Point Pleasant

by Wood, Jen Archer

  Contents

  Illustration, “Epirrita autumnata.”

  Illustration, “Ascalapha odorata, I.”

  Illustration, Chapter One. “Melittia cucurbitae.”

  Chapter One

  Illustration, Chapter One. “Acherontia atropos.”

  Illustration, Chapter Two. “Saturnia pavonia.”

  Chapter Two

  Illustration, Chapter Two. “Naenia typica.”

  Illustration, Chapter Three. “Apamea monoglypha.”

  Chapter Three

  Illustration, Chapter Three. “Attacus atlas.”

  Illustration, Chapter Four. “Hepialus humuli.”

  Chapter Four

  Illustration, Chapter Four. “Callosamia promethea.”

  Illustration, Chapter Five. “Actias luna.”

  Chapter Five

  Illustration, Chapter Five. “Biston betularia.”

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Illustration, “Ascalapha odorata, II.”

  Back Cover

  Point Pleasant

  by Jen Archer Wood

  Illustrations by

  Svetlana Fictionalfriend

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2013 Jen Archer Wood

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book contains mature content (language, violence, sexual situations) and is intended for mature readers.

  Also available in paperback.

  Novel by

  Jen Archer Wood

  Illustrations by

  Svetlana Fictionalfriend

  Illustration, “Epirrita autumnata.”

  Illustration, “Ascalapha odorata, I.”

  Illustration, Chapter One. “Melittia cucurbitae.”

  Chapter One

  POINT PLEASANT, WEST VIRGINIA

  August 1991

  The two boys ran fast. Their speed increased to a heart-thumping pace as the sound of wings flapped above their heads. The forest was dark and dense. Dawn was on the horizon, and its hazy light illuminated the landscape at a slow, agonizing pace.

  The thing was big. Despite its apparent dexterity in maneuvering its large body through tight spaces, it had trouble navigating the thicket of branches that hung over the forest. The power of its beating wings sliced through the trees overhead and sent down a treacherous rain of pine needles, twigs, and heavy limbs.

  Ben Wisehart, the shorter of the two boys, dodged a large branch that would have done significant damage if it had made contact with his skull. Nicholas Nolan, Ben’s best friend, pushed Ben to the left and diverted their path in an effort not only to lose the creature above but also because it was the direction of the edge of the forest where they parked their bikes a few hours before.

  Their venture into the woods began as a dare; Ben knew that Nicholas would follow through with it because Nicholas never backed down from anything. Nicholas’ father, Nate, called him stubborn, but Ben admired that quality in his best friend. Until that moment, of course. Ben just had to goad Nicholas into venturing out to the abandoned TNT factory, a remnant of World War II’s American industriousness and the home of Point Pleasant’s very own urban legend: the Mothman. Nicholas, of course, just had to accept. Ben wished Nicholas had told him to shove the dare in his ear.

  The myth had circulated off and on since the sixties. Certain residents of Point Pleasant claimed that a bat-like monster with glowing red eyes inhabited the woods around the old factory. One of Ben’s neighbors—Ruth Calloway, an older woman with far too many cats—claimed that in her youth, she and her brother had been involved in a high-speed chase with the Mothman on the dark, nine-mile stretch of River Bend Road near the edge of the forest that separated the factory from the town. The Mothman had followed their car and even landed on the roof where it left huge indentations and claw marks.

  Ben was fascinated by Mrs. Calloway’s description of its wings: they were strong and powerful as they beat against the car during its pursuit. “It could have easily overcome the vehicle,” Calloway had said. “Instead, it seemed to enjoy the chase as a cat does when it hunts a mouse.”

  Ben had rolled his eyes inwardly at the comparison; she was the expert on cats after all. Calloway had said the Mothman eventually retreated as if it had grown bored of the car and the terror of its passengers.

  Ben and Nicholas snorted when out of hearing range the first time she told them about the encounter. And the other dozen times she stopped them during one of their bike rides to tell it again.

  Mrs. Calloway was a gossip. Ben’s mother, Caroline, once said, “Ruth just likes to hear the sound of her own voice.” As such, Ben was never sure if this was what made Mrs. Calloway tell the story so many times or if, in her old age, she forgot she had already recounted the event to them several times over. Either way, neither Ben nor Nicholas had ever been wholly convinced by the local legend.

  Mothman sightings popped up every few years almost as an affirmation of Point Pleasant’s eccentric character. Two weeks before their venture into the forest, Jack Freemont—a farmer who swore he had not touched the hooch in over a decade—sped into town in his rickety old Ford pickup truck and claimed to anyone who would listen that he had seen the Mothman and that it had flown off with one of his cows.

  “Swooped right in, great giant of a thing!” Freemont had said to his audience in Duvall’s diner while waving his arms to illustrate the size of the creature. “Picked up my best milk cow and took off with her like she was nothing more than a field mouse!”

  Ben and Nicholas had been in the corner booth of the diner the afternoon Freemont ranted and raved about the Mothman’s return. No one took his claims to heart, nor did anyone believe his supposed sobriety for one instant.

