I Ran Over The Mothman
Brickerton, Texas . . .
1993
WHEN BARB HANSEN FOUND HERSELF UNABLE TO SLEEP (a rare thing), it was often after the resurgence of a memory she had tried hard to lock away. The unwelcome, semi-annual reminder tended to sink its way into her during the middle of the day… her mind drifting as the buzzing of saws and men yelling echoed around in her head on an endless loop while she sat in her office. All week she had been dragging her feet at the lumber mill, managing her men through sleepy eyes and checking one too many boxes on the inventory forms. But those damn red eyes weren’t going away. Why did she only seem to remember the worst things with the most searing clarity?
She hated the sinking feeling in her stomach that followed the flash of a muddy white figure colliding with her Impala's bumper. The sucking of air. Bucketfuls of blood. And the black blade.
Barb rolled out of bed, not worrying about waking up Mike, her husband of twenty-four years this September. She uncrumpled her nightshirt and planted her now-sweaty feet on the wooden floor. When she pressed her heels in and got up from the bed, a loud, groaning creak quivered its way up the walls. Barb looked back down at Mike, snoring the night away. She smiled.
The peaceful, lumpy man still had his hearing aids in and the mute TV was playing an endless loop of late-night infomericals. She walked over to his side of the bed and lightly plucked the hearing aid from his open ear, finding the other one laying in a pool of slobber. She turned them off and placed them in the homemade ashtray made by their daughter for her seventh-grade project.
She had read in a Reader’s Digest article on time management that placing the alarm clock a few feet away from your bed would force you to really wake up instead of slamming the snooze button and sabotaging your day. She glanced at the alarm clock on the dresser next to the door, not expecting to be surprised. It was 4:27 in the morning.
Fourteen nights in a row. Waking up at the exact same time. Watching 4:26 flick to 4:27 in that dull red light.
Barb left the room and headed to the bathroom, tracing the Victorian-style white lining along the center of the walls before reaching the bathroom doorknob and flicking on the light. She checked her fingertips for dust, out of curiosity, and was pleasantly surprised that the maid hired by Mike’s eye candy mentee was doing her job well. Barb wiped her hand on the side of her nightgown anyway. She couldn’t help but smirk. The twenty-year old student reminded Barb of herself, which was half the reason they couldn’t get along.
The chipper Piper Garetty was a child prodigy according to her school records, winning five scholarships at fifteen due to a self-propelled robot. Her husband Mike, being the head of the robotics department at the University of Austin, was lucky enough to mentor the young girl. Three years had flown by while Barb focused on her second business venture following the fashion line, the Hardtack Logging Company. The spouses spent many nights two hundred miles apart, God forbid they build a robot lab in Brickerton. Recently, Mike and the student had completed a multi-deluxe fan liquid cooling system or something close to that based on her prototype flying robot. Barb didn’t think much of the project, to be honest. The ‘robot’ was just two halves of a softball-sized plastic shell and two rectangles with loud fans at their center, screwed shut with a pea-sized computer chip and messy wires inside. How that turned into a flying car or world-saving energy machines puzzled Barb.
She walked into the eyeline of the funhouse mirror and committed to her nightly routine of analyzing every stretch mark, every random mole on her neck, and every last one of those darned crow’s feet. Barb was only forty-three, although Mom would have her believe she was pushing eighty every time she called out of concern for Barb suddenly developing stage seven lung cancer, an invasive tapeworm, or “just not eating enough”.
She ran her hand through the thick, twisted mane of cherry brown hair and dug deep for any signs of gray. Luckily, her genetics seemed to remain as potent, thanks to Mom. She grabbed the back of her nightgown and pulled, bringing it to a skintight fashion. She pushed her belly out as far as the fabric would allow before bouncing back into the relaxed fanny pack of fat that formed where waist met torso. The pills weren’t working. That so-called doctor was nothing more than a speed salesman and passive aggressive womanizer.
Defeated by the moonlit devil known as imposter syndrome, Barb left the bathroom and kept the light on to guide her to the staircase. And still, even after the torture ritual, Barb could still sense the black blade stuck into the road... somewhere out there, in the furthest reaches of her subconscious.
On that note… she thought to herself.
I’m thirsty.
After walking down the stairs and her nose burning from the stench of the freshly painted kitchen, she made her way to the liquor cabinet below the record player. Both had been gifted to her home by Senator Bailey two Christmases earlier. A real bleeding-heart liberal type. Nice man. Even though she felt strongly that throughout the red-and-green cocktail affair, he only wanted to sleep with her.
