Page 12 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)

The Mothman

A fter our break, our next stop is the enclosure across from the wolf, the one with the dense trees that seemed empty when I stopped by it the day prior.

“What lives here?” I ask curiously, once again squinting into the gloom between tree trunks as we round the enclosure to reach the back.

I’m still feeling out of sorts from Mathis’s “check-in,” but the promise of meeting another menagerie resident is almost enough to distract me.

John only smirks. “Now, where’s the fun in just telling you?”

Scowling, I let him lead me to another set of boxes beside the door.

One is identical to the freezer outside the dire wolf’s enclosure, but when John opens it, no blast of cool air emerges.

Instead, I wrinkle my nose against the sickly-sweet smell of decay.

“Looks like the freezer stopped working,” I note, peering in dismay at the collection of pulpy, putrid fruit inside.

“Nope,” John replies casually, pulling on some blue disposable gloves from a box attached to the side of the warm freezer. “This is just how he likes it.”

Bemused and a little disgusted, I watch as he scoops decomposing fruit into a trash bag, some of it liquefying and running through his fingers in red-brown rivulets. God bless the day shift for reloading the residents’ diverse diets and cleaning up the resulting messes each day.

Next, he closes the freezer on the rest of the spoilage and turns to a plain white cabinet with slatted doors next to it.

Inside, there are neatly stacked boxes made of fine silver mesh with sturdy white bases and lids.

“What’s in there?” I ask, knowing it’s useless to ask John anything but unable to help myself.

To my surprise, he answers. “Aphids.”

“Aphids? Like… the bugs?”

“Yes, like the bugs, what other kind of aphids are there?” he grumps. He thrusts the box into my chest so I have no choice but to take it from him.

I have to resist the childish desire to reply ‘aphids like you.’ Instead, I press my lips firmly together to keep from commenting and watch as he engages the switch beside the door.

Like the wolf’s enclosure, this chain-link divider slides directly across, leaving us a small, rectangular space to enter with the enclosure’s occupant locked on the other side.

That done, John moves toward a fallen log in the center of the closed-off rectangle, and I notice that part of the top of the log has been carved away to make a flat surface.

The wood is splotchy and stained a dark red-brown.

It soon becomes apparent why when John dumps the contents of his trash bag onto the makeshift table.

That done, he motions for the box in my arms, and I happily hand it over.

He pries the lid off, revealing a mass of swarming, pale green dots about the size of the eye of a needle.

Without ceremony, he upends the box and dumps the aphids onto the leaf-strewn ground at his feet.

My eyebrows shoot up. “Aren’t aphids huge pests? Is it smart to just… let them go like that?”

“They won’t last long,” John replies dismissively. Shoving the lid haphazardly back on the box, he turns to the door and motions for me to follow. “C’mon. We’re behind schedule.”

I turn to follow him out, still concerned about the probably whole pound of aphids we just introduced into what is essentially one large, complex garden.

I’ve only gone about two steps when a sudden, overwhelming sense of dread plants my feet to the earth.

There’s no other way to describe it other than pure, existential dread—the certainty that something terrible is about to happen, and that death is imminent.

A tremor starts somewhere deep in my primitive hindbrain before radiating down my spine, a cold sweat prickling my skin in its wake.

Then, starting as a whiff and getting stronger with my every ragged breath is the acrid scent of smoke, the caustic burn turning my throat to a jumble of jagged glass and coating my tongue in bitter ash.

There’s the sound of metal warping and screeching; Mom crying, begging, pleading; and, worst of all, silence from the driver’s seat where my father was just singing along to the radio moments before.

Then, a new memory. The beeping of machines, the whoosh and sigh of a ventilator, grim murmurs from the nurses in the hall.

Why do they keep their voices down? I know Mom is dying.

She’s been dying for two years. It’s just happening faster now.

Her hand is so frail under mine. Frail like Nan’s is now.

Why does everyone I love leave me like this? And what about Nan? What happens to her if I can’t take care of her? If I lose her, I’ll be completely alone. Untethered and unmoored like a dinghy lost at sea, waiting for the next big wave to capsize me.

Make it stop! The frantic demand rips through my mind, shattering the memory. I whip around to face the dark entity that I know through some preternatural instinct is haunting my back.

At first, I can’t see anything at all as I scour the inky darkness between trees.

Then, as my eyes adjust to the murk, a silhouette begins to emerge.

My brain struggles to make sense of the strange collection of shapes limned by the wan golden light reaching through the canopy overhead, but before long, I can pick out the contours of a masculine body.

The torso is lean and almost waspish, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. At first, I think his skin is a sickly grayish color.

Then, I realize that parts of his outline are hazy, as if most of his body is covered in a fine dusting of gunmetal fuzz.

The… fur, for lack of a better term, is thicker at the base of his throat, almost a collar or ruff, and threaded with tawny and russet strands that glimmer like tinsel.

His features are indistinct, shadowed as they are, but an occasional glint of phosphorescent red like the flicker of taillights marks his large eyes.

Two long, slender structures arch gracefully from his crown to drape in front of his brow, almost like antlers but finer, even filamentous, kind of like…

Antennae .

And along that vein, two hulking shapes frame his shoulders, the color similar to his fur but intricately striped and with sanguine red tips that match his otherworldly eyes.

As our gazes lock, gray-blue on crimson, those appendages expand into wings with blunted tips and glaring yellow eyes that seem to peer directly into my soul and beyond.

