To start this off clearly, I knew my brother had a few scary legends about his country and he has even told me a few of them, but I always had ignored them. It's kind of like the boy who cried wolf, y'know? You hear so many fake stories or myths that when you hear about anything that seems just off from the realm of reality you tend to ignore it. Alfred loved scary stories; as kids Arthur would always scold him for keeping me up at night with his tales of ghosts and monsters that lurked in the woods, as I grew older, however, my fears of the boogeyman Alfred described started to fade away but the resentment I had towards Alfred for his constant torment of these nightmares always lingered inside. I thought that his stories were all lies...

That is… until my last trip to America.

It was nearly the end of the summer and Alfred had invited me down for his birthday, he was having a few of our friends over as well but invited me personally to stay for a week or two to hang out. It had been almost a year since I had last been over to Alfred's, I had gotten so caught up in my work that I didn't have the time to travel down south to see him. He invited us all to a vacation home just off of a fairly large city with a decent sized airport that I had flown into from Ontario, at the airport I soon found Alfred with a large grin on his face as he waited for me on the terminal, both of us hugging briefly once I was close enough. Alfred was wearing the bomber jacket he had always worn, glasses nearly falling off his face by the time we pulled away and the same large smile and shining blue eyes that I remembered from when we were kids. He helped me collect my suitcase from the baggage claim and we drove to a large cottage he owned just out of town, nothing but trees for a couple miles which I never really found odd at the time considering the pile of fireworks I had seen in his trunk.
Most of our friends were already there; Francis was sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, Arthur scolding Francis for his day drinking. Meanwhile, Kiku, Ludwig, and Feliciano were sitting in the living room watching some animated movie, something about dogs. Everyone was having a great time; the party really kicked up when Ivan arrived with some of his vodka and we all went outside for some fireworks. I stayed back and watched as my buzzed brother lit off fireworks with Feliciano and the others, I didn't want to interfere with their drunken fun. The fireworks lit up the night for hours; it was actually pretty amusing watching my brother joke around, but once the fireworks were gone Alfred started a large bonfire in the middle of the backyard. Alfred seemed to light up faintly as everyone settled down into the grass around the fire, one of his slow smiles coming to his face as he lifted his hands to the sky, a few embers flew from the large flame. "There is a reason I brought you all here this year, I wanted to tell you all about one of my most famous legends, one of the many reasons why you don't walk the train tracks alone at night! The Goat Man!"

I groaned at the idea of one of his many stories and soon felt Alfred's blue gaze rest on me, a frown faintly shadowing his face as he gave me a quizzical look. "Why the groan Matt?"

"We all know that your stories are fake Alfred" I simply stated, all eyes in the group turned towards me as a look of anger scored across Alfred's face.

"Matthew my stories are not made up, all of them are true! Ask anyone here!"

"Don't give me that Alfred! Do you know how many times as a kid I checked my closet for the 'shadow people'? Or how scared I was to swim in lakes because 'Oh the lake monster might get me!'" Anger I had never felt before was starting to rise within me, I was tired of his lies, tired of the torture he had caused me as a child. I stood up, brushing a few blades of grass off me as I started to tromp off into the woods. I heard someone behind me question where I was going, I almost turned back around to confront Alfred, but what kept me going was when Alfred just simply stated. "If he doesn't believe, let him go learn."

I don't know how I ended up finding the tracks, I don't even remember going past them on my way to Alfred's. Trying to remember anything, however, in my semi-buzzed stupor was impossible and I shook it off as I began to follow them. The air had cooled down from earlier that day, insects chirped around me as something seemed to drag me along those tracks, it felt like I had been walking forever when I came to the trestle. The land around me sloped down into a ravine and the tracks continued on over a raised platform to the other edge of the railway, it seemed to stretch on forever, a mass of rusting steel with darkened land below. It was eerily quiet as well, the insects had stopped chirping and all I could hear was the wind blowing through the deadness of the night. I stood there momentarily, considering turning back when I heard a familiar shout from across the bridge. "Hey? Matthew? Are you out there?"

"Alfred?" I shouted back. I questioned in my mind momentarily how he had gotten on the other side of the trestle, as I had previously mentioned I hadn't noticed passing the tracks on the way here but maybe, I thought, Alfred knew that the tracks were here, maybe he had assumed this was the way I would come and came looking for me. I was naive, but through that naiveness, the emotion of fear crept through, what if my brother fell? Judging from this height he wouldn't be laughing after hitting the ground below us, and with how drunk Alfred had been at the party…
"Alfred! Don't move! Stay away from the edges, alright? I'm coming out to get you!" I shouted into the quiet night's air, stepping my way carefully onto the rusting metal and keeping my eyes focused on the beams in front of me. My heart was beating louder and louder in my chest as I came to the center of the trestle, I lifted my eyes just briefly and what I saw…

I can't even describe it.

