Whispers: An anthology of Fantasy and Horror

GOAT by David Campton

Goat Kemp knew more than was good for anybody. There wasn’t a soul in the village, except Slow Harry, who didn’t feel unease lest the old devil should blurt out something better left unsaid. If I worried less than most, it was because I had less to hide—merely certain books outside a schoolmaster’s required reading. But Goat knew about them. He whispered a title to me one evening after I had disregarded his cigarette cadging: after which he loped away with a packet of twenty. I should have stood firm—after all what could Ashbee’s pornographic bibliography have meant to my neighbors? But my poise had been shaken. How could he have known? When not in my hands, the book is kept locked in a desk. Where I shivered, though, others quaked.

It was Goat Kemp who had Sam Fernie before the magistrates over a few brace of pheasants. Sam swore revenge, but he had been a fool not to share those birds with Goat: better part with one than lose them all.

It was Goat Kemp who drove little Miss Mellat to desperation. As she waited her turn in the village shop he bleated, “What about the child?” Later, on the church porch after the service, “Where is it buried?” Then across the listening street, “Is coltsfoot-rock poison?” How all those details might have added up we never learned because Miss Mellat took her secret into the river with her. All because she once remarked that Goat Kemp needed a bath.

Which was only true. His filth had medieval quality, peeling in tiny flakes. His nickname, though, came from more than his personal hygiene. His triangular face, trailing cobweb of a beard, and slanting, red-rimmed eyes all suggested a father of either sub- or super-human origin. The villagers accepted that Kemp had been either sired by a goat or by the Devil.

No one knew how he came by his uncanny knowledge, but we all knew how he used it. “Nice to see you, Goat,” we greeted him as he shuffled up to the bar. “What are you having, Goat?” Even if we paid for every glass, it amounted to a modest tribute. He never stayed long in The Ox—particularly if Slow Harry should be there.

“Turnip!” he would spit at Harry. “Great slobbering turnip.”

Nothing worried Harry. He was content, sitting in the inglenook of The Ox, grinning, nodding, and occasionally shouting a joyful, obscene, monosyllable at the climax of someone’s joke. He did not slobber much, and anyway wiped his chin from time to time on his sleeve. Goat hated him because he had no vices. With his big hands and big head he lacked opportunities for falling into temptation. Goat could not blackmail a man without fear and beyond reproach.

In a way our two oddities canceled each other out. Goat took: Harry gave. We liked Harry and feared Goat.

Then a new fear began to haunt the district. I believe Sam Fernie’s children started it, calling after Goat in the street. They only repeated expressions learned at their fathers knee, but Goat turned on them, his slant eyes glowing like coals.

“I saw what you did to Mrs. Bugle’s catmint,” he spat. “She thought it was the cats, but I know who.”

“Tell if you like,” retorted Young Sam. His behind had smarted from his father’s belt often enough; he knew the price and was resigned to paying. His sister, Kate, stuck out her tongue.

“Who tipped ink into the teacher’s desk?” hissed Goat.

“I did,” said Young Sam, protecting his sister while calculating that he might as well be strapped for two misdemeanors as one.

Two tongues stuck out at Goat. Two thumbs pressed against two snub noses.

“We’re not afraid,” defied Young Sam.

“You will be,” snarled Goat.

“He does frighten me,” whispered Kate.

“Don’t let him,” ordered Young Sam.

Anticipating Goat he confessed to the crimes, and was sent early to bed, where he lay face downward for comfort. No doubt Kate was thinking of Goat’s threat when she made her last call that night at the lavatory at the end of the garden.

Her cries brought Fernie and his wife running from the cottage. Young Sam watched from the bedroom window, and told me about it afterward. Kate leaned against the rough, wooden door, her face a white blob in the moonlight. She screamed and screamed, and could not be calmed.

“What had she seen?”

“Was it a rat?”

She pointed to something lying by the path. It was a crude doll, about the height of a nine-year-old girl. Its head was a mangold, and its limbs bundles of twigs.

“Is this all that scared you?” Fernie tried to laugh the terror away. “Just this old thing?”

“It walked behind me,” sobbed the girl. “It put out its arms and touched me.”

“Look. No arms. No legs. Nothing but dry sticks.”

“It touched me,” screamed Kate. “It touched me.”