  Freemont’s rants increased when more reports flooded in from other farmers in the area regarding missing sheep and cattle. The Sheriff’s Department investigated every claim, but, in a statement to the Point Pleasant Gazette, Sheriff Bryce Harold asserted that a wild animal was most likely to blame for the disappearances despite the fact that no one had stumbled across the carcasses of the missing animals.

  Point Pleasant became a place of unrest when veterinarian Evelyn Lewis was attacked a week before Ben and Nicholas ventured out to the abandoned factory. She had been driving to town from a trip to Bill Tucker’s farm to check on a sick calf when her car broke down on River Bend Road. The Tucker farm was just on the outskirts of the forest, less than two miles away from the old TNT factory.

  The town, of course, was full of whispered gossip and awkward half-truths about what happened to Dr. Lewis that night during her solitary, moonlit walk back to town, but the only fact that emerged from the evening was that Dr. Lewis’ eyes had been clawed out of her head.

  Three days later, Grant Harper—the five-year-old son of the Save n’ Shop grocery store proprietors—disappeared from his backyard. His mother, Cora, had been inside the house preparing dinner when she heard his scream. She had raced out the back door just in time to see a dark mass rise up into the sky so high that the setting sun of the afternoon blinded her vision long enough for the figure to disappear into the darkness of a neighboring tree line. When she surveyed the yard, her son was gone from his sandbox and had not been seen since. Rumor had it that Mrs. Harper was under observation in
the psych ward at County General.

  A town-wide curfew went into immediate effect; children were urged to stay indoors at all times, which meant that most of them did everything within their power to go outside even if it meant sneaking around.

  This was how Ben and Nicholas came to slip out of the latter’s house on Whaley Drive at two o’clock in the morning. Caroline was visiting family in Ohio and had taken Ben’s older sister, Kate, with her. Ben’s father, Andrew, was at a medical conference in Charleston.

  Caroline had arranged for Ben to stay with the Nolans for the week, much to his and Nicholas’ delight. She left town the day before Dr. Lewis’ attack and had called Ben an embarrassing number of times since out of concern that something would happen to him. Nicholas’ mother, Leslie, had assured Caroline that the boys were behaving themselves and not going outside.

  The idea of investigating the old factory for the truth about whether or not a giant bat-man lived there presented itself as an intriguing proposition, one that even Ben had become enraptured with since Jack Freemont had waved his wrinkled, sunburnt arms around in Duvall’s two weeks beforehand.

  Nicholas had scoffed at the idea of such a creature; he had always been more levelheaded than Ben. For as much as he loved black-and-white Bela Lugosi flicks at the Marquee every third Sunday of the month, Nicholas was never one to fantasize too much about the things that go bump in the night. He left that to Ben, whose overactive imagination was matched only by his foolhardy curiosity to explore the unknown. They made a good team.

  Caroline would be home the next day with Kate, and Andrew would return from Charleston as well, which meant that night would be Ben and Nicholas’ sole chance to venture off under the cover of night to discover the truth behind the Mothman legend. It was far easier to evade two parents, as opposed to four, after all. Nicholas’ father—one of the town’s four deputies—was working overtime in the Sheriff’s Department, so Mrs. Nolan was the only parent they would need to dodge that night.

  Ben knew that when his parents returned, they would most likely join in the general panic of Point Pleasant’s unofficial Mothman Abduction Prevention Program. Ben’s summer of adventure would be over, and he would be on lockdown until school started in September.

  It was thus with Nicholas’ shrewd sensibilities, Ben’s macabre inquisitiveness, and their combined boldness that they climbed out of Nicholas’ second-story bedroom window, hopped on their bikes, and cycled the three miles out to River Bend Road to the edge of the forest.

  Ben and Nicholas hid their bikes behind some dense shrubbery and hiked into the dark woods, each bearing a flashlight. They never made it all the way through to the factory, though. The boys did not find the legendary Mothman that night; it found them.

  As Ben ran through the dark woods at Nicholas’ side, he could only think of how his mother would blame herself if he ended up breakfast for the winged boogeyman of West Virginia.

  BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  October 2012

  The Exquisite Corpse had sold over 500,000 copies, and Preston James sat at a small table autographing what felt like the half-a-millionth title page at the event hosted by his publishers.

  Preston James was just a pseudonym, of course. And a damn good persona as well. Andrew Wisehart had made it abundantly clear that his family’s name was not to be used on the ‘trashy novels’ his son penned. Inspired by a feeling of rebellion against his father, Ben opted to use an amalgamation of the names of the people who had always appreciated and supported his storytelling skills, starting with his mother’s maiden name. Ben Wisehart became sweater-vest-and-tie-wearing bestselling author Preston James.

  In 2002, The New York Times had reviewed Ben’s first novel, The Blue Tulip, as “one of the most promising pieces of contemporary fiction of the year despite its alignment with the horror genre.” As if ‘the horror genre’ was a dirty phrase used to describe a temporary blip on an otherwise auspicious start to a literary career.

  To Ben’s knowledge, Andrew had never read any of his son’s five published novels—or the three that had been rejected by his publishers—regardless of their success, or in the case of Ben’s third effort, Gray Area, their failure. He had never even asked about Ben’s chosen pen name; all he cared about was that the Wisehart name was not associated with ‘pointless drivel.’

