"Great," Raymond sighed. "Goatman territory. | hate that place." 


"Old Capricorn is harmless," Katherine stated, starting down 
Babylon Road, towards their destination. "He may even be 
cooperative, provided he knows what's going on." 


"The spooks watch this town all the time, Katherine," Montgomery 
shifted his shoulders. "| feel sorry for them. '76 and the deaths at the 
camp left a psychic scar, imagine what this has done..." 


A cold wind blew through the street. Dr. Sinclair shivered, and 
Montgomery put an arm around her. "Thanks," she smiled. 


"Where in the woods do you need to go?" February asked. 


"There's an old wishing well near where some of the lumberjack 
housing used to be in New Toronto. They say if you look into it, you 
can see something look back up at you." 


"Let's... not put that to the test, okay?" Raymond grinned, nervous. 
"I'd rather get home with all my sanity intact." 


They both nodded, and Sinclair started leading the way, comparing 


the map to the notepad page. 


God dammit, Pryce, February thought. Why did | get occult detail 
this year? 


Raymond February chewed his lip as he stood guard. He didn't 
know why he was so shaken; he'd been in the Choir Boys for three 
years, shot at immortal heart-stealers while yelling Hail Marys and 
hoping they'd die. People turning up as scarecrows was child's play. 


Still, as the two magicians chanted next to the old, boarded-up well, 
he felt cold without a single breath of wind, and felt damp air without 
a drop of rain on his skin. And he heard the crunch of leaves without 
any footsteps to accompany them. 


Surrounding the well were the ruins of four log cabins, worn away 
from over one-hundred years worth of Wisconsin summers and 
winters. Some small animals — the odd badger or coyote — had 
made their homes among the damp wood, burrowing for grubs and 
roots. But now, the forest had gone silent and grey; the lighting was 
wrong. Raymond had managed to see the eclipse, at totality, and 
the lighting seemed almost like that. Twilight on all sides. "...how 
much longer?" He asked. 


"This'll be the last one today. I'm plenty wigged out too." Katherine 
plucked at some of the lines of energy, contemplating what she 
should be doing. In a perfect world, she would be sitting in her 
quarters with a hot glue gun and some synthetic fur, finishing up the 
mask for her Halloween costume. Instead, she was here, testing 
leylines. 


Then, with a loud twang like a guitar from hell, one of the lines 
broke. "Uh-oh." 


"Uh-oh?" Raymond asked. 
"Broken Leyline." She stood up and quickly broke the spell. 
"Is that bad?" 


"If we were in New York, no," Montgomery said. "New York has so 


many redundant leylines in it that the Foundation has looked into 
using empty ones to transmit high-speed internet signals. But out 
here, in a nexus?" He took a deep breath. "Ever hear of Nexus-29?" 


"Yeah," Raymond nodded. "The one in the southwest with that weird 
broadcast coming out of it. They sound like a buncha weirdos down 
there" 


"Ever hear of the sandstorm down there?" Montgomery cracked his 
knuckles and rolled his shoulders, looking at the well. "That was the 
result of only a dozen leylines breaking, which set off a chain 
reaction of hundreds of others. It..." He hissed through his teeth. "It 
was not good." 


"Breaking leylines, Class-5 hauntings, people turning up as 
scarecrows." Sinclair rubbed her head, and looked at the sky. 
"This... this lighting isn't right. We need to get out, now." 


"Way fu- way ahead of you, doc," February began marching back to 
the town. His path was cut short by an axe flying in front of his face, 
thrown by some unknown force, and embedding itself in the oak 
before him. Its blade came so close to his nose that he reflexively 
sneezed. 


The three of them spun their heads to face the source of the attack, 
spotting a seven-foot-tall man with the head of a goat standing 
among the trees, three sets of horns on its head, and its eyes red 
and hateful, with hourglass pupils. Its fur was matted and black, and 
it bore its teeth at the three of them, letting out a hellish bleat. 


"It's just the Goatman,” Sinclair groaned, letting out a laugh of relief. 
"Scared us there! Good one. Sorry, but we-we're not terribly in the 
mood for that kind of business!" 


The axe by Raymond's head dematerialized, and reappeared in the 
Goatman's hand. It let out another bleat, and threw the axe again, 
which managed to weave its way between Sinclair and Reynolds, 
and chop off a lock of Sinclair's hair. 


"Oh shit," she exclaimed. "Whatever got the town got it too." 


"Katherine!" Monty pushed her to the ground as the axe came 
around like a boomerang, missing her neck by a fraction of a 
second. The Goatman caughNt its axe, and started towards them. 


The doctor gasped, jolting up and starting to run back to town. The 
Goatman pursued, its hooves booming like cannonballs on the 
forest floor, with Montgomery and February running by Sinclair. 


February, for his part, drew his sidearm and fired blindly behind him 
at the Goatman. The shot grazed its calf, and its black fur was 
spattered with blood. The Goatman flinched and clutched its head, 
before it let out a bellowing roar that shook the leaves from the 
trees, an impossible sound that seemed to turn the sky darker than it 
was already. 