The cabinet’s doors creaked open, making the kind of sounds that were always louder in the middle of the night. From the first drawer, she quickly swiped her favorite coaster, a worn White House-blazen piece of cardboard taken (actually stolen, thanks to Mike) during a retail business luncheon where she was one table and one glass of wine away from asking Jimmy Carter to dance. She had to move the giant stack of artbooks to get to the treasure, quietly placing them on top of the cabinet and shaking her head at the cover. It was the 1985 edition of her fashion line. Glossy grey cover with the headline sequin dress and a tanned Italian model front and center. It looked like the best cover of a Danielle Steele novel in retrospect. What a shame. ‘85 was the last year before she gave up her fashion business, and the industry as a whole, for the logging site.
“Ah, there you are, baby.” Barb quipped, digging around the cleared shelf as her fingers slipped around the handle of the tasty, tarty gin.
She quickly poured a half glass, not even needing the ice and eagerly anticipating the comfort of fire. The syrupy gin slid down her throat and her belly filled with the warmth of her favorite comfort food. She closed her eyes and took a big breath, doing her damndest to shake away those sharp red circles peering into her mind.
But eventually, she succumbed to the memory—the roar of an engine, the latest Rolling Stones song, and the crisp first whiff of a cigarette brand they didn’t make anymore.
<**>
Somewhere near the Arizona-New Mexico line . . .
August 1st, 1968
“YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT THE LAST ONE?” Eunice Peters asked after clasping her father’s lighter shut and sucking in the crackling tobacco, rolling the unfiltered stick of death across her wet, red lips. “Not a pit stop ‘til we hit Albuquerque!”
Barb shook her head at her best friend and sunk into the passenger seat of her 1961 Chevrolet Impala, cherry red and need of a good wash. Barb continued her sprawling investigation of the dark clouds overhead—the sun would be setting soon. She was seventeen and just getting over a painful high-school breakup, right before senior year began. Cloudwatching with a sullen look and hair whipping across your face at 60 MPH was decent medicine.
“Why do you smoke? You don’t even like it.” Barb said in a cold way, still staring at the purple-red sky of dusk.
“I do after a few of these.” Eunice laughed, rattling her latest victim, the second-to-last can of cheap gas station beer.
Barb rolled her eyes and looked to her friend. Eunice was the gorgeous best friend whose scale always hovered at one-zero-zero. She had a thick layer of eyeliner on the bottoms and her short blonde hair teased up like Audrey Hepburn about to enter Tiffany’s. Tonight, the last hurrah of their 37-day road trip, Eunice wore a cute striped minidress of white and red that matched her lipstick. She had been dressed up the entire two weeks away from home as they bounced from every tourist town and sightseeing park from the Texas border to San Diego’s coast. They snuck into a dozen bars, visited every museum on the brochure rack, and watched a few dirty movies in San Francisco while ‘the Summer of Love’ flared along the coast in Technicolor fashion and music that made Barb shake her hips. Although she wouldn’t know it for many years, this trip inspired her fashion career. All those ‘hippies’ in their homemade ponchos and ragtag strips brought something out of her. And she didn’t even had any acid. Eunice did, of course.
Barb herself was what the pretty girls at school called plain. She was very much a normie. Makeup never impressed Barb like it did Eunice, Mom or Grandma Hansen. But that was why Eunice was her best friend. She didn’t badger Barb about her looks or the way she walked like her mother did. She had a steady boyfriend for the last two years, a nice boy named George. Running back for the Jasonville Soldiers, tall, handsome enough. But things never got exciting like Eunice and her revolving door of admirers. Her and George had only kissed a few times. No dates to the movies or skating rink that didn’t end with her pushing him away by the end of it. What’s wrong, Barb? Don’t you like me?
Maybe the problem was that she liked him too much. She didn’t even know herself. And the final days of her and Eunice’s vacation hadn’t brought her any closer to a conclusion. Instead, passing through Indian ruin sites and eating all kinds of variety fried foods was a pleasant distraction from her worry of the incoming year. The last year of innocence supposedly. After this, she would be forced into the adult world. Sure, she got straight A's and her dad was a part-time doctor and full-time professor and she was guaranteed whatever future could be written on a check. But despite all that, she cradled a sinking feeling that she was being watched at all times by something that wanted to sabotage her.
Eunice was brave, always the first to leap through the door of a party uninvited or call out a boy getting too frisky with a cheerleader wearing lead boots. Barb meanwhile, hugged empty corners or back patios. She liked people well enough, but didn't know how to talk to them without making a fool of herself. She practiced socializing in her mirror all the time. Correcting her idle posture, excentuating emotion with simple hand flips and stuff of that nature. Whenever she told Eunice this, she would joke that Barb simply loved the sound of her own voice.
The afternoon faded as the approaching storm rolled across the orange bedrock of desert. The air hinted at a bigger chill to come and Barb had slid on her Christmas sweater knitted by Grandma before she died in ‘58. When Eunice was planning for the trip, she told Barb to bring something warm and cute. But moths had eaten through her long-sleeved closet the month before. All she had left was Santa holding a plate of cookies with a wink. Ho-ho-ho!
