Night Bugs

by Heather Santo

She is a procurement lead living in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and daughter. In addition to writing, her creative interests include photography, painting and collecting skeleton keys. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @Heather52384.

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Beulah’s mother would kill her if she knew where she was right now. Out, in the middle of the woods with an older boy from school.

A boy Beulah had agreed to participate in illegal activity with.

Jessie handed her a pair of leather work gloves.

“Ready to catch some night bugs?”

Beulah nodded and accepted the gloves. The sun was setting over the trees, rolling acres of emerald bathed in citrine light. Jessie shook dark bangs out of his eyes, considering her.

“You sure?”

Beulah looked over her shoulder. She’d parked her tiny Honda on a gravel-covered rectangle on the side of the road. Jessie’s mud-splattered Jeep was parked beside it. She looked back toward where they were headed. This trail had not been maintained for years. The marker was all but swallowed by branches, and the path was mostly overgrown.

The sunset deepened to ruby. Jessie was backlit by the bleeding sky.

His eyebrow quirked, waiting for Beulah to answer.

Her heartbeat quickened. His deep blue eyes had a bewitching effect on her.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I’m sure.”

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

The excitement at being alone with Jessie outweighed her fear of breaking the rules. “No,” she said.

“That’s probably best,” Jessie replied. “You got water and a flashlight?”

“In here.”

She slid the backpack off her shoulder and stuffed the gloves inside. He patted his own backpack.

“Me too. Plus, the other supplies we’ll need.” He took out his flashlight and motioned for her to follow. “Let’s go.”

Tall grass swished around their legs as they entered the woods. Jessie held back bramble, searching. “There’s a deer trail we can take to the creek. From there we can walk down to the falls. There are some rocks nearby where we can set up and wait.”

Beulah swatted a mosquito at her neck.

“You do this a lot?”

He chuckled, passing the flashlight beam back and forth across the forest floor.

“Once a season, during a certain full moon.”

The mid-July heat pressed in on them. Beulah gulped in thick, humid air. She’d worn a long-sleeve shirt and jeans at Jessie’s suggestion, and her back was already slick with sweat.

“How do you know where to find them?” she asked. What she really wanted to ask was why he’d asked her to tag along, but she wasn’t ready for the answer yet.

“My uncle. He hunted night bugs as a teen before it was outlawed. And then after.” He paused. “Much more lucrative after.”

Beulah made a neutral sound in her throat, not sure what to say. They fought their way through the bramble for another hundred yards.

“Ah, here it is.” Jessie’s flashlight revealed the deer path, narrow but visible through the overgrowth. He continued to lead, with Beulah following at his heels.

Above the tree canopy, patches of sky deepened into violet, and then indigo. Tiny pinpricks of stars winked awake, now that the day was gone. Beulah took out and switched on her flashlight.

“Soon the moon will be up. Should be pretty bright tonight.”

“Which full moon is it tonight?” Beulah asked.

Something rustled in the brush on their right. She yelped and her flashlight beam bounced wildly. Jessie chuckled.

“Probably just an opossum.” He reached back and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, I know these woods better than anyone else.”

Her heart fluttered. “Okay,” she said, and cringed at how weak her voice sounded.

“Really,” he promised. “And it’s called a Buck Moon.”

Ahead, Beulah heard the faint trickle of running water.

“And they’re green, right? The summer night bugs, I mean.”

Jessie stopped, tucked the flashlight under one arm. “Yeah. Fall are red, winter are blue, and spring are yellow.” He unzipped his bag and pulled out a water bottle and took a long drink. She did the same. At this rate, she was sweating so much, she would be dehydrated before they reached the falls.

“What do people use them for?”

Jessie hesitated.

“Look, I know you’re risking a lot, coming out here with me. Fines, jail time…your mother’s wrath.” He paused and scratched his head. “I was actually surprised you agreed to come.”

She shrugged. “I’m such a rule follower. I guess I want to try new things.”

“Look,” he said again. “Maybe the less you know, the better.”

