I am so fucking scared of moose. There’s nothing that’ll put the fear of God in you quite like those 7 ft monsters with their huge demonic-looking antlers and all that shaggy, gross fur. And then there are these unholy noises they make. Like, if your fight-or-flight instinct hasn’t already been triggered by the sight of them alone, they’ll just top it all off with those eerie “hwah” sounds. Honestly, I don’t get how so many people are still so afraid of spiders knowing that something like a moose exists. You can always stomp on a spider. A moose will just straight-up crash into your car. They’re not usually all that aggressive towards humans, but when they’re provoked, they will hurt you. Did you know more people get attacked by moose than by bears? Of course there’s the possibility that these victims did something to anger or frighten the moose in question before the attack, but who knows what rubs these things the wrong way. Maybe the moose just got aggravated on their own. So obviously, there are more than enough reasons to be scared of moose. Even more than I listed in the above.
That’s right. I’m going to tell you something about moose that will convince even the ignorant few of you who think these animals are cute gentle giants of the truth. Admittedly, this is more about one particular moose but it’s definitely cemented my fear of them.
I grew up in the countryside. Where exactly, I don’t want to say, but moose have been known to roam the area around my childhood home quite frequently. We used to own a small piece of land along with an old farmhouse, so I encountered all sorts of wild animals during my younger years. The moose that happened to wander onto our property never really got too close; they would sometimes come closer to the building to check it out but for the most part, they weren’t interested in us, and neither were we. They always did give me the shivers, though. No animal that isn’t an elephant should be allowed to be this big. They’re almost like nature got a good response to its release of the deer and ended up escalating it in hopes of the result being another success. In fact, every time I was unlucky enough to spot one of these unholy creatures as a child, I would run straight into the arms of my mother and cling onto her for dear life. My older brother always called me a sissy for doing so, and at the time I was usually very embarrassed afterwards, but nowadays, I believe I must have always known there was something off about moose. Like a seventh sense was telling young me to be extra careful.
One night when I was about eleven years old, my mom, dad and big brother were sitting in the living room playing a board game when we heard a sound that sent chills down my spine. It was the distinctly pitched, strange moose call. I jumped in my seat, knocking over the glass of juice on the table in front of me. My brother snorted and rolled his eyes at me. Aiden was about sixteen at the time, and he wasn’t afraid of anything. Being huge and kind of wide himself, he actually somewhat reminded me of a moose. My fear of them was therefore a regular source of amusement to him. My father nudged him in the side.
“Leave her alone,” he muttered. Turning to me, he added, “Did that spook you?”
I nodded.
“Get some paper towels to clean up that mess,” Dad said flatly, gesturing at the small juice puddle on the floor. “And don’t worry, moose can’t walk through walls. It’ll be gone in a moment.”
Unfortunately, he’d end up being very mistaken about that. I wiped up the spilled liquids and just as I was about to sit back down, the moose hollered again. “Mom…” I whined.
“Sweetie, stop fussing, it’ll go away in a bit, I’m sure.” She smiled at me across the cup of coffee she was holding to her lips. “It’s just an animal. It doesn’t mean any harm.”
“Moose are creepy!” I insisted. “They’re not like other animals. They’re not right.”
“What’s a right animal then, hon?”
“A dog? Or a cat, or an elk even, literally anything else!”
Mom laughed, not in a condescending way, but it made me feel like a baby nonetheless. “Just wait a little while, alright?”
I settled back in to finish the game, but I kept sneaking glances at the open window. The curtain in front of it obscured the view, but I was certain that the moose we were hearing was right there. It was probably just outside the window, ready to poke its ugly snout with that weird dangly thing on their necks inside. I shuddered when I imagined it looking in at me with its spooky lazy eyes.
“I’m gonna go to bed,” I announced, rising from my chair. I didn’t exactly feel like playing anymore.
My brother groaned. “You’re such a child, you know that? It’s just a damn moose, it’s probably shouting for its kid or something. They’re big but that’s all, they’re not even aggressive. Like, I’ve never gotten attacked by a moose. Neither has Dad. Have you?”
“No, and I don’t wanna,” I replied.
Aiden turned to look at Mom. “She’s just doing this for attention, you know that, right? She thinks if she pretends to have this stupid moose anxiety it’ll make her more interesting.” Facing me once more, he added, “No one gives a damn.”
Now that was just unnecessarily hurtful, and my parents seemed to think so, too. My mom made an angry face at him and my dad basically told him to shut up. “Tell you something, son, if the moose ain’t gone in an hour, you’re going out there to take care of it. We’ll see if you can shoo it off.”
Aiden turned a little pale. Dad gave him a meaningful look. “I’m serious,” he said sternly.
“Yeah, like I’m actually scared of that thing,” my brother replied, regaining some of his old confidence. “It’s not gonna attack me. I’ll go out there right now, watch me.” He got up and walked out into the hallway, over to the front door.
