The Goat Devil We Know
By Danielle Olson
It was in the year of Our Lord 2015, when the government of Memphis, Tennessee installed a monument featuring the 10 Commandments at city hall. This provoked an ingenious protest, which in turn unleashed an unholy spirit.
"Council Erects Religious Monument at City Hall" – Memphis newspaper headline
The council members were only courting evangelical voters, but a group of citizens saw it as a threat to secular society. The protesters made a statue of a demon and demanded that it be displayed at city hall. Their demonstration worked, and in the end, the city had the Bible monument removed, but the protest had set in motion something that was unspeakably evil. The protesters may have come close to losing their immortal souls.
The group had constructed a statue of a goat-headed demon named Baphomet. The sculpture was paraded around town and displayed prominently next to the capital. It depicted the demon posed benevolently with two young children looking up reverently. Its outlandishness garnered much attention locally, nationally, and internationally.
The protest leaders were college students. They weren't anti-religious, they were just activists. They enjoyed a few months of fame. They appeared on talk shows and news programs, and after it all died down, the demon statue was taken to the home of one of the protesters where it was stored in a garage and forgotten.
After several months, strange things began to happen in the house. Items went missing. Furniture was mysteriously rearranged. Pets ran away. The TV and stereo turned themselves on and off randomly. The students living in the house often fought with each other over trivial matters. One of them went for weeks without bathing.
A good friend of mine asked me to get involved. He was worried about what was happening, so I went to investigate. The first time that I set foot in the house, the smell was almost unbearable.
By this time there were only three students left from the original group. Fame had faded and they were once again average underclassmen. They were goof-offs, to be honest about it; spending more time partying than studying.
They were excited to have a female reporter in their house. Trying to impress me, they kept making crude and silly jokes; snide remarks about camel toe that they thought I wouldn't get, but eventually they began to relax as we sat in the living room and discussed the matter over a few beers.
When I noticed a cloven foot next to the couch, I said, "Speaking of camel toe…"
They turned around and screamed. Baphomet loomed above us all. Amusement shown through his goat eyes and snout. As he turned his head, his horns scraped the ceiling. The screech made us all cringe. The smell of sulphur was everywhere.
The guys were cowering and crying behind the couch when the demon looked at the doorway behind us and took a sudden step backward. A bright light made us all squint and three loud guitar chords echoed off the walls of the small house. The demon suddenly vanished. Nobody understood what had happened except for me. I turned toward the doorway and said, "Thanks for coming, King."
"No problem ma'am. Just takin' care of business," and just like that, Elvis vanished too.
I'm just lucky to have friends in other dimensions.
It took a few hours for all of the guys to calm down. We went out to the garage to look for the statue, but it was nowhere to be seen. None of us were disappointed; just a little confused.