The echo of dress shoes against crooked cobblestone rang out across the deserted alleyway. Occasional gusts of wind rattled shop signs and window panes, as if the whole of the street itself was trembling. The only light was provided by the yellowish street lamps, flickering every once in a while, staticky clicks interrupting the endless drone of the buzzing electricity. That, and the pale glow of the moon. It cast its sickly white over all, giving the earth an otherworldly, uncanny quality.

The man adjusted his overcoat and continued his brisk pace, rubbing his palms together and blowing hot air on them. He had been on edge from the moment he stepped out of his depressing office building. It was freezing out. The wind went straight through all of the layers he donned. Not to mention the recent disappearances. But he wouldn’t dwell on that. That was something he’d hear about on the news, not something that would happen to him. It was some untouchable, faraway thing, like a hurricane or a mugging. They happened, but not to him. 

Just a few more blocks. Just a few more blocks until he could duck into the relative safety of his cramped apartment, just a few more blocks until he could greedily soak his chilled bones in front of his spluttering space heater, just a few more blocks until he’d be behind a triple-locked door. He cursed his boss for making him stay overtime. Nine p.m. on a week night. All of his coworkers were long gone, and not a soul was out on the street. What was there to do besides walk as fast as he could and hope he would make it home in one piece? 

He passed a lone bus stop and scoffed to himself. How perfectly fortunate that the buses stopped circulating at nine p.m. He had thought about ordering a taxi, but it wasn’t worth the cost. He would just speed-walk, he told himself. He would just keep going and not stop and he would be home before he knew it. He did it every day. Why was today any different?

But it is different, came the nagging voice at the back of his mind. It’s different and you know it’s different. It’s late. It’s empty. It’s different. 

The man ignored the voice. That feeling of eyes on his back was just a natural reaction to being out late on his own. He couldn’t stop to investigate. He was almost certain his fingers were beginning to get frostbitten. He needed to get home. 

Just as he was about to round the corner, in the final stretch, a second pair of shoes against cobblestone sounded behind him. He stopped in his tracks for a split second and realized, with alarm, that everything had seemed to stop around him as well, as if the world was holding its breath. The wind stopped howling. The street lamps stopped buzzing and flickering. The sound of his own heartbeat rose in his ears, combining with the footsteps behind him that he just processed were coming in much too fast for comfort.

His stomach dropped. The footsteps behind him froze as well. He stood stock-still in the middle of the street, hair standing on end. Whatever, whoever, this was, the last thing he wanted to do was confront them. One, he didn’t want to become another missing persons case. Two, he wanted to get home. Barely thinking, he began walking again, even faster than before. He visualized his apartment building, visualized launching himself up the stairs and through his doorway, slamming the door triumphantly. He imagined the comforting click of his locks. Then the footsteps started up again. Different this time, slow and deliberate, a series of click click clicks that pulled the man forcefully from his hopeful reverie, mocking him. His breath stuttered in his lungs as he picked up his pace and began sprinting. The footsteps copied him, clacking wildly on the stone, sounding heavier with each step until they were pounding on the ground, making the earth tremble, mimicking his erratic heartbeat. Then they were beside him, overtaking him, stopping in front of him. The man skidded to a halt. 

He recoiled in shock. A woman was standing not five feet away. So she was watching him earlier? Following him? Where could she have come from so suddenly? Why was there somebody out in the first place? Especially after the past few weeks? All of those disappearances that everybody tried not to think about. He took in her stark black hair and paper-white skin, her large eyes and gaunt features. Her stare was unbroken, a toothy grin stretched across her face. More and more alarm bells were going off in the man’s head. He stepped back. She stepped towards him. 

“What do you want? Why are you following me?” asked the man, words coming out all in a rush, poised to turn on a dime and sprint off in the opposite direction of his building, but it was as if some mysterious force was holding him back. 

“Isn’t the moon just beautiful tonight?” 

