Greenbelt Beware, The Goatman Cometh

By Paul Downs

Paul Downs is President of the Committee to Save the Green Belt. It holds an annual pumpkin walk in Greenbelt, where Downs says the Goatman cometh every year. 

Ghoulish Hearsay

From a friend of a friend of a ghoul… Word has been spreading like the cricket song that the Goatman is making his yearly migration back toward the North Woods of Greenbelt. It is said that when the dogwoods turn red and the tulip poplars sing their deepest song of yellow, that Goatman begins to make his legendary trek northward. 

That is when the back roads of the Beltsville farms can spook the innocent driver. That is when you might notice a little more activity at Cry Baby Bridge; you might notice strange ripples in the water beneath the bridge.

Pan like feet did sing and dance on that bridge last night.

Why he migrates at this time is unknown, but it always coincides with lighting of the Jack O’Lanterns in the forest. Evidence of his nearbyness are that all but three nights ago the owls intense bellowing announced his presence in a nearby neighborhood, where dogs remained silent at his passing.

One small but noticeable sign of his recent arrival is an increased number of documented, citizen dreams about a séance held deep in the bowels of the old, abandoned Glenn Dale hospital—a séance attended by the Bunnyman, the Ghost Girl of Daisy Lane, the Goatman and the spirits of Cry Baby bridge.  

This is all hearsay nonsense but let’s just say you were given hints of a hooved presence perhaps, nearby. Maybe one night when you are putting your recycling out, you see the v-line of Canadian Geese suddenly swoop downward and circle going earthward, you get a breath of something wild in the air, you hear the shrill sound of screams playful and far off. And you might feel him watching—fear not, he only hungers for the blazing glow of Jack O’Lanterns in the night forest.