Legend of The Goatman
The rain came down in cold, relentless sheets over the small town of Ravenswood. Water hissed against cracked sidewalks and filled the potholes until they reflected the orange glow of the single streetlamp that still worked. The air smelled of wet asphalt and old leaves, and somewhere far off, thunder rolled across the sky like the low growl of something waking up.
At the very edge of town lay the Ravenswood forest. A dense, dark, and, according to every child who’d ever grown up here, cursed. The trees grew too close together, their branches tangling overhead like bony fingers trying to trap whatever walked below. In the day, it was merely unpleasant. At night, it became something else entirely.
For decades, the townsfolk had whispered about a figure that haunted the woods: the Goatman. A creature with the legs of a goat, the body of a man, and the head of something far worse. Some said he was a demon born from a botched summoning in the late 1800s. Others swore he was the ghost of a farmer who made a deal with something inhuman and paid for it by becoming its servant for all eternity. Whatever the truth, the stories always ended the same way—missing people, bones found picked clean, and the soft clop of hooves in the dark. Most people avoided the forest entirely. Most.
Tonight, six teenagers stood at the edge of the trailhead, flashlights in hand. Eli was the ringleader. Short-tempered, thrill-seeking, and absolutely certain that nothing supernatural existed. Marissa, his girlfriend, had followed him despite quietly wishing she’d stayed home. Connor, tall and broad-shouldered, was the skeptical one; Tyler, his younger cousin, was there mostly to prove he wasn’t scared. Leah, bookish and cautious, kept glancing back toward the streetlights. Jamie, the quietest of the bunch, trailed behind them all.
“This is so dumb,”
Leah muttered, pulling her hood tighter as wind rattled the bare branches overhead.
“Relax,”
Eli said with a grin, angling his flashlight down the path.
“We go in, poke around, and come back with pictures. We’ll be legends.”
“Or corpses,”
Leah shot back. They stepped into the forest. Almost immediately, the sound of the storm faded, as though the trees swallowed it. The rain thinned to a mist that clung to their skin and hair. Every few steps, the beam of a flashlight would catch the glint of something wet—an animal’s eye, perhaps, though it vanished before anyone could be sure. Half an hour passed in near silence. Then Connor stopped walking.
“Do you hear that?”
He asked. They all listened. At first there was nothing, and then… a faint creak, slow and rhythmic. The group followed the sound until the trees parted, revealing a small clearing. In its center stood a shed so weather-beaten it looked ready to collapse. The walls were warped and gray, the roof caved in at one corner, and vines snaked up the sides like rotting veins. The door was slightly ajar, rocking on its hinges with every faint gust. Nobody spoke for a moment.
“Probably just an old hunter’s shack,”
Jamie said quietly, though his voice wavered.
“Only one way to find out,”
Eli replied, already stepping forward. The smell hit them as they approached—a rank stench of rot and damp fur, so thick it made Marissa gag. Eli pushed the door open. The beam of his flashlight swept the room, and every breath caught in their throats.
Skulls, dozens of them lined the walls. Deer, dogs, raccoons, birds… and human. Bones were tied together with string into crude charms that dangled from the rafters, swaying slightly though no breeze entered the room. Strange symbols had been carved into the wooden boards, some of them still wet with something dark and sticky.
In the center of the room stood a low pedestal. Atop it rested a massive mask carved from pale bone, crowned with two spiraling horns.
“Holy…”
Tyler began, but his words died when the air shifted. A voice spoke. It was low and guttural, vibrating in their bones, and it came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
The flashlights quivered in their hands. Something moved in the far corner of the shed—just a shadow at first, impossibly tall. Then it stepped forward. The Goatman was larger than any of them expected, his head nearly brushing the low ceiling. His legs bent backward like a goat’s, ending in massive cloven hooves that clacked against the floorboards. His upper body was almost human but misshapen, muscles coiled under thick, coarse fur. From his skull rose a pair of ridged horns, and beneath them burned two eyes the color of fresh blood. He grinned, revealing teeth that didn’t belong in any human mouth.
The teens bolted. Eli was the first out the door, but the Goatman was faster. He lunged, hooking Eli through the shoulder with one horn and lifting him into the air before flinging him into the trees. The sound of his body hitting the ground was sickening.
Connor and Tyler sprinted for the trail, but the pounding of hooves closed in behind them. Tyler screamed as the Goatman caught him around the waist, slamming him into the dirt. Connor turned to help—and was impaled through the chest. Marissa and Leah ran in the opposite direction, plunging deeper into the woods. The mud sucked at their shoes, and branches whipped across their faces. Leah stumbled, twisting her ankle.
“Go!”
She yelled. Marissa hesitated for only a second before the sound of hooves came from behind. She turned just in time to see Leah yanked backward into the shadows. Her scream cut off almost instantly. Marissa kept running until her lungs burned. She burst back into the clearing—only to find herself at the shed again.
The door stood open, and inside, Jamie was pressed into a corner, eyes wide, body trembling. The Goatman stepped through the doorway, his horns scraping the frame. His gaze locked onto Jamie, and he crouched, moving with slow, deliberate steps. Jamie whispered something maybe a prayer but the Goatman leaned close, his hot, foul breath washing over the boy’s face.
“Your lord can’t hear you here.”
The horns came down. When the sun rose over Ravenswood, the forest looked untouched. The storm had passed. The trail was empty. No bodies were ever found. But if you were to step inside that old shed now, you’d find a new skull on the pedestal beside the horned mask—small, smooth, and unmistakably human.
