The Ditch Incident (Goat-Man not included)

The Goat-Man in "the Ditch"

By Mike Walk

There were seven of us. Seven brave adventurers, armed with exactly two flashlights, a couple wooden swords, and no discernible sense of self-preservation. We were around twelve years old, which is the age when a boy is biologically compelled to crawl into dark, forbidden drainage systems because someone heard that a goat-man (of all things) lived down there and of course we had to see for ourselves. This is also the age when you’re just starting to get tall enough to regret things.

The entrance to the Storm Tunnel (also known affectionately as "the ditch") was a mossy concrete opening at the end of the street, partially obscured by bushes, drift trash, and three decades of poor decision-making. As soon as we crawled inside, the temperature dropped 30 degrees and smelled like mold, questionable water, and the lost dreams of sewer rats. For those of us into D&D (me) it was kind of like a real-life dungeon. 

We proceeded forward a close band of fear ravaged kids, propelled by boredom and hormones (what a combo). Every step made echoes down through the bowels of the ditch, which looked like a long dark tunnel to Hell. Our flashlights cast just enough light to look like a scene out of a Stephen King fever dream. The sights, the sounds, the smell, the feel... every nerve in my body was saying "Let's get the heck out of here!" but we just kept going deeper and deeper.

We were maybe two hundred yards in (further into the ditch than we had EVER gone before) when Darin, whose brain was wired entirely to “fight-or-flight” mode (with heavy emphasis on “flight”), suddenly stopped us and said three simple words that always seem to summon chaos:

“What was that!?”

Let me clarify: no one heard anything. But that’s irrelevant, because once panic is activated in a group of middle school boys in a dark confined tunnel, logic has officially been voted off the island.

Instantly, the entire group exploded into a full stampede of puberty-powered survival instinct. It was like someone set off a firecracker in a chicken coop. Screaming, scrambling, elbows flying. The flashlights—both of them—bolted forward with the kids, because of course the ones holding them were the first to flee.

Because I had been leading the troupe, I was now at the back. Because I was the older kid, and when you’re the older kid in a concrete tunnel with a low ceiling, the physics of running are not in your favor (height matters). And you can probably guess what happened next.

I turned to run, full of adrenaline and blind fear, and immediately slammed the top of my head into a low concrete beam. It felt exactly like someone had hit me over the head with a baseball bat. My legs buckled and I went down to one bended knee, seeing more stars than the opening crawl of a “Star Wars” movie.

When I looked up, the last of the flashlight beams were disappearing around a distant corner like the ending of every nightmare. I was now alone in a dark, mossy, possibly haunted, tunnel, my skull throbbing, my friends gone, and the ghostly memory of Darin's voice saying “What was that?” echoing in my brain.

That’s when I remembered the Goat-Man.

The Goat-Man, according to local lore (which is to say, according to Steve, the crazy even older kid who lived up the street), was half man, half goat, all evil, and lived in the deepest tunnels of the ditch system waiting for kids to separate from the group so he could suck out their souls through their shoulder blades. he claimed he had seen it once, and described it in graphic detail on more than one occasion.

Naturally, this is the exact moment my brain decided to remind me of all of that. The silence around me was thick. Too thick. Then… I heard it.

Was that a grunt.

Or a cough.

Maybe it was just my brain leaking out of my skull.

Or perhaps it was a trapped stray dog?

Bad as the goat-man was, there were also rumors that stray dogs (big ones) sometimes fell into the ditch only to eventually die of hunger cuz they couldn't get out. And god help any poor stupid kid who might encounter one of these unfortunate beasts, because it was like encountering a miniature demon bear, as they were starved and crazy and would eat you, starting with the feet, until you died. Or so they said. One of the neighborhood kids swore he saw a crazy-eyed half-starved Rottweiler down there one time. The whole idea was enough to make your blood run cold.

I didn’t have time to think of all that, but I did anyway! In sheer panic, I scrambled to my feet and stumbled forward like a newborn deer on a greased merry-go-round, bumping into walls, tripping over nothing, slipping in moss, and screaming things like:

“Guys! Wait up!”, "Don't leave me!", and "I can't see!"

Every sound behind me—water dripping, rocks shifting, possibly Satan’s breath—felt like the Goat-Man getting closer. Or one of those demon dogs. My spine tingled with the certainty that something hideous was about to grab me and make an appetizer out of my kidneys.

Then, just as my sanity began waning, I began to see it.

The Light. Daylight. Hope. Oxygen. Freedom. Dry shoes...

I burst out of the mouth of that tunnel like it had coughed up a moss-stained Indiana Jones. Collapsing on the damp cement in a heap of grime, all full of fear, and eighth-grade regret. My friends were standing nearby, arguing over whose idea it had been to go in there in the first place (it was mine). None of them had noticed I was missing. I lay there panting, relieved, basking in the safety of daylight, knowing one thing for certain:

I was never, ever going back in there again. 

I really don't think we ever went back in there again. I think one time we started to and chickened out. No doubt with thoughts of the above incident still fresh in our adolescent minds.

You can still see the ditch to this day. Still open, and beckoning adventurous kids to come in and explore, and possibly die. Not from the Goat-Man, or a crazed dog. But from hitting your head on a low beam.