Rodney Didn't Help Him by Xavier Llewellyn

Rodney Didn't Help Him
by Xavier Lewellyn
art by Bex Vee

​The haze of the early morning sun filtered through the grease-stained windows of The Horned Bull as Rodney was guided to his high-top seat by a young waitress—young enough to be his daughter. She introduced herself, in a broad Appalachian accent, as Anna-Mae.

“I’m new here,” she went on, while sunlight sparkled in her dyed ash-blonde hair as he looked, fixated, at her chest. She downplayed her discomfort and continued her job, taking his order—a disappointingly ordinary request of ham and eggs on toast, and a cola to drink—which was the same meal Rodney had ordered virtually every morning for far too many decades to remember. Rodney liked predictability, although he wasn’t so much as organized; he was the type to meander through life, uninspired for anything grand.

He had wasted most of his life, never being one to take chances. He had never loved, always too afraid to ask girls out in his youth—or now, and spent his life alone, miserable, in a dead-end job. He made little money, had few possessions that meant anything to him, and his family had died long ago. He had no pets. The only thing he did was sit on his couch, beer and chicken tenders in hand, watching late-night reruns.
He wasn’t unique. There were a million people like him. His hair was grey and thin, skin ruddy and fattened, his clothing unremarkable. Just stained jeans and t-shirts.

There weren’t many people in The Horned Bull at this hour, much less anyone he recognized. Even as insular as Rodney could be, all he recognized were the cowboy Miller brothers who claimed to be plumbers, who once somehow made his already broken sink trap spew dirty, smelly water all over his kitchen.

The bar itself was nothing amazing. It was a shabby-looking place, paint peeling, yellowed and faded, tabletops scratched and the varnish worn away, the fake wooden floor tacky as one stepped on it, and all illuminated by sickly orange bulbs. But the food was serviceable, and that’s what mattered to Rodney.

All of a sudden, a woman sat herself besides Rodney, to his right, not even waiting for the waitress to greet her. Rodney paid her little attention, more focused on his rumbling stomach. After a minute, he realized that the woman hadn't called the waitress over, and he shot a sly look at her from the corner of his eye. He was taken aback by what he saw.

What stood out, most to him, was the fact she was dressed for a funeral; she was wearing a silken, voluminous, trailing gown, decorated with frills, lace and ruffles, with a thick, dense veil, preventing virtually any light from penetrating within. He let out a startled yelp, reminded of not only a horrible old hag from some late-night horror film, but of his long-dead, nasty, hateful grandmother, and he wasn’t entirely sure which scared him most. In the middle of his shocked reaction, his steel-toed boot collided with something hard on the floor, which was neither the bar- table or the stools. For what he had kicked, moved… and clanged. The woman stooped over, not saying a word, and shifted what he took to be some sort of box draped in a black cloth, one just as ominous as the fabric of the woman’s dress, to her side farthest away from him.

He reasserted himself, trying to make himself seem oblivious to his accident by looking around for the waitress, in a terribly unconvincing fashion that resembled a theatre kid who took themself to be far better at acting than they really were.

“That’s alright.” She spoke coolly, responding to an apology he hadn’t made. “Accidents happen.”

He turned slowly to face her, wincing in discomfort. He felt as if hot lights were shining directly on him, as if his body itself had welded itself to the cracked leather seat. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and dripped onto his cheek. He was entirely unable to move.

“…you’re… going to a funeral, then?” he choked out, barely more than a whisper.
She continued to look at him, or at least Rodney guessed that she was, for it was hard to tell due to the veil, but didn’t say a word. Rodney tried another track, with even less confidence.

“I can call the waitress over?”

“That will hardly be necessary, for I am not hungry.”

“I—um, then, why are you here?” he asked, more intrusively than he wanted. He immediately regretted the action, although the woman continued to remain still.

She didn’t respond.

“You remind me of my grandmother,” he added after a while.

“Do I?” she finally responded. Rodney was torn between mild relief and yet more horror as the woman seemed to be interested with small talk. “What was she like?”

Rodney swore reflexively, then winced. “I hated her,” he explained. “She used to hit me, to punish me, even if I hadn’t done anything wrong. But I still get awful nightmares about her.” Rodney, normally, would not have been so open, even if anyone had cared enough about him to ask about his childhood. But now? He felt as if he was a nut that had been hit with a hammer, his innards crumbling out of his cracked shell.