They coaxed the child into the cottage, and when kitchen-cupboard remedies failed, sent for the doctor. After sedation Kate slept, but for years afterward needed a night light in her room.

Fernie accepted her story of the turnip head, but it stood to reason that a bundle of sticks could not move under its own accord. Someone had attacked his daughter; however when he searched the garden for signs of an intruder, he found nothing in the way of footprints or trampled plants. Oddly enough by next morning the mannikin, too, had disappeared.

Fernie was a sound man with a snare, and could produce a rabbit for the asking, but he always took time to add two and two together, and several days passed before he began to suspect Goat Kemp. The children talked about slanging Goat in the street; in Goat’s garden stood such a scarecrow; and in the bar of The Ox, Goat himself sneered at Kate’s nerves.

Suddenly Fernie was standing in front of Goat, and silence like a blanket had fallen.

“You know something.” Beer and the firelight reddened his face.

Goat bleated. The noise was meant for a laugh. We, like fools, instead of calling for another round, or starting a game of darts, we sat waiting for the next move, as though these were actors instead of men with blood to spill.

“If I believed you harmed my girl, I’d beat that smirk into the back of your neck,” said Fernie.

“Talk,” sneered Goat, and took another swig of bitter.

A flat-handed swipe knocked the glass from his hand, and smashed it against the far wall. Goat dabbed at the bruised corner of his mouth.

“That’ll cost you the price of another drink,” he said.

A gaping seam tore further as Fernie seized a handful of Goat’s coat. “What do you know?” he roared.

“She frightens easy, don’t she?” grinned Goat. “A scrap of kindling and an old root. As long as she meets nothing worse . . .”

After which he took Fernie’s fist full in his mouth, and hurtled across the room after his glass.

“Witch spawn,” thundered Fernie.

Blood trickled from the corner of Goat’s mouth, leaving a red streak on his dust-colored beard. We waited for the threats. Instead Goat’s crooked, yellow, animal teeth were bared in the caricature of a smile, which was worse.

“Any more questions?” he creaked.

“You did it,” shouted Fernie. “You scared my girl into screaming hysterics. You and that damned scarecrow.”

“You saw me, did you?” smiled Goat. “Or perhaps she saw me. Climbing over the wall, maybe. Hiding under a gooseberry bush. Next time . . .”

The old creature’s head banged against the paneling as Fernie hit him again.

“Come near her, and I’ll kill you,” roared Fernie. “I’ll—I’ll . . .”

As words failed, he picked up Goat and hurled him against the wall again and again. It was Slow Harry who stopped the beating, laying a big hand on Fernie’s arm.

“Uh-huh,” said Slow Harry, shaking his head.

“You all heard him,” shouted Fernie, backing to the door. “Next time, he said. That was a threat. A threat.”

No one spoke until the street door slammed behind him. Then we heard Goat moaning like the wind in a chimney.

“Killing, is it?” whined Goat. “Killing.” He struggled to his hands and knees, and was sick.

An old man’s bruises take time to heal, and it was days before Goat limped into the street again. For that time he lay untended in his darkened cottage. The village hated Goat; Goat hated the village. On Goat’s part, during those groaning days, the hate strengthened, sharpened, and finally struck.

Sam Fernie had been troubled since Goat Kemp took to his bed. None of us wondered at that. We had learned the hard way that it did not pay to cross Goat; and Fernie’s fists had dealt more than a crossing. Indeed, remembering how we had failed to protect Goat from the beating, most of us were concocting alibis against uncomfortable revelations—though personally I had no more to worry about than an illustrated edition of The Age of Perversion.

Fernie developed a nervous tic. His head would jerk as though he were trying to catch someone peering over his shoulder. He muttered about black spots, and we advised him to have his eyes tested, even though he could still hit a fly at a hundred yards.

At the end it was a feather—a whisp of white that he swore had floated round his head all day. Some of us saw it, nestling on his coat collar. He made occasional attempts to grab it, but it always eluded him, suddenly swirling away. We chased it along the bar. As we scrambled after it, the door was opened, and the feather escaped into the night.

Slow Harry blinked on the doorstep.

“Feather,” we laughed, as though that explained everything.

“Feather,” said Harry, nodding.