The man took a couple more steps backwards, not daring to turn his back on the woman yet. She had stayed put this time, eyes still not breaking contact, the expression on her face not shifting by a single muscle. The man felt the blood go still in his veins, joining the universe in its unnatural moment of pause. He felt even colder than before. A sick, overpowering chill that invaded his entire nervous system at once, like a barrel of ice water was dumped over his head.

“Well, isn’t it? Beautiful,” the woman said, words molding around her grin, saccharine sweet, artificial like aspartame. Her voice was somehow both melodic and off-putting, both smooth and grating. 

“Can you just get out of my way?” The man’s voice was almost pleading. She just smiled wider at him, not making any move to respond. He surveyed her nervously, unwilling to look away from the woman for even a moment. She took another step forward. The light bent around her, the highlights of her face going in and out of shadow, twisting her features demonically. He glanced down at her feet and noticed, with a start, that despite being beneath the street lamps and the faint glow of the moon, she cast no shadow. 

“What is it that you want?” he forced out into the silence, his voice abrasive. Hypervigilance was ramping, radiating throughout his entire body in nauseating pulses. 

“I want you to look up and see.”

“What are you talking about?” He was nearly yelling now, but the woman didn’t even blink. 

“The moon, silly!” The way she looked at him was akin to the way a schoolteacher might look at a preschooler asking why the sky was blue. He was dumbfounded. 

“What is your problem?”

“Problem?” She laughed airily and tsked at him, scolding. “There is no problem. There would be no problem if you just looked up.”   

She kept creeping towards him. Her hands were at her sides, her posture hunched, making her look smaller than she really was. 

Logically, the man knew that the woman should be no threat to his safety. She was smaller than him, frailer. He now had adrenaline coursing through his veins in place of blood. He could easily get away or overpower her. Still, he felt a kind of primal alarm. Something in the atmosphere was wrong. And this woman had brought the feeling of wrongness along with her, had instilled the very air around them with unease. The man thought about the recent string of disappearances and felt the urge to vomit. Why was she so persistent? What was her obsession with the moon?

“Just… just leave me alone!” he shouted, stalking backwards. The woman let out another stomach-churning giggle. Her eyes squinted ever-so-slightly, eyebrows turning downwards, but her grin stayed in place. It was a look of pity that she had adopted. Like she genuinely felt bad for him for having to live with his ignorance to the vision that was the moon in the sky. 

“Oh, but it's absolutely gorgeous. Oh-so-inviting.” 

Her demeanor never wavered. Her apparent calmness and pleasant implorations, like a perpetually cheery stewardess, were in complete discord with the undercurrent of threat that exuded from her very being. She took a step forward again, a predator inching towards its prey. Her smile stretched wider, eyes widening back to their original unnatural state. Had her teeth grown sharper? Her eyes burned into the man’s even more intensely, rings of charcoal black in a sea of yellowish milky whiteness, red veins like vines taking over the perimeter. Something was wrong.

“What are you doing?” the man said. His voice had grown fainter. He wanted to yell, to scream at her that she’d better leave him alone and go away, that he’d fight back, but to his horror, he couldn’t make his voice any louder. He tried desperately to shout at the woman, but all that came out was a series of pathetic whimpers. His body wasn’t listening to him. He was growing docile against his will.

“You need to see.” 

He wanted to thrash, to scream, to turn and run as fast as he could. But he could do none of that. All he could do was stand there in front of her and listen and wait. His pulse quickened even more, his breaths coming out in short, harsh gasps, nearly hyperventilating. 

The woman’s grin stretched impossibly wider. Her teeth seemed to have grown even sharper still, longer. Her jaw opened wider to accommodate them. The man’s eyes widened in terror. It was just now beginning to fully sink in, how dire of a situation he was in. There was absolutely nothing he could do.

Nobody he could call, nobody’s attention to grab, nowhere to hide and take cover. The alleyway might as well have been a ghost town. 