“I guess we’re all haunted by the ghosts of our past,” the woman responded sagely after a long moment, in a surprisingly apologetic tone. “I suppose you could make amends. Perhaps you could do me a favor?”

“How would that benefit me?” he frowned.

Despite being unable to meet her eyes, he had the distinct feeling she was glaring at him. All of a sudden, he decided, whatever this woman’s request was, he’d do it just to get rid of her. She appeared to understand this, somehow, and continued:

“Shortly, two people will come here. One of them will be a man, tall in height, blonde in hair. The other a teenager, dark haired and much shorter. What I ask of you is simple: tell them about your ghosts.”

With that, the woman, as abruptly as she appeared, stood up, her box in arm, and left, the glass door swinging behind her. Rodney slumped forwards, head in hands, processing whatever the Hell it was that just happened to him. Perhaps he had fallen asleep? He knew that not to be true, and, to that effect, Anna-Mae asked where his friend had gone as she brought over his breakfast, telling him that as soon as she turned to take the completed meal from the chef, the woman had simply vanished.

* * *

“What a dump.”

Sang Mi was not impressed. Chris had decided that they should wake up early that morning, and thus her anxiety about falling asleep quickly the previous night resulted in her being entirely unable to sleep at all. It didn’t help that she swore that she saw a cockroach in the bathtub in the shabby motel they stayed at, a few miles west in the denser area of Louisville. They had been driving all day, that day, and only crossed into Kentucky as the sun set and bathed the city in an orange blanket.
 
Not only was she irritable with Chris for his stunt, it was all for nothing anyway, as they didn’t exactly have a schedule to stick to. A few minutes before she had said something to this effect, or perhaps, more accurately, snapped at him with cattiness atypical of her usual friendly nature. Chris had sensed his error and offered to take her to get a proper breakfast, something they had been unable to get so far on their trip.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. It has character! Look at that authentic, side-of-the-road diner aesthetic! A true nineteen-sixties throwback. Something straight out of a movie.”

“A horror movie, more like it. And it looks like it’s from the nineteen-sixties because,” she paused, gesticulating her arms towards the diner for dramatic effect, “It hasn’t been redecorated since the sixties. With our luck, Norman Bates will be taking our order and Leatherface cooking our rashers. Human rashers made from dumb teens.”

Chris shook and lowered his head in defeat and headed inside. Sang Mi wasn’t too far behind.

Inside, Sang Mi only had to take a quick glance at the sordid state of the eatery to look up at her friend and glare. Chris, unaware of the death stare, was simultaneously engaged in polite chatter with the waitress whilst being entirely oblivious to her flirtatious advances. She led them to a booth, asked them for their order, and began walking backwards before stumbling into a table and knocking over a bottle of ketchup. She hurried off in embarrassment.

“Dude, you do realize she was flirting with you?”

“No she wasn’t,” Chris said too confidently, then stopping to consider the possibility. “Was she?” Sang Mi rolled her eyes.

Chris was about to open his mouth to apologize again for the lack of sleep, but was interrupted when a greasy looking man sat next to him.

“I, uh, hi?” Chris offered a hand to shake; Rodney didn’t take it.

“I’ve been told that I need to tell you something. I wouldn’t normally talk to random folks like y’all, but this woman in this eerie black dress made me—” He stopped himself, realising he was sounding like a child, and changed his tune accordingly.

He began his tale of woe.

* * *

Many decades earlier, ten-year-old Rodney, on his brilliant blue bicycle, sped along Taylorsville Road, alongside his friend Michael, one wintery evening. Rodney’s blue bike was the subject of envy of his fellow pupils, which he reveled in. He took a lot of joy parading it around and showing off, as he had worked hard to save up for it, and this was the first time he had something to be proud of. He had spent the past three summers running errands for his neighbors, and, when needed, cutting their lawns and shoveling snow. Given his despondent home life, even his clothes were ratty and several sizes too small, and his parents couldn’t afford to buy him much of a daily lunch or school supplies; Rodney was often bullied, beaten and bruised, but he never seemed to let them get to him.