Fernie sat easier that night than I had seen him for some time. Toward closing time he even joined in a couple of choruses. Harry sat in the inglenook as usual, nodding, wiping his chin. Occasionally he would repeat “Feather” as though it was important.

Last drinks finished, we ambled to the door. I can remember distinctly what happened, and my observations were clarified by repeating them again and again in the face of official disbelief.

Five of us crowded the doorway. Bert Huggins and the doctor’s son were on the pub side of the door. Charlie Wells and myself were in the street. The village lighting is not brilliant, but as I swore on oath, the street was deserted. Sam Fernie was between us, crossing the threshold.

He stopped with a grunt, his mouth wide open, and he made a noise as though gathering breath for a sneeze.

“Bless you,” I said in anticipation.

At least he died with a blessing. He crossed his hands over his chest, then crumpled. For a few moments we joked. “Take more water with it.” “Put him to bed, mother.” But when we turned him over his blue eyes were lifeless.

His hands fell away from his chest, revealing a metal ring shining against his shirt. It seemed to be a badge of sorts. It was in fact a butchers skewer, and the rest of its length was buried in Fernie’s heart.

“Feather,” said Slow Harry.

Later I tried to explain to him that the lethal instrument had been a steel spike, driven in with remarkable force. But Slow Harry repeated, “Feather.”

Illustration by George Barr.

In certain matters I trusted Harry. If he said “Rain,” sure enough a downpour would be on its way. “Wind,” he says, and a gale sweeps in. His mother had a reputation with salves and brews; and the pair of them lived closer to nature than most of us. They recognized a sign when they saw one. I should not have tried to contradict Harry when he said “Feather.”

However I had little time for pedantry. It is not pleasant to be suspected of murder. Although the four of us had no motive and little opportunity, the doctor insisted that the wound could not have been self-inflicted. According to the facts no one could have killed Sam Fernie. Yet he was dead.

A collection was taken for his widow and children. Everybody contributed—except Goat, who was not asked; however he came to the funeral. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, he made a strange grunting sound. “Heh-heh-heh.” Some said he was sobbing, others thought he was laughing; but everyone felt his presence to be an intrusion and the noise a provocation. “Heh-heh-heh.” Like an old goat coughing.

Sam Fernie’s niece, Sue, voiced what we were thinking.

“Shut up and get out,” she called to him. “A pity you’re not in the hole instead of Sam.”

Sue was a no-nonsense nineteen-year-old. She had the Fernie build, and the Fernie coloring. Given time the one would run to fat and the other to her late uncle’s boiled complexion; but now she had blooming cheeks, a figure the boys fought over, and a voice that could be heard on the other side of the churchyard.

“What’s yon bundle of stinking rags doing at a decent man’s funeral?”

“What were you doing last night at Piggott’s Alley?” countered Goat. Sue’s cheeks flamed a deeper red as he pursued his advantage. “Are you counting on the doctor’s son to get rid of the inconvenience you’re expecting?”

He ended with a shriek as Sue’s fingernails raked four bloody streaks across his cheek.

Everyone agreed later that it was a disgraceful thing to have happened at a respectable funeral; but sympathies lay with Sue, and we were relieved to see Goat slouch away. The rest of the ceremony passed without incident, and the ham sandwiches were excellent.

Sue’s body was found by her mother next morning. She lay strangled on her bed with the marks of a rope around her neck. The police found her death even more baffling than her uncle’s. The pantry window had been left ajar, but no more than would have admitted a reasonably plump clothesline. All the other doors and windows had been made fast.

Probably I could have helped the police, but I had already been connected with one killing and was not inclined to sharpen their suspicions. Besides, they would never have believed me.

Just after ten on the night of Sue’s murder I was ambling from The Ox toward my bachelor bed and Teach Them to Love, when I noticed a movement by the wall of Piggott’s Alley. A snake was wiggling across the pavement. It knew where it was going, and it moved as fast as I could walk. Having a layman’s conviction that no British snake can be poisonous, I investigated.

The creature was about three feet long, the color and texture of old rope. It forged ahead, determinedly thrusting aside a crumpled newspaper, and eventually reached the end of the wall. There it paused before emerging into the light of the street lamp. Satisfied that all was clear, it dashed across the road, and I could see it quite clearly. It was a piece of old rope.

