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It was late in ’91, and the air around Point Pleasant had that heavy, electric charge it gets right before a storm breaks. I was hauling a load through the winding stretch of Route 2, the river mist clinging to the windshield like a wet shroud. I’d pulled off the shoulder just outside of town, my engine had been making a ticking sound I wanted to check out. Then suddenly the lights went dark, and my radio cut out. There was no static, no warning, and no gradual fade—just a total vacuum of sound. It was the kind of silence that doesn’t just lack noise; it presses on your ears with a physical weight, like the atmosphere in the cab had suddenly become as dense as lead.
I sat there in the sudden, suffocating quiet, my heart hammered against my ribs as I looked out toward the dark silhouette in the distance. That’s when I saw them—two massive, unblinking crimson orbs from the edge of the treeline. They were set high, at least seven feet up, and they didn’t shift or blink. Then, the shadow detached itself from the oaks. It didn’t run or leap; it unfolded. A pair of wings, wide enough to span the entire lane. They snapped open with a sound like a heavy tarp catching the wind. It took to the sky with a powerful, vertical lift, its massive silhouette blocking out the stars as it flew directly over the cab of my rig. I could hear the wind whistling through its feathers—or whatever they were—a low, rhythmic whoosh that vibrated right through the roof of the truck.
I didn’t wait to see if it was coming back for a second pass. I fumbled for the key, my hands shaking so hard I nearly dropped it, and the engine roared to life with a desperate, metallic scream that felt like it was echoing my own panic. I buried the needle getting back onto the pavement, pushing that rig faster than those river curves were ever meant to handle. When I finally hit the lights of a 24-hour diner thirty miles away, I climbed out with my legs feeling like jelly. There, across the top of the trailer, were three deep, jagged gouges ripped clean through the aluminum, as if something with iron talons had tried to find a handhold while I was hauling mail.
The physical damage was one thing, but the paranoia is what really stuck. To this day, I can’t sit in a truly silent room without my skin crawling, waiting for that heavy pressure to return to my ears. I still find myself checking the roof of my vehicle every morning, half-expecting to see those oily, soot-colored smudges or the marks of something that shouldn’t be able to fly, yet does.
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