Part 6 is here.
ONE MONTH EARLIER
Nighttime in Gemma Meadows, and everyone is asleep. Sarah, Cliffey, Pete, Goldberg, the birds, the grass, the trees, all snoozing.
Sarah is dreaming of Joel Fields. She dreams of the clean air, the dandy dandelions, and enough lush green grass to give you a tummyache.
Cliffey is dreaming of Joel Fields. He dreams of the peace and quiet (it's much further from the road than the Meadows) and the wide open spaces to run around in.
Pete is dreaming of Joel Fields too, but he hasn't realised it yet. As far as he's aware, he's just having a nightmare about meeting a horrible monster in some dead, dry desert.
"Peter?" growls the monster.
"Y-yes?" he replies.
"Peter The Goat?"
"Yes?"
Pete isn't sure he should be giving his name to this thing, even if it is just a dream. Each individual tooth in its mouth is big enough to carve a turkey. And the eyes! They're huge, evil-looking, and blacker than the night Pete is sleeping through.
But suddenly that awful mouth is smiling happily, and those eyes have a certain look of generosity about them.
"What do you wish for?" asks the monster, still growling, but in a much friendlier way, Pete thinks.
"What?"
Another toothy grin. "I can grant you anything. Speak."
Pete acts like he is mulling it over, but he knows what he wants. It's what he's always wanted. Being a goat is fantastic - very few responsibilities, lots of food and free time - but you just eat and frolic and sleep and repeat and that's pretty much all there is to it. Very little scope for anything particularly interesting.
But humans...the things Pete would be able to do as a human. He could start a business empire and become rich and famous. He could record a hit single and top the charts and become rich and famous. He could play football for Manchester United and score a hat-trick and become rich and famous. He could write books, paint portraits, climb mountains, fall in love, and when he died people would get together in a big room and cry and say nice things about him and afterwards important people would put a picture of him in a book and everyone would see it and say "Gosh, didn't he achieve a lot?"
So what Pete really wants, more than green grass, more than dandelions, more than anything, is to be human. And this is what he tells the monster in his dreams.
The monster grins wider and sharper than ever. "Well what a coincidence!" he chuckles in a gravelly sort of way. "I happen to have a machine for that sort of thing right here."
And he does. Pete hadn't noticed until now, but at some point the backdrop for this conversation has gone from that depressing wasteland to an equally depressing (but at least not as dusty) cave. It's damp, it's horrible, and there are probably bats around here somewhere, but to the monster's credit, there is a big shiny piece of machinery in the corner.
Pete smirks a little. "A Human-ator?"
"Right you are. All I need is for you to bring your two friends to Joel Fields, and I'll let you have a go in the machine."
Pete's smile vanishes, for two reasons. "Joel Fields? Is this Joel Fields?...And what do you want with Sarah and Cliffey? Are you going to eat them?"
And somehow the monster's smile just keeps growing. "Yes, this is Joel Fields. I know it's not what you were expecting, but believe me, if you come you won't be disappointed."
Pete nods. "And my friends?"
"Yes, I'm going to eat them. But I swear on my life that no harm will befall you. And I shall of course keep up my side of the bargain."
The monster motions towards the machine. Pete looks away for a moment, and when he turns back he is wearing a frown.
"I don't understand. Who are you? Why is Joel Fields so...well it's not even a field, is it? What's going on?"
[At this point the monster tells Pete everything we already know about Joel Fields and the horrible massacre he brought upon it, but as we've already heard this story at least once we'll skip on a bit.]
Pete isn't wholly convinced. "This is just a dream," he points out. "Why should I act on any of this?"
The monster is about to say something when Pete realises that there is a bat biting into his back, sucking his blood.
"Ugh! Agh! Get it off!"
The monster chuckles heartily, plucks the devilish little creature from Pete's back, and smushes between his humongous yellow palms.
"I live in this cave," explains the monster, wiping the bat goo off his hands. "After my little feast in the Fields, I was chained up here by a gang of trolls." His smile fades for a second. "I don't know why they took it upon themselves to stop me, you'd think they'd have other concerns...anyhow, I'm chained up in a cave under what used to be Joel Fields, and, well, all this time alone has given me a little while to think. A long while, actually. I've spent the years honing my brainpower, and I've just worked out how to project myself into other people's dreams." The monster laughs. "You're the first person I've managed it on, as a matter of fact. You're a very lucky goat."
Pete just stares, googly-eyed.
"So...do we have a deal? You bring those other two goats to me, and I'll turn you into a human. It's been a long time since my last meal, and I'm getting mighty hungry."
No. Surely not.
"Well?"
Pete looks the monster dead in the eye. "You really, truly have a machine that can do this?"
"You have my word."
"Okay."
* * *
And with that, Pete wakes up. Looking around the darkened Meadows, he assures himself that it was all a dream.
He stretches, yawns, prepares to go back to sleep.
He feels a sharp pain in his back.
He looks.
There's a bitemark.
TO BE CONTINUED
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