard for her to miss at that range.

  Jim couldn’t waste much time worrying about Pete. Maria was still in the room waving a gun around.

  “You damn freak! You killed my Johnny!” she yelled as she continued pulling the trigger. Jim kne
w he was lucky he hadn’t been hit then again it might’ve been better that way. Before she might’ve just planned on killing him quickly but since Pete had gotten Johnny he had no idea what she would do. He looked at her tear stained face while he struggled to free himself from the last little bit Pete hadn’t had time to untie. He hoped he’d be able to work the ropes loose before she finally decided to turn her attention back to him.