Eunice had grown tired of the beers as the light dimmed and Barb twice suggested that she drive instead. It was her car anyway. But the free spirit insisted, having a self-imposed goal of reaching Texas before midnight. If they were in a PanAm jet, maybe.
Thunder announced itself from inside the clouds. Barb looked up, her nose filling with Eunice’s smoke and her wall of spritzy perfume. A scattershot of purple lightning streaked across the sky and Eunice jumped. Night turned to day. The car shuddered to the right and Barb steadied herself. Eunice was laughing.
“That was a close one!”
“Keep at least one eye on the road, please.” Barb grumbled.
“I'll do my best. How's the cloudwatching?”
“Almost over now. The sky's got that weird look to it— right before dark where everything blends together. And that storm looks like it wants to eat us.”
“Fine by me.” Eunice laughed, performing the worst go-go moves since Batman did the oogly-woogly dance on TV. “I wouldn’t mind a little rain. Might wake us up a little. Two hundred-some miles to go.”
Barb crossed her arms and sat up from the chipping fake leather seat. “I’m awake. Can you just watch the road?”
The harsh tone of her mother had come out. Eunice seldom heard Barb's scathing, ear-perking mom voice. It was like slipping on a Halloween mask. Barb felt bad. But she kept to herself as the thunder rolled.
Eunice cut the radio. “What’s up? I know you and George were together for a bit but… it’s like you’re worried about something else. I can tell something is bugging you.”
Barb said nothing. The air felt wrong.
“Have you not had a good time with me? I’ve had the best time in my life and I got to see so many places I can cross off my bucket list. Biggest rubber band ball on the West Coast. The Golden Gate Bridge, those big sekuwa trees or whatever they’re called. I’ve dreamt about this stuff. And I hope we made some memories you’ll think about forever.” Eunice paused. “So, there’s something important I have to tell you.”
Oh no… Barb thought to herself. It was like George all over again. The rejection. Seething.
“I’m leaving before the end of the year. We have to go help my family back east and we’re planning to move before Christmas, just works best with my dad’s schedule. The doom and gloom never ends with the Peters Family.” Her voice got quieter and quieter, so low that Barb had to turn down the radio.
“For how long?”
Barb hated hearing about West Virginia. Eunice had lots of family out there and most summers, she had to go spend time with them. It was wrong to feel so jealous, because her family seemed like it was cursed. They were always sick with a cold or in a car wreck. Burnt down houses or unlucky muggings. Broken bones and scares of cancer. Last year around Christmas, a big old suspension bridge in Eunice’s hometown collapsed, killing fifty people as they fell into the icy river. Her grandparents had fallen in too, their pickup truck landing on the ice and saving their lives. But their bodies hadn’t been right since. Like Eunice always said, doom and gloom never ended with the Peters Family.
Eunice, surprisingly, was keeping her eyes on the road. But she shrugged. “I don’t… I don’t know when we’re coming back. But we have to stay until next summer. My grandparents aren’t doing well after the bridge accident and my parents… they realize they can make more money taking care of them instead of working as managers of the supermarket. They have a big inheritance and- it’s so stupid, really! They aren’t doing it because they care about Grandad and Mam, it’s all about the big check once they die!”
“So, you’re not coming back to Jasonville after Christmas? You’re just gonna find the rest of your life in West Virginia?” Barb said, her mother slipping out.
Eunice held back a tear, her big brown eyes still on the road. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. If there was anything I could do, I would. That’s why I wanted to make this trip special and I begged my parents to let me do it. To hang out with you, drive a nice car, see the wonderful-…” She stopped herself, bowing her head and sniffing softly. She returned to the road and bit her lip.
Barb couldn't talk about it. Eunice wasn’t ready. And especially when they would be stuck in the car together for another day or so. She didn’t want to be strangled. Or shamed. “I don’t feel well.”
It wasn’t a full lie. She was getting queasy. The night had taken hold while they talked. A powerful desert storm of dusty red and violet was cooking and the distant rumbles finally made themselves known. Every thunder roll seemed to pound against the back of her eyes. She was sapped of the energy to keep her head up and her eyelids felt like weights.
“Wake me up when we hit my home state.” Barb said coldly, knowing they wouldn’t reach Texas for another day.
She closed her eyes and nuzzled her head into the seat, letting the wind and the rumble of the engine lull her to sleep.
. . . . .
