The Mothman Miracle

By Hannah Carter

The inspector tapped on the microphone. A sharp burst of static filled the room. “All right. We have Prisoner WVM-01 here for questioning. Please detail for our records your involvement in the Silver Bridge Accident on December 15th, 1967.” He flicked on a floodlight, and I blinked behind my night vision goggles.

“I didn’t have any involvement.” I splayed my claw-like talons against the metallic table. “Only the foresight granted by my precognitive ability. For a year I tried to warn people that the bridge was going to collapse, but…” I flapped my wings. “They were too spooked by my appearance to pay heed to my message.”

“What are you, anyway? A bird-man? A… moth-man? Either way, I wouldn’t listen to prophecies from you, either,” the inspector drawled.

I sighed. “Such is a weakness of your kind. Do you know how many lives could have been saved on April 15th, 1912, if people would’ve listened to my aunt? Or on December 7th, 1941, if they’d heeded my father? Or—”

The inspector blew a puff of smoke at me, and I sneezed. He tapped his cigarette in an ashtray.

Another flash of precognition entered my mind. “I could even save your life. Soon, the world will realize how unhealthy cigarettes are, but not before you’ll be struck with—”

“Put a sock in it, bird-man.” He leaned in closer. “Or maybe I should say put a feather in it?”

“Hilarious.” I flapped my wings. Upcoming dates and impending disasters flashed before my eyes, a swirl of catastrophes both near and far. “Please, you have to help me! January 28th, 1986—”

“No.” The officer rose from his seat.

“April 19th, 1995—”

“Stop talking.”

“But September 11th, 2001—”

The inspector pressed a button against the wall. “No further questions today. Prisoner WVM-01 is too belligerent. The interrogation will continue after he has spent a few nights in the birdcage.” He turned toward me and flicked some more cigarette ashes in my direction. “Have fun in the cell,” he whispered. “Mothman.”

Later that night, I picked at the nametag that read WVM-01. Not only was the prison attire uncomfortable, but the orange jumpsuit did nothing to bring out the lustrous red of my wings. My gruel remained untouched by the cell door, and I couldn’t find a comfortable spot on the hard bed.

Tears pricked at my eyes. Perhaps my mother was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to help the ungrateful humans. Maybe I should’ve just taken up with some migrating flock of owls and lived a nomadic life like my uncle.

“Psst.”

I languished in my agony.

“Psst!”

I moldered in my misery.

“I said, psst.”

A dinner roll bonked me on the head. I jerked up, wings spread out to intimidate my attacker.

A giant, hairy hand waved at me from the other side of the bars.

I trudged to the cell door. “Uh… hello?”

“About time!” A large, hulking face pressed against the metal of my cell.

I yelped. Hair covered every inch of the fellow, and he resembled some overgrown ape.

I clutched my chest as my heart settled down. “Don’t speak to me about time,” I moaned. “It is my curse. My burden—”

“You talk an awful lot, don’t you?” the ape-fellow chuckled. His deep timbre shook the cell, and a few crumbles of concrete rained down on me. “Listen, my associates and I need you.” His dark eyes roamed over my strange physique—though he had no room to judge. “We came back from the future to rescue you.”

“Time travel?” I chuckled. “Well, that’s a hoot—pardon the owl pun. Time travel doesn’t exist.”

“Just like Bigfoot doesn’t exist?” The ape-fellow gestured to himself, then to me. “Or the fabled Mothman who can predict the future?”

“Mothman? Oh, don’t tell me… that’s the name that stuck?” I muttered. “No, what am I saying? This… this can’t—”

A shining, purple tunnel of light blinked into existence beside Bigfoot. A tiny, humanoid creature with large ears and a silver spacesuit stepped out.

“I-I—” I stammered.

“I’m sorry to rush you, but we’re in a hurry,” the diminutive creature said. “I parked the spaceship out back, and someone’s bound to notice a flying saucer. Can you pause the existential crisis until we’re safely in the timestream?” He gestured to Bigfoot. “If you don’t mind.”

Bigfoot nodded and reached for my cell doors. I stumbled backward as he wrenched them off their hinges.

An alarm blazed to life, drenching the block in red.

“Oh, space nuggets,” the tiny creature muttered. “Grab him—we’ve got to portal back!”

“Grab me-e-e-e—?” My voice trailed off into a screech as Bigfoot did precisely that. Burly fingers tightened around my arm and jerked me through a portal.

Instantly, I found myself in a metallic world, surrounded by blinking lights and flashing buttons. A giant silver robot straight from a pulp fiction novel rolled around the corner, wearing a leaf-shaped headdress and metallic skirt.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” I swiveled between my three abductors. “I refuse to be manhandled without knowing the circumstances!”

“We’re from the future,” the short creature said. “A future where humanity is on the brink of disaster, and only you can save it.”

“Me?”

“You’re Mothman. The fabled prophet,” Bigfoot said. “With you, we’ll be able to not only fix the past, but predict the future dates when we must intervene to prevent humanity’s demise.”

“Predict them? Oh, I can predict them. But if humanity won’t drop their prejudices about anyone or anything that looks different than them, then nothing can be fixed,” I muttered. “And that would take a miracle.”

“I have just the miracle for you.” Bigfoot grinned. “I’m Bigfoot, of course. This is my friend—you may know him as the Kentucky Goblin—and our robot here is better known as the Flatwoods monster.” He leaned forward. “Together, we’re just the monstrous miracle the world needs.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hannah Carter is just a girl who wakes up every day hoping it will be the day she discovers she’s secretly a mermaid. Her debut novel, Depths of Atlantis, is out through SnowRidge Press now. Her stories have been included in several anthologies: Whispers From Before, The Never Tales, and Havok’s Casting Call and Prismatic. Her flash fiction piece, “A Home for Nova,” won the 2022 Flash Fiction Realm Award.

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