For one long, interminable moment, my body is buffeted by the conflicting desire to fight or flee.

The result is to freeze, even my breath stuttering to a halt halfway to my lungs.

The creature, too, is unnaturally still now.

Then, slowly, one almost imperceptible inch at a time, he tilts his head as if he’s curious.

His antennae, which remind me of white peacock feathers, tip with him, bobbing along with the movement.

The motion would be almost endearing if not for the miasma of death and foreboding enveloping him like a funeral shroud.

“Hey, princess,” a voice calls behind me.

Just that quickly, the spell is broken. My breathing resumes, faster now than before.

I stagger backward with a gasp, just catching myself before I tumble to the ground.

The man—creature?—on the other side of the divider tucks his wings back close to his body before dissolving seamlessly into the gloom like he was never there at all.

Without any conscious direction from me, my legs carry me back to the door and then out of the enclosure entirely, one backward step at a time.

My eyes burn from staring so intently after the figure.

With a sudden rush, all of the adrenaline leaves my system, and I’m left weak and trembling like a newborn foal.

John regards me curiously as I sink to the ground and drop my head between my knees.

I take a minute to just breathe air that smells like dirt, dry leaves, and lingering decay from the not-freezer instead of smoke and an engine on fire.

Once my breathing is less desperate and my awareness of my surroundings begins to trickle back in, I hear John huff a sigh.

“So. Your life hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows then, princess.”

I’m not even able to muster up any righteous indignation at his patronizing nickname. “Was that…” My voice trembles, and I clear my throat quietly before continuing. “That was… It couldn’t have been…? ”

“The Mothman,” John replies bluntly, confirming my fears. “What else could it have been?”

“But why…”

“Why the doom and gloom?” he asks wryly. “Yeah, I felt it, too, the first time. It gets better every time you see him. Unless, of course, you’re actually due for some bad luck. Then, he lets you know.” Under his breath, he adds, mostly to himself, “And yet, I still bet on the six horse. So stupid.”

Ignoring the byplay, I manage to uncurl from my ball in the dirt to look up at him.

“But I always thought Mothman was just… a moth man. A humanoid creature with moth wings and red eyes. At least, that’s how pop culture portrays him.

Almost kind of cute, too, with his big bug eyes and fuzzy antennae. But that was… not that.”

John shrugs. “Sure, that’s the recent fad, but back in the sixties, the first Mothman sightings were right before the Silver Bridge collapsed in West Virginia. People decided that either he was responsible for it, or—”

“Or he was an omen,” I finish for him, realization dawning. “They thought he appeared because the bridge was doomed to fail.”

“The bridge was doomed to fail anyway, of course,” he continues. My thoughts are racing so quickly and clamoring so loudly that I barely hear him. “It was old even in the sixties. Built for much smaller cars, with shoddy craftsmanship.”

“But still, he predicted it,” I point out weakly.

He shrugs. “So it seems.” He continues to stare at me, making me itch with self-consciousness. I take one deliberate breath after another and count my slowing heartbeats. “You gonna get up anytime soon? ‘Cause we got a lot to do.”

I want to be mad at him, but honestly, I want to get away from this dense patch of forest and the harbinger inside even more. “Right behind you.”

* * *

It’s too much. Fanged beasts that could kill me with one bite, thinly-veiled threats from my boss, forced memories of the worst moments of my life… It’s al l too much.

It’s impulse more than logic that has me pulling Nathan’s business card from my wallet and calling him the next morning.

“This is Nathan Oliver.”

“Nathan, hi. Good morning. It’s Anna. Carmichael?”

“Of course, Ms. Carmichael. How can I help you?”

And here goes the nervous babbling. “Nathan, I want to thank you for the opportunity to work at the menagerie. It has been truly, honestly life-changing. But I think I have to put in my two weeks’ notice.

It’s just, the job is more dangerous than I anticipated, and I have some concerns about the keeping of some of the residents like the kelpies and the centaur and—”

“Anna,” Nathan says firmly, cutting me off.

“Yes?”

“You can’t leave.”

I’m taken aback by his words. He sounds almost… grim. “What do you mean? I’m giving two weeks’ notice. Contractually, that’s all I need to do to quit.”

There’s a long pause. “I’d just hate to lose someone with your passion and skills,” he says at last, his voice carefully modulated once again. “After all, what if we need a purrito wrapped?”

My jaw drops. “Nathan, was that a joke?”

He ignores that. “I am in a position to negotiate with you. How much would it take for you to stay?”

The question shocks me even more than his previous statement that I can’t quit. I wasn’t prepared for the conversation to go this direction. Still, this can be how I get out. Ask for an obscene pay raise that even rich Mathis would balk at. So, I do.

“Done,” Nathan replies calmly, and I swear I nearly faint. What is happening?! “Your new rate will be reflected in the next pay period.”

“Would Mathis approve of you giving me a raise?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“Mr. Mathis has given me the authority to make decisions related to the menagerie employees.” Which, I note, is a non-answer. “Now, can I help you with anything else, Ms. Carmichael?”

“No, you’ve helped plenty already,” I mutter, still reeling.

“Very well, then. Have a good day.”

After I hang up, I spend long minutes staring at the wall. Well, that didn’t go as planned. Not only am I still employed by Mars Mathis’s Mystical Menagerie, but now I make enough money that I would be foolish to ever leave.

A bittersweet thought.