Chương 187: Chapter 187
It had been three days since the first attack, and the town of Sabaud was sinking into a quiet panic. It wasn't the kind of place that had ever seen violence. Nestled in a valley between the snow-capped Alps, Sabaud was peaceful, with narrow streets and houses built from stone, their slate roofs slick with frost. But something had changed.
People had started talking about a goat.
No one had seen it at first, only the aftermath. The blood on the snow. A woman's shrill scream, heard too late. Then, a man, who had gone out looking for his lost dog, found a shredded carcass instead. It wasn't just the death of the dog that unnerved him. It was the teeth marks, deep and uneven. Not any animal he knew. He spoke of it at the inn, the words heavy with terror. The other men dismissed him, but the idea caught on. It wasn't just one person's fear anymore.
The goat.
At night, the town fell silent. No one walked the streets anymore. It wasn't safe. Not after what had happened to Old Man Marx, who lived just outside of town in a rickety house by the woods. His body had been found late that second night, limbs twisted in ways that suggested something had been playing with him. It was a mercy that the goats had eaten his face off. Nobody would ever know what his final moments had been like, or what kind of thing had done that to him.
Nobody dared question it. They just called it the goat, though no one was sure it even was a goat anymore.
The rumor spread quickly. Those who believed it didn't speak of it. But the town's folk couldn't help but glance nervously at the shadowy outline of the mountain range whenever they ventured outside, especially when the wind picked up, sharp and cold. It howled through the trees, but some said it was the sound of hooves on the frozen ground.
Lukas wasn't much for rumors. He was a butcher by trade, a big man with hands that could crush bone, and a head that had survived many a barroom fight. He didn't get involved in town gossip, but the stories began to gnaw at him. Something about the way the elders in the square spoke in hushed tones, eyes shifting nervously. It wasn't right. He wanted to dismiss it, but the feeling wouldn't go away.
Then, on the fourth day, it came to his door.
He had just finished a long day cutting meat and was wiping down his knives when the knock came. Heavy. Relentless.
He opened the door. It wasn't anyone he recognized.
The man outside wore a long, tattered coat that barely covered his thin body. His eyes were wide, sunken, hollow like someone who had been awake too long. His hands trembled, shaking so violently that Lukas could hear it.
"You've heard the stories," the man rasped.
Lukas grunted, leaning against the doorframe. "The goat. Yeah, I heard."
"The goat," the man echoed, his voice strained. "You've got to stop it."
"Stop it? How?"
The man's lips twisted into a smile, but it wasn't a smile. It was the grin of someone who'd seen too much.
"You don't understand. It's not just the goat. It's the mountain. The goat is a curse. It's hungry, and it won't stop. The blood's in the ground now. It's been waiting."
Lukas didn't know what to make of the man. But his instinct told him something wasn't right.
"You're mad," Lukas muttered. He turned to close the door, but the man's hand shot out, grabbing his wrist with terrifying strength.
"Don't go out at night," the man hissed. "It's watching. Always watching."
Lukas tried to shake him off, but the man's grip was like iron.
"You have to kill it before it kills all of you," the man whispered, his face inches from Lukas's. Then, as suddenly as he'd appeared, the man released him, his eyes flicking to the side, fear written across his face. He backed away into the street, his head jerking nervously as though he was being followed.
Lukas stood there, staring at the door for a moment.
The man's words stuck in his mind. He couldn't shake them. He didn't know whether to laugh or fear for his life. But in the back of his mind, a coldness had started to settle. The man hadn't seemed mad. Just terrified.
That night, Lukas couldn't sleep. Every creak in the old wood of his house sounded like hooves. The cold seeped through the cracks in the walls. Outside, the wind picked up again, the howls sending shivers down his spine.
And then it came.
The sharp clattering of hooves. Closer. Then closer. He could hear it in his bones. It wasn't a sound of something natural. It was something wrong.
Lukas moved to the window, pulling the curtain back just enough to see. The moonlight cast long shadows on the snow-covered streets, but the darkness seemed to stretch further, darker than it should have been.
A shape emerged from the shadows. At first, it looked like any other animal, just a shadowy figure with a set of horns rising from its head. But as it moved closer, Lukas could see it wasn't any ordinary goat. Its eyes were wide and bloodshot, bulging unnaturally from its skull. It didn't walk like an animal. It staggered, like it was dragging something behind it.
Lukas's heart thudded in his chest. He could barely breathe. He knew it. He knew this wasn't just some wild beast. This was something that had come for them.
The thing stopped in front of his door. The breath caught in his throat as it sniffed the air, its nostrils flaring.
Lukas backed away, but his foot hit a chair, knocking it over. The sound echoed in the quiet night.
The goat whipped around. Its eyes locked on him. Lukas froze. The eyes weren't just eyes. They were empty, hollow pits that seemed to suck everything in. The way it stared made his stomach turn.
Lukas didn't think. He grabbed a knife from the table and ran for the door, throwing it open. The cold hit him like a wall. He heard the goat's hooves scrape against the stone road behind him, and it was only then he realized how wrong this was. The thing wasn't just hunting. It was taunting him.
He ran down the street, his footsteps heavy and loud in the quiet night. His lungs burned, but the hooves grew louder, faster. Lukas glanced over his shoulder. The goat wasn't far behind. It had a strange, twisted gait now, like it had never been an animal at all.
He reached the square. The inn was ahead.
And then, in a flash, the goat leapt at him.
Its horns caught him first. It was like a vise tightening around his chest. He gasped for air as the creature lifted him off the ground. The knife he had been holding fell to the snow, forgotten. His hands clawed at its hooves, but it didn't let go.
Lukas looked down, and for the first time, he saw the full horror of the thing: its body was disfigured, bloated, as though it had been stitched together from parts that didn't belong. The smell hit him—a rancid, rotting stench.
It pushed him to the ground. The last thing he heard before it tore into his throat was the wind howling again, louder than before.
The last thing he saw was the moon above, fading behind a curtain of dark clouds.
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