As the duo slowed down by the Pope Lick intersection, Michael suddenly had an idea.
“Hey Rod, I dare you to go onto the trestle bridge. For five minutes.” Michael had a wicked grin on his face, with the sharp angles of his sharp face illuminated by the cold sun.

“What, no!” Rodney argued. “That’s really dangerous! My old man told me never to go up there, or he’d hit me with his belt.”

“If you do, I’ll let you raid my candy jar…” Michael manipulated the situation, aware that Rodney never had the chance to have candy, especially as Michael always refused to share. It was a tempting offer and Rodney, pining for the taste of those chocolatey goods, couldn’t resist, even with the threat of his father’s punishments.

“You’ll have to leave your bike with me.” Michael tried pulling the blue bike from Rodney’s hands, but the poor child clung on.

“I, um, I’ll take it with me. On the bridge.” Rodney began to suspect his friend’s actual motive, but, as much as he didn’t want to believe it, he wasn’t going to take that chance. If Michael did take his bike, he’d have no chance of getting it back; Rodney’s father was a coward and a suck-up, and worse still Michael’s father was his boss.

They waited a while, without conversation, until a freight train thundered over the bridge. If a train was on the line, it would be a while before another came along. Rodney scrambled backwards up with the hill, dragging his bike behind him. The sun had now set and the area, shadowy, dark and cold, sent chills up his spine. He took a second to take in the reality of the situation, to see just how dumb he’d have to be to attempt this. He toed onto the railway track and inched closer to the beginning of the bridge, only now grasping just how high up he was. Worse still, there were gaps in the planks, so that he could see the earth beneath him, and there weren’t any sides to the bridge.

It was just a sheer drop down to the unforgiving, cruel ground below. “Do it then,” Michael taunted.

Preoccupied with fear, he hadn’t noticed Michael follow him up. “Mike, I’m really not sure about this. I wanna go home.” He pleaded.

“Too late, a dare’s a dare. And you wouldn’t want me to tell everyone you’re a chicken, are you? A wet, raggedy little chicken who’s too scared to even walk on a bridge?”

Rodney gulped, fortified himself, and began his treacherous feat.

Take one step, pull the bike close. Take on step, pull the bike close. Take one step, pull the bike close. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look--

He looked down. Rodney was not quite midway across the bridge, but just over the creek. He wobbled. The world spun beneath him. He got down on his knees, grasping the rails for support. He felt like he was going to be sick.

He heard a laugh far below him. Michael had done a runner, got back on his bike, and hurried away at full speed.

Rodney was all alone.

The sun had fully set now and he was in near pitch blackness. He blindly fumbled with his schoolbag and retrieved his solid metal flashlight. Its dim orange glow did little to help, but he could just see the wooden beams beneath him.

He wept. He begged God for his mommy, but He didn’t answer and his mom didn’t save him. “He-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?” came a voice, out of the void. Rodney tensed up, then began shaking as

he panned the torch around him. “He-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?”

Rodney’s mind had gone blank; he had forgotten how to move, how to crawl, how to flee. Thunk.

Thunk. Thunk.

Something was nearing him. Rodney swore it came from his left, so he jolted his flashlight in that direction, only to see the faint silhouette of a man bounding up the side of the steep bridge with impossible ease.

“He-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?”

“Please, luh-leave m-me al-al-lone,” he wailed between sobs.

The shadowy figure flung himself onto the top of the bridge, crouching on all fours before standing up on his legs.

“Are you my frie-eh-eh-eh-eh-end?” the strange man called to him. If Rodney wasn’t any wiser, he would have thought that the man almost sounded… goat-like.

Rodney focused his flashlight towards the figure. The amber glow barely illuminated him, but Rodney could see that the man was only wearing pants; he was otherwise nude, but extremely hairy. Rodney then came to the realisation that the man’s pants were, in fact, not pants, but thick, bushy hair, not unlike the shaggy strands that covered the man’s head, face, chest and arms.

“I would really like a frie-eh-eh-eh-eh-end. I’m lone-eh-eh-eh-ly!”

The man’s legs were also weird. It wasn’t just the hair; they were bent, crooked, misshapen. The joints went all in the wrong directions.

Rodney sobbed harder.

