"Matthews, Patricia - Goatman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Matthews Patricia)

"Miss Rhode didn't explain," she said humbly. "Won't you tell me what Goatman
is? Please?"

"Oh, hell!" said Thompson. "Might as well. Goatman's a woodsy thing, Missy.
There's been stories about him as long as I can recollect. Most of the time he
lives back deep in the woods, but every once in a while he comes out, closer to
where people live, and somebody sees him. I've heard said that he's the last of
his kind, and comes out because he gets lonesome. Dogs hate him, and they attack
him, and sometimes, I guess, he has to kill them to protect himself. Sometimes
he kills other things, too, or at least so they say."

Old Man Crowly pulled off his hat and scratched his thinning white hair.
"There's all kinds of stories. Some say that he does good things too. I've heard
tell that sometimes he helps folks that git lost in the woods. And Mrs. Jenkins
swears that he pulled out her milk cow that got stuck in the bog."

"What does he look like?" Moira's question came out so softly that she was
surprised that Thompson heard her.

"Some say he looks like a hairy man, with goat's ears. Some say he's half man
and half goat. But all say that he's terrible strong. Some say he's killed men
and women, too, but myself, I think that's just scare talk."

Old Man Crowly spat in the dirt. "My old Grandma, she used to tell us that if'n
someone, a woman, would go with Goatman, back to his hidey-hole in the woods, he
wouldn't bother folks no more. Swore it was true; that once, when she was a
girl, a young woman went out to him, went with him, and for twenty years nobody
seen hide nor hair of either of them, When he started showin' up again folks
figured that she had died. They tried to get another girl to go, but no one
would do it. They was all afraid."

Moira felt the hair along her backbone stir, and clasped herself with her arms.
She looked searchingly at each man, but not one weathered face expressed
anything but sincerity and embarrassment. It was, she realized, not easy for
these men to speak to her of these things.

"Then you think Goatman killed Tray?" she said.

Thompson shrugged. "Didn't say so, Missy. You just asked what we know about
Goatman, and I told you. Well, boys, we'd best be on our way."

Moira gave each of the men a few dollars, and they got into the old pickup and
moved off down the road. She watched them until they were out of sight.

That night, for the first time in months, the nightmares came back. In her
dreams she saw Jason's face. Then Jason's face was replaced by a bizarre,
hirsute countenance.

In the next moment, Moira snapped awake, suddenly and completely. The image of