The Goat's Head Read online

  All he had to do was to placate her, convince her to stay until she was one hundred percent. At some point though, he would have to explain who he was and that there would be no escaping her destiny. By the time she started to complain that he was also keeping her against her will, Sofie would start to suffer from the graphic images of the evil inside her. She’d start to hear voices, speak in languages that didn’t exist and act inappropriately, never realising that her mind and body were being taken over by the force inside of her far greater than herself. The innocent child of God would cease to exist as it committed one sinful act after another until the birth of their lord.

  When Sofie emerged from the bathroom, her long mane of golden blonde hair was mostly dry if tousled. Reverend Ward eyed her with keen interest as discreetly as possible, noticing the pregnancy test in the girl’s limp hand as she stumbled into the living room area, a profound melancholy etched across her countenance, her sad eyes blinking away the flood of tears that was sure to follow. He dried his hands on the towel and approached the worktop facing the en suite living room.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he said, interrupting her thoughts.

  Sofie turned to face him in what seemed like slow motion. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, her words vanishing in the cottage’s interior like a ghost.

  Reverend Ward came from around the worktop, tossing the hand towel on the worktop and gently escorted the young woman into the vacant armchair. He pulled the other armchair over so he was sitting directly in front of her, elbows on knees, leaning forward, realising that it might in everyone’s best interest if he came clean about who he was and how she had nothing to fear; that from now on she would be protected as though she were a royal. And in many ways, to many other members of the cult, that’s precisely what she was.

  ‘Remember I told you that the woman could recite memories of my life from when I was a young girl - things I had forgotten?’

  Reverend Ward nodded.

  ‘Everything she said - every single detail - was true. I am going to be the mother of their beast child that will grow up to cause anarchy.’

  ‘How you raise the child is up to you, though,’ the old man replied. ‘If you teach the child to be good - he will be good. If you teach the child to be courteous - he will be courteous, and so on. If you show the child love then it will have love to give to the world.’

  Listening to the reverend explain this made far more sense than anything else she’d listened to in a long time. Her old life of getting up early each morning to study, go to her classes in the auditorium and looking after herself was over. Now that she’d discovered that she was in fact with child, even though she was still a virgin, it suddenly dawned on her that nothing would ever be the same ever again. She wouldn’t become a lawyer and work for an established law firm, starting off working pro bono cases until she climbed the ladder to the crown courts and supreme courts where the cases she’d be involved in would be in the news headlines. That was all gone. This, apparently, was her destiny, regardless of the fact that it was against her will. Her existence from this moment forward would be one of pure, unstoppable misery.

  ‘Shall I tell you my dream?’ Reverend Ward said, bringing her back to the here and now. His question was met with silence. Sofie couldn’t care less what his dream was. In fact, that was the last thing she wanted to hear right now, after having all of her dreams obliterated the moment she saw the colour blue on the pregnancy test in the bathroom and her world (the one she’d known and adored with an ardent passion) had ended.

  ‘I dreamt of two purple doves floating above the earth, wings flapping, sailing on and on. I dreamt of a group of angels holding hands in a circle - a circle encompassing a five pointed star, singing merrily in the most beautiful voices, better than any choir, radiant smiles lighting up their youthful faces. They danced around the circle, clockwise, never letting go, one by one moving into the circle, long hair bouncing as they skipped. These angels sang until there were no more words of the song to sing and the girl with long blonde hair who was standing in the circle when the song had ended was released by her fellow angels. Her flimsy white dress flapped in the breeze on the peak of the meadow, as she pivoted, alarmed at first at no longer being part of the circle of angels. Now she was inside the pentacle, staring out at the flock that gazed back at her without expression.

  ‘Later that evening, the chosen woman and her husband, walked down the aisle of a small church, lit by the candles, climbed the steps to the pulpit where a bed had been placed, draped in silken sheets facing the congregation of robed figures in the pews looking on, never taking their unflinching gaze off the man and the chosen angel wearing only a silk robe that embraced her sensuous body. She appeared nervous at first, although as she was led to the bed and watched her husband remove his sacred robe with the same five pointed star emblazoned on the front and saw him standing in front of her naked, erect, she too slid the shoulder straps off her slender shoulders and let it cascade into a heap by her feet. Then she climbed on top of her husband, easing his throbbing sexual organ inside her and groaned in appreciation. The congregation expressed no sexual excitement; however, they did not look away, embarrassed at the act of love making that in most cases is done in privacy.

  ‘The woman increased her speed, building a steady rhythm the more she thrust her hips backwards and forwards. Her loins burned along with the intensity, moaning louder as her husband fondled her voluptuous breasts. Their heavy breathing and moaning reached a crescendo as their bodies simultaneously convulsed and the woman collapsed on top her satisfied lover. His seed had been planted. The beginning of the resurrection complete.’

