It was 11:15pm and I had just finished living the high life for the night. My and my friend Mothy, the giant moth, didn't have enough cash for a cab home so we walked. It wasn't much of a walk as I didn't live too far, it was especially quick for Mothy who didn't care where he stayed as long as he had a good view of the moon.
So far it had been a good night, I had a enough drinks to enjoy myself while not enough to tempt a hangover from hell and, as for Mothy, he's always happy as long as we go into a pub with a light on. Unfortunately though, the night's action had only just begun. Between my house and the town was a forest that stetches for about two miles. Such a walk would not normally be a problem, I must have made this trip over a thousand times and at this time of night too, however in the past few weeks that had been news reports of bear attacks in this very forest.
"Listen Mothy, I don't think it is a good idea to walk this way tonight." I said, breaking a long silence.
"What? You're not worried about the bear attacks are you?" Mothy replied.
"Well, after hearing about the attacks on the news I really think we shouldn't tempt fate here. Let's walk along the main road." I knew it was a longer walk but for the sake of my sanity, and skin, I was prepared for such a sacrifice.
"What if the bear drives a car? He could run you over."
"What?" The problem with Mothy was that, with him being a moth, his facal expressions didn't change much. I could never tell if he was being sarcastic. "Are you serious?"
Mothy didn't reply and, by now, we'd had already walked into the opening of the forest. Talking and walking was never my strong suit.
"Well that screwed that idea." I said under my breath. Mothy continued to ignore my half-hearted protests.
In all of my journeys through this forrest I had never noticed how dense the trees were. It would be easy to get lost but, being familiar with the area, we could easily find our way out. This fact still didn't settle my nerves though, the way we entered the forrest was slowly being swallowed by the dark. The only source of light came from the moon, which was unusually bright. I was pretty sure this was the reason why Mothy was eager to walk this way, he never stops talking about how great the moon is. For once I could understand what he meant, the moon's pure light gently illuminated areas not covered by trees. The patches of moonlight would accompany us until we reach the other side of the forrest, and I was eternally grateful.
My eyes lowered from the sky into the darkness of the forrest. The scene hadn't changed as much as I hoped. Surrounded by shadows that were occasionally split by the sky, the feeling of being watched grew stronger and stronger. The thought that whoever was watching had the same problem with visability never crossed my mind.
"We've been walking for a fair bit now mate, we shouldn't be far now." I didn't beileve my own words.
"The moon looks nice tonight"
"Yeah. Well, you would know." Mothy tried to shoehorn the moon into every conversation but, over the period of friendship between me and Mothy, I had become an expert at closing such a conversation before it started.
Suddenly, a huge growl rolled through the forrest and straight down my spine.
"Oh shit!" I turned to Mothy for help.
"Err...don't worry that was me...yeah. GRRR! RAAGH! Or something." Mothy tried to calm my nerves.
"I'm not stupid, that wasn't you. That was a bear. It is coming this way. We are going to die." I said slowly and firmly.
"Don't be so nega...Christ on a cruch! Look at that!" Mothy's confidence was now as distant as his stare.
For a second, I was more shocked at Mothy's blasphemy than his screams. He was a regular church goer, something about the stained-glass windows apparently.
"Look!" Mothy had to physically pull my head into the direction he was facing.
I froze. A huge black shape seemingly bounded between the shafts of light from the moon. It headed directly at us. It's thunderous steps matched the volume and beat of my heart, which could have been the size of a house and it would still not keep up with the blood flow.
The beast strobed between the light so fast I didn't have time to react with fear or panic. Mothy was different.
"Oh God, it's coming straight for us!"
"I'll just take my shoe off then." I reacted in a moment of clarity.
The bear came within inches of us. rising on it's hind legs as if to impress us before it finished us off. The deep growl of the bear was the only thing to register as time stood still. Mothy was the first to react.
"We've gotta do something!" His tone of voice suggested something heroic was about to happen.
Mothy spread his wings and launched into the sky. He started to circle. I watched on as he further circled again and again. And again. I soon realised Mothy wasn't being heroic. He had attempted to make a run for it, getting confused by the moonlight in the process. However, he had unknowingly created a diversion. The bear was distracted by Mothy's poor excuse of flight, sweeping his huge paws towards the sky. I saw my chance and since I had already taken my shoe off I knew what I had to do.
I had a good shot of the bear's face. Just before I took it, I quickly admired my black leather brogue shoe clenched in my right hand. It was like a broken mirror, reflective and just as sharp. My mind quickly raced to the matter in hand, I aimed square on the bear's nose. CLAP! The contact sounded more like patronising applause than the explosion of violence I was expecting. The bear's attention was suddenly on me. CLAP! I nailed him again before it could do anything. This time I fazed him, the bear rubbed his cute shiny nose and let out a small mumble. CLAP! I almost felt sorry for it for a second. CLAP! It was nose bashing time. CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! I stepped up a gear. I must have hit over a hundred claps per minute. I learned at school that the average human clap rate peaked at about 90 cpm; I was in overdrive.
Mothy continued to circle with the grace of a drunk. But that didn't matter, all I cared about was nailing the bear's nose some more. This assault must have gone on for a good half an hour. Everytime I considered stopping I threw a few more slaps in. It had become an addiction. Until...my hand became loose. The shoe dissappeared from my grip. My eyes swung from my shaking, open palm to the bear's face. I expected to see hell in the form of a bear's face. The sight before was anything but. It was the most bizarre, and oddly relieving, thing I had ever seen.
The brogue shoe had somehow become appart of the bear's face. The creature's features had disappeared in a vacuum behind the shoe. He resemebled one of those girl's novelty slippers where you put your feet into the stomach of a cute cuddly teddy bear. Except you'd put you foot in the bear's face and the size of it made clown's shoes look sensible.
"You can come down now, Mothy." I called calmly.
Mothy fell to earth and quickly rose to his feet. "What the hell have you done?"
"I... don't know."
We sidestepped around the motionless bear. It stood like a statue with a shoe for a face and we were as quiet as one. As soon as there was enough safe distance between us and the bear we ran. We ran as fast as we could. In practice, that wasn't that fast. I was minus one shoe and Mothy occasionally got distracted further by the moon. But we eventually made it to the end of the forrest and the point where me and Mothy usually part company. I turned to Mothy.
"I'll speak to you tomorrow then."
"Sure... See you then."
"Bye." It was like nothing had happened. At the back of my mind nothing had. I wasn't sure if Mothy would have believed the attack happened; despite being there. I could hardly believe it myself.
Mothy and myself talked about the attack next time we met. We even told other people in some attempt to make sense of the situation. Predictably, not a single person brought our story and we quickly became the butt of many jokes. Our story never changed though and that's something me and Mothy were strangely proud of. Despite people branding us 'bear shoe-faced liars.'