“Get back here!” my dad shouted over his shoulder.
“Nope, you wanted me to chase off the moose, now I’m chasing it off,” my brother’s voice rang out defiantly from across the room.
“You can’t be serious,” Mom growled, rising from her chair and marching over to the door herself, a furious look on her face. “Now you’re just being stupid. Leave the poor moose alone! You stay inside, Ai—”
We heard the front door slam behind him. I remember thinking that my brother had to be the biggest dumbass who ever lived. My parents both rushed after him, Dad grabbing his shotgun on the way. Even though I really didn’t want to, I couldn’t help but follow them outside. As we stood on the porch together, the cold air caused me to shiver. It didn’t take us long to spot the enormous silhouette of the moose on our lawn. It was a bull, a big one, even among his kind. His antlers were about as wide as I was tall, his long dark brown fur hung off him like torn rags and he was tapping his foot on the ground repeatedly. It was my ultimate nightmare. My brother however was walking right towards him, stomping and waving his arms. He hollered and shouted, jumping up and down as he attempted to make the massive animal turn and run off. “Go!” he yelled out, again and again, “Fuck off already!”
“Leave it alone!” my mother called out to him. “Aiden, come back here! Leave it alone!”
He didn’t listen. My father raised his shotgun.
“Don’t shoot it,” Mom warned him.
“I’m not gonna; it’s just a warning in case he’ll come at him,” Dad muttered.
I grabbed my mother’s hand and squeezed it. I couldn’t look away from the moose. My brother was now standing right in front of it, staring up at its long, floppy snout as it hovered above his head. And then it happened. The bull opened his mouth and, before any of us could react, a long arm shot out, grabbing my brother by the hair and pulling his head straight up into the gaping maw. Mom gasped. My father dropped his shotgun. I merely stood frozen in shock. Aiden was up to his shoulders inside the moose, the rest of his body—his arms and legs—were thrashing around in sheer, plain to see panic. Dad hurried to bend down and grab his gun, but it slipped from his trembling fingers again and again.
“No, no, no, no, no!” he whimpered as he frantically tried to aim. A shot rang out, but he seemed to have missed as the moose didn’t falter. It turned around and began to run towards the woods, only gaining speed as my father kept firing at it. Mom jumped off the porch to sprint after it, but by the time she’sd reached the edge of the forest, the moose was long gone, and Aiden with him. She returned with wide, empty eyes, her face contorted in a look of utter horror.
“Call the fucking police!” she screamed from afar at the top of her lungs as she came staggering up to us. “That’s my boy, my boy… Call the cops or the fire department, or anyone!”
Dad rushed back inside, and moments later I heard him yelling into the phone. “A moose is eating my son! Come quick, it ran off with him… A moose is eating my son!”
It took him ages to convince the operator that he wasn’t crazy, and that they actually were supposed to send someone over. A police search actually did ensue, but yielded no results. Nobody believed us about the arm that had come out of the moose’s snout, of course. We were told we’d been in shock, that we’d imagined it. I don’t blame them. Our story was far from a credible one. The entire incident was written off as a particularly tragic animal attack. Authorities came up with no leads on the whereabouts of my brother, despite their extended efforts. Not even the dogs could pick up on anything. To this day, there’s no official explanation as to where Aiden disappeared to, or where his body went. Everyone simply gave up after a few months. Again, I don’t blame him. What else was there to do? Sure, I would have gladly had all hunters in the area shoot all the moose they came across, but when I pitched the idea, it received little to no attention.
I missed Aiden dearly, and I do to this day. He was an asshole, that’s true, but he was still my brother. My parents were never quite the same. We rarely speak about it nowadays, about Aiden in general. Moose don’t come up anymore either. We moved away from the old house pretty soon after, too. There’s one other thing that happened while we were still living at the old place though, just a few weeks after the attack. I never told anyone this. I was lying in bed and I had trouble sleeping, so I listened to the few sounds of nature that reached my ears from outside my open window. The wind was blowing through the treetops and rustling in the bushes around the house and somewhere, a lonely bird was calling out into the night. Suddenly, this harmony was interrupted by a distinct and all too familiar noise, one that had always instilled fear in me.
“Hwah. Hwah.”
I sat upright, feeling my blood run cold. Without much thought, I climbed out of bed and padded downstairs into the living room. My parents had been fast asleep for hours, so I was all alone. I got up on my tiptoes and peered out the window facing the porch. The moon was just bright enough to illuminate a large figure standing right outside. A moose bull. Not any one, though. It was him. All moose admittedly kind of look the same, but it was definitely him. I don’t know how, but I could tell. And in the dim silvery light, I could make out an object tangled up in his antlers. It had been licked almost entirely clean, and there were only a few bits of flesh still stuck to it. A human skull.