This time, Beulah grabbed his hand.

“It’s a little late for that,” she said.

He chewed his lip. “Okay, so the bugs are put through, I don’t know, a kind of distillation process. I failed chemistry, so you might understand how all that works better than I do, but whatever is left over is turned into a powder. You can press the powder into pills or dissolve it in liquid. Each color causes a different reaction when ingested.”

“You’re kidding.” Beulah didn’t try to disguise her shock. “Like drugs?”

Jessie put his water bottle back in the bag and started walking again.

“Yeah, like drugs. Red creates feelings of love and passion; blue has a sedative effect that induces sleep. Yellow makes people happy.”

“And green?” she asked.

“That one brings in the most cash,” he said. “Green causes the user to believe.”

“In what?”

Night, a liquid, inky darkness, wove through the trees.

“In whatever. My uncle told me the Catholic church used to put them in the communion wafers, to keep congregations devout.”

Beulah thought of her mother clutching rosary beads at her bedside. A mix of pity and anxiety stirred in her stomach.

“All of that,” she said, “I don’t know, it sounds made up.”

“Maybe,” Jessie agreed. “But after my dad’s accident in the Mill, I had to find a way to pay the bills. And this? It gets the job done.”

The deer path dropped off where it met the creek. Jessie jumped down and turned, offering his hand to Beulah. She took it and jumped down. Mud squashed beneath her boots.

“There it is.” He released her hand and pointed at the sky. The Buck Moon was rising, like a bright coin on black paper.

They walked upstream, just at the edge of the creek. Moonlight danced on the rippling surface, somehow cold and alive at the same time. Rocks scraped underfoot, and Beulah lost her balance a few times, but managed not to fall into the water. She didn’t think it was possible to look less cool, but she wanted to keep her socks dry at the very least.

Minutes ticked by. Then hours. The question she wanted to ask burned in her throat, but Beulah stayed silent. When the moment was right, if there was a right moment, she would know.

“Not much farther,” he told her finally. The creek current quickened, and Beulah could hear the rush of the falls ahead.

“It is bright,” Beulah said. They had turned off their flashlights awhile back. The moon burned in the sky, like the question in her throat, and the night, approaching midnight, glowed in the reflected light.

“Yeah,” he said. “The night bugs can’t see very far, so that’s why they only come out under the full moon. And that’s why we need to hide behind the rocks, so they don’t see us.”

“Are those the rocks there?”

They rounded a bend in the creek. A pile of large boulders, probably fallen from atop the falls, emerged on the same side of the creek they traveled. Behind them, water spilled down a rock wall in the middle of the forest valley, crisscrossed with mossy, dead trees and hanging vines. A deep pool collected at its base and fed the creek they had just trekked up.

“Yeah, we can rest here. Shouldn’t be much longer now.”

He unzipped his bag and pulled out a large blanket.

“Didn’t want you to sit in the mud,” he said. Beulah blushed, worried the moonlight would reveal her reddening face.

Jessie spread the blanket out and plopped to the ground. When she didn’t move, he patted the spot next to him. “Want to sit next to me?”

“Sure.” She sat down. Unsure what to say, she removed her water bottle out of her backpack and took a long drink.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It’s pretty here.” And it was. The sound of the falls calmed Beulah’s frayed nerves, and her heartbeat slowed

Well, if there was ever a time, it’s now, she thought.

“Jessie, why did you ask me to come with you?”

He scratched at his chin, considering his response. A long, thin scar flashed at his jawline.

“I know I have a bad reputation around town. I did those couple years in juvie for theft, but you never judged me. When I got back, you treated me the same as you did before. Everyone else, they treated me differently.” He pushed his bangs out of his eyes. “High school has been absolute hell for me, except for you. This past year in study hall, I don’t know, I thought maybe we could be more than friends. I actually dreamed about it. And I thought, if you came out here with me tonight, that would really prove that you don’t hold my past against me. That you trust me. I don’t have that with anyone else.”

He looked at her, his eyes two dark pools she wanted to drown in.