"Son of a-" Raymond caught himself from swearing, and just 
screamed. "What do we do?!" 


"You run!," Sinclair yelled back. "I'm gonna stop him from catching 
us!" She bit down on her right pointer finger, breaking the skin with 
an audible snap, stopping in front of a tree and quickly scribbling a 
sigil into the bark. 


"What are you doing, Katherine?!" Monty yelled. 


"Buying time!" she called back, breathing some Will into the sigil. A 
shadow fell over her as the sign glowed a dark red, and she turned 
to see the Goatman bring its axe towards her. Time turned to 
molasses. 


The Goatman brought down its axe at Katherine's head-level, and 
she ducked down, covering her head. The axe split the tree, the 
force cleaving through the sigil. The magic within fizzled, sparked, 
and exploded; what Sinclair had meant to be a stunning spell had 
instead turned into a magical flash-bang. 


"No!" Reynolds yelled, twisting and running back to Katherine. From 
under his sleeve, he produced a leaf of paper. He unfolded it, and 
from the folds he drew a cavalry saber, its steel blade inscribed with 
runes, glowing with pure anti-thaumaturgial energy. Spellshatter, 
Katherine had called it. Hopefully this would be powerful enough to 


kill a thoughtform. 


The Goatman got to its feet before the mage did, and shot a glare 
down at her. It showed an odd kind of mercy, extracting its axe from 
the tree, and throwing the mage over his back, before bounding off 
into the woods with the barely-conscious mage over his shoulder. 


"NO!" Montgomery yelled, slicing his arm with the blade and yelling 
out words of power, of fire, of hate, towards the beast. A white-hot 
beam of plasma came forth, forged from his blood, hot enough to 
vaporize brass and liquefy rock— but then, he realized, he would hit 
Katherine, as well as Goatman. Five feet from the creature, he let 
the spell fizzle, leaving only scorch marks on the ground in its wake. 
Reynolds fell to his knees, and looked at the retreating form of the 
Goatman. 


Raymond took a medkit from off his belt and started bandaging 
Reynold's arm. "We need to get back to site. Get you medical 
attention, and get reinforcements." 


"Hell with that," Reynolds grunted, trying to stand. Raymond forced 
him back down to his knees with a soft pinch of the shoulder, 
eliciting a gasp of pain from the older mage. 


"Hold still! I'm trying to make sure you don't bleed out from your 
hoodoo voodoo bulls- bunk!" 


"It's not voodoo, it's hermetic thaumaturgy." He growled at February. 
"What the hell is wrong with you?" 


"Beg pardon?" 


"| have literally, not once, ever heard you swear! No fucks, no shits, 
no goddamns, no cunts, no motherfuckers!" 


February shrugged. "Swearing is just something that's never 
appealed to me." 


"You say that as you hold back a bullshit," Montgomery winced as 
the bandages tightened. "Seriously, why?" 


"Swearing just leads to more anger. And | couldn't afford to be angry 


SCP-812: A Big Box of River 


Item #: SCP-812 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: Being inanimate and more or 
less inert, SCP-812 can theoretically be stored almost anywhere. 
However, to prevent accidental flooding, the object should be kept 
outdoors. Only one of the object's doors should be opened at a time; 
carelessness, particularly in transit, can and will result in drowning. If 
both doors are opened at once, the rate of flow will render the act of 
closing the double doors impossible; close the side door and the 
flow will stop. 


SCP-812 is currently housed at Site 19, outside, next to the general 
equipment sheds. It is to be kept securely locked, and tampering by 
unauthorized personnel is grounds for demotion and/or disciplinary 
action. 


Description: SCP-812 is a nondescript cargo container of 
corrugated steel measuring 12m x 2.5m x 2.5m. There is a sliding 
door measuring 2m x 2m set in one of the long sides, and a set of 
double doors is built into one of the square ends. The object is 
painted dull red and partially covered with spray-paint graffiti. Official 
markings include the number 247 and the word "ANTHERCORP," 
which identifies no commercial entity. The object weighs 
approximately 4000 kg when empty and can hold up to 26,500 kg. 


SCP-812 has a noticeable tendency to be misplaced or forgotten by 
whomever is charged with it. Photographs and firsthand accounts 
suggest it has been in motion almost constantly since original 
manufacture, but despite this, the object has appeared on only two 
cargo manifests in the last sixteen years, and none before that. Its 
precise age and origin are therefore impossible to determine. 


When the side door is opened, the interior of SCP-812 is completely 


when | was in the Choir Boys. Angry meant dead." He tied off the 
bandages. "You're a grown man, for god's sake. I'm going to call for 
backup. We wait for the cavalry to get here, and then raid Koch's 
Hovel to get her back." 


"You call for backup." Montgomery stood, wincing and holding his 
saber in his good hand. "The woman | love is out there, in the 
woods, with a psychotic tulpa. I'm going to cut it to ribbons if it so 
much as touches her hair." 


