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Prey of the Goat [MultiFormat]
eBook by Margaret L. Carter
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eBook Category: Dark Fantasy/Horror
eBook Description:   Clergyman Michael Emeric wrote an academic paper on obscure cults devoted to eldritch entities. He never suspected that his research could attract the attention of those malign deities. Then his wife received a strange amulet...
eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, Published: The Shub-Niggurath Cycle, 1994
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2008
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [155 KB], eReader (PDB) [21 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [18 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [17 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [50 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [90 KB], hiebook (KML) [59 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [37 KB], iSilo (PDB) [15 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [19 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [37 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [28 KB]
Words: 4971
Reading time: 14-19 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
Arranging his face into placid lines, he stepped over to the desk. Terri jumped when he touched her. "Oh!--don't do that! Mike, look what I've found." He glanced at the papers. "Why are you digging into that junk I copied from the Miskatonic University collection?" Though he suspected his assumed casualness failed to fool her, she didn't comment on it. "I just couldn't shake the idea that I'd seen these symbols on the back of the amulet somewhere before. Here." She jabbed at the page with a fingernail. "What does that mean?" He cupped the amulet in his palm, comparing its markings with the passage she pointed out. Yes, there were the same symbols, buried in a passage of seventeenth-century English. "This sign represents Shub-Niggurath, otherwise known as the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young." He released the necklace and hastily gathered the pages into their folder. "Sounds like a fertility goddess," Terri said. "It would be more accurate to say She is a perverter of fertility. All the Ancient Ones--according to legend--are interested in organic life only to feed upon it." Terri fingered the copper disk. "Honestly, Mike, you talk as if you really believe in these--these demons from another dimension." He smiled sheepishly. "Sounds like the name of a B science fiction film, doesn't it? Of course I don't believe in them. But I know the people who do can be dangerous, so the thing makes me nervous." He took her hand. "Wasn't that the oven timer I just heard?" After dinner Terri rummaged through the walk-in pantry until she found a jar of metal polish. While Mike answered letters at the library desk, she knelt on the rug nearby, polishing the amulet on a sheet of newspaper. Later, in their gable-windowed bedroom, she tried on the ornament in front of the vanity mirror. Bending over to get a better view of her bosom, she twisted this way and that to make the amulet catch the light. With her sheer, ankle-length nightgown, the necklace made her look like a priestess of some ancient Near Eastern cult. Mike watched in dismay as she climbed into bed and reached for the light. "You're not wearing that thing to sleep!" She clutched the disk. "I like it." "No chance," he said. "This, I really do forbid. You want to strangle yourself with that chain?" "Oh, all right," she said with a pout. She hung the chain over the bedside lamp and switched off the light. "Now I can see it if I wake up. Look how it glows in the moonlight." She lay back with a contented sigh, gazing at the amulet.
* * * *When Mike woke suddenly at three a.m., he immediately felt something was wrong. Felt it even before he became conscious of what had wakened him--Terri. She lay on her back, choking, writhing, as if trying to throw off a suffocating weight. When a touch had no effect on her, he grabbed her shoulders and shook. Almost a minute passed before her eyes flew open. At once the choking stopped. She stared up at him. "Mike?" "Darling, what happened?" "Oh, Mike--I had a dream--" Her blank stare crumpled into hysterical sobs. For a couple of minutes he rocked her, stroking her head, until she regained control of her voice. "It was on a hilltop in the woods somewhere," she whispered, her face wet against his bare shoulder. "There was a full moon--a bloated, orange harvest moon like in paintings--and a statue. An idol. That goat." He involuntarily squeezed her tighter. "There were people all around, dancing. One was sitting cross-legged right under that statue, blowing on a shrill flute. Not like music at all, torture to the ears. I'm not sure that one was human--his legs looked--furry. There was a fire, blue and green flames. Everybody was naked. They were making love--no, mating--on the ground. Men, women, animals--all together." He kissed her forehead. "Stop, Terri." "I have to tell it, have to get it out. One man stood up and offered a naked baby to the idol, holding it upside down by the legs. Everybody was chanting in some language I'd never heard before. Then he pulled the baby's legs apart--blood gushed all over the goat--" She took a long, shuddering breath. "And then the statue came to life. Mike, it was so real, like a movie, not a dream. No fuzziness, no distortion. I felt it all, the screaming, the flute, the cool breeze, the heat from the fire. The idol grabbed the baby in her hoofs--they have claws on the ends--and took a bite out of it. Then she threw the body to the crowd. Everybody started fighting over pieces of it--trying to--to eat it. Then the goat stepped down into the crowd. She grabbed the first man and forced him to--forced him into her. He screamed. I woke up." Mike had to fight to keep his voice steady as Terri trembled in his arms. "It's an axiom of dreams that the dreamer always appears as a character. Where did you come into this?" "Oh, Mike!" she moaned. "I was the goat!"
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