Sometime later, lightning snapped above the car and Barb jolted awake, her spine tingling. Her jaw was numb and the warm side of her face was buzzing. She turned to Eunice and saw her pained face and the frantic spinning of the wheel. Barb held onto the lap belt as the car whipped to the right, tires skidding and the rearview mirror shaking. She could feel the pressure of the storm clouds baring down on the road, like the Impala was sitting in a noisy pressure cooker. Eunice managed to straighten the wheel and glanced at Barb with bloodshot eyes as she continued down the dark highway. She had been asleep for much longer than a few seconds. Her friend looked haggard, sleep-deprived.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Oh, God! You’ve been out for an hour or so and the storm’s just gotten worse. No rain but there’s so much wind! And then, the lightning started crackling right above us. I mean, directly above the car! I know it’s crazy but I swear it’s after us! If we try to put the canopy on, I think it’ll blow right off.”
Barb looked up and her breath was taken away. Streaks of feathery black ripped across the bulging night clouds like smoky trails at a stunt plane show. Within the bursts of electrified light, up in the dark shadows that went orange-pink supernova, she saw towering moving shadows of winged creatures colliding at high speeds, creating the thunder itself. Up there, miles above the unshielded road, something was soaring and thriving in the chaotic superstructure, like several bands of eagles warring through a fog-covered valley. Her mind flashed to ethereal Renaissance paintings of great battles in Heaven between angels, those of light and dark. But the flying things (whatever they were) were getting bigger, leaving their highlighted flight show in the sky and spiraling closer and closer to the desert floor.
The car hit 70 miles an hour. The side mirrors chattered like the girls’ teeth. “Eunice! Just stop the car!”
Eunice shook her head. “I can’t! I’m sorry but no! We have to keep going!”
Barb continued to watch the dark angels descend, becoming sharper in detail, with massive flapping wings and pointed arms that shone like metal in the dark pink lightning strikes.
“Get away from me!” Eunice shouted, two pulsating red lights bobbing next to the window.
The flying things were already watching them. Eunice jerked the wheel into the lights and from her mouth, emitted what Barb could only describe as a ‘war cry’. The glowing orbs circled around each other and retreated into the dark while still following her line of sight. It knew she was watching. Of course it did. They were everywhere. Six or seven shadow-made flying creatures with red eyes and massive oily wings had encircled the Impala like a bunny on the run. The sound of their wings was distant, cushioned by the thunder.
A string of screeches like a buzzing parade of clicking beetles pelted the air, sending Barb's hair into a frizz. The road ahead was dark, the headlights melting into black as Eunice held her chin against the wheel. The flying things swooped in close, the pungent scent of sour grapes blasting into her nostrils as a set of bobbing red orbs ripped past the passenger window, shattering it into bits of sand. The orbs were close enough to make a noise, like glass marbles rolling about in your hand. Barb shielded her face and thunder clapped again, a ball of heat exploding in the air above the Impala. The car cabin warped from the heat and Barb felt her plastic hairclip crackle and melt into her hair.
A spray of frosty cold followed by a quaking boom along the roadside made Barb go blind, only hearing Eunice’s desperate slaps against the steering wheel as the tires screeched out. Barb put her hands against the dashboard and felt the urge to hurl. She began to cry. The Impala tried to spin. But Eunice was quick on the wheel.
“Eunice! What’s going on?” she yelled out, keeping one hand firm on the vinyl and digging her chewed nails into the dashboard. With the other, she reached out for her friend, grazing her arm before being elbowed in the cheek.
A flash of white and a white-hot sting rung out and the storm-lit landscape of the open road returned to her vision. Along with the thing in the road.
“What is that?!” Barb cried out.
A dirty-gray figure stood in the middle of the yellow lines, still as a Greek statue, its large arm stretched out as if to stop the air itself. The brakes squealed. Barb squealed. Her eyes slammed shut. Fiery red eyes smoking out of the effigy of a human head, like a hooded angel. A sharp beak protruding from the mouth region, screaming in anger.
A crash. Metal crumpling. Tires slamming over something harsh like a junkyard scrap pile. The thunder rolled. Her front teeth dove through the fleshy center of her lip. The car spun once, twice, maybe three times. The back tires rattled into an overgrown ditch. The thunder rolled. Silence.
“Barb…?”
She was too stunned to speak. Or process the thing in the road. Were those feathers on the body? Or knives?
“Barb… are you okay?” Eunice asked in a whisper.
She turned her head. Eunice’s hands were shaking, hovering over the wheel. “I think. What was that?”
“I… I think I ran over the Mothman.” Eunice said suddenly, jolting Barb from her shock.
“The what?”
The girls turned to the left, the headlights spilling out into the darkness as if white paint, masking the scene like a snowstorm. Steam rose in odd vents from the mishapen hood of the Impala, which now had a nice mountain peak emerging from the center. Eunice let go of the wheel and peered out the window as she finally answered.
“I swear to God that’s the thing Mam said was flying over the Silver Bridge last Christmas! For weeks before, some giant bird was chasing cars at night! The town was losing its mind! But it all stopped after the collapse!”
What are the odds… Barb thought to herself.