One end was frayed and the other end knotted. It was not a reptile taking on protective covering; it was exactly what it seemed to be. Yet it moved with intelligence. The night air was still, and the discarded newspaper lay inert in the gutter. Whatever propelled that yard of twisted fibres, it was not the wind.

Bolder by several pints of bitter, and untroubled by the thought that such lengths of hemp have choked the lives from countless men, I quickened my pace and followed the rope.

It seemed to sense discovery, because it reared up, the knot like a head swaying from side to side. After a few seconds it set rigid; it had seen me. Instead of being afraid I felt irritated—sure that I was being made a fool of. Beyond that piece of rope would be a length of thread, and beyond that someone laughing. Even a mediocre schoolmaster develops an eye for japes.

The thing turned and fled. I followed. I began to run, but still it eluded me. Some snakes can move faster than a galloping horse, but this was not a snake. Some boys can move faster than a beer-filled teacher, but slowly I managed to gain on it. At last it was just ahead of me. One spurt, and I stamped on it.

I felt it squirming underneath my feet, struggling to free itself. I had the impression of powerful muscles working furiously; however I am grossly overweight, and the thing was pinned down. For a few seconds I enjoyed the victory.

Then agony like a hot iron lashed across my shins as the rope struck with the force of a flying whip. I stumbled back with a yelp as the thing struck again. Unprepared and off-balance I crashed to the pavement. The rope came down across my back. If I had not been wearing my best Donegal tweed, that last blow would have torn a furrow across my shoulders. The air was knocked from my lungs, and the next breath I took was spent in a wail of pain. I curled into a foetal position waiting for further chastisement. It did not come, but I lay until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Slow Harry lifted me to my feet.

“Bad,” he said, shaking the saliva from his chin.

“The rope,” I gasped, waving to where it should have been. There was, of course, no rope; but Harry seemed to understand.

“Rope,” he repeated, as though it was an everyday occurrence—like finding a schoolmaster rolling in the gutter.

He assisted me, limping, to my front door. I thanked him—brusquely, but I was anxious to cosset my wounds. He seemed reluctant to leave my doorstep. His face, usually a blank fleshy mask, showed unusual signs of agitation. His mouth twitched, and there was a light in his eyes: not exactly intelligence, but as though he was trying to express thoughts for which words did not exist.

“Rope,” he said at last. He put his hands to his throat and shook his head.

He wiped his chin and went away. I busied myself with warm water and ointment. When the news about Sue reached me next day, the only effective medicine was a large brandy.

The entire village seemed crushed by the second killing. If two such healthy beings could be struck down, where could anyone find safety? Mindful of our mortality, we all attended Sue’s funeral. No one could remember such a mass of flowers. No one could remember the church so full.

Goat was in the graveyard as before, coughing, giggling, or bleating, while the vicar intoned the last words, and the coffin was lowered. As dirt hit the wooden lid, Goat fingered his cheek. The marks left by Sues nails showed dimly under the grime. Then I understood.

Fernie struck Goat, and died. Sue struck Goat, and died. Kate Fernie had seen a bundle of twigs walking, and I had seen what I had seen.

“Heh-heh-heh,” went Goat.

I looked across the grave into those slanting, yellow eyes. They were defying me to speak. Goat had powers, but I could no more accuse him than I could accuse the Archbishop. I drank, didn’t I? I knew the old blackmailer’s secret, and knew that he held my life in the palm of his filthy hand. Harry saved me from toppling into the hole.

The momentary faint left me light-headed. Why else would I address Goat across the newly-dug grave?

“What did you do with the rope, Goat?”

Faces turned to look at me; heads shook; tongues clucked; there were several loud sniffs, reminders of my pre-ceremony brandy.

“Did you bum the rope?” I mumbled.

Goat said nothing, but his lurid eyes seemed ringed with fire. I was aware of a freezing hollow inside me. I, too, was going to die. Unnaturally.

Goat slipped away ahead of the crowd. I watched them all leave until Harry and the sexton were with me, waiting to fill in the grave. The sexton spat on his hands—while others enjoyed the funeral’s baked meats, there was still work to be done. Harry nodded to me.

“Feather,” he said. It was a warning.

