Fear of the Mothman By Kevin Alonzo Chapter 1 �You aren�t afraid of monsters are you?�. Robert didn�t know how to answer the question. He was only eight years old and it was past his bedtime. The stars were all visible. The bright specks of light left no place uncovered in the winter night sky, the scene was typical in the great outdoors. �Your momma told you that ghosts and monsters don�t exist right? I mean, you won�t get spooked if I tell you a story now will ya?�. The man had dragged the boy outside of the cabin into the night air for some alone time. Ever since Hank started dating Robert�s mother, well, things weren�t the same. This trip to West Virginia for example. Robert wasn�t use to the outdoors. The only light source was a single bulb emanating from the cabin�s front porch. Everything else was dreadful darkness; the only sound was the continual chirping of crickets. Hank started to light a cigarette, cupping his hands over the lighter. He took a couple of puffs of smoke as Robert looked at him curiously and finally answered, �No, I�m not scared.� �Well then, you know, my whole family lived here in West Virginia once. This cabin belonged to my father, I remember him telling me how he built it with my two brothers. I always thought this place was dull. There�s nothing but trees, darkness, and crickets. We would spend every Christmas in this cabin, and on one of those occasions I got it into my head that I should run away. I don�t really know what I was thinking now, but back then I was fairly young just a bit older than you are now. Anyway, I hated my family, but I saw something one night that changed me�you remember that bridge we passed on our way here right?� The boy nodded his head. �Well it started with a few of the townspeople claiming to see some big creature around there. It scared the shit out of a few local kids, not to mention many of the old people living around here.� Robert started to think it was a bad idea to hear this story. �This creature was very real. For the first time in my life I heard my parents worry about a monster attacking my brothers when they went out at night, it was like a nightmare. At school I found out more about this creature. My friends would tell me that it was really tall, taller than a man.� Hank spread his arms out, �It had giant wings and a very loud yell. I really didn�t believe my parents or my friends, until one night�� Hank took a long drag of his cigarette, releasing the vapors into the air with a loud hiss. He continued his story in a solemn voice. �One night my momma woke me up in the middle of the night, I couldn�t see her face but I could tell she was panicking. She woke me up and didn�t say a word. All she did was hold me. I didn�t know what was going on. I heard strange noises all over the cabin, I thought they were my brothers and my dad running around the house� Hank stooped down to Robert�s eye level. �The noises were coming from outside the house. It sounded like someone had climbed on top of our house and was hitting the walls with a a hammer. So I ran to my curtains to see what was going on outside, and that�s when I saw it�� �What did you see?� Robert said with eyes wide open. �I saw red eyes. They were staring right at me right through the darkness. I was scared out of my mind. My momma pulled me away from the window and we both dropped onto the ground. She looked at me and said �don�t do that, don�t look outside�. My brothers and my dad were running around the cabin. They started making noise, and I couldn�t see them too well, but my dad had his rifle and was ready to shoot whatever was outside, but then it all stopped.� Robert felt uneasy, as if something crept in the woodland darkness. Hank continued; �My momma had told me there were no such thing as monsters, and after that happened, well, we never spoke about it again. My momma said it was a robber coming around to steal from us, but I had seen that thing with my own eyes.� Robert�s mother came out from the cabin to spy on her son and Hank. The two were quite a contrast. Hank was tall, muscular, blonde haired and fair skinned. Robert was as tall as an eight year old can be, he had black hair and he was as brown skinned as his mother. �Hey, how many times have i told you that you can�t smoke in front of Robert, it�s a really bad habit� She finally said. �Oh I�m sorry�, Hank put out his cigarette and led the boy back into the cabin. �I was just telling him about the time I saw the Mothman� �Oh no� Robert�s mother hugged her child and whispered into his ear �no le pongas atencion.� It was spanish for �don�t pay any attention to him�. Spanish was the usual mode of communication between mother and son. The cabin interior was rustic and had a comfortable living room space. It was spacious and had wooden flooring. Robert would sleep in one of the rooms, while Hank and Robert�s mother would sleep in another. Robert found his way into his room, a very large, and very dark, bedroom. His mother tucked him in and whisphered �buenas noches� into his ear. Hank stood in the doorway and said �good night, we�ll see you in the morning.