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All Pete wanted was some hot chocolate.
Not a lot for a guy to ask for, right? Just a nice toasty cup of vaguely chocolate-flavored water. It wasn’t even about the flavor. There was no flavor. It was literally just some watered down Swiss Mix shit that they kept on a heated plate so it was barely lukewarm by the time the shop actually opened. It was far from his first choice, but he was out of trail-mix and didn’t want to walk all the way to the store when the coffee shop was right on the way back home from school. He had low blood sugar! And there was a sale.
But god , the wait was fucking killing him .
He lulled his head and blinked at the clock with heavy, bleary eyes. From where he sat, he could make out the fuzzy outline of the street in the dull, lazy daylight of another dull Hatchfield afternoon. The lights inside the store stung his eyes whenever he tore them away from the wall and looked away from the clock that hung above his corner booth.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He closed them tightly for a moment, praying silently under his breath that the lady at the corner would call his name soon so he could take a sip that’d hold him over until he got home.
Tick…tick…tick…tick…
It’d be about, what? Five minutes since he sat down?
It felt a whole lot longer…
Pete felt sick. He was probably gonna throw up before he got back. Ted would poke fun at him for it…hurling Swiss Mix all over the porch…but then he’d get him inside and help him out. Ted was cool like that. Well. Not COOL cool, like cool at school-kind of cool…but he was cool.
Tick…tick…tick…
People chattered. Plates clinked, and cups tapped against tables.
Tick…tick…tick…tick……tick….tick….
There were a lot of people in the room. Busy day. Probably why it was taking so long. The lady, Emma, Pete was pretty sure her tag read, was talking to some guy in a baggy business suit while she reached for a white foam cup that bore the shop’s logo.
Tick…tick…
They both laughed at something the guy said. Pete was about to go over there and try his very best to POLITELY ask the minimum wage worker if he could PLEASE have his hot chocolate, to tell her that he had been waiting very PATIENTLY, but to very calmly explain that he had low blood sugar and needed to get something into him soon before it became a proper emergency.
Before he could move to get up, though, Pete saw something in the corner of his eyes. A flash of movement.
A flicker of yellow fur blinked past his face.
He followed it while the clock ticked on above the mutter of the store’s crowd. It led him to a tiny black table with a lone chair that sat before the shop’s front-facing windows. On the table sat a tiny yellow rubix cube alongside a steamy white mug. A hand gripped the cup’s handle, but there was something weird about the person’s thick, rusty brown fingers. Pete’s eyes landed on their arm…and their fur . Thick, long, willy yellow fur that was littered with matted patches all the way to their chest and round, hairy belly.
Pete blinked.
Tick.
Once.
Tick, tick.
Twice.
No matter how long he stared, his eyes refused to clear. He must be going crazy. Only a crazy person could see the pair of cloven hooves the man had instead of feet or the set of twisted, gnarled black horns that sprung from the top of his head.
A goat.
A yellow goat.
A yellow-furred, cloven-hooved, twisty-horned, man-shaped goat-thing.
Billy gruff goatee and all…
Mhm. Yeah.
Pete was definitely going crazy.
The goat lifted the mug to his mouth of crooked, bulging teeth. A voice spoke from inside of Pete’s head as the goatman took a small sip and his buggy, red-yellow eyes scrunched around the corners.
“Well heya there, Petey-Boy!”
Somehow, Pete wasn’t surprised that the creature spoke to him in such a goofy cartoonish drawl. Like. Yeah. That was the kind of voice he’d give a goatman. He just wouldn’t have it come from somewhere inside of his brain…or the real world…like right now…in real life…in front of him.
“Petey Bo Beanie ,” the voice continued, high and creaky as Pete cast a frantic look around the room. “Still waitin’ on your hot cocoa, huh? Damn. And it’s not even gonna be that good to be worth all your while…shame…shame…”
The goat’s tiny chuckle sent waves of pain rolling through Pete’s skull. He couldn’t move. His hands continued to shake while his feet were suddenly rooted to the spot beneath the table. Despite the thick heat that hung in the air around him, his blood ran cold as an icy tingle ran down the length of his neck and sent each little hair standing on end with a sharp, fearful jolt.
“Wh…who…?” He rasped weakly. The words slurred in a jellied mush off of his tongue.
When the goat laughed again, the air in Pete’s mouth turned foul.
“I’m ya PAL, Petey Wheaty! Your bestest and greatest buddy. They call me T’noy, but since we’re friends, you can just call me Tinky .”