The man only now sensed the boy’s fear and tried humming, as if he were a mother soothing her ailing baby, but this only freaked Rodney out more. Rodney let go of his bike and scrambled over it backwards, eyes and flashlight fixed on the being.

The man tried to follow him, his arms outstretched, attention likewise fixed on the boy, and this was his mistake. The man tripped over the bike. The bike tumbled off side, falling into the creek with a hefty splash. The man clung onto the side, hanging on with all his strength, but Rodney could see he was struggling. Rodney watched, petrified in fear, while the man’s fingers slipped, one by one.

A minute later, Rodney was all alone. An hour later, Rodney was still alone.

As the sun peaked, hours later, Rodney finally moved, and went back home.

He never again took any chances. He never took any risks. He never again hoped.

His spirit had been crushed, and a great guilt placed on his shoulders. He had realized, in the days and weeks that passed, after being grounded and punished by his father, that the man had meant him no harm, and had just been as lonely as he was.

And Rodney had not helped him.

* * *

Rodney’s version of the story had left out many of the details. Rodney hadn’t the strength to talk about his regrets, guilts and pains, and had only—in a frank and ineloquent manner—retold the tale hastily and cursorily.
​
As such, Chris was interested, but unsatisfied; he could tell there was more to the story, and hoped Rodney would elaborate, but nothing came, and he finished his coke.

“Well, I’ve done my part. I’ll be gone.” Rodney stood up and left the building without another word or so much as a glance backwards.

The duo was quiet as they heard the distinct splutter of a noise engine rev up and just as quickly fade into this distance.

Chris was the one to break the silence. “Well, that was—”

“So help me if you make some cringey one-liner, Chris. I’m not in the mood.” Sang Mi interrupted brusquely.

Chris tried a different tack.

“Do you reckon that man, whoever he was, had met… you know…?” he trailed off, not needing to specify the identity of the woman, as he and Sang Mi had only met her themselves not long prior.

“I guess so.” She shrugged. “A woman in a creepy black dress sure does sound like Sal. And she told that man to tell us of that ‘monster’ he met; three guesses what she’s trying to get us to do.”

“Yes, it all adds up. After we finish up here, what say we go poke our noses at the railroad?” Sang Mi grunted in agreement.

After a moment of silence and idle contemplation, Anna-Mae brought them their breakfast, balanced in her arms. She laid the plates in front of them, fixing a smile towards Chris.

“You have a really nice forehead,” Chris offered, remembering what his friend had told him and attempting to reciprocate the flirtation. He did not, however, think through what he said and it had the opposite effect that he intended; Anna-Mae’s smile dropped, replaced with a nonplussed frown. She abruptly left them to eat without another word.

* * *

They wasted no time in driving to the trestle bridge that ran over Pope Lick Creek. Chris parked their car safely down the road, a short distance down from the bridge. The bridge was next to an intersection, and on its opposite side lay a gas station. As the duo walked down to the bridge they had to avoid a couple of oncoming cars.

“You know,” Chris struck up conversation, “That guy’s description of the creature he saw reminds me of Greek mythology. You’ve heard of satyrs, right? Half-men, half-goat people?”

“Until recently I would have thought you were having me on, but now? Why does it not surprise me?” Sang Mi sighed. “So they exist, do they?”

“…and so do the Greek gods themselves. Sometimes. My employers have, uh, an understand with them. But people like them come and go, real one moment, then not a moment later.”

Sang Mi took this in her stride. Somehow a bunch of muscled men in togas commanding the elements didn’t surprise her any more than goatmen.

They had reached the trestle bridge, which contrary to the ethos of the stories told about it, was unexpectedly ordinary. The road and sidewalk were clean and well maintained, the grass well- trimmed, the foliage and trees thick and dense. The structure of the bridge itself was rusty, but not dilapidated.

“Let’s hope appearances can be deceiving, eh? ‘Cause this is anything but spooky.” Chris was obviously disappointed. “Shall we take a look around? You have a nosey at the creek while I wrestle with the bushes?”

“Can you do the creek? I actually can’t swim. Never had the opportunity to learn where I lived.”

“You know, that should have crossed my mind after our adventure with Oscar. Alright then, shall we meet back here in half an hour?”

“Sure.”