Before Barb could laugh or cry following the Mothman response, a giant missile struck the road, shattering the asphalt into black dust. An eight-foot metal blade, half the length of the car and shimmering a greasy black in the headlights, vibrated in place as the cloud of debris cleared. Barb felt her heartbeat pounding out the veins in her neck. The mist had parted, exposing the top of the standing statue from the crest of the roadside. She held her breath and looked at Eunice, who stared back like a shell-shocked soldier.
“Do you see that thing… what is that? A sword? What do we do?”
Her friend’s mouth opened, her red lips quivering, but she closed her eyes and bolted from the car, slipping through Barb’s frantic grasps.
“What the hell are you doing?” Barb cried, the driver door slamming in her face as Eunice ascended the ditch.
Pebbles bounced onto the hood and crinkled with the engine as Barb sat in the seat and slammed the dash, resisting the urge to throw a small tantrum. What in God’s name was chasing them? A gang of Mothmen with detachble red eyes? That was nothing like the weird bird spaceman from her brother’s sci-fi magazines. And now, out of the blue, Eunice believes it played a role in her grandparents’ accident? It was insane. But so was the inhuman statue person that hit their car. She watched Eunice climb onto the road and stare briefly at the sword. She looked down at the car, her skin washed out in the headlights. She vanished over the rocky horizon and Barb flung her door open.
Many heaves and hos later, her nails crammed with desert grime, Barb peeked over the roadside and stared up at the giant sword. It was obsidian in texture, constantly flaking like a charred chicken skin left on the grill. There was no hilt, an alien spear twice her height. But the sword was merely an unnerving sight compare to the horror of the thing in the road.
The gray creature had huddled into a metallic ball, the hulking mass of metal feathers shuddering like a rattlesnake’s tail. The wings’ weight scraped against the road, pushing twin piles of shredded tar-rock like a snow plow— the creature breathed deeply, a gurgly wheeze and spread its wings. The sharp angled head hung low as the thing tried sucking in the night air, much like an asthmatic person in distress. Black liquid fell in aerated spats from the collar and shoulders of the winged thing. But it wasn’t hurt from the car. Its body was full of deep rips and smoking holes, exposing a series of what Barb could only describe as battle scars.
Barb didn’t know what kind of face to expect. Hidden in shadow and red eyes glowing, she could see the outline of a beak but couldn’t see if it was an organic mouth or some kind of armor. What was this thing? Warrior or animal? But despite it all, it was the gurgling, blood-spatting voice that shocked her most.
“Theyyy… would have youuu… destroyed. I have traveled long and farrr. ACK! Carrying goalsss that do not concern youuu. But theyyy have found a taste for your grief!” the winged thing spoke. Only Barb heard her own voice, like a recording of herself being played in a ballroom.
The hairs on her neck stood up. Lightning returned in hot purple streaks, followed by a sharp strike to the road ahead.
“Who would have us destroyed?” Eunice asked.
The creature’s metal shape had softened into something more like pillow feathers as it held out a long arm to the sky, its wing extending with watery clicks. In the electric lightshow above, dozens of black trails jetted and swirled at cloud level, like rocket fueled-buzzards circling some tasty roadkill. Barb glanced down at the ever-shifting creature, it was like trying to focus on something during a waking dream. That was what this all felt like.
But the heat and air pressure was too real. Her sinuses could tell the difference, popping and cracking as the air went through mood swings. Whatever this creature, and those that flew above them were, it was clear that the weather announced their arrival with everything that humans found ominous and foreboding.
“This is not a battle for the mortal-bodied… Youuu must -ACK!- leave this place… before their hunger returns. I fear that their… penchannnt for bad luck has already taken hooold.” the creature spoke, its gray wings covering the expanse of the highway.
The creature twitched its large, horse-sized head in Barb’s direction before dismissing with an inglorious burst of black blood from the nose region. It turned to Eunice and stood tall, the wings webbing out into wider sections like… like an imaginary moth.
“Youuu carry the scent of the marked. You smell of Winter’s War…” the creature said to Eunice, who began to quake in fear.
Eunice wavered in place at the creature’s words, undeterred by the approaching lightning strikes, drawing up plumes of desert sand crystallized to glass in the purple heat. The creature took several hobbled but heavy steps toward her, blood spilling on the road like it was dropping buckets of paint. The red eyes softened to a sunset pink and it held out a hand, its leathery, bumpy palm free of a feather coat. “What do you want from me? I’m sorry I hurt you…”
“What are you doing?” Barb hissed. “Don’t speak to the thing! We need to hide before more of them come to visit!”
It was like Barb wasn’t there. This was strictly a conversation for Eunice and the thing. The Mothman. Lightning boomed above. Eunice stepped closer, placing a shivering hand in the Mothman’s. “Were you at the Silver Bridge, in West Virginia, last winter?”
The Mothman twitched, as if the hummingbird with it had eaten a pebble. “Ooooonkareee do not have bridges. They fly among the leaves of waterrr.”