  Sofie was both sexually aroused and perplexed. Her arousal diminished as her perplexity grew. This didn’t sound anything at all like a dream; more like a story. A story that was very similar to the type of rituals she’d endured a couple of nights ago, minus the sex. If she’d met this old man under normal circumstances, she would have announced her departure or asked what the bloody hell he was talking about. However, she knew that if she asked, the answer would terrify her. She’d been terrified the last couple of days for one lifetime. If she could avoid any more, she would.

  ‘It was said that the creation of the child had to be witnessed by the followers in order for the grand plan to work. The woman - now with child - along with her husband returned to their home in Stockholm to give birth to the child whose destiny had been mapped out for long before she was born.’

  No, this wasn’t a dream at all. This was a story of how her mother and father, who used to be members of a cult devoted to devil worshipping. Her mother (who said on more than one occasion that she was not her mother) had conceived Sofie with her father in front of an audience who had marked her, depicting her life so that she would end up in the position she now found herself in, unable to escape from. Reverend Ward was another member of this legion of devil worshippers that seemed to be everywhere, watching her every move from the moment she was born to this very day. Hence why this old man hadn’t taken her to hospital to have her checked-up on or called the authorities or enquired her place of residence or contact details of a relative.

  However, Sofie was a little taken aback that she hadn’t leapt from the armchair and bolted for the front door. She glanced in that direction but so no point in running away any more because wherever she went whatever she did she would eventually be captured again and forced to go through with the unholy pregnancy.

  ‘The foetus inside your womb will be born on the sixth day of the six month in the sixth year of this decade on the night of a full moon,’ Reverend Ward told her, watching the young woman who had slumped down in her armchair, exhausted from the terror and finally accepting her destiny. ‘You have nothing to fear, I assure you, child,’ he went on in his soft, raspy voice that soothed her, even though she knew he was no son of God. The reverend stunt he’d fooled the townsfolk with was me
rely a façade to outsiders who wouldn’t understand their master plan.

  ‘The antichrist,’ Sofie mumbled.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The antichrist,’ she repeated in a voice void of emotion.

  Reverend Ward contemplated his response before speaking. ‘The world’s far from perfect as it is. The birth of our lord is what the world needs. A new beginning.’

  Sofie glimpsed the front door for the second time and resigned herself to remaining seated knowing that even if she did manage to fight off this old man in her weak condition and get outside, the cottage was nearly two miles to the nearest building. Furthermore, she would be barefooted and wouldn’t last five minutes outside in the two degrees Celsius temperature.

  ‘Why did my mother tell me she wasn’t my mother?’

  ‘I imagine,’ Reverend Ward said, ‘she said it to make it easier on herself when the time came for you to flee the nest.’

  ‘Why didn’t she tell me everything if she was no longer one of you?’

  The old man didn’t know all the answers, although along with Margaret it seemed to Sofie that he did. In her desperation, though, she had the tendency to believe anything she was told; not that she’d been lied to. And knowing wouldn’t alter her predicament one iota. If anything the vast knowledge would only play on her mind more so than it right then. Nevertheless, she understood that the not knowing would have much more effect on her if she wasn’t informed and gathered as much information as possible in order to cope with her incredible situation.

  Perhaps she didn’t want to frighten you when it wasn’t necessary,’ Reverend Ward suggested.

  What he told made sense. But what was most startling was the fact that everything in her entire life had been a lie. She had been permitted her freedom for a limited period of time and now had to relent to her masters like the proverbial puppet she apparently was. Perhaps if she had not experienced the sensation of freedom to live her life the way she chose it might have been easier to accept. If she had been kept prisoner from the moment she was born then being ordered to live her life in accordance to someone else’s wishes and demands would not have been such a shock; neither would she have the disconsolate emotion of worthlessness physically deflating her like a burst balloon.

  ‘What happens to me now, dare I ask?’ she said, raising her head to face the old man in front of her whose first name was Rodney.

  ‘You will give birth to our leader. You will grow to love him and raise him until he can fend for himself.’ He paused seeing the anxiety mapped out across the young woman’s visage. ‘You have nothing to fear, as I have already said, for you shall not be alone in this task. There will be many around you at all times providing assistance. You can even finish your law degree at home. Of course, if you choose to do that you will have to return to your dormitory and answer questions to the police who will want to know your whereabouts when your friend Janice accidentally crashed and caused her own fatality.’

  ‘She didn’t!’ Sofie snapped.

  Reverend Ward blatantly ignored her remark. ‘I for one would leave your old life behind. Because, let’s face it, you never really had one. Not in the real sense.

  ‘Janice is gone, child. Never to return. Had you not resisted your destiny your friend would still be alive, able to finish her studies and even stay in touch with you as long as you swore not to divulge into the who what and why you ended up with child. But you weren’t thinking. It’s not your friend’s fault. She wasn’t to know. Margaret explained everything to you for your own protection and for those you were close to.