Chris took to the creek like a rabid dog. He quickly yanked off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trousers, and bounded into the flowing current. He sploshed around, arching his posture to inspect the river bed and bank. Underneath the roadbridge that formed part of the intersection, the only notable find was a bit of vulgar graffiti.

He decided to move on and made his way further upstream after grabbing his footwear, in preparation for climbing over the mass of low-laying vegetation and underwood. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, as he used his right foot to push the growths away from the ground. Human-sized goat droppings, maybe? Evidence of weeds being nibbled at?

After spending ten or so minutes doing this without any success, even leaving the creek itself and traipsing a small distance under the shadow of the several-hundred foot long structure, let out a dry laugh, bored out of his mind. Yet, for good measure, he decided to give his method one last go, one last kick. He punted a rather snide-looking bramble, and--CLUNK! His foot collided with something.

Crouching, he inspected what he had struck: jutting out of the dried mud like some sort of ancient burial marker, was the rusted handle of a bike.

Chris grinned.

* * *

Sang Mi didn’t share her companion’s enthusiasm. Unlike him, she had little desire to hack through the thicket, to come out on the other side looking like a madman with twigs and leaves knotted in her hair. Besides, as she made her way along the raised tarmac path that went parallel to the road, she found that the far side was fenced off. Ominous ‘DANGER’ and ‘NO TRESPASSING’ signs placed by the Norfolk Southern Railway were obvious warnings to any foolhardy adventurers who found that a wire-mesh fence wasn’t enough of an indicator that hiking up the embankment and onto the bridge that loomed dizzyingly high up off the ground was a bad idea.

Instead, she set her sights on the gas station.

She darted around a pick-up truck as she crossed the car park, nearing the building. Incidentally to the supposed satyr running around these parts, the physical architecture of the Circle K vaguely reminded her of a Greek temple, as the front of the store had some six concrete pillars holding up a canopy.

Inside the store, she grabbed a coffee for herself, a cola for Chris, and a handful of snacks, as she thought that not only would they need refreshments, it would give her an excuse to strike up a conversation with the clerk.

She glanced around for any sign of local memorabilia, but with no sign of any she plonked her goods down on the counter. The clerk,—Otis, going by the nametag on his red polo shirt—greeted her and started scanning. He was a thirty-something African-American man, with a fade and a wiry beard.

“So, Otis,” she started. She saw Otis raise an eyebrow upon hearing his own name, but she didn’t falter. “I hear that a goatman lives up on the bridge over there?”

“Let me tell you the truth,” he laughed dryly. “It’s a load of old nonsense. Just tall tales made by people who are bored or who have something to sell. There’s nothing there but death—and not by the hooves of some demonic creature, but by people climbing on that bridge and paying for it with their lives.”

The tone of the conversation had turned dour.

“So it’s all made up, yeah? But, like, what are those tall tales? I’m curious.”

“I don’t know the full details, not that anyone agrees on them, but one story claims there was this Satan-worshipping farmer who became half-goat after a sacrifice gone wrong. The other main story was that the goatman was a member of a circus train who swore revenge on its captors, and for some reason decided to do that by haunting a rickety old bridge—either that or it escaped after the train derailed on the bridge.”

“Pretty inventive, huh?” Sang Mi played along. She didn’t want to come across as a loon if she started insisting that the goatman was real.

“That’ll be $12.98, including the bag. You paying with card?”

She looked at him with an empty expression. Card? she thought. Oh right, yes, money. She feigned a smile while Otis reciprocated with the blandly tired look of retail workers everywhere.

She shook her head as she dug out a couple of scrunched up bills from her back pocket, which Otis tried to flatten, with little success, before inserting them into the till. Sang Mi thanked him as she grabbed her plastic bag in one hand and her coffee in the other, left the shop, then jogged across the road back to the shadow of the bridge.

She saw Chris maniacally grinning from a mile off. “Chris, what’s that smile for?”

He explained what he found.

“There’s a guy in that gas station who wouldn’t believe you and would think you’ve gone a little looney,” she jabbed an extended thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the building.

“Probably. Anyway, I don’t think there is anything more to do here. Reckon we should come back at night? Things do go bump in the night, after all.”