Raymond ignored him. "Sigma-10 Command, this is Agent 
February. We have a missing researcher, taken by a UAE." 


«Copy, February. Squad Six is En Route. What took them?» 


".,.the Goatman." Raymond February swallowed a swear hard as he 
saw Montgomery Reynolds run off into the woods. 


"KATHERINE!" Montgomery Reynolds yelled, leaping through the 
brush with more agility than his form would suggest. "KATHERINE!" 


He had been running for half an hour. He was lost. Exhausted. He 
knew town was somewhere to the south, but in the eclipse-like 
twilight, he didn't know where south was. "God... dammit." He 
coughed, and stuck his saber into a tree. "KATHERINE!" 


He rested against the blade, using it as a support. His body was 
made for sitting in front of a table and translating arcane texts, not 
running through the forest after a supernatural monster, like a knight 
or — god forbid — a video game character. Katherine was the 
woman of action, when the time called for it, banishing zombies or 
fighting minor deities. He was Dumbledore with a broken wand, 
while she was Morcant LeFay, burning bright with magical force. 
She should be on Sigma-3, not in this anomalous burg. Yet, she 
stayed. 


Did she stay for him? 


He stopped his contemplation and pulled his saber out. He plodded 
forward, looking at his bandages. He needed stitches, not this. He 


should have cauterized the wound, but the nerves in his arm would 
be shot. It took six months before Katherine was able to use a 
keyboard after she burned her hands with a fire spell. 


"The woman | love...'. He had said it back there, to February. He 
was a grown man, almost a decade older than Katherine. She had 
seemingly ignored any attempt he made to show his affection 
towards her, but all the same, he— 


"INFERNUS! INFERNUS SEPULCHRUM!"" 


Montgomery's attention fell on a gout of fire shooting from the 
ground some three-hundred meters away. Fire magic, anda 
woman's voice. Katherine had sworn off fire for the last four years. 


"Oh god," Montgomery hustled towards her, wheezing and panting. 
"Katherine, I'm coming!" 


"INFERNUS'" the voice came again. It wasn't ritual magic, no 
preparation. He doubted she even had time to carve a sigil. She was 
doing pure invocation. It would wear her out in minutes. 


He came past a cluster of trees, and found Katherine standing 
before the Goatman, blood trickling from her mouth. A circle of fire 
twice the size of the Goatman enclosed it, and it stood in the middle, 
looking warily at the pair of them. Katherine was slumped against 
the wall of the small, stone hut where the Goatman resided- Koch's 
Hovel. 


"Oh my god," Montgomery panted. "You're... You're..." 


"...drained," she groaned, slumping against the wall. Her jacket was 
torn, the sleeves almost entirely incinerated by the fire she had 
called up. "Made a circle out of ash. | figure, it's a demon, and | 
figure that if | think it's a demon, it'll play by demon rules, so | figure | 
can bind it into a circle—" 


Montgomery walked around the burning ring, and wrapped his arms 
around her. "| was terrified." He took off the jacket and put it around 
her shoulders. "Are you all right?" 


"I'm one of the best mages the Foundation has outside of Sigma-3, 


Monty," she sighed, looking at her scarred forearms. 'Non Contenti 
Sumus’, they read. Branded onto her skin by beings not pleased by 
her prior sacrifices. "I'll be okay. | just... need to incinerate about ten 
pounds of hamburger as penitence for borrowing some power." 


The Goatman, behind them, roared and slashed through the circle of 
fire with its axe. The first blows glanced off of an invisible barrier as 
the two of them moved warily around the edge, away from the beast. 
Katherine stumbled, and the flames flickered. "I overdid it," she 
coughed. "Too much energy, too little sacrifice. Circle's gonna fail." 


Monty looked at the failing circle, placing Katherine behind him and 
drawing his sword. "How long do we have?" 


"Three...two... one... 


The Goatman leaped out of the circle, and its blade met Monty's 
saber. The clashing of the two weapons produced a spark of blue 
light, and the Goatman's eyes faded from red to yellow for a flicker 
of a second. It rubbed hits head and murmured a plea, before its 
eyes returned to their hellish, red state. Its blade came down once 
more. 


Monty parried the attack, luring it away from Katherine. She started 
to call out something, but it was difficult to hear between the steel of 
blade against the flesh and wood of the Goatman's axe. "What are 
you saying?!" He asked. 


"Y-You can't kill him!" Katherine panted. "He's a thoughtform! 
Something about his story's gone wrong!" 


The Goatman trying to bring its axe down on his shoulder. 
Montgomery parried it, and drove his blade in between its ribs. The 
Goatman had power, but lacked grace, and fumbled once more 
when the Spellshatter drove itself into its side. "So, what?" He 
asked. "I have to tell a story at it?!" 


"l-I don't know! I'm not an epistemologist!" She winced at the sight of 
Monty dodging an axe to the shoulder. 


Monty had a realization. Everyone left in town was so scared