  ‘Anyway, what’s done is done. You nearly got yourself killed and destroyed the life growing inside of you. But you didn’t. And you still have your health. We have the best doctors, nurses and midwives to aid you as comfortable as you like during your pregnancy. All you have to do is cooperate. Really, speaking in all honesty, you’re in a much better position than a lot of women who wind up pregnant, not knowing who the father of their child is or how they’re going to provide for their offspring, facing it all alone without a single person or family member there for support. After everything that has occurred you really ought to be grateful.’

  Sofie wheezed derisive laughter. ‘You are something else. You’ve got some nerve, do you know that? You acolytes - or whatever the hell you call yourselves - set me up when all I wanted to do was to help two elderly people who I believed required assistance, make myself a bit of money to help myself pay for provisions and instead you kidnap me, assault me, abuse me in all the ways you can possibly abuse a human being. Inform me that I am going to give birth to a bastard that’ll be more yours than mine, who’s also had his life foretold like mine, murder my best friend who came to rescue me from you evil, manipulative fucks and then have the fucking audacity to say that I ought to be grateful. Go and take a long walk off a short pier, you prick!’

  Instead of looking appalled or having any aversion to what the young, Swedish beauty said through gritted teeth, contorting her stunning features into one of pure, undeniable rage, Reverend Ward smiled mirthlessly.

  ‘Ah, but I am afraid what you feel right now will soon come to pass.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Sofie said, glowering at the old man.

  ‘In time your old-self will perish, like paint peeling off an old, dilapidated wall, revealing a smooth, clean surface for a new, fresh coat of paint. A different colour.’

  Unlike Margaret, Reverend Ward had an abundance of patience and comprehension. He did not take what Sofie said personally at all; neither did he worry himself about it for a single second. Instead he shifted in his armchair, reaching over to the small, oval-shaped glass table and lifted the lid of a cardboard box and helped himself to a biscuit then proffered the box to Sofie. She declined, registering the palpable nonchalance in the old man, unnerved by his mundane demeanour.

  ‘Once I give birth to your supposed leader, will I be granted permission to leave? Or will I forever be part of your sacred cult?’

  Reverend Ward allowed sufficient amount of time for him to chew his biscuit prior to answering. ‘Why would you want to abandon your own child?’ he wanted to know.

  Sofie frowned. ‘It wouldn’t be mine, though. It would be something not of this world. Created in an unholy fashion against the mother’s wishes to lead your malevolent disciples to committing sinful acts and wreaking havoc upon the world. Why would I want any part of that?’

  ‘Maybe you’ll feel differently when you first lay eyes upon the child. Most parents believe that when their child is born it is the reason they are put on this earth. What’s not to say you want feel the same way?’

  ‘I just told you why,’ Sofie said.

  ‘You can still love your child and not contribute to cult’s beliefs,’ Reverend Ward said. ‘But as I have already told you in time who you are now will perish and you shall be reborn into the person you were always meant to be, like a fresh coat of paint on a smooth surface.’

  ‘Yeah, you said “a new colour”,’ Sofie replied in a terse voice. ‘But you didn’t say what colour.’

  ‘Crimson.’

  In her mind’s eye, Sofie envisaged the thick, almost black, blood pouring out of the golden goat’s head atop the staff into her gaping mouth.

  She shuddered involuntarily...

  9.

  A day later while sitting in the armchair, stiff from the contusions and badly sprained ankle that had been bandaged by an on-call doctor, Sofie sat bolt upright, rigid, protuberant eyes reflecting the gaudy images flickering before her on the TV screen.

  The voice over from the news reporter back in the studio came through the speakers as the images of the small yellow Fiat (now a crumpled mess) crushed until it folded in on itself and shards of glass speckled the cordoned off road surface.

  ‘... in what appeared to be a fatal collision ev
olved into a murder case when officers at the scene spotted the driver’s throat had been slashed. However, it has now been confirmed by the county coroner that the cause of death was not from the crash itself (although that too might have caused her death later on) but from the wound that severed the throat of this young woman whose family have been notified.’

  Reverend Ward picked up the remote and changed the channel to ESPN America without uttering a word on the subject. He kept his gaze firmly on the basketball game taking place on the other side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, his unflinching stare wasn’t that of a basketball fan enthralled by the game unfolding in the fourth and final quarter with only three points separating the two teams.

  After a few moments passed, Sofie released her fierce grip on the arms of the chair and sat back, pondering all different scenarios of what was taking place approximately four or five miles away that she had been involved in. In spite of her conscience imploring her not to, Sofie couldn’t contain the thoughts whizzing around her mind on an invisible racing circuit.

  Are the police now looking for a murder suspect? Will my absence come to their immediate attention? Did Janice tell anyone where she was going before setting off to be pick me up at that house? Will Margaret, Charles and Yvonne be questioned? Will their satanic cult be revealed? Will they find that hideous witch that killed my best friend? Will they find me? Will I survive this ordeal? Will I be able to get my life back?

  All those unanswerable questions and many more rocketed past her, filling her with overwhelming anticipation at the possibility that these malevolent devil worshippers master plan which they’d so masterfully contrived until Janice had come to her rescue would come undone.