It looked like a goat but stood on two legs, its horned head was cocked as it stared at me, its elongated face led to a mouth that spread out in a vicious, hungry smile. In its hand was an ax, the handle a color darker than it should have been. I could barely breathe as it realized I was looking at it; it took one step of its cloven hooves onto the bridge and I turned as quickly as I could, dashing my way across the rotting steel as I heard the sound of hooves on metal behind me. It screeched my name in a horrible voice that wasn't my brothers, switching between that dark voice and that of Alfred's as I heard it start to close in behind me. I leaped off the tracks and into the dew covered grass, scrambling to my feet and racing towards the forest as I heard the sound of hooves stop just at the edge of the trestle. I ran, I didn't dare look back as a horrifying scream echoed through the air. I didn't want to see who, or what, had just chased me across the bridge.

I seemed to run for hours until I reached Alfred's cottage; everyone was already inside asleep and only Alfred remained outside with his shotgun propped up on a rock near the fire, he looked relieved as I jumped into his arms crying and shaking. We sat outside next to the fire for what seemed like an eternity, it took me a while through my sniffles and sobs to recount the story to him but he just sat there with a stern look on his face as he listened to my frightening encounter.

"Thankfully you didn't look it in the eyes, that Matthew was the Goat man"

Alfred went on to explain to me the legend of the Goat Man; no one knew where he came from but if you went to his bridge at night it was said by the people in the neighboring town that the Goat Man would hypnotize you and force you to fall to your death off the trestle, that or force you to stand on the tracks until a train came through and hit you. "He can't leave the trestle, his spirit or whatever is bound there. Don't worry, you're safe here." Alfred patted my back, picking up his gun with one hand and pouring out the smoldering flames with the other as we both headed inside for the night. I couldn't sleep a wink, every time I closed my eyes I saw that gruesome smile, those sharp teeth.

Everyone seemed to have a comment the next morning on my absence that night, or how hellish I looked. I just ignored them, pouring myself some coffee and walking outside to where Alfred stood just beyond the firepit, his eyes locked onto the woods. I approached him and smiled as he jumped at my touch, he glanced back at me and I glanced back at the house where his gun was lying propped up next to an old rocking chair. "Why did you have your gun out last night? You never use your gun, hear some coyotes or something while I was gone?"
I was trying to make light of the situation but Alfred's silence caused the fear to rise in my throat, it took him a couple seconds before he sat down and placed his hands over his head. "I didn't want to scare you even more last night, but while you were gone Francis thought he saw you just inside the woods. I made everyone go inside and I grabbed my gun to wait for you… god, I shouldn't have let you go alone, the fireworks must have drawn it here…"

"Why Al? I don't remember coming back before... y'know?"

Alfred stood up and pointed to where he had been looking at in the woods, an ax with a darkened handle was dug deep into the wood next to what looked like scratch marks. "I know it wasn't you Matthew, let's get out of here, we can go stay in DC for the remainder of your trip." Alfred started to head inside, most of the cars were already gone by then and only his remained. I felt like I was going to throw up as I stared at the ax, backing towards the house and watching as my bag was placed on the porch. "H-How did you know that it wasn't me?"

"Because the Matthew I saw last night had hooves. Let's go." In Alfred's voice was a coldness I had never heard before, I followed him and stopped before turning the corner to look back into the woods. In the darkness I swear I saw a pale hand come out and slowly grab the ax, I made a dash for the car and within minutes the two of us were driving off away from that hellish cabin, Alfred turning up the radio fairly loud as we left.

I found out later on that the trestle is about an hour walk from Alfred's, it's so hard to find from the woods that Alfred believes I was lured there. He theorizes that the beast was brought to his house by the sound of the fireworks, used its demonic ability to lure me to the trestle and would have successfully lured others there as well if Alfred hadn't had made everyone go inside. I nearly was face to face with death that night and the thought of that chills me to the bone, even sitting here is giving me goosebumps just thinking about it...

I got lucky that night, lucky that I didn't look that beast directly in the eyes. Now I know, now I know the horrible truth.

I know to always listen to Alfred's scary stories.

Hello my lovelies! Tis I! The person you probably want to kill!

College has been keeping me occupied for the past year but now I'm back and better than ever! I have a lot of exciting things planned, not only am I going to continue this series and possibly revamp earlier chapters but I will also be revamping AND finishing one story at a time. I will start with 'Sweet Little Italian' and work my way to 'In Love With Myself' so keep an eye out!

Thank you so very much for those of you who have been sending me suggestions, I promise I will go through and do as many of them as I can. If you have any more comments, questions or suggestions feel free to leave me a review and if you want more make sure to follow!

I feel like giving a certain Prussian some time with a northwestern Indian tribe's mythical creature, if you can guess which legend it is I'll give you a shout out in the next story!

Love you all! Hasta la Pasta!

-Daisy

*NOTE: The Goat man mentioned in this story is based on a series of Goat man legends, please don't go out and look for Goat man, though, he would very much enjoy the company. :)