THE WOLFGOAT

THE WOLFGOAT

THE WOLFGOAT


“Quick, after them!” Blaž Perković barked his order, grabbed his stick and ran.
Everyone else started running too, and so did I, although, on my word, I saw no particularly intelligent reason for us to play heroes and run after the monster that, even with Maruša under its arm, ran three times faster than any Jamaican or American sprinter. We responded in accordance with the complicated human psyche, which, among other things, from time to time makes us do absurd, senseless things. It would’ve been much more logical to call the legendary Mountain Rescue Service and say: “Hello – hello, a group of writers here, we’re calling from somewhere on Velebit and, as you can guess, we have a problem. A wolfgoat, you see, grabbed our colleague Maruša Klemen and took her with it. What does a wolfgoat look like? Have you seen Predator? Any Predator, right, well, that’s what a wolfgoat looks like, more or less, it just doesn’t have dreadlocks, it’s a bit sturdier, and it has a protruding snout of a wolf, elongated, that’s right, and a couple of horns like a goat, only bigger, yes, about nine feet tall, maybe even twelve, its body is covered in red and black fur, let’s call it black with an occasional fiery red patch, it walks upright, yes, it walks upright and it is terribly quick, as nimble as a spinning top, that’s right…”
That would be ideal, yes, but our cell phones were left far away at the foot of the mountain. Those were the orders of Blaž Perković, the son of Velebit, and we fools obeyed him. The union with nature wouldn’t have been possible had we dragged our technological devices along. Well, some nice union this is, I thought. We ran up to those rocks and stopped.
Keret clambered up the highest rock and looked into distance.
“Can you see anything?” I asked, catching my breath after the spring.
“Not a thing,” he replied and came down.
We looked at each other for a couple of moments.
“Can anyone tell me what in Jesus’ name is going on?” Wells interrupted the silence.
“That’s the right question,” I said.
“The wolfgoat,” Blaž replied. “You know, half a wolf – half a goat… an ancient monster.”
“Are you for real?”
“Yes, Wells, I’m for real, we have an ancient monster from hillbilly legends. Deal with it,” Tanja snapped at him.
“The man has the right to ask, and why would anyone simply accept that monsters exist?” I jumped in.
“You shut up too!”
“Enough, stop it!” Blaž shouted and got between me, Tanja and Wells.
Keret stood aside and pensively nibbled on a leaf of grass.
“This is some serious, serious shit…” Blaž went on.
“You’re right,” I interrupted him. “This is some serious shit and those cell phones we left down there would come in handy now. But you, Gandalf, insisted that we leave them behind…”
“There’s no point in accusing each other,” the Israeli said. “We need to see what we should do.”
“Wise words, my friend, there’s no good in arguing. We need to organize a rescue operation. That’s only correct and honorable thing to do. I have a two-way in my cabin, but it takes at least an hour to get there. It would take us about an hour and a half to the foot of the mountain, so that’s out of the question, I don’t know… we’ll have to separate. Tanja knows the way to the cabin, one of you should go with her, and the rest of us will go after the monster.”
Wells spat to the side and mumbled something under his breath.
“Come on, speak up,” Blaž encouraged him.

AuthorZoran Pilić
2018-12-13T12:09:33+00:00 November 10th, 2016|Categories: Prose, Literature, Blesok no. 110|0 Comments