“I do trust you,” she whispered.

Jessie leaned in, cupped the left side of her face with one hand. Beulah dropped her water bottle, spilling its contents on the blanket.

So much for dry socks, she thought fleetingly, as he kissed her. Long and deep. She’d been kissed before, by a few different guys, but never like this. The muscles behind her belly button pulled, and her heartbeat quickened again.

She leaned back, out of the kiss, out of breath.

“Was that, okay?” he asked.

“More than okay,” Beulah replied.

“Good.” Jessie gently angled her chin to the right. “Look, there they are.”

And it was a sight as magical as the kiss. Green lights, lit by some otherworldly glow, winked on and off along the edges of the creek.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“Put on your gloves and be very careful. These bugs bite, and hard. Trust me, I have scars.” Jessie removed several glass screw top containers from his backpack. “Once I grab one, hold out a container. We don’t need many, maybe six or so, and then we’ll head back.”

Beulah nodded, still dizzy from the kiss. She slipped on the gloves, picked up a container, and followed Jessie. He picked his way carefully around the rocks, and then lightning quick, his hand shot out and closed around one of the summer bugs. He turned around and she unscrewed the lid, holding the container out to him.

He dropped the glowing green thing inside.

“Hurry, now shut it!” he whispered.

She did as instructed, and then held the container up at eye level.

Inside was a tiny fairy. Naked, bald, and unmistakably humanoid, the creature was roughly the size of her thumb. Its translucent wings beat furiously, sprinkling a glowing green dust inside of the glass. The sound reminded Beulah of a hummingbird.

Jesse grinned, and she pushed away the pang of guilt. Once all of the containers were filled, she tucked them back inside Jessie’s backpack.

“Good work,” he told her, grinning. “I knew you would be a great assistant.”

She blushed, and then he added, “And a great kisser.”

Beulah didn’t think she could blush any deeper.

“Here.” Jessie handed over her water bottle. “I filled it with creek water. It’s a long walk back, and I don’t want you to go thirsty.”

“Thank you,” she said, and took a large gulp. “And for, well, for tonight. It’s been unlike any night I’ve ever had.”

Something in his eyes shifted then, and Beulah thought she glimpsed, what? Sadness? Regret? She wasn’t sure. She took another drink from her bottle.

“Are you ready to head back?”

“Sure, let me finish packing up,” he said. She nodded, took one more drink, and stowed the water bottle in her backpack.

Suddenly, the creek and the forest valley tilted, got fuzzy.

“Hey Jessie, I don’t feel so good,” she said.

“Maybe you should sit back down,” he replied, but Beulah was already on her butt before he finished his sentence. She felt rocks cut into the seat of her jeans, and her vision tunneled, until it was a tiny, star-like pinprick.

“I’m very tired,” she said, voice slurred. “I think I need sleep.”

Jessie’s reply was lost in the rushing sound in her ears, and then Beulah’s entire world went black.

She came to, hours later, she judged, by the rising sun peeking over the tops of the trees. “What’s going on?” she said, but the words felt strange and mushy in her mouth. She tried to move, and realized she was in the trunk of her car, with the trunk still popped open, wrapped in the blanket Jessie had taken on their hike.

Jessie was talking to someone on the phone.

“Yeah, I got the bugs, and the girl,” he said. “Five grand for the bugs, but twenty-five for the girl. Non-negotiable.”

“Jessie, what are you talking about?” Beulah tried to sit up, but her limbs felt heavy and leaden, and she realized her wrists and ankles were bound together.

He looked down at her.

“Gotta go,” he said, and ended the call.

Tears streamed down her face.

“I’m really sorry about this, believe me,” he told her, as he placed duct tape over her mouth. “But I have to get out of this shit hole town, and this is the best option I have.”

Beulah pleaded with him with her eyes. Hours before, his lips had been on hers.

Now hers were sealed shut with tape.

Without another word, he slammed down the trunk, blocking out the rising sun, and started her car.

© Night Bugs by Heather Santo. 2023. All rights reserved.