A Hairy He-goat

      A goat's head effigy hung in the shadows. As representations go, it had to be a poor placeholder. The remnants of the hairy he-goat were going to rot in the black of my porch’s corner. It hung there amongst the pealing white wood paneling and dyeing plants. My lack of a green thumb prophesied the ferns’ death, the decomposing carcass ensured it.

      Even in the crisp night air the flies swarmed, the eyes were long gone, the hair seemed to wriggle. Whether that be from the flies or their offspring was unknown to me, though both possibilities were disgusting.

      Someone, more than likely my new decorator, had broken the porch light. The shattered glass of the bulb and housing lay about the planks, swimming in, well for lack of a better term, drippings. The only light to hit this dark little bit of my world was the streetlamp. Casting everything its light touched sickly yellow with its sodium bulb and subtle buzz. The illumination was poor, making shadows lurk and scuttle.

      The rancid reek rolling off the thing crashed in to me and crawled up my nostrils. It was painful, that stink, like the putrid smell was using my nose hairs to pull itself in. Whilst a part of it stabbed me in the throat with a moldering taste that made me gag.

      Burning the rotting thing would have been a blessing, the only form of truly destroying such revolting mass of decaying flesh. The corpse was corrupting in my shadow, my dark distorted twin cast upon the dead thing.

      I reeled from it; the reaction was out of my control. I nearly puked as well. A painful hack escaped my throat, my gag doing its best to take over and assert itself. I heard something drip, thickly. That sorted it, I puked.

      My shadow had followed me, the light from the street casting it now shining on the effigy.

      From where I kneeled the smell was near enough to background country stink that most of my neighbors would have ignored it. And with Halloween closing in the he-goat could be mistaken for an overeager seasonal decoration. Since I had been away for a few days I had to assume it had been placed shortly after I had left, and therefore rotting away under my neighbors’ eyes.

      I tucked my nose into my elbow, relying on the thick coat to ward off most of the reek. It worked, barely. With slow sideways steps I approached the goat at an angle, thus allowing the streetlamp’s yellow glow to shine upon the thing.

      The steps of my porch creaked under my lumbering pace, the noise sounding like cries to my stressed self. This whole episode was doing nothing good for my heart.

      Upon further inspection I noticed that the he-goat was just the skin. But troubling enough it had mass. It was draped over something, or as I realized as I got closer, someone.

      As I ease myself nearer to the weirdly clothed rotting body, my cell phone rang. The tone was near a whisper, but is vibrated with an intensity that my revved up body exaggerated. I stumbled back again, startled by it, and tripped over my own feet. The porch was not kind to me and I fell off it. The cement on my walkway slowed my fall, bringing me to gentle stop. Or I wished it had, sadly the sudden end to my struggle with gravity knocked the air from my lungs and slammed a headache into my brain.

      I lay there, breathing in a chest full of pain with each gasp, head throbbing with each heartbeat. My heart its self was racing, flooding my body with blood.

      Slowly I pulled out my phone and brought it to my eyes. I had received a text, from an unknown number.

In case you were wondering

It’s your brother

By the way

Say hello to your mom for me ;)