“My… my family was hurt when the bridge collapsed. And many died. The metal broke apart, the river was far down and icy. But many people said they saw you flying around the upper wires, high in the foglights. Either you… or one of them.” Eunice said, slowly pointing up. “And now… here you are.”
“Perhapsss. The Ooooonkareee are known to watch over your kinnnd. I fell in battle. Meant to perish in the skies. But now, my story has changed. Youuu… creatures never fail to be… sssstrange.”
Barb was in awe. Her knees were going to buckle. The voice flowed from the beakish, sharp-toothed mouth was an elegant, clear facsimile of her own, the elongated words terse and pushed out with the intensity of a death rattle. Lightning blinded the desert, the shaking thunder riding quickly behind. Barb shuddered as her friend and the Mothman remained.
“My tribe prefer to- ACK!- offer gifts to our rare saviorsssss. Would you accept?”
Barb stepped in, even though her eyes were very wet with tears and her mouth was dry. “What do you offer?”
Ever trying to make a deal like Mom… she thought to herself.
The Mothman’s clawed finger unrolled toward the rocky black blade, still staring only at Eunice. “My weapon fell with me. Met with intention, the Ooooonkareee are wounded deeeeply. For you…”
Lightning boomed. The wind howled like it was in pain.
“Our kinds differ in many wayyys. And if touched by the stones forged within my weapon, a creature of your kind will find themselves blessssed with great fortune. Safety. A protection from the accidents of life. A worthy price for the one who saved my lifffe.”
“But why? All we did was hit you with the car!” Barb asked loudly.
Eunice eyed the blade. So did Barb.
They both inched a step closer to the edge of the road, the dark tower calling to them.
Eunice took two steps and Barb held her arms out. She looked at Barb with wide eyes. The Mothman was slowly looking around, its wings flexing.
“I have to do this!”
“Why? Just because the Mothman says so?”
“Yes, Barb! Look around! What else can we do?” she screamed back.
“What difference does the sword make? What are you going to do, swing at all five hundred of them?”
Lightning boomed.
Distant wings flapped.
“Make… the choice… fasssst.” the Mothman warned, black streak swirling just above the telephone poles.
Eunice’s comfortable car shoes skittered across the road, making her way to the blade. Barb found herself moving too. It didn’t make sense. But she wanted it too. The other Mothmen or whatever they were swopped down, right above their heads. Barb squealed while Eunice started walking, absolute. Barb realized that the howling winds were the screams of the things above. What would they do? Peck her to death with metal beaks? Or slash her in half with one of those blades? Somehow, it didn’t matter.
Her toes pushed through her sandals as her feet shuffled across the road, her toes scraping off at the edges. The pain didn’t even sting. All she felt were the thump-thumps of her heartbeat seeping out. She reached up. She was just a bit further than Eunice. She could smell her hair. Brushed her shoulder.
Her hand grasped something cold. Her skin tingled as her fingers wrapped around the blade, they only made it halfway. The weapon was meant for a giant, something even taller than the Mothman.
The lightning was muffled as blood rushed to Barb’s ears. The entire road was lit up like the break of morning for a brief second. And she saw the look of shock in Eunice’s eyes. She gripped the end of the sword tighter.
“What have you done?” Eunice scream out. She turned to the Mothman, its massive wings collapsing in on themselves like chain-linked knives made of water. “If she grabbed the sword, what does that mean?”
“It meansss…” the winged warrior said, the blade rattling in place, cracking the asphalt around it. "The choice has been made.”
Barb let go. The sword wedged out from the chunky bits of dried tar and shuffled its edge out out the ground, as if on strings. Barb jumped back while Eunice stood still, the black blade whooshing past her head as she faced Barb. The Mothman caught it with a thick arm, the wings now tucked and bent behind its back. The creature showed no wounds and stood tall, without any sign of deep injury, no hunchedness and no spilling of blood, although it still coated the highway, reflected as mini lakes in the lightning.
“You shall be protected from the forces… those above and belowwww. But the day will arrive when youuuu must stop an incursion such as thissss. If you do not, the gift of the Ooooonkareee shall vanishhhh.”
With that chilling statement, the Mothman stared at the girl with burning red eyes for the final time. It opened its mouth and a rattling screech shot out, followed by angry rolling flames of blue. A hot white flash filled Barb’s vision. She saw Eunice raise a hand in defense.
No lightning boomed.
Stillness.
. . . . .
When they awoke as the morning crows made their rounds, Barb was tangled in the passenger seat and Eunice was dead asleep at the wheel of the Impala with her mouth hanging open. Their wakeup was awkward and fuzzy on recall, like the worst kind of party morning-after. But it must have been a dream. Because the Impala was fixed. Or… never damaged at all. It was parked nicely at a bus stop ten miles from Jasonville.
