Eyes of Red

I had lived in Point Pleasant for nearly a decade now, yet I still felt like an outsider. My neighbors were as polite as could be, but I would never call any of them my friend. I’m sure they could say the same about me given the chance. I was just some big city girl. More times than I could count I had overheard them whisper things about me. It was just another reminder that I didn’t fit here. Not that I wanted to fit in here. I couldn’t say that I fit into New York City, and I had lived there my entire life.

I had come to West Virginia all those years ago to take a job no one who lived here wanted. Hell, I hadn’t really wanted to work as an elementary school teacher in some nowhere place, but it had offered me the quickest chance to get out of New York and away from the boyfriend from anyone’s worst nightmare. Desperation had driven me here, and with each breath I took, I regretted it. I had to remind myself that I had nowhere else to go. I couldn’t even turn to my family for help. Daniel had been my parents’ ideal son-in-law, and I had rejected him.

A shiver traveled up my spine as the memory of our last argument resurfaced. How had I put up with him for so long? How could I not have found the courage to get away sooner? I had been looking for work outside New York for months, too scared to venture beyond the city limits –until that last fight with Daniel.

Now I was in West Virginia, living in a cramped one-bedroom apartment that overlooked an abandoned factory. With no friends to distract me, I flipped through a book that I had read too many times before to count. Unlike New York where almost everything was open twenty-four hours a day, I would be hard-pressed to find even a convenience store open to find a magazine to read. I didn’t own a tablet of any kind, my computer was so old it could barely boot up anymore, and my television had stopped working a week ago. And a part of me doubted I had enough gas in my car to drive to the end of the street.

In all the years I had lived in Point Pleasant, there was only one thing that I hadn’t done: gone out to the infamous TNT area. That I hadn’t yet been there was one of the things the townspeople held against me, I suspected. Sometimes I wondered that if I expressed an opinion about their precious Mothman, would my neighbors be more welcoming to me. Would I no longer be considered an outsider? 

I had nothing else to do, I reminded myself. School had been out for the summer, and although I spent much of the summer tweaking my lesson plans for next year, I could only handle working on it for only an hour or two a day. I needed to get more exercise and drink more water while I was at it. With a sigh, I tossed the paperback book I had been leafing through and came to my feet. I grabbed my keys and my wallet and slipped out my front door.

“Good afternoon, Miss Kathy,” a child’s voice from across the street called out as I walked to my car.

Many of my current and former students lived nearby, I reminded myself. I turned towards the boy’s voice, seeing that it was Bobby from two years ago. “Hey there, Bobby,” I called back. “I hope you’re enjoying your summer.”

The boy nodded, smiling at me. He waved at me as I climbed into my car to drive away. I had lived in town long enough that I didn’t need to stop for directions to find my way to the famous TNT area. It was as if just by living here, I knew how to get there. I pulled my car off the side of the road just after five o’clock in the evening. I wasn’t the only person who had driven out to see if they could catch a glimpse of something. Several cars were already parked along the side of the road by the time I arrived.

I had long suspected that the claims of the Mothman flying above the trees was just an owl or some other bird with a snake in its claws. But I was skeptical of anything supernatural, though I was careful never to admit that in public. The people here were quite proud of their local monster. It did bring tourists into their town after all. I couldn’t fault them for exploiting the creature for every penny they could. Hell, I had toyed with taking a summer job as a tour guide when I first moved here. Not that I needed the money –I had thought that it might help me learn more about the community I had invaded.

As I exited my car, I could hear a voice or two in the distance, laughing. I thought I recognized a couple of them. They knew this area better than I did, so I hoped by following that laughter, I wouldn’t have to hunt too hard for the rundown structures that littered the area. I grabbed a small bag I kept behind the driver’s seat before I closed the door, clicking my fob to lock the door. It had started growing dark by the time I had arrived, and I knew I would need a flashlight to find my way back to the car. The closer to the laughter I came, I was able to spot beams of light through the trees. By the time I reached the clearing where I heard the voices, it was too dark for me to recognize anyone by sight.

