The basement was thick with cigarette smoke and a little weed, the kind of air that stuck to your clothes long after the night ended. An old lava lamp floated light against the basement wood paneling. River perched on stool, a cigarette dangling from her lips. 

“Tell them, John,” she teased. “Tell them the story.”

I didn’t have a story. Not yet. But the way everyone leaned in, the girls clutching their drinks, the guys daring me with half-grins, made me want to give them one. So I started spinning. 

“You ever hear about the Goatman?” I asked, lowering my voice. 

A couple of heads shook no. Good. That meant I could build him however I wanted. I started with something like Pan or Puck, but more ancient.

“They say he came out of the fields around here, a long time ago. Half man, half animal. But not like some dumb fairytale. This thing is older. Wilder. His grin’s too big, with teeth like broken glass, his eyes shine like red coals. If you hear him laugh, it’s already too late.” 

My voice dropped, and the gang leaned closer. Someone laughed, but it died in their throat when the wind rattled the windows. River sat in the shadows, as though she already belonged to the story. The girls shuddered. River just smiled and winked at me.

“Some say he shows up at parties,” I whispered. “When you’re drinking or laughing too loud, you don’t even notice he’s already in the room.” 

Every head turned toward River as the wind moaned through the windows and the curtains behind her seemed to breathe. 

“Don’t look at me,” she laughed, flicking ash into a beer can. “If the Goatman wants somebody, he’s taking one of you.”

By Monday morning, the story had legs. River and I kept it alive, spinning it wilder with each telling. In the cafeteria, she whispered about him dragging dead deer through the cornfields. In history class, I swore he lived down by the old train trestle. By Friday, everyone had heard of him. Someone swore their cousin saw him once, or that a guy vanished on County Road G. No body. Just blood and hoofprints in the mud. That was the beauty of it. The Goatman didn’t need to be real. He just needed to feel possible.

We stared for a long time when we found the old farmhouse. It sat at the end of a gravel drive, half-swallowed by weeds and trees, windows like black holes. The porch sagged, the rusted windmill groaned when the wind touched it. The wallpaper peeled in long strips, hanging like dead skin. A rusted bed frame leaned against the wall, coils jutting out like ribs. In the kitchen, a calendar from 1992 still clung to the wall. The air was so thick and damp it felt like breathing through cloth.

River just smiled and said, “This is it. The Goatman’s house.” 

The next day we set the trap with a dozen thrift store dolls and a few toys. 

“Perfect,” River whispered as she placed a cracked, one-eyed plastic doll in the corner. “He’ll like this.”

“You’re loving this aren’t you?”

“You know I am.”

We arranged a few rocks, toy blocks and feathers in crude circles on the floor, smeared handprints on the dirty windows like a ghostly echo. By the time we finished, the house didn’t look abandoned or haunted. It looked hungry.

We brought the gang that night. Flashlights bobbed, laughter covered nerves. The house fed our excitement, every creak in the floorboards winding us tighter. Until the hooves stomped upstairs. Until the smell of death dangled. Until he appeared.

He lumbered out of the shadows—horns catching the light, a grin like the Devil himself had carved it. The house exploded with chaos, girls screaming, guys shoving past each other. Flashlights slashing through the rooms as everyone ran back through the house. He cornered River, scooped her up. Hot breath and spit hit her face as she kicked and clawed at him.

I grabbed a broken table leg and swung. It cracked across his back like gunfire. He roared and threw River aside. She scrambled across the floor as he turned toward me, eyes wide, fangs dripping. I swung again, wood splintering, and sent him sprawling across the room.

River’s hand clamped on my arm. “John… run.”

We tore through the house as his hooves hammered the floorboards, his laughter close behind us. Our friends bolted into the night, screaming as they stumbled through the yard, before their car raced back to the country road.

I slammed the back door shut and shoved an old wooden chair against it. He crashed into it as I braced with all my weight. The hinges shrieked, the chair legs skidded across the porch. His otherworldly howl poured through the cracks.

“Get the car!” I shouted.

I held the door until glass exploded beside me. The Goatman burst through the window and crouched on all fours, crushing the shards. Then he rose to his full height and screamed—a call from hell itself.

Headlights cut through the dark. My car roared across the yard as River swung it toward me. The passenger door flew open.

“Get in!” she screamed.

I sprinted and dove into the seat as she hit the gas. He stood in the beams—horns crooked like old roots, grin stretched too wide, eyes burning like coals—before the night swallowed him whole. In the rearview mirror, just before the trees hid the house, I saw him still grinning in the drive. 

“You didn’t make him up.”

River’s breath was ragged beside me, her voice barely more than a whisper. The car fishtailed as we barreled down the driveway, gravel spitting at all angles. 

“I thought we made him up?”

---

John Wolfgram is a retired firefighter and lifelong storyteller. Though not formally trained in writing, his work is shaped by instinct, lived experience, and close observation of people—their emotions, their bonds, and the ways they unravel. His short stories The Color of Love and Plenty of Time have both been published, earning first- and second-place recognition in separate contests. He has also received an Honorable Mention from Allegory Magazine. A certified Master Gardener, he believes the best stories grow from deep roots, a little dirt, and the occasional buried secret.