by Mae Clair
It sounded absurd when voiced that way, but Eve knew however anxious she felt, the sensation had to be magnified tenfold for Katie. Not only had her friend recently learned her sister had been murdered, her body buried somewhere in Point Pleasant, but a killer had taken Wendy’s life and gotten away with the crime.
“Come on, let’s do this.” Steering her friend outside, Eve led Katie onto the porch. It was almost nine in the evening, but the sky remained light, brushed with the first tentative strokes of twilight. The days had lengthened, creeping toward evening as the official start of summer loomed near and fireflies shyly materialized for the first time.
Eve joined Caden on the glider, their usual seat on the porch, while Katie and Ryan reclined in matching wicker chairs across from them. For a while they talked casually, the discussion ranging from the Challenger shuttle launch with Sally Ride, the first woman in space, to Reagan’s Star Wars plan, and how much everyone missed M*A*S*H. Sooner or later, Eve knew she would have to broach the topic simmering at the back of her mind. It was the reason she’d orchestrated the dinner, craving a laidback environment when she and Katie outlined their recent experiences. Sending her friend a measured glance, she guided the conversation to the TNT. It took only a few minutes to explain how she and Katie had poked around the igloo, though she purposefully neglected mentioning Mrs. Flynn had directed them there.
“So we thought we’d ask a few questions since we were there anyway. You know…” Her hands grew sweaty as she tried to manipulate the conversation in the needed direction. “See if there was any truth to the rumors about an entity lurking inside.”
Ryan gave a derisive snort. “Do you know how many people have fallen for that hogwash? I wish I had a dime for all the idiots who trudged up there and asked questions only to come out looking like an ass—uh, fool.” The swiftly voiced correction was tangled up with an apologetic glance for Katie.
Eve’s friend didn’t seem to realize Ryan had tempered his language for her. Interesting. If she weren’t so focused on the root cause for broaching the conversation, Eve might have dissected his behavior in more detail.
“What if I told you something did answer our questions?”
Caden shifted uncomfortably. He’d been sitting with his arm draped over her shoulders, but drew free, facing her with a serious expression. “What do you mean—something?”
Wetting her lips, Eve exchanged a glance with Katie. “Do you want to tell them or should I?”
“You do it.” Katie’s face was white, her hands clenched tightly together.
“All right.” Rapidly, before she could lose her courage, Eve relayed the encounter she and Katie had with the being in the igloo, sharing everything it told them. Caden was silent when she was through, his expression grim, but Ryan looked ready to burst with the absurdity of the idea.
“You expect me to believe Wendy was murdered based upon feelings you had in an old World War II bunker?” He gave an incredulous shake of his head.
“They weren’t feelings.” Katie spoke sharply, her lips thinned to a white line. “We heard a distinctive voice. You know as well as I do supernatural events have taken place there, Ryan.”
“What I know is that I have a dead body—Amos Carter’s—and that’s the murder I’m concerned with. Not hearsay about something that might have happened fifteen years ago. However much you want to believe differently, Katie, the odds are your sister ran away.”
“No.” Anger flashed in Katie’s eyes. “I refuse to believe that after what I heard in the igloo. I’ve never believed it.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Ryan’s gaze held unmistakable challenge.
Katie waited three pulse beats before tossing out the plan she and Eve had devised earlier. “We have to go to the Witch Wood. To the spot where Maggie saw the Mothman. I think Wendy is buried there. That must be what Maggie saw that scared her so badly.”
“That’s freaking crazy.” Ryan shot to his feet and paced a short distance away in agitation.
Eve rushed to her friend’s defense. “Ryan, I agree with Katie.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m a sworn officer of the law.” The lighthearted friend she remembered from childhood had been replaced by an icy professional. “I’m not about to go digging around in the woods, looking for a potential murder victim, based on a conversation you two had with the bogeyman. You might as well ask me to believe in the Mothman.”
“I do.” Caden spoke quietly, venturing into the conversation.