“Pass me another beer,” begged a voice I recognized as a fellow teacher at the elementary school. 

“Brian,” I whispered, a smile forming on my lips.

Of all the people in Point Pleasant that I knew, I found Brian to be among the friendliest. He had a wild side when he had a few too many, but there wasn’t exactly a lot of things to do in the area. He often invited me to join him at his table for lunch during the school year when no one else did. If I was still on speaking terms with my parents, I would have told them that he had done the most to make me feel welcome here. Perhaps he would offer me a beer once I announced myself at the edge of the clearing.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, dude?” a second voice asked.

Brian’s baritone let out a hearty laugh. “I just want to be drunk enough to see the Mothman,” he explained, “like every other idiot who claimed to set eyes on the damn thing.”

“Shhh,” a chorus of other voices scolded. “Don’t tempt fate!”

“Why the Hell not?” Brian answered back.

By the time the last word fell off the tip of his tongue, I had reached the edge of the clearing. I had witnessed Brian drunk off his ass and swore I never wanted to see anyone that drunk again in my life. Perhaps I should just turn around, go back home, and forget exploring the TNT area in the dark. I might get lost, I told myself, and with how I had seen the townspeople welcome me, the outsider, it was probably for the best that I just forget about. I had plenty of books that I could read for a second or a third time. But Brian started becoming a little more demanding, yelling at his buddy who guarded the cooler.

“Another beer, Doug,” he demanded. 

“I think you all have had enough,” his friend snarled. “Maybe we should drive you home so you can sleep off the buzz.”

Behind Brian, his other friends nodded, adding their voices to let their friend have another beer, and pass them one as well. Doug stood his ground and refused to open the cooler up to give his buddies another beer. Brian, with his friends following his lead, started spouting curses and insults towards Doug. I took a step or two back as Brian and his buddies closed the distance between them and their friend. Doug still refused to budge, insisting that they all had had enough to drink; they didn’t need another round he insisted. A part of me wanted to rush to Doug’s side and insist they all return to their cars to sleep off their drinking binge. None of them would listen to me, I knew, and they were all bigger than me. I would not stand a chance against them.

I reached towards my back pocket where I kept my phone as the men raised their voices. I whispered a curse when I realized I left my phone back home. Next, I remembered I never got service out here. How spotty the cell phone service was out here was one of the things I missed the most about living in a big city like New York.

“Stay back,” Doug begged in a raspy voice, extending his right arm out to keep his friends at bay.

Brian and their buddies only laughed in unison. An instant later, I focused my full attention on Doug’s eyes as they started to glow red. Even then, his friends refused to listen. 

“I’ll knock his ass down,” Brian boasted. “One of you grab the cooler.”

I watched Brian lift an arm to attack his friend. Why had I come out here? I should have stayed home, I told myself. I never should have come out here. My mind went through the list of things I could have done at home instead of being here as I stood there entranced by Doug’s eyes. My heart pounded in my chest as I heard a screeching sound emanating from Doug’s throat. Still, Brian wouldn’t stop. He still wanted another beer and was willing to fight for it despite what happening in front of him. The other men who had come to the TNT area alongside Brian and Doug froze in place.

The flashlights the men held in their hands provided enough light for me to see a pair of wings unfold from Doug’s back. What was happening? What were my own eyes seeing? Then for a heartbeat, my eyes saw nothing at all. Doug vanished and in instant later, something appeared inches away from Brian, grabbing him by the arm as it took flight. Whatever that was, it took Brian into the air, a horrid scream echoing from its lungs. Just as it pulled Brian above the treetops, it released its grip on Brian’s arm, letting my coworker fall to the ground. It vanished again, appearing in front of the next man in the clearing, knocking him down to the ground before moving to the next.

The shape of the creature’s face reminded me of Doug as did its body. I watched the creature kneel in front of the last man in the clearing after it knocked him down. I took a step back, my foot landing on a branch that cracked underneath the sole of my shoe. The creature’s face whipped in my direction, a screech echoing across the clearing. My breathing quickened as we locked eyes.

The Mothman was real.