In point of fact it was not a feather, but a scrap of thistledown. From time to time I tried to catch it, but inevitably I clutched at nothing. The class treated the episode as a comic turn until rapped heads and randomly distributed detentions reminded everyone where they were. I believe I gave a passable imitation of a schoolteacher at work, without revealing the panic fermenting inside of me.

After school I hurried to Harry’s cottage. I had no idea how Slow Harry might give aid or comfort, but I believed he knew something of the terror which clawed at my heart. Harry knew things.

He was expecting me, offering me an inch-thick slice of bread and dripping, and a mug of black tea. Then he made the door fast—the first time in years that it had been locked and barred. I noticed that the bolts were freshly greased. Harry lifted into the fireplace the great iron pot that had been constantly on the boil in his mother’s day. Even he grunted as he heaved it up, and weights that would have flattened me were toys to him. He winked and nodded at the pot.

“Iron,” he laughed. “Iron.” I could not see the joke.

Then we waited. A trying time because Harry was no conversationalist, and I gradually became tongue-tied with the fear which possessed me. I was not even allowed to leave, even though it was past opening time at The Ox. When I tried to open the door Harry lifted me bodily away.

“No,” said Harry.

I fell to thinking that I might be in greater danger here than anywhere. What if Harry should be in league with Goat?

“No,” said Harry. “Not Goat.”

After which I tried to keep my thoughts under control; but they turned again and again to death—quick death, slow death, easy death, agonizing death, but always death. Harry patted my shoulder: this was as reassuring as a medieval executioner’s formal request for pardon.

The day faded, and Harry brought out candles. We sat pale-faced in the flickering light. The windows were fastened, the clock was stopped, and there was no sound except the rumbling from my belly.

Suddenly the window was shattered, and one of the candles fell, cut in half. Something whistled past my face, and hit the wall behind my head.

I dropped to the floor. The object that had shot by me had returned, scored my left buttock, and drilled the table top. I could see the candle light through the hole. I screamed, shut my eyes, and lay still.

I heard sounds like ricocheting bullets. Things were broken—a teapot, a pudding bowl, a picture of Queen Victoria’s coronation. Whatever the thing was, it intended to get Harry too. I heard him skipping about the room, and was amazed that a man of his bulk could move with such agility. Moreover he had the knack of knowing just where the object would strike next, and of arranging to be elsewhere when it did.

A moving target has more chance of survival than one lying prone, so I decided to join the dance. As I rose, everything seemed to freeze. Even the candle flame forgot to flicker. Harry was standing by the fireplace holding the cooking pot in one hand, and its massive lid in the other. In the center of the table lay a thimble, pointing straight at my chest.

I felt Harry’s great boot kick me sprawling, while simultaneously I heard a clang. A bullet hitting an iron pot would make such a noise.

By the time I had struggled to my knees again, Harry had set the pot upside down on the stone floor. Whatever was inside clattered incessantly like an alarm bell. A covering of peg rugs eventually helped dull the sound.

I was panting like an old hound, but Harry stood as stolid as ever, without even a hint of sweat on his face. He rubbed his sleeve across his chin.

“Goat,” he said.

There was no answer when we called at Goat’s cottage. Harry would have broken down the door, but I persuaded him to fetch the constable first. We found Goat on his bug-infested mattress, glassy eyes staring at the ceiling.

In due course the doctor wrote the death certificate, and the village turned out for the funeral. Perhaps everyone wanted to be sure that the old sinner was set down deep enough.

Until after the interment, each day and all day long, the thing in Harry’s cottage kept up its clatter in the iron pot. After Harry had filled in the grave, I returned with him to his cottage. He took the pot into the garden, tipped it onto its side, and lifted the lid. Something streaked away like a flash of light in the direction of the graveyard.

Later I picked up a thimble lying by old Goat’s grave. One thimble is very like another, but it could have been the one that pockmarked Slow Harry’s woodwork. I argued with myself what should be done. If the force that animated the rope and the thimble had returned to Goat, he would be alive down there, clawing at the coffin lid. I could imagine the bloody fingers, the air wasted in unheard screams. Could I let another human being, even Goat, die in such terror?

I am not a sympathetic character. I tossed the thimble away, and limped toward The Ox. My wound was still sore, and besides, it was past opening time.