Had it all been a night terror? Driving hypnosis taken to the extreme? Barb wouldn’t know for awhile. She waited for Eunice to say something as they started driving, but, as Barb noticed for the first time, Eunice could play dumb very well. So, her heart broke a little and she spent the rest of the short drive thinking about metal knives and red eyes.
One thing was for sure. They never talked about George again.
<**>
BARB HAD FINISHED TWO GLASSES OF GIN by the time her reminiscence drifted to the present. Her hands were shaking and she could feel the redness in her eyes from holding back tears. It took some time (a decade, believe it or not) but the memories came back like a bad acid trip. It was almost funny. She quietly assumed that as she got older, her mind would keep slipping into some lonely void akin to a cosmic trash can but instead, everything got sharper. The colors got deeper and she could feel the heat or sting of every summer and winter in her childhood. It was all mashed together in a beautiful, sorrow-filled slideslow of childhood laughter, teenaged heartbreak, warm hugs, gut-busting jokes, and the occasional funeral. But the red eyes… nothing was ever intercut with the beauty of life when the memory flashed by. It was the ever-growing stain on her mind.
Eunice’s life fell apart after they got back to Jasonville that summer of ‘67. A week after they got back, her dad was in an oil tank explosion at work, third degree burns on his back and arms. Two weeks later, her mother had a finger cut off while mowing the backyard one last time before they moved, the blades wore out and bounced around the garden. And on the way to the hospital, driving with one hand, Eunice’s mom and her baby brother in the backseat were plowed by a dirt truck while crossing the main road, killed instantly— the driver was too busy lighting his tenth cigarette of the day.
She moved to Point Pleasant in August after the funeral, the last time she saw Barb when they were young. They didn’t even have time to talk about the incident before she moved away. Whatever they remembered. All Barb knew was that Eunice stopped wearing that bright red lipstick. And that had to mean something…
Then, on a rainy day in 1978, as Barb’s life went swell— college, internship/career at J.C. Penney corporate until ‘75, and then her own business — an old friend returned. In her office, drawing up designs for the side skirt on a silk dress for a sponsored show in France, her intercome buzzed to life with a request from one Eunice Peters. Intrigued, excited, yet breathing as if through a straw, she sent her up.
The woman at the door had the bright nails and eyes of Eunice Peters, but a decade had warped over the most popular girl at school. “Hey, Barb. Very long time, no see. I wanna talk about something.”
“I’d imagine.” Barb said, still sat at her desk and suddenly itchy all over.
Eunice’s short blonde hair had grown into a weed bushel of greasy dark brown, hanging along the collar of her moth-eaten wool jacket. Her face was puffy at the neck yet gaunt at the cheeks. She looked closer to her sixties than forties, wrinkles set in deep like a war veteran. She wasn’t well. That was clear. But she didn’t appear desperate for money. Maybe just an old friend’s companionship. But at that time in her life, Barb had no more to give.
“If you need money or a job, I can’t help you.” she said, reaching to her desk bottom drawer and grabbing a small bottle of gin and a shot glass.
Eunice scoffed and wiped her mouth, staring up at the ceiling. Her long hair didn’t move. Her body weaned and shook when she looked back down at Barb. “Wow. Um, that’s not why I am here. Nice to see you too, though.”
“Sorry. Had to ask. I have a business to run. I didn’t want you coming in here with some nonsense about a winged monster on the highway giving me good luck.”
Eunice smiled. Like she had caught a killer in the act. “Ah. So you do know why I’m here?”
“It just came to me. Now, can we get this over with? I have to finish these designs by the end of the day. Big show in Paris this fall.”
“I’m sorry, friend… where do you think all of this came from? The Mothman told you.” Eunice said.
It may have come from her father’s initial startup funds and good connections, of course. But her fashion line, her list of celebrity clientele, and $200,000 savings account had nothing to do with the Mothman.
But there was the parking garage fire in 1971 that burned every car but hers, the propane tank explosion of her favorite bar in1975 that took out eight people, and the awful apartment building collapse in ‘82. There were a few more accidents she seemingly dodged but honestly, there had been so many she had placed them out of mind. But it had all been luck, right? What was the alternative? That a giant flying moth warrior was circling around her, scanning her every move and planning her day around the disasters that took other people from this Earth? What were they anyway? Angels of death? Animals? Nothing made sense. So she always tried to package the questions away with a swig of gin. That did the trick for a few years.
“Look around you. I can’t afford to give power to something insane and unfair like the Mothman. That thing gets no credit for my work. We went on a summer vacation. That’s it. You can’t make stuff that happened in high school the ultimate turning point of your life. Most of us move on.” Barb said, sipping from her glass.
“We both saw the frickin’ thing! Your car was beat to shit! You grabbed the sword after the Mothman said I had to be the one to do it! Don’t sit there, all high and mighty in your office chair and stare out the window! Look at me and tell me I’m wrong! Tell me I’m wrong so I can forget this whole thing and try to start my life over. If nothing else, just end it.”