� The couple walked to their bedroom. Robert could still hear their whispers as they walked down the hallway: �Why do you have to tell him that story...?� �Well he�s old enough to hear about it, plus every little boy enjoys a good ghost story� �He�s probably going to be awake all night now� �He�ll be okay. You worry about him too much....� The door to their room closed and the crickets outside became the only noise keeping silence at bay. The only light in the room was the faint glow of the lightbulb above the front porch which always remained on. The beams of light were visible outside Robert�s room and only provided a very low light to keep the darkness at bay. Robert looked at the ceiling. He stared at the grainy texture and at the infinite amount of bumps and grooves that must exist in the ceilings surface. The roof was barely visible at first, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could clearly make out the swirling pattern they formed. Robert turned to his side and stared out the window. The crickets were chirping and the forest beyond the cabin was barely visible with the exception of the few trees that the light outside bounced off of. There was a noise, a bump, or perhaps a stress on the wall, that fueled Robert�s curiousity. There! There it was again. The trees outside the cabin began to sway. Then they stopped, the noises as well, as if nothing happened. Robert turned on his other side and noticed the closet. The door was open and the darkness from inside the closet seemed to be seeping into the room. The floor and the walls around the closet made noises, ticks and bumps here and there. They were noises that seemed to come from nowhere and that were quite sporadic. They were noises that could be heard all day inside the cabin, but they know took on a more sinister feeling of dread. Robert removed the sheets from his bed and got up. The noises his feet made as he shuffled towards the closet door were remarkable. They were so loud and they sounded alien in the darkness. Robert closed the closet door, turned around and made his way back to his bed. A cold shiver ran down Robert�s spine as he sensed something was behind him. He could feel something was in that closet and that it was headed for him. So he ran to his bed and looked back. There was nothing. He lay in the warm comfort of his bed. The darkness of the closet subdued, the shuffling of his feet gone, but something was wrong. �The crickets�, he whispered to himself. The crickets had stopped chirping. There were no more noises keeping silence at bay. The muteness of the forest surrounded the house and haunted Robert. He glanced towards the window and saw a shadow run past. It had flickered across the light and it�s shaped had danced across the visible trees outside. The boy went towards the window and looked to the front porch. He could only just make out the light source outside. It flickered repeatedly. Robert thought the shadows outside were caused by the bulb�s flicker. He left his room and ran towards the living room. It was bathed in the soft glow of the bulb, yet, the flicker continually changed everything into darkness. An object danced in front of the bulb. It hit against the bulb causing a delicate �ping� sound to resonate among the silence. It�s wings beat furiously causing the slightest and most gentle noise among the cabin. The tiny green moth continued its midnight dance; unaware of the boy she had lured away from his bed. He looked at the moth fly away from the light only to hover back. Sometimes it seemed to crash into the light bulb. The details of the creature were lost because it moved so erratically. The only visible detail was its emerald green skin and batlike movements. How it seemed to want to enter into the light. The boy had no idea why the moths danced in front of the light the way they often did. The moths had always made him feel sad. Something bittersweet about their lives or perhaps it is that they seem to want something that is impossible to have. Robert headed back to his room. His feet shuffled but the noise didn�t bother him as much as before. He crept into bed exhausted and somewhat relieved to have seen a moth before falling asleep. A moth. Now he remembered that awful story. How it had poisoned his imagination for the night. A real life monster roaming the country side; the very place they were staying in now. Robert tried to fall asleep without thinking of the monster; his eyelids comfortably shutting away the world around him. He shifted to his side and noticed that the closet door, the one he was sure of closing earlier, was open. A pair of glowing red eyes watched Robert from inside the closet. The boy was immobile with fear. The monster moved near the boy with the speed of a nightmare. Robert tried to scream but the creature had already covered the boy�s mouth and his nose. He struggled to breath; he needed to take in air but the thing would not let him. Robert�s eyes rolled back into his head. Everything became a daze and it seemed the once stable world of the cabin would disappear. The last thing he remembered was the glow of those red eyes. It was the last thing he saw before the whole world turned black.
