By the Grace of Ba'al

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I work nights from my computer lab at home. I live alone with my dog Spudnik. We take a fifteen minute walk each work night at 3am. I find the deep night atmosphere peaceful. A week ago, I saw something that makes me fear the dark. Sputnik and I were rounding a corner on the far edge of the elementary school's field. Sput likes to do his business around there. I saw that night, in the deep distance, leaning between two buildings, something horrible. He wore a suit and tie, smoked a cigarette. But the form of his face was perverse to me. He looked to be a goat. Horns and all.

I told myself I had imagined it, that somehow the angle of shadows caused me to see something that couldn't have been there. Still, Sputnik and I avoided the school entirely.

I couldn't sleep. Never. Every time I closed my eyes I saw it. Him.

We modern men don't believe in fear. We've all watched enough movies to think it hype. So I told myself I would bury this sleeples nightmare.

We found him last night just where he was last week. I tell you no lie. We approached him. As I neared I braved a whisper, “Who are you?”

He spit his cigarette out, answered, “I was a soldier in the Roman legion. We were set to smash Hannibal’s army. They were weak, having lost half their men crossing the alps. This we told ourselves. We formed a vertical front, ten men wide. Our line was incredible,100,000 long. We thought we would ram our enemy’s lines with so much momentum that nothing would stop us. We would roll right over them with all their elephant madness.

“We were wrong. Somehow, they devastated us. They let us keep our formation, but slaughtered the lines in front, one by one. We crept forward to our deaths. You could hear the gnashing sounds of our comrades meeting their end. They all screamed. What was it that was so terrible that caused these men of valor to scream like innocents? Who was this Hannibal? What sort of monstrous god is this Baal that leads him? And to what torment was he leading us?

“A rumor spread through our ranks that they were eating those in front: killing us by ripping our jugulars out with their teeth. My friend who stood beside me, began digging into the earth desperately with his bare hands. He was trying to dig a whole deep enough to cover his head. He chose suffocation over dreaded destiny.

“You ask me who I am? I am fear. And I never die, child. I wait for you.”

I bore all my courage to summon forth one more question, “Soldier, why have you become a goat?”

“I eat the world. Everything in it.”

I ran. I ran, but I did glance back. I saw him biting my Sputnik into pieces.