“So that’s what this is really about? It’s the same old story with Eunice Peters, I guess. Needing to be taken care of—that was never my responsibility. You thrust that on me, same as my mother.”
“Oh my GOD! Will you shine a light on the shadow that is your mother, please? Ten years and you haven’t changed a bit. You chose to be my friend. I mean, you could have stuck with no one. Even with your family’s money, until I came along and squeezed a sparkle of joy out of you, everyone thought you were some diplomat’s kid on a secret mission or something. If only they knew the truth. You didn’t have many friends because you were cold.”
Barb’s eyes felt like fire. She was burning with rage but let it all subset through the gin.
“How about this?” Eunice tearfully asked, holding out a shaky hand. “Either lie… lie, one final time or just admit that you stole my life from me. It was my choice…”
“AND YOU DIDN’T TAKE IT FAST ENOUGH! What is so hard to comprehend here? You lost the game! PLAIN AND SIMPLE!”
Silence bit the air like a shark with its prey, puffy insides hanging in the deep waters for a moment. Eunice bit her lip and pushed back a collected strand of greasy hair. She let out the fakest smile. “You never reached out. Not once.”
“I would like you to leave now.” Barb remembered saying, her eyes landing on the red ‘EMERGENCY’ button on her phone that would alert security.
But Eunice left without another word, holding her hands up like an arrest was taking place. She marched calmly out of the office and Barb never saw her again. But she did cry that night. Over what, she was never quite sure.
In her study, now twenty-five years past the night that changed her forever, fifteen years she last saw her best friend, Barb couldn’t stop seeing the red eyes. Two weeks of waking up at 4:27AM and seeing those red numbers. Like the alarm clock was teasing her. A stupid emissary of the Mothman urging to her to confront the truth. About what? Her so-called luck? What good was luck? There was nothing lucky about outliving your friends.
When Eunice died in 1991, hitchhiking from Mississippi to Texas, she was apparently heading back to Jasonville to get money and food from an old high school teacher. And by then, Barb’s heart had softened. Soon after hearing about the small funeral in West Virginia, Barb finally took the time to see what a stolen life looked like. She hired the best investigator available, Mackenzie Flitt, a grizzled ex-cop from Chicago of ninety-four who had a contract office with Arkham and Dyson, whom she had several business associates and drinking buddies with. Flitt and his team of four F.B.I. dropouts somehow found damn near every lease, magazine subscription, and receipt with her name on its since 1968.
In 1971, after her grandfather passed away from natural causes, she fled Point Pleasant for Washington D.C. She made several clinic visits over her five-year stay on the streets of the nation’s capitol, getting small drug possession charges for heroin and cocaine. She was a certified runaway, often known as Jane Doe in her files, but as Barb rifled through stacks of manilla envelopes, thick black marker labeling each year, she could tell the sad eyes and skinny face of the attached mugshot was none other than Eunice Peters.
A part of her grew to hate the Mothman as Flitt presented the last twenty years of her life, laid out on a map. He used red string and tacks to mark her progress, ping-ponging across the East Coast for the rest of the seventies after leaving Barb’s office. She mostly visited major cities or towns, staying at hotels or parking lots and never owning a car, always borrowing or hitching. In a way, Eunice’s continuous zig-zags on the corkboard U.S. map reminded her of how birds migrate during seasons. She did love to travel. The whole road trip had been her idea.
Barb wondered how much time she had spent alone. Maybe looking up at the stars at night, hoping the Mothman would return to give her another chance. The thought made her feel ill.
And since her personal investigation, cycles of the recurring memory would haunt her at night. This most recent time (fourteen nights straight) had been the longest and most intense since she left Jasonville in ‘69. Mike didn’t know the extent of her and Eunice, only that it ended quickly when she moved away. How would she ever explain this without him meeting with a divorce lawyer the next day? And then miss Piper Garetty would swoop in to sour it all. The longer she thought about it, the duller the gin would taste.
The dream would lay out the memory like a skipping record, every detail soaked into view. She could smell the leather seats, see the glisten of sunlight off Eunice’s red lips, and the pulsing red power behind the flying orbs during the chase. She heard her laugh or tell a tasteless joke, and some part of Barb would smile. Until the storm drifted over them. And then it was all over.
Unless she went to bed without drinking. Then the dream was different. Everything still happened the same— the thunder and lightning, red orbs circling, the Mothman in the road, the fear and confusion, the crash and blackout.
Like usual, the Mothman spoke its prophecy while spitting up black blood and she would close her eyes, drift toward the blade, and reach out.
But instead of the cold monolithic weapon not meant for the mortal-bodied, she found the hand of a friend they didn’t make anymore.
THE END