By Hannah Carter
“Hold on—we’re crashing!” the bigfoot bellowed as he pulled back on the aircraft’s controls.
I tucked my wings against my body and gripped the armrests. Squatch was not our regular pilot, and it showed.
Again I wished that Gob and Flats hadn’t had to deal with the Werewolf Plague of 1346. If I’d known Squatch would be flying us, I’d never have boarded the infernal spacecraft. “What’s going on?”
He squinted at the monitors on his dash. Could he even read them? “It’s the Hoia Baciu Forest, I think. Its magnetic field… or something… is bringing down the ship.”
“Wonderful.” I muttered as I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Raise the dome, my colossal companion. I’ll try and slow us down the old-fashioned way. And—keep the cloaking shield up. We don’t need any townspeople coming after us with pitchforks and torches.”
Squatch opened the glass top above us, and I rocketed to the back of the spaceship. But despite my plan to grab it from behind, my claws scraped the metal, unable to find a handhold.
Looked like I’d have to do it the painful way.
I groaned, zoomed to the front, and plastered myself against the glass pane close to the dashboard and forced my wings to spread to their full width, pushing back against gravity. It wasn’t working—not fast enough. I pressed the telecommunicator button in my ear. “I’d prefer to not be smashed into smithereens today, Squatch. Slow us down!”
The treetops grew closer…
Closer…
Our spaceship slammed into thick trunks. The impact launched me from the windshield, and I rolled to a stop a few feet away.
I closed my eyes, paralyzed by pain. “Urk.”
A few steps thudded over to me, and Squatch scooped me up. “Thanks for your help, Mothman.”
“If someone had told me time traveling with you to save the world would be so painful, I might not have done it.”
Squatch looked at the blinking handheld machine, which seemed doll-sized in his meaty hand. “Well, your only other option was to die in jail. Sounds like being a hero was the best choice.” He grinned. “Lead the way, Mothy. You’re the one with the psychic owl eyes.”
I hopped down from his arms and staggered along beside him. Though my visions had brought us to this date—May 26th, 1897—I only had vague implications of why. I could see a little girl, lost. I didn’t know how the ramifications of her disappearance would lead to future catastrophe, but I trusted my retrocognition.
If we could save the girl, we could save a piece of the future.
Or such was the plan. I was technically from Squatch’s past, so the apocalypse he and our other crewmates so feared hadn’t yet come to fruition in my timeline.
Grass crunched under my claws as I inched forward.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Squatch.” I twisted around.
“Yes?”
“You’re shaking the forest. Tread quieter.”
Squatch shrugged. “Whoops.”
We resumed our travels until my ears twitched. Crying?
“This way!” I darted through a grove of gnarled trees, ducking under twisted branches and dodging bushes. The wails increased until I saw a tiny blonde girl in a white nightgown sitting on the forest floor.
“Hello there,” I said softly. “Are you okay?”
The girl shook her head, causing her ringlets to bounce. “No! I can’t find my papa!” She rubbed her red eyes with chubby fists before letting out another cry. “He told me not to go by myself, ’cuz the monsters might get me, but I just wanted to pick the pretty flowers!” She gazed at me warily. “Are you gonna get me?”
“I assure you, we only want to help.” I placed a hand on my heart. “I’m Mothman, and this is Squatch. What’s your name?”
She sniffed. “Mihaela.”
“Nice to meet you, Mihaela.” I held out my hand. “Come with us. We can help you get back to your papa.”
Led by Mihaela, we emerged in front of a castle two hours later. Tall spires stretched toward the sky while jutting rocks protected the structure from… is that a pitchfork?
Mihaela squealed and pointed. “There it is!”
“Yes, we’re almost—”
“Put down my daughter,” a dark voice hissed.
I whirled around as Mihaela shrieked again. “Papa!”
I almost shrieked, too. I knew better than anyone not to judge by appearances, but pale, sunken cheeks, black cloak, and red eyes aside, this man still had an intimidating aura.
“Sir—I meant no harm to your daughter,” I began. “I am merely a simple being, traversing time and space—”
“What he means is that we’re returning your daughter, sir—unharmed,” Squatch interjected.
Papa held out his arms. Mihaela squirmed from my embrace and scurried to him. He kissed her head, plucking her up.
“The monsters didn’t find me, Papa,” Mihaela said. “These nice people did.”
“I can see that.” His eyes narrowed into slits, and he bared his teeth ever so slightly at us. “And, because I’m indebted they did, I’ll allow them to leave with their lives. But don’t tell anyone what you saw here, especially the monsters in Hoia Baciu.”
“Monsters just have a maligned reputation.” I shook out my wings. “We’re kind folk.”
The man snorted. “I don’t mean you.” He swiveled on his heel and strode toward the castle.
“But… no one else but humans live—” Realization dawned on me. “Oh.”
“Well… do we go back, or what?” Squatch asked once they’d disappeared. “I’m hungry.”
“Did we change anything?”
His device monitor blinked. “Yes! It’s a timeline shift message!”
I smiled as we started our slog back to the spacecraft.
“We just prevented the Vampire Uprising of 2127,” Squatch announced cheerily. “Says that the massacre was prevented by the Vampire-Human Ambassador Mihaela Dra…” He swallowed. “Dracula?”
We halted.
“You mean… her father…?”
“Maybe we better get out of here,” Squatch said.
Behind us, I could have sworn I heard laughter and the crack of a branch. “Yes—quickly.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The continuing adventures of Mothman & Sasquatch! I hope they meet a lot more of their “kind” (meant both ways) in future stories.
Haha, thank you so much, jdoran!! 😊👣 If all goes well, they’ll have at least one more adventure in Havok this season! Glad you’re enjoying their adventures. 😊
The unlikely heroes swoop in to save the day! Can’t wait to see what they get into next! ☺️ Wise choice to not stick around and test their luck with Dracula!! 😂 Great job, Hannah!! ☺️
Well, I do believe they’re going down to Australia next… who knows what might happen Down Under, right? 👀👣 Thank you so much, Andrew!! 😊👣
I’m sure that will be great!! I hear that’s the place where women glow and men plunder!! 😉☺️
You know, I’ve definitely heard that before…just like I’ve heard some thunder here recently. You better run…you better take cover! xD
Great reversal of roles.
Thank you so much, Alex!! 😊👣
Good story.
Thank you so much, Pamela!! 😊👣
Ha! This is a fun team. Great twist the end
Haha, thank you so much, RJ!! 😊👣 I really enjoy working with this crew, too. Hopefully they will be back soon, too! 😊👣
Such a fun story!!!! I love the idea of Sasquatch and Mothman running into Dracula! :-D I wonder if Mihaela will make an appearance in a future adventure…?
Awww, thank you so much, Beka!! 😊👣 Oooh, it would be interesting to see them babysit Mihaela later…I’m sure a baby vampire is a handful. (We could probably ask a certain great-great-fae uncle though, if we wanted to be sure. ;)) 😊👣
I loved the Sasquatch and Mothman duo. I have never seen Mothman featured as a character separate from the stories of his appearances in the nineteen sixties. I especially loved the idea of “retrocognition.”
Aww, thank you so much, gificor!! 😊👣 Mothman is a severely underutilized character, so it’s fun to play with him and explore the mythos around him–or create some of my own! 😊👣 So glad that you enjoyed my time traveling duo!
I love this duo!
Dreadful teamwork, but great chemistry!