Got the Goat [Ch.1-4]

Got the Goat

    I. Aborted Investigations

In the remoter stretches of the Black Forest, Bavaria, there stands a solitary thatched cottage of red bricks. The cottage dates back to the 19^th Century but its exact date of construction and architect is unknown. It appears to be at least 100 years old. Most of its framework has collapsed from age and lack of attention. The lack of attention is due, supposedly, to superstitions about its history.  Surrounding this cottage stretches an expanse of pasture, but the hues of this pasture decry some deterioration of the soil.

Once, a surveyor of the local municipality discovered symmetrical patches of earth in the pasture. He suspected that they were graves. At the moment that he conceived to unearth one, they numbered four. He headed into town to search for a spade or a shovel. Finding it and borrowing it after an hour, he returned to the pasture. That was at dusk that day. He headed straightaway for one patch with the spade and knelt over it, set to dig it up. The sky darkened mysteriously overhead but his spot was suddenly illuminated by a faint glow issuing from the cottage. The surveyor looked up and gasped. He dropped his spade.

The following day, his office found that he had not returned. His boss dispatched an officer to search for him. The investigator arrived at the cottage at dusk that day. He scanned the pasture and the broken framework for a moment; and then, he noticed five symmetrical patches of earth. He found the spade and picked it up; but he could not find the surveyor. He headed for the nearest telephone and reported his findings to his office.

   II.The Cottage

The cottage has been dated between 100 and 200 years. There is no clear data regarding either the owner or architect of the cottage; but there were unfounded reports, rumors, that the cottage was used as a coven for witches. Those who reported insisted that they saw shapes and lights moving in the cottage before it collapsed. The municipality was not the only source of investigations. Sometimes, the townspeople would conduct private investigations. The last citizen report mentioned a giant goat-like creature moving inside the cottage. The report claimed furthermore that there were two women of unknown ages accompanying this creature, and apparently, they made the reporter think of the coven. The last two investigations have been mentioned earlier. The first was strangely terminated and its successor could reveal nothing more.

The structure of the cottage is a basic symmetrical rectangle, but the bricks laid for it are redder than most red stone or wood in the territory and would suggest that the material was foreign. It seemed more appropriate to say that the material was ‘alien.’ The cottage has raised arches or doorways made from very black wood. The opening where the thatching lay discloses a clear view into the sky and the cluster of stars shining overhead.  Rumors that the wood is alien like the bricks exist too. Residue of the thatching and supports of the roof lay in the cottage. Nobody can either know or prove how these materials came to earth and were brought to Bavaria.

Behind the cottage, there stands an old stone well made from the same red stones used to build the cottage. The water is deep, murky and issues a very pungent odor like rotting flesh or other material. However, investigations seemed to ignore it.

     III.Seek the Man

   Several Days Later

The cottage lay unattended since then. Both the townspeople and the local municipality went about their daily lives almost as though nothing had happened. The cottage was thus ignored to either collapse further or anything else that could happen to it. What happened was utterly inexplicable.

Within days after the last investigation aborted, a strange glow emitted from the well behind the cottage. It beamed in the night like a small lantern. Then, simultaneously, it swept into the cottage and united with the glow that had been observed prior, and some of it seeped into the soil of the pasture and discolored it. Slowly the earth of those five patches began to sift away. When the glow had united with the one within the cottage, the goat creature emerged and sat on its haunches at the edge. The glow began to diminish a few seconds later, and the goat creature raised one forefoot like a hand into the air. On the sole was a strange star-like design bearing an eye at its center.

Two women of middle age appeared in the cottage and sat silently beside it. They both had dark brown hair and eyes. One woman wore a white band in her hair and a long gold chain with a red pendant. The goat creature spoke with a low, hushed female tone.

“Lo! Your species has finally degenerated. Everywhere they fight, they argue, they kill, they rob. They are jealous and hateful. They refrain from morality and sensibility. The moment of their doom draws near!”

“This all is very true, mistress,” the woman with the band replied. “Although we both have worked behind the scenes, it has not availed much.”

“You must seek a man’s help, since they have more power. But I shall impart to you new means.”