  Andrew was always quick to note the stark differences between his two children. “Katie, at least, has a real job. I don’t have to worry about her the way I worry about you, Benji.”

  Kate received a full ride to Harvard when she graduated high school; her grades and test scores had been stratospheric. She had attended law school and then moved to New York City where she had established a solid career in a reputable law firm.

  Ben rarely saw Kate since she moved to New York, but they spoke frequently. The last time he talked to his sister over the phone, Kate had made partner at her firm. Ben had wished her sincere congratulations, and Kate—in her familiar mocking-you-but-I-love-you tone—had asked, “So when can the world anticipate the next installment of the Fear Street saga, Mr. Stine?”

  “Fuck you, Katie,” Ben had said, though there had been a dark edge to his laughter. He was sensitive about his career. Andrew refused to acknowledge Ben’s work as a writer, and Kate enjoyed mocking it with tender affection, but she still read every book. Ben was sure his mother, who was not only his personal head cheerleader but also his high school English teacher, would have appreciated his novels, but he would never know for sure; Caroline had died the spring after Ben turned twenty.

  Ben did not tell Kate, but he was uncertain of his latest novel just before its publication. The Exquisite Corpse had done well, though. Very well, in fact. Which was why Ben was stuck at the confining event on a Monday evening and surrounded by stacks of his own books and the fans of it who were desperate for his John Hancock. He could understand why they wanted his autograph; it made the book special to them. His autographed copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slapstick inspired the same sentiment; if his apartment ever caught fire, Ben would not think twice about running into the flames to save the book.

  Ben, however, was no Vonnegut. He would never understand what elaborate ruse he had pulled to make people love his work.

  Of course, there were the fans that loved to tell him exactly how his ruse had worked; the ones who told him his writing tapped into something ‘primal’ and ‘visceral.’ The ones who asked if he had experienced a horrific encounter of his own that he used to channel his stories through.

  Ben never liked to answer these questions, though. Not because he was emotionally scarred or triggered by the idea of having to recount his own personal horror story. No, he simply did not want to ruin his carefully crafted mystique. Preston James was Ben’s identity to these people. Preston was an effective tool used to sell books and give people a fright when they wanted one. They did not need to know about Ben’s twelve-year-old self running through a forest at dawn or how he and his best friend narrowly escaped that encounter with their lives.

  Ben—or rather, Preston—always met these enquiries with the same teasing response: “Maybe I’ll use it in my next book, and you can find out then.”

  The dapper smile he summoned after delivering this line always made his female readers giggle. On one occasion, it earned him a shy grin from a bespectacled man with a beard as well, but their brief flirtation did not extend past this encounter. After that particular signing event, Ben had kicked himself for not thinking to write his cell phone number underneath his autograph. Oh well.

  The Exquisite Corpse seemed trite to Ben’s sensibilities; it felt like he had lost touch with the kind of sentiment he wanted to expose. Ben was in a slump. A productive slump, but a slump nevertheless. His publishers and the majority of his readers, however, did not share Ben’s disenchantment with his fifth published novel.

  Ben mused over the irony that his most successful book to date was one he thought of as tired and derivative. The Blue Tulip had been a
critical success because of its gritty—perhaps even naïve—narrative. The Corpse, as Ben liked to call it with little actual humor, seemed formulaic. The book felt like the same thing he had tried to hash out in his previous novels but less. Somehow less.

  Ben could not pinpoint why he felt this way, but he wondered if a change of scenery might help to clear his head. He needed a new place, a new experience, a new something to help him focus his thoughts so that his next effort, whatever that might be, was meaningful.

  He toyed with the idea of traveling abroad. A friend in New York had recounted his recent journey to Thailand. Ben had started to consider a trip of his own. After Boston, the publicity circuit for The Corpse would be over, and Ben could take some time for himself.

  Alone, of course.

  Ben was always alone. He had entertained his share of romances; some women had occupied the other side of his bed over the years, and some men had as well. Ben had long since come to terms with his sexuality in that respect. Despite his relative openness to new relationships and his tentative desire to someday find himself as a solid part of one, Ben never found that connection. He thought he had it once, but it had been entirely one-sided on his part.

  Ben knew that no trip to Thailand, or to anywhere else in the world, would cure his loneliness. Maybe you just need to get laid, Benji. It had been a while. Eight months, in fact; a new record for him.

  Peter, Ben’s last partner, stuck around for a few months after the start of their fling. They met at a mutual friend’s birthday dinner. Their attraction had been immediate. They had coffee the next day, which ended in an impromptu fuck back at Ben’s apartment. It had not been rushed or frantic despite their obvious gravitation toward one another. Instead, it had been slow and intentional. Ben had sprawled across the foot of his bed with his head hanging off the edge as Peter prepared him with lube and steady fingers. Without warning, Peter had leaned in and seated his cock fully inside of Ben. It had been glorious. Peter had kissed Ben and pushed himself in as far as he could go while his tongue examined every inch of Ben’s mouth. Ben had felt wholly possessed.