Sang Mi agreed, sipping her beverage as she shook the bag at Chris. He grabbed it and began rummaging around in it delightedly, finally pulling out what he wanted and plonking himself gracelessly on the grass. There, he crossed his legs like a child and tucked in. Sang Mi stood silently, continuing to sip at the hot drink. The more she drank the brighter her mood became.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” she attempted. “I’ve been grumpy. I really am.” She rubbed her head in a vain attempt to ease her thumping headache she only now realized she had.

“Honestly Sang Mi, I hadn’t noticed,” he lied, attempting to make her feel better.

They killed the rest of the day by visiting Louisville’s amenities; they wasted an unreasonable amount of time due to Chris’s prideful refusal to ask for directions; the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory was an enjoyable visit, even in spite of their shared ignorance of baseball; they were impressed by the veneration of the late Muhammad Ali at his eponymous museum; and they spent the rest of the day at NuLu, topping everything off with a meal at an oven-baked pizza place. They were living in the moment, basking in the wonder of life itself.

* * *

They were welcomed back to Pope Lick Creek by the hoots of an owl, perched on a tree, high up and out of sight. Chris parked the car in the same place as earlier, and while he grabbed a pair of flashlights for himself and Sang Mi, he was taken aback by what she was preparing.

“The baseball bat? Do you really think that’s necessary?”

From the baseball factory they visited earlier, Sang Mi had insisted on having a personalized bat to commemorate the visit, which had cost a small fortune. Yet Chris thought it a small price to pay for her joy over the stained, wooden-bodied club, which she had customized with a blue barrel and a short, inscribed message:

Kalingkata: The Wandering Star.

“Absolutely!” she grinned. The angle of light from Chris’s flashlight cast shadows in the recesses of her face that made her expression look more akin to that of a maniacal nutjob. He let out a laugh then tossed her the other flashlight before she remembered to ask: “Considering we’re about to trespass, do you have those wire cutters on you?”

Chris promptly dug the pair out from the trunk and brandished them in the air triumphantly.

They wasted no time in cutting through the fence and ignoring the multiple and very literal warning signs, checking over their shoulders to make sure nobody was near, climbing up the very same bank the man at the diner had described, and making it onto the railroad line. They safely crouched in the shadows for a while, telling jokes as they waited for a train to pass them. After the train thundered past, which took an annoyingly long time given its length and slow speed, Sang Mi realized that they could have just waited in the car. Chris aptly facepalmed. They got up and brushed the dirt off their trousers.

“That guy wasn’t exaggerating when he described this thing,” Sang Mi groaned as she tentatively placed a foot onto the first beam.

“Hey, it’s not that bad!” Chris made a show of confidence, walking backwards along the bridge with ease. “Just don’t look down.”

Sang Mi shot him a look but he was too oblivious to notice, caught up in the exhilaration of the height. Up here, the breeze tousled Chris’s hair majestically. Yet for Sang Mi, it seemed to unfairly whip across her face.

“Ahoy there, Goatman!” Chris called out into the void. “We’re here to talk! We’re your friends!” “CHRIS!” Sang Mi worriedly hissed at him. “Keep it down! Someone could still hear us.”

“Such as?” He heeded little for the fact that unwanted attention could actually land them in trouble with the authorities.

Instead of replying, Sang Mi merely pointed in the direction of the gas station and, as he followed the direction of her finger, he let out a deflated “Ah”.

They continued on, now in silence, hoping for any sign of anything out of the ordinary. Although they didn’t admit it to each other, they felt as if they were wasting their time. Even though they knew Sal expected them to find something, this felt to them more as if she were playing an unfunny prank and was about to appear any moment and shout “Boo!”, as nonsensical and dangerous an act like that would be right now.

It was lucky for them, for at that precise moment, the fabled goatman made an appearance. Yet, in spite of them being prepared for everything…

…they weren’t prepared for this. “Is that…?” Sang Mi started.
“What the Hell?” Chris finished.

The goatman was decidedly translucent and glowed a pale blue light. “It’s a ghost?!” Sang Mi was dumbfounded.

Chris scratched his head, entirely unsure what to do.

“He-eh-eh-eh-eh-ello?” the goatman wailed eerily. “Fri-eh-eh-eh-ends?”

“Yes, yes we are!” Chris’s instincts kicked in and his mind snapped into action. “We are your friends and we’re here to help! So what do you need help with, Mr Goatman…? Uhhh, do you have a name?”