Startled, Eve glanced in his direction. Since stepping onto the porch, she’d been walking a mental tightrope, determined to convince Ryan and Caden about what happened in the igloo. Having her boyfriend as an ally was a situation she hadn’t foreseen. Interesting he’d chosen this moment to take a stand about Point Pleasant’s notorious monster.
Ryan stared at his bother like he’d lost his mind. “You believe this supernatural bullshit?” No tempering his language now.
“I do.”
“Caden, be serious. It’s bad enough Mom—”
“Listen, Ryan.” Caden spoke swiftly, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I don’t know what scared Maggie in the woods behind Nana’s old house, but something did. I don’t know if she saw the Mothman, but I know what happened to me when the Silver Bridge fell. That’s enough to make me believe there might be something in that igloo. Something that talked to Eve and Katie.”
Ryan regarded him silently. Judging by his expression, Caden rarely spoke about the bridge disaster or his impressions of that night.
“Go on,” Ryan prompted.
Caden shifted. It was obvious he didn’t like being the center of attention, just as obvious he couldn’t back out now. Motioning for his brother to sit, he drew an uneven breath. To Eve it looked like he prepared to spin back a mental clock.
“It was cold in the water.” The first words out of his mouth were strained, tangible tension mirrored by his body posture. “I thought I was going to die. I would have if the thing hadn’t freed me.”
Ryan eased into a chair, his gaze never leaving Caden. “What thing?”
Eve sensed the answer even before Caden spoke.
“The Mothman.”
* * * *
The impact of the car hitting the water tossed his body like a limp ragdoll. His head cracked against the driver’s side window, and he blacked out.
When he awoke, it was to a world of dark and cold, filled with pain. The fire in his lungs forced him awake, the building pressure alerting him he was running out of oxygen. Everything around him was dark, a nightmare world of freezing water and twisted metal. The car had completely submerged.
Maggie! Oh God, where was Maggie?
He tried to move and felt an answering spike of pain ricochet from his wrist. He would have screamed if he’d had the air and the strength. The icy water quickly sapped what little stamina he had left. With effort, he forced the door open. Thank God the pressure had equalized enough for that. Something cut through the darkness—headlights from another car that had sunk nearby. He tugged at his arm, trying to free it, but it was pinned below by something he couldn’t see. Pain splintered into his elbow, pushing him close to blacking out again. It was too cold, too freaking cold, and he needed air.
A wave of panic crashed over him, every bit as suffocating as the darkness. He thrashed in the grip of fear, convinced he was going to die, powerless to save his sister who must have been carried away in the icy current. The cold wet would kill him within minutes if he didn’t find a way free of its grasp. Already his consciousness waned.
A discordant buzzing grew in his head, jerking him back to clarity. It was a sound he’d heard once before. Images assaulted him, resurrecting the memory of an inexplicable encounter on Halloween night.
Did he remember? Yes. Would he forget over time? Never.
A scarlet glow seeped through the water, edging closer. As it neared, he pinpointed the source of the strange illuminat
ion—two unblinking red eyes. The same eyes he’d spied on a brisk autumn night in the TNT.
Long gray fingers coiled around his arm, the touch more frigid than the entombing water. The buzzing in his head grew, pulsing against his temples. He caught a glimpse of a face framing the eyes, of wings folded behind the creature’s back. There was nothing remotely angelic about it. Rather it looked like a being born of sulfur and chaos, a grisly nightmare come to life.
In that second when it hauled him free and propelled him to the surface, he knew its name. A name that would resonate in his head and memory for years to come: Mothman.
He broke through with a gasp, tried to find the lungs to scream, but could only cough and sputter, hacking up river water. Flotsam was everywhere—parts of vehicles, the busted panels from the semi that had been ahead of him, headlights angled up from the water like searchlights. Packages and bags, glittery Christmas presents bobbing among the debris.
Maggie. Where was Maggie?
