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Ihead down to the address given. The woman lives in a third story walk-up, which makes it very unlikely that anybody is outside her window. This is Randy Carrot’s fault. Once she starts publishing her bullshit there’s a percentage of the population who start manifesting it in their minds.
“I saw him! I saw the mothman! I saw his beady red eyes and the blood dripping from his mouth. He was beating against my window with his wings.”
I am greeted by hysteria of the kind I do not enjoy. People freaking out because something bad has happened is fine. People freaking out because they’ve been mind-fucked by a tabloid rag is something else.
I have to make a show of taking the woman’s statement. It is consistent with the others, but that’s hardly surprising given that Randy Carrot’s story is sitting front and center of the tabloid she has clutched in her hand. She’s seeing what she’s been told to see.
“Keep your door and windows closed and locked,” I tell her. It’s a decent piece of advice anyway. May as well be security conscious. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone can’t break in and steal your shit.
“Please,” she says. “Check the alley. I think he’s still there.”
“Alright, ma’am. I’ll check the alley.”
* * *
Icheck the alley, not expecting to see anything at all. I flash a light down there once or twice, expecting to maybe catch some rat eye shine. The shine I get back is much larger than a rat, and a lot higher up.
“The fuck?” I curse to myself. There’s more than eye shine. There’s a shadow that seems far too tall for my liking. There is someone down there. Someone being a real fucking asshole.
In addition to the people who start freaking out about the monsters in the tabloids, there’s another group of people who get off on mimicking the monsters, scaring the shit out of the suggestible and afraid.
“Hey!” I call out. “Legs!”
I’m not going to be buying into whatever attempted horror show is about to be on display. The shadow moves and turns and comes toward me.
The tallest man I ever arrested was six foot seven. This guy has at least two feet on that guy. He’s broad too. The shape of him seems odd.
This is the point where most officers would draw their weapon, but if by some bizarre chance this is a real encounter with a mothman, there’s very little chance that shooting him will solve the problem.
“Yo, Halloween was last month,” I call out. “Come over here, buddy. Let’s talk.”
His costume is very good. The closer he gets, the more the streetlight outside the alley shines on him and the more I am able to make out details. He is pale all over except for long, dark hair. I am guessing that is some kind of cosmetic effect. He’s not wearing a shirt, or he wants to make it look that way. HIs body ripples with muscles that cannot be real.
What I thought was a cloak actually seems to be a pair of… wings? Nah. It’s a really good cloak. Has to be. My gaze is directly distracted from the wing / cloak situation because his pale abdomen would make any bodybuilder break down and cry out of sheer, unadulterated jealousy. I cannot imagine the amount of time he must have spent sculpting and airbrushing that torso. It’s a little fake-looking in how pale it is, but it does seem to move naturally, so that’s interesting. He even made a second pair of arms that look a lot like the first, except they emerge lower down his torso. I guess there’s a lot of silicone in there making that all look real. It’s quite astonishing.
His lower body is clad in black jeans. They look as incongruous as hell. His boots are large for a man, but don’t seem overly large for a whatever he’s pretending to be.
Where the illusion completely falls down is around his face. He’s handsome. Human handsome. Nice jaw. Good bone structure. The sort of face you see on people who are famous for being good looking, except I have no idea if he is technically good looking, because the upper part of his face has been altered with what I have to assume for sanity’s sake are prosthetics and cosmetics. His eyes are a terrible red hue, and from his head, two fern-like tendrils —I’d almost call them horns — twitch and move in the slight breeze.
I am tall for a woman, 5’11. But he dwarfs me. I assume he’s got stilts on under there somehow. No man is this tall naturally without having some kind of medical issue.
My training makes me check his hands. Hands. Hands. Hands are fucking everything. Where they are. What they’re holding. What they’re reaching for.
His hands are large, in keeping with the rest of his body. He is oddly proportionate for someone in a costume. Perhaps they are prosthetic gloves. I hope the claws are foam. If they’re not, they’re scimitars gleaming in the moonlight.
“Hello?” He speaks curiously and hesitantly, as if he is surprised to be spoken to.
“Buddy, dressing up the way you are is a good way to get shot. You’re scaring the hell out of the neighborhood.”
“Oh,” he says. “That would not be good.”
His voice is deep and raspy. It has a very curious quality that absolutely fascinates me. There’s something hypnotic about it, an otherworldly quality.
“You’re an eight foot…”
“Nine foot,” he corrects me. Nothing more human than being specific about one’s stats. Damn that voice. Thick. Rich. Intriguing.
“Okay, so you’re a nine foot high… what would you describe yourself as?”