Tinky.
Tick, tick, tick.
The smell got worse. Pete could taste it on his lips and tongue when he tried to swallow, only to gag on the foul odor that washed down his throat. It was a sour putrid mix of old milk and moldy food that was only intensified by the sticky heat of the crowded room.
Pete wretched. The goat watched him with amused eyes. While Pete wretched and clenched his fingers against the tabletop, he watched the strange creature rise from his seat and pick up the golden rubix cube before making his way over to Pete’s tiny booth.
His vision started to swim.
Tick…tock…tick…tick…
The walls blinked. The floor flickered. Paint flaked off the walls. Wallpaper peeled into faded ribbons. The lights grew dingy and dimmed as sparks flew and coils faded to black inside of their dusty bulbs.
People changed.
The crowd parted wherever the goat walked. And when the goat passed someone by, Pete watched their bodies rapidly decay into hollow, graying husks with thin patchy hair and gaunt, saggy cheeks.
Just as much, though, did they go from crow’s feet-sporting adults to baby-faced figures with heads that were too small to belong between their shoulders. He saw a woman’s hair fall out until she lost all of her teeth. Tick . Then he watched as the floral tattoo on her arm came apart, its linework coming undone at the seams while the color fell from the petals until all that was left was plain skin, completely untouched.
Tick, tock. The man at the counter was still smiling at the employee. The smiling expression remained on his face even as his skin began to peel off of it, fleck by fleshy fleck.
Tick, tick, tick.
The clock did not stop at all through the whole ordeal. Where the booths rotted away, the lights fell out of the roof, people turned into wailing babies in their chairs, it ticked on, and on, and on, and on, as the goatman reached Pete and took a seat right across from him. Its eyes held a sickly jaundice shade. He tilted his head, eyeing Peter gleefully while tilting his chin up.
“Another Spankoffski . Ain’t it fun, bein’ half of a pair?”
Tick…tock…
The goat cocked his head to the side. Happily, “What’s wrong, Petey Sweetie? GOAT got yer tongue? Ayuh-ahahahahahaha!”
“I…h…how…what….what the shit is going on ?” Pete asked raspily.
“Time, Petey!” The said with a wave of his empty hoof. With the other, he held up the strange cube to the light so Pete could see the intricate black patterns that covered each of its faces. “Time, and ev’rything that’s goin’ on, has gone on, will go on, and will never go on. Forever n’ ever!”
“W…what?”
“Oh, don’t TELL ME yer not gettin’ it. Ain’t you one of ‘em nerdy guys ? The fellas with the books n’ glasses that they shove into them lockers at lunch? Ain’t you supposed to be SMART, or somethin’?”
“Why are you-”
“-here? ‘Coz it’s funny.”
“No.” Pete shook his head. “Why are you a goat?”
It seemed like a reasonable question. The goat, Tinky, right? He answered with a casual shrug. “Why’re you sittin’ in some dinky lil’ coffee shop while you’re having an emergency with your blood sugar?”
The smell wafted from Tinky’s lips. That foul, horrid odor of rotten food flooded Peter’s face until he was forced to cover it with his hands as his eyes leaked water.
“Silly Petey. First Teddy Bear, and now you. A coupl-ah Spankoffskis without a whole brain between the two of ‘em.” Tinky chortled.
The yellow goat leaned forward across the table.
“Your big bro ain’t waiting for you at home, Petey.”
Tick.
“Ted?”
Tock.
“Nope! He’s not there. Not anymore. He’s in here. And now…so’re you!” Tinky showed him the cube. He tilted it between his hooves so the sunlight caught on its gold-plated edge. “You and Teddy Bear are BOTH in my little toy box! I might let ya go someday. I might not! Maybe I’ll let you go and keep ol’ Teddy so you get outta here and get home wonderin’ where he is. That’d be funny. But I do hate lettin’ my toys go, Petey. Especially when there’s so many ways to play with you…”
The clock continued to tick, unphased, as Pete’s eyes blew wide and he gawked at the monster that sat in front of him.
“It’s gonna be a while until you get your hot chocolate, Petey Bo Beanie.”
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“But don’t worry! I’ve got alllllllllll the time in the world to keep ya company.”
Tock.
Tinky’s lips curled. He threw back his head. From his crooked teeth poured a twisted, braying laugh that rattled the air and screamed from deep within his throat. The clock continued to tick.
Pete unleashed a scream of raw terror that could be heard from inside the tiny box.