He grabbed one of the panels. Clung to it and tried to haul himself from the water. Lacking the strength, he dropped his head against the wet panel, hot tears mingling with the icy water on his cheeks. “Mag—” He tried to call her name but only managed a hoarse croak. Loud splashing sounded behind him, and a gruff hand closed on his collar.
“Hurry!” someone yelled. “This one’s alive. Help me haul him out.”
* * * *
Caden had never told anyone the tale, but he shared it now, the way it unfolded in his head. They let him speak without interruption, and when he was through, he waited for judgment. Ryan, practical as camouflage during turkey season, would say he was a dipshit in need of a shrink. Katie, who he’d known peripherally for years, would politely reserve judgment, and Eve…
He glanced at the woman he’d grown attracted to, noting a marked glimmer of gratitude in her eyes. She’d needed him to do this. He saw she was proud of him for sharing a private and difficult moment in his life.
Reaching across the glider, she took his hand. “Thank you,” she mouthed softly, words meant only for him.
He would have kissed her if not for the others. Already he could feel Ryan’s cutting gaze.
“You think the Mothman freed you that night?” his brother challenged.
“I don’t think. I know.” Caden lifted his arm, displaying the three angry red lines angled across his forearm. “How do you think I got these? It’s where the Mothman gripped me.” Turning his arm over, he indicated the middle line, longer than the rest. It wrapped around to the inside of his wrist, just as fingers might do.
Appearing uncomfortable, Ryan shrugged. “I thought they were the result of an injury from that night.”
“Do they look like scars to you? An injury would have healed. This is a brand, a permanent imprint that will never fade.” The marks on his arm hadn’t changed in fifteen years, as vivid and red today as they’d been in ’67. Ryan couldn’t deny that.
“And the memory you’re not to forget?” his brother asked. “What’s that about?”
Caden released Eve’s hand, stretching to wrap his arm over her shoulders. Surprisingly at ease, he used his heel to coax the glider into motion. Outside, twilight had thickened, creeping within the confines of the screened porch in velvety nests of shadow. Crickets harmonized on the night breeze, the musty smell of damp earth and growing things wafting from the creek at the edge of Rosie’s property.
Eve’s property, he corrected. It was her home now. Hopefully, she’d stay.
“It wasn’t the first time I encountered the creature,” he admitted.
“I’m listening.” Ryan’s expression remained unreadable, his voice cop-neutral. For a moment, it felt like Eve and Katie weren’t there. That it was just him and Ryan, brother to brother, debating the probability of unlikely events.
Time to spill his guts. If Ryan wanted to label him a nutcase, that was his choice.
“It was October before the bridge fell. Halloween night. I went to the TNT with Wyatt, Glen, and some girls we’d met in Gallipolis.” He stole a sideways glance at Eve, uncomfortable talking about the date he’d been with that night, but she didn’t seem to mind. “The girls had heard about the Mothman and wanted to check out the TNT. We figured if we were going to catch a glimpse of the creature, Halloween was the best time. So we went up there with some flashlights and a lot of stupid ideas.”
He paused, remembering the giggles of the girls as they’d piled into Wyatt’s battered green station wagon, him and a redhead named Julie squished in the backseat with her friend, Tina. Glen had climbed in the rear, Wyatt’s girl getting the privileged passenger’s seat up front.
They’d hiked into the woods after parking, the girls clinging to them in the dark, chattering and giggling, snagged between a sense of excitement and fear.
“Earlier, we’d come up with a plan to scare the girls. It was Wyatt’s idea.” He could still remember the dumbass stunt and how they’d thought it was going to be the epitome of fun. “After we got to the igloo where the Mothman was seen, I was supposed to say I had to take a leak and sneak off into the woods. I’d wait a few minutes, then scream my head off like something happened to me.”
“That’s awful.” Eve gave him a soft punch to the ribs.
“Hey.” He grinned, remembering the stupidity of it. “I was eighteen. What do you expect?”
“Did you go through with it?” Katie asked.