“Why don’t you just leave me be? Why are you doing this?” His voice cracked and shook. He knew he had been backed into a corner. The longer he stared at the woman’s face the more terrified he became, and she seemed to know it. Her smile developed a more sinister edge at his fear.

“Look up.” 

“You’re crazy,” the man breathed. She tilted her head to the side, the first movement she had made besides her periodic steps towards him. 

“You don’t understand. I’ll just have to show you.” 

The man shook his head rapidly. He went to back up again, but his feet were lead. Every move he tried to make was delayed, as if his brain had grown sluggish in sending signals to his body. Beads of sweat formed along his forehead and the nape of his neck. He was beginning to tear up. Drawn to her eyes against his will, he saw that despite being so dark, they reflected no light, cloudy and dead. She inched forward again, and suddenly, it was like the man had developed tunnel vision. He could focus on nothing but her. His eyes lost focus as she overtook his mind. He grew dizzy.

For the first time in what felt like hours, the man’s eyes were separating from the woman’s. He tried hopelessly to stop them. What would the woman do without him watching? He would be left entirely vulnerable. Paralyzed with fear, he gasped sharply, fighting to maintain some semblance of control over his own body. He understood at once that he had no control whatsoever. Like he had been hypnotized. He struggled against the elusive force to bring his eyes back down as they floated up, up, up towards the brilliant white coin in the inky black. 

“What are you doing?”

“Look up.” 

“But how…”

“Look up.” 

The man’s eyes connected with the moon. At once, as if he had been tackled, the wind was knocked from his chest. He had never seen something so beautiful in all his life. It pulled him in, took over his mind. He found himself wishing he could float up and embrace it. 

“Do you see?” crooned the woman. “Isn’t it beautiful?” She was the closest she had been to the man, gripping his neck tenderly. He nodded absently. When had she stepped so close? He couldn’t recall, and he didn’t care. Sharp nails like claws dug into his skin, and he paid no mind. His head stayed angled upwards, eyes trained on the moon. 

The beauty was indescribable. The troubles of the world left his mind entirely. Gone was the man’s disdain for his boss, gone were the visions of his apartment, gone was the windchill seeping through his clothes and turning him to an icicle, gone was the desire to escape and get to safety. All he could think about was the moon and the generous woman who took the time to show him something so glorious. It was incredible. How could he have been so blind? 

The moon’s pale glow was unlike anything he had ever seen before. The harsh white light was comforting. It glittered in the sky, almost as if it was winking at him. He breathed out a reverent laugh. 

When was the last time he blinked? How much time had passed? He didn’t care if it had been days. He couldn’t get enough. Tears trailed down his cheeks one after the other. The beauty was overwhelming, beckoning him. How had he not seen it before? He was compelled to go tell every living soul about it. His life was changed. He would never be able to look at the world the same way. How grateful he was to the mystery woman for opening his eyes. Everyone deserved to see. 

The world resumes its course, lamps back to buzzing and blinking, wind back to howling; and yet, the man remains frozen. A searing pain digs into his chest. He’s too distracted to dwell on it. His eyes cannot, will not, leave the moon. 

Sharp nails tear through his coat, his sweater, his button-down, his undershirt.

The moon is just beautiful tonight.

They dig through layers of skin.

The moon is just beautiful tonight. 

Dainty, unassuming hands effortlessly crack through bone after bone, separating rib from sternum, the man entirely ignorant to the sickening crunches.

The moon is just beautiful tonight.

The smell of blood pervades the air. 

The moon is just beautiful tonight.  

Lungs are dug through with reckless abandon as his heart is pulled from his chest. 

The moon is just beautiful tonight.

The man withers down to the ground, falling to his knees then slumping over. He doesn’t hear the hair-raising biting, slurping, chewing right above him. His eyes stay focused on the moon, even as the last of the light leaves them and his final breath vacates his body. 

The moon is just beautiful tonight.