As the spectral being neared them, Chris and Sang Mi tried to get a better look by illuminating it with their flashlights, but the light passed right through.

“If any physicists were here they’d have a field day with this.” Sang Mi grinned. “This is fascinating.”

“Frie-eh-eh-eh-end?”

Chris sighed. He had hoped that communicating with a ghost wouldn’t have been like in stories.

Still, he tried again.

“Yes, we are. I’m Chris Cwej, and this is my friend Sang Mi. And we’re your friends too.”
“Fri-eh-eh-eh-ends.” It said more assertively. It had now reached, more-or-less, the midpoint of the bridge--

—and, without warning, fell sideways into the darkness below. The duo craned their necks over, just as its unearthly illuminance disappeared. Without words, they ran back to the end of the bridge and slid down the embankment. Chris grabbed a spade from the car, Sang Mi left her baseball bat, and they made their way to where the goatman fell, marked by the rusted handle of a bike.

“We should help him pass on, shouldn’t we?” Sang Mi suggested. “Find his bones and give him a proper farewell, from friends. That should work, shouldn’t it?”

“Worth a shot!”

Sang Mi held her flashlight steady as Chris rested his on the ground and started digging around the bike, using the edge of the shovel itself to hack through the web of roots. His strength made quick work of the job; as Sang Mi hauled the bike backwards, out of Chris’s way, he started digging with his hands and placing any bones he found in a neat pile.

There weren’t many. Over the course of decades, the goatman’s corpse had likely been scavenged by wildlife, and the remnants further distributed by weather. In all, there appeared to be a few odd fingers, a femur, a few ribs and a fractured skull.

* * *

As the sun rose once again, Chris and Sang Mi had work to do.

After a quick minute of research on Google, they decided on Jefferson Memorial Forest as the perfect place to lay the goatman’s body to rest. They carried its bones in a cardboard box they plucked from the gas station as they walked deep into the forest, ascending the terrain to a high point that overlooked downtown Louisville. Chris dug a grave and lowered the remains into it.

“Sang Mi, do you want to say a few words?”

“Sure. Um, Mr. Goatman, while we didn’t really know you, you were probably really nice, and it’s awful the way you died. I’m sorry you never had friends in life, but now, you have us.” She spoke softly, yet uncertainly. The city caught her eye and she added: “And the city and the forest. You’ll have the world of humans and the world of nature buzzing around you, forever, and you can become one with the Earth itself.”

“That was lovely,” Chris smiled with great sincerity.

“I wasn’t that good. I just said the first thing that came to mind. I keep thinking I should just say a prayer—I just didn’t know if that would be…” She trailed off, and repeated a muttered: “It wasn’t that good.”

“You are that good,” Chris insisted. “Now, we’ve someone to visit.”

* * *

Rodney had just finished his meal of ham and eggs on toast and was heading back to his rusty, beaten truck. To his horror he noticed a car pull up with those two strangers from the day before and he rushed into his truck. They ran over, shouting hello, and began knocking on his window. He was just about to tell them to leave him alone when he noticed what the girl was holding.

No.

It couldn’t be.

It was his bike. It was mangled, bent, rusted, muddy, and overall just scrap at this point, but it was his bike!

He slowly got out and fell to his knees, in complete shock. “W-where did you find it?” he stammered.

“Pretty much exactly where you said it was,” blond man told him. “Same with the goatman.” Rodney looked up at the man, his eyes filled with fright.

“Yes, that goatman. It never meant you any harm, you know. But we found it, or what was left of it, and gave it a proper farewell.” The man smiled reassuringly.

“And I think that’ll be the last people see of the goatman. It can be at peace and people won’t have a reason to risk their lives trying to find it.” The girl added.

Rodney was at a loss for words. He shook the hands of the pair and got back in his truck after putting his bike in the truck bed, and drove off.

He took in the rays of the summer sun, feeling the warm rays dance on his skin.

He felt renewed. The incident in his past, that had eaten so thoroughly at his mind for countless years, was now not so bad. He was feeling so much better, anticipatory of what the world could offer him. That night was far behind him.

And now?

A new lease of life lay ahead.

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Next Stop:
Always Be a Part of Me
by L. Alves

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