Confessions of a Chicago Owlman
“And how does that make you feel?”
“How does dressing up like a giant owl and scaring the unholy shit outta people make me feel?”
“Yes.”
“It’s like having sex, except I can do it by myself.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But not like jerking it!”
“Of course not, but you can’t really do it by yourself, can you? You need witnesses. What do the witnesses add to your experience?”
“I dunno. It’s like the difference between being and becoming, between pretending and transcending, between New Coke and Coke Classic.”
“It makes it real.”
“Hell yeah, it makes it real!”
The Owlman grew up in New England, raised on a diet of tall tales, including more than a few flying cryptids. There was the Mothman, red-eyed harbinger of doom; and the Snallygaster, with its steel claws and blood-caked beak. The Maryland sky is full of dragons.
One summer, he and some friends had been banned from a convenience store. It was the young Owlman’s ideas to don matching masks and capes, then take up positions atop buildings down the block. One kid would run in, grab all the snacks he could carry, then dash out the door and around the corner.
When the shopkeep pursued, the first boy would already be behind a blind, but a second boy in a matching cape would be clearly visible climbing onto the neighboring roof. “How’d he get up there so fast?!” the shopkeep would gasp. Two more boys and several buildings later, they’d have “outrun” their nemesis and vanished into the dark, dark woods.
It caused quite a stir. Local crackpots linked it to everything from Spring-Heeled Jack to secret military experiments. Monster hunters and paramilitary wackjobs patrolled the streets. It was on the nightly news!
Eventually, they got caught. The police decided to sweep it all under the rug, rather than make fools of… everybody.
But it was too late for The Owlman. His eyes were open.
“Tell me about your costume.”
“It’s awesome! Took me years to collect the feathers. Had to buy a few on the black market. Found a pair of taxidermied Snowy Owls at an estate sale and salvaged their flight feathers. Fished my ear tufts out of a pet store dumpster.
“The mask has goggles with mechanical irises. I had the beak 3D printed by a guy from the Otherkin boards. When I raise my arms, the wings stretch out like storm clouds, blotting out the stars, the moon, the whole fucking universe!”
The Owlman crouched behind the treeline, just feet from the Franklins’ side door, as the family unpacked their groceries. He watched the children gather by the TV as Mom and Dad started dinner. He waited for his moment, patiently, like a hunter.
When Dad picked up the garbage and left the kitchen, The Owlman stood up, shook the leaves from his feathers, and stepped in front of the door.
It took a second for Dad’s smile to fade, as his lizard brain struggled to process what stood before it. Slowly, his lungs expanded, anger gathering in his chest.
And in that moment, in that perfect space between heartbeats, The Owlman stretched his wings. Dad’s shout shriveled. The Owlman accepted this tiny primate’s fear like an offering to a pagan god.
Then, the door slammed shut and the Owlman ran.
It wasn’t the first time. He’d been going out in costume for months, spooking people on the highway. Before that, he’d been spending the night perched on his own roof, the apex predator of his backyard.
He’d found his tribe that year, a subculture of people who don’t believe they’re human. Some believe they’re the reincarnated souls of mythological creatures. Finally, he’d understood the source of his alienation. He wasn’t just obsessed with flying humanoid cryptids… he was a flying humanoid cryptid.
“Why start therapy now?”
“Things have taken a turn. I met someone. They… made me question things.”
“Like what?”
“My motives. Like, what if it’s not about me? What if it’s about them? What if I just get off on scaring people? What if I made someone question their reality in some deep-down, fucked up way? Like, gave them a complex. I didn’t even think about that.”
“Have you come to any conclusions?”
“Just one.”
The Owlman moved to Chicago for work. It was that or get laid off and the unemployment rate was seven percent. What was a pagan god to do?
He had no illusions about CPD letting him let go with a warning. Every time he perched on the windswept masonry of some building, he didn’t just feel watched… he felt hunted.
People started talking. Bloggers started to blog. Monster hunters started prowling the streets, iPhones and GoPros held like crucifixes. Thing was, not all the sightings were of him.
There was another flying humanoid cryptid in Chicago!
A new hunt began, or perhaps a courtship. Either way, it ended in bitter disappointment. He heard it first: blades buzzing like a swarm of wasps, phony wings snapping in the wind. It was a caricature, just bits of plastic draped over wire and attached, probably with duct tape, to a drone.
The operator was a foul rodent who answered to “Lord Assathoth.” He wasn’t seeking self-actualization; he was just, to use his words, “doin’ it for the lulz.” He laughed at the people he harassed, looked down on those who believed.
It made The Owlman sick.
“So, what did you do?”
“… I waited for him, one night. I circled him, utterly silent, and then I swooped down and caught him in my talons! With a pulse of my wings, I dragged him skyward. He begged for mercy, but I dropped him in the lake thirty miles out. Him and his abomination.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“I don’t know what I believe, anymore. That’s why I’m here. The real question is… what did he believe?”