The goat creature produced a strange, thick black-bound book whose title was in Latin or Old Greek. It read: De Vermis Mysteriis. She proceeded to teach both women the gestures and sigils of this book. Some days after that, the women separated.

“Amanda, I want to return to America.”

“You may go, Charlotte. I shall carry on alone, here.”

“I know you can.”

“I always do.”

One Week Later

It happened that, a week later, Amanda Delacroix was still resting in Bavaria, when a man of her long acquaintance arrived in Germany. He was on holiday from the United States, and had come to Europe. While in the main part of the country, he toured the Rhineland castles and admired their dungeons. He stood about five feet three inches tall, was a bit chubby, and wore dark spectacles and a short, broad-rimmed hat. He had a thick brown goatee. Soon, he learned about Amanda’s inn and booked a room. One night after that, she heard him and visited him. She was delighted. He was thrilled.

“Well, hello, there, Amanda! What’s new?”

“I am in a coven for the Black Goat, Donald.”

“Black Goat? Oh, you mean old Shub-niggureth!”

“That’s her. I need your help now. She has declared that we must set the pace for the doom of men. Oh, do you know De Vermis Mysteriis?”

“I sure do.”

“Then, you are the best for this effort.”

“I hate to boast but, yes! I am.”

Like before, they agreed instantly to cooperate.

Prinntemps* au Belgie

[Springtime in Belgium]

In the process of undertaking the task set to them by Shub-Niggureth, by means of the tome De Vermis Mystteriis, Dastardly Disruptor [Donald Auldus Whateley] imparted to Amanda Delacroix that he had journeyed through time to the Belgium of the 16^th Century whereupon he met and interviewed the book’s author, Ludwig Prinn. He related to her that he had been touring Brussels and Antwerp and rested at an inn like this one, for two nights. He thought about the Crusades and the Witch trials. Suddenly, he was in Brussels at the time of Prinn’s trial.

“To be honest, Amanda, I was really lucky. Prinn was going to be burned at the stake for witchery. He informed me that he had studied with Old Syrian mystics in the 13^th Century.”

“What an awful shame that they burned him. He would be an asset now.”

“Well, his legacy is with us.”

Amanda laughed out loud.

Dastardly Disruptor traveled alternately through time and inter-dimensionally many times in his infamous career. In the process, he had summoned several entities too.

   IV.The Horror From the Stars

The dastardly duo agreed without any delay that Prinn’s interdimensional shambler from the stars would be instrumental in their purpose. They read and re-read the book thoroughly to search for sigils, invocations and so forth to summon it. In the midst of their research, Ludwig Prinn contacted them through Dastardly Disruptor.

“You need to draw a black hexagram on the earth and stand in it facing east by southeast. At exactly the hour of 12 midnight, not a second later, read this phrase: "Tibi, magnum Innominandum, signa stellarum nigrarum et bufoniformis Sadoquae sigillum" Then wait. When all signs and conditions warrant it, it will come.”

So, they followed his devious council and, on the following night at exactly 12 o’clock, they drew the hexagram and stood within it together, facing due east by southeast. They read the phrase prescribed, took a long deep breath and waited. Amanda Delacroix sensed, intuitively, that the air around them was growing tense as though a tremendous gale would erupt. Neither she nor Dastardly Disruptor felt any fear.

Slowly, the signs and conditions manifested. The air grew steadily tenser. The stars over the inn blinked and extinguished one after another, leaving only one remote star shining in the distance. The same kind of glow that swept into the old cottage swept into the inn and headed for their room. In its wake it alarmed the innkeeper and he thought ‘Ach! Der Teufel!’ [De. ‘The Devil’] The glow diminished slowly to be replaced by a hazy cloud with a dozen tentacles of varied lengths. Some tentacles bore lidless eyes or pincers. It stood waiting before the hexagram. Amanda Delacroix spoke.

“We summon you to aid us in dooming mankind, who has degenerated, and only I and my assistant will be delivered. This is the will of my mistress, Shub-Niggureth.”

“Her will be done,” it replied with an inhuman voice.