He shook his head. “No. I headed into the woods like we’d planned, but after a few feet…” His voice trailed away as he thought back to that night. The crunch of dried leaves beneath his sneakers, the air cold against his face, the girls’ voices dwindling behind him. “I heard a humming.” The noise was hard to describe, a sound that had seemed to come from inside his head as much as originate in his surroundings. “Instead of going back to the igloo, I took off deeper into the woods. I’m not sure how far I ran, but the noise kept growing louder. And then I saw it.”
Ryan scowled. “The Mothman.”
Caden nodded, noting his brother didn’t voice it as a question. “It was crouched on the ground. I remember I couldn’t see its face, only the eyes. A piece of wood had punctured its right wing and was impaled in the flesh, high up, near the middle of its back. It looked like a broken branch.”
“Like it got tangled up with a tree?” Katie appeared riveted to the story, hanging on every word. She, at least, seemed to believe him.
“Yeah. Because of the way it was positioned, the creature couldn’t reach it.”
“And you pulled it out?” Heaving a loud exhale, Ryan webbed a hand over his face. He watched Caden through his spread fingers. “You’re yanking my chain, right?”
Caden returned his stare, saying nothing.
“What an amazing tale,” Eve whispered at his side.
Two believers.
As if sensing he was outnumbered, Ryan shook his head and leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “You didn’t call for the others? Didn’t want someone to validate what you’d seen?”
“No. I wanted it to get away.” How could he explain what he’d felt at that moment? “I went up there, a dumbass kid looking for excitement, hoping to cop a feel with a girl I barely knew. But all of that changed when I saw the Mothman. People think of it as a freak of nature.” He shook his head, irritated he couldn’t articulate his thoughts better. He’d felt something that night, a piercing impression of the creature. Old, archaic, as if it had lived an eternity.
“I didn’t feel like I was in danger. I didn’t sense aggression from it, just—” He swallowed, not sure he could admit the rest.
Ryan waited a beat before prompting, “And?”
Memory washed over Caden. “Loneliness. Exhaustion. Confusion.”
“Confusion?” Surprise echoed in Eve’s voice.
“Yeah. Like it was in turmoil or something. I wanted it to take off without being seen.”
Eve appeared breathless.
“You got that close to it?” her eyes were wide, touched by an unmistakable glimmer of awe. “What was it like?”
“That’s just it. I can’t tell you.” He’d tried countless times to remember. To conjure an image of reaching for the impaled wing…placing his hand on that strange alien flesh and exerting pressure as he ripped the branch free. In his mind, he knew he’d done all those things, yet his memories were nothing more than impressions. The being had cluttered his mind with an outpouring of melancholy and extreme fatigue that had almost reduced him to sobs. It was something he tried not to think about.
“Did you see its face?” Ryan asked. “Its claws? How big was it?”
“I don’t know. Probably around seven feet like everyone says, but all I remember—” He bit off the words, unwilling to recall the wretched gloom he’d felt. He shook his head. “Just…confusion. It was tired.”
“Tired?’
Caden nodded.
As if realizing he wasn’t going to get any further with his interrogation, Ryan blew out a breath. “So you got the branch out of its wing and never told anyone about it.” He had reverted to his cop-neutral tone. “And that’s why it freed you the night the Silver Bridge collapsed.”
Caden stared until Ryan looked away, the answer obvious.
“But no one else saw the Mothman that night.” Katie sounded disappointed, forced to point out the obvious.
“There was a lot of chaos when the bridge fell.” Ryan appeared thoughtful. “I remember hearing about all the birds in the air. People said the bridge collapse upset nature. Some people reported seeing the Mothman, but we’ll never know how many.” He shifted his attention to Caden. “Whether I believe you or not doesn’t matter. However you survived that night, I’m grateful. What I question is the idea of traipsing around the woods looking for the body of Wendy Lynch, a girl who probably ran away.”
Katie sat straighter. “What would you do if it had been Maggie? Wouldn’t you want answers? Wouldn’t you want to know for sure?”
