| Publication History | The Moonlit Road | Copyright |
The Moonlit Road is a short story written by Ambrose Bierce. It was first published in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1907.
Plot[]
The first part is narrated by Joel Hetman Jr. He is summoned home from college by his father, because his mother, Julia, has been found strangled. His father claims that he returned from a business trip and saw the figure of a man fleeing the home. Upon entering the house, he found his wife lying dead in her bedroom. Months later, the father and son are walking down a moonlit road when the father sees something and suddenly turns pale and disappears into the night.
The second part of the story is narrated by a man who describes himself as a wandering outcast, wracked by guilt. He recounts a dream in which he suspects his wife is being unfaithful and he returns from a business trip early to find a strange man leaving his house. When he finds his wife cowering in her room, he murders her in a fit of jealous rage. In another dream, his wife's ghost confronts him on a moonlit road at night and the strangulation marks are still visible on her neck.
The third and final section is the statement of the murder victim, Julia Hetman, delivered through a medium. She describes the night she was murdered. Alone in the house, she heard frightening noises and believed she was being hunted by some creature of the night. While she cowered in the corner of her room, a man entered and strangled her, but she never saw his face. Later, upon seeing that her husband and son were sad, she tried to communicate with them from the spirit world and offer them comfort. She was finally able to appear to them on the moonlit road, but only her husband could see her and he fled in fear.