It had been a frustrating week at work for Alan, and even though he was late getting away from his desk, he found a small clearing in the gloaming dark to set up his camp tent. The shift from the daylight sounds of insects buzzing to the small noises of tiny animal footfalls helped clear his overstimulated mind.
For going a campfire, Alan opened a tin of pork and beans and ate before he climbed into his sleeping bag and drifted to dreamland. The sound of distant chanting woke him just after midnight, and he lay in his bag listening to odd voices, understanding none of the guttural words said.
Unable to get back to sleep, Alan left his tent to find where the chanting was coming from and what it was for. The full moon offered enough illumination that he found a trail heading in the direction he needed.
Through the thickness of the trees, he saw a glow about a hundred feet away. Alan drew as close as possible while maintaining in the shadows and unobserved.
He shuddered at seeing several dark figures dressed in long robes slowly moving in a circle around a large stone altar. Alan’s blood chilled as he watched a blindfolded young woman lay naked on her back and across the altar, a horned goat head resting on her abdomen, suddenly beheaded.
In a traumatic state of shock, Alan gasped and stood up, disclosing his hiding place amid the unlighted tree copse. The dark-robed figures continued to chant as another wielding a broad ax looked his way while the now-dead body’s arms raised and its hands gripped the goat’s horns.
His world suddenly went dark with a crash as he was struck on the back of the head and rendered semi-unconscious. He tried to lift himself off the damp ground but could only move his head a few painful inches.
As Alan’s eye’s cleared from the fog caused by the blow, he witnessed the naked body sit upright and place the goat’s head on its headless neck before climbing down from the altar as one. His pounding head dropped back into the dewy grass, and the last thing he remembered was the newly raised body with the appalling horned head walking by him, vanishing into the darkened woodline.
It was pouring a hard rain as Alan returned to himself, head throbbing and loosely clotted blood hanging from the open wound. It took him another half-hour to finally gain the strength to roll over and sit up.
He looked about and found nothing familiar from the hours before, not even the stone altar where the woman had once laid. He moved slowly to a nearby tree and leaned against it, half in and out of a sickly sleep until the middle of the day.
On his feet, he slowly tripped, stumbled, and crawled his way to his campground. It was nearly nighttime when he returned to his tent and sleeping bag.
Alan remained there through the night, half-sleeping, half-frightened from nightmare visions of the woman with the goat head entering his small tent. The following morning, feeling better but still in great pain, he slowly packed up and started down the trail with impaired energy to his car.
Surrounded by the noises of the forest, Alan heard what he thought was a woman’s mocking scream, followed by the continued bleating of a goat. By the time he reached the parking lot, he was gone mad.
The Old Blog in the Desert 