Moonlight

  I have always loved the night. 

  Even as a child, I found the darkness fascinating; the way it swept over my visible world and blanketed it in peace and silence. Growing up in a small town, it was not strange to be out after dusk as a young teenage boy, wandering the narrow, worn-down streets and passing by homes of familiar faces. It was this way that I grew to love the moon as well. I was enchanted by the way it gently pierced the darkness, draping its silvery light over the landscape to caress all it touched with its near-ephemeral veil. I began wandering every night, with the shadows as my cloak and the moon as my guide, until I truly began to feel at home in the darkness; after all, shrouded by the night I could be anything, or anyone! I could be the hunter, or the boogeyman, or a simple observer, though in my small town it was exceptionally uncommon to see anyone else out during the night. 

  Eventually, I moved to a more suburban area, but this did nothing to keep me inside once the sun set, as my neighborhood was generally quiet and, much to my delight, lacked streetlights save for a handful scattered across the few intersections that existed in the area. I quickly mapped out my new stomping grounds and, having been given more freedom with the passing of time, stayed out much later, wandering sometimes for hours into nearby neighborhoods or climbing to the roof of a building in my own just to watch the stars and moon slowly arc through the inky sky. The more experienced I became, the further I began to appreciate the full moons, and use them to facilitate especially lengthy expeditions into the more isolated sections of the neighborhood - areas that were connected by one or two long, tree-lined roads, which were on most days completely shadowed and, I admit, intimidating to travel down on my own. But eventually I did, and grew to rely on the bright, silvery light of the full moon that much more. 

  Two years of this had passed, giving me plenty of experience with all manner of night-roaming beings from stray dogs to drunken individuals slowly trudging their way home after a party. I had grown accustomed to hearing and seeing things in the darkness, fleeting shapes that I learned to recognize. Dogs. Cats. Raccoons. They all had identifiable movements and sounds, and I feared next to nothing. The nighttime was mine. So it was with no small modicum of excitement that I waited for sundown on a particular full moon in the Fall, declaring it perfect weather for lighter clothing and a long journey. But something was not right. Some small voice in the back of my head, the voice of reason that says not to put hot food in your mouth, not to run with scissors. Not to look down the barrel of a loaded gun. Do not go out tonight. But why? Why should I fear anything that might roam my neighborhood? Surely I had seen everything there was to see in my little pocket of the world. And besides, the nighttime was my cloak. My shield. It was my quiet little mirror kingdom. Something bad is going to happen if you leave.

  I left as soon as the sun had gone down completely, burying the voice of warning in the back of my mind with the possibilities this particular night had to offer: There was a road I had not yet been down, as it was some miles away from my home, and was itself some miles in length, a straight line flanked on both sides by empty fields and isolated homes. It would be a journey that would definitely last most of my night. So I moved at a brisk walk, at first to get blood flowing through my body and then to burn off the excitement and energy that threatened to force me into a run. I made my way down a familiar street with the moon directly above me, a perfect guiding light that illuminated my path up to a point in the street where clusters of trees blocked out the moon, creating patches of perfect darkness along the way that I had since learned to utilize to enhance my stealthy maneuvering. But something was not right. As I approached the first patch of darkness, the warning voice from before rose up like a siren: turn around now!

  I became nervous, by now an unfamiliar sensation which in turn caused me to become more nervous, so I began to quietly sing to myself a song that I had been listening to earlier in the day with the idea that the familiar sound would comfort me to some degree. I had already entered the first patch of darkness when I heard the movement: something moving quickly down a gravel road one house down from where I stood. It sounded like a dog running, and the moonlight shone on the visible section of the driveway, giving me a clear view of anything that would pass the high fence separating the two properties. When it first came into view, I had a hard time identifying exactly what it was, as it did not look like any dog I had ever seen. It was big and apparently hairless, judging by the way the bright moonlight gave the skin an almost unearthly glow. Its back was oddly arched and its movement was an awkward gallop, as if its front legs were far shorter than its hind legs, and then I realized that they were. I was looking at a pale white, seemingly naked human running on its hands and feet down someone's driveway. It got to the driveway, stopped, and slowly turned its head toward me.

  Despite the bright moonlight, the dark still hid many of its facial features, but even from where I was I could very clearly see its eyes; the moonlight reflected off of them like an animals, two bright yellow circles of light on a featureless white face. I was frozen, nailed to the spot while we began our hellish staring contest, my mind reeling as it struggled to come up with an explanation for what I was seeing. Somewhere in the back of my head, I heard: I told you so. I was pulled back to reality by the distant rumble of a vehicle behind me, and in my relief I glanced backward in the hope of seeing headlights. That's when it moved. I snapped my head back as soon as I had heard the rapid displacement of gravel, only to find the spot the creature once occupied empty save for an illuminated cloud of dust that lazily drifted back to earth. I heard movement in the yard to my left, which was completely shrouded in darkness save for a weak porch light that illuminated the area just a few yards around it. The creature sat just outside of the light, resting on its haunches and staring at me.

  It was at this point I realized that I would not be able to simply turn and walk away, nor would I be able to look away from it without risking further approach. So I slowly reached into my pocket and withdrew my phone, dialing with my peripheral vision my best friend who, fortunately for me, lived just down the street from my house. 
"What's wrong? You okay?" Calling him while I was out was something that had never happened before, and set him on edge immediately.
"I need you to meet me at the end of Pecan. Now."
"I'll be there in five minutes."
And so began the most agonizing five minutes of my life to date. I stared at the creature as it watched me from the shadows, its eyes reflecting the nearby light in that sickly yellow glow that reminded me of a car's fog lights. Finally, after five minutes that seemed like the majority of the night, I heard a car and saw headlights shining behind me. I began to backpedal, never taking my eyes from the creature that, upon seeing the headlights, turned and ran in its deformed gallop, colliding hard with the fence and scrambling over it back to the gravel driveway it had originally come from. My heartbeat slowed and I finally turned away to see that the approaching car was not my friend, but a police cruiser. It drifted slowly past me and continued on, but I was too busy waving down my friend who was driving in just behind the first vehicle. I was opening the car door before he had even come to a full stop and quickly closed it behind me, staring straight ahead at the braking patrol car. "There was something out here with me."

  He sat in silence for a brief moment before turning his attention to the patrol car as well. "Was it over there?" he asked, motioning with a nod of his head toward where the police car had stopped: the gravel driveway. 

"The owner must have seen something too and called the police" he said, and I nodded, a sudden realization only confirming what I had seen. The homeowner must have given a detailed description, or else the police officer would have stopped me as I was walking away from the home in question. I explained this to my friend, and he just shook his head. "Do you want to go look around?" 
I shook my head. "Let's just go." 
For the rest of the night we questioned every detail of my encounter, but one simple fact remained that reinforced my experience: the moonlight. There was no darkness where I first saw it, no way to hide its form or features under the brightest night of that particular fall month, so we chalked it up as a true paranormal experience, and after another hour or so of meaningless conversation, I went home. I didn't sleep at all that morning, or the night after. I was afraid. Afraid that I would look into a window and see its pale white face and glowing yellow eyes staring back at me. I was afraid that if I fell asleep it would find me and take me away to whatever dark hole it called home. Eventually, time passed and I was able to fall asleep comfortable again, but I have never forgotten that pale, near-glowing skin or those reflective yellow eyes that pierced the darkness, inspecting me and waiting for me to turn my back.

I still haven't been to the end of that road.