This has not been edited. Sorry. I hope its good anyway.

The Bridge

It’s the green color that’s a cross between a sour pickle and one of your Great Aunt’s turquoise muumuus. Just like that, but maybe more faded. Whoever painted it first has long since given up, only the graffiti artists remain.

“Those hoodlums were at it again.” Dad would say as he walked through the door. He hates the graffiti, but I like the thin and spiky, and the fat and round letters; I follow the maze of letter with my eyes as we pass it. The spots where the paint has been worn away are as big as my little sister in her biggest, fluffiest winter jacket. The brown sludgy water creeps around underneath with the old soda-pop cans and cigarette buds. Fast food wrappers littler the ground, plastering with time against the stone sides.

“It’s a blight on our town, John. You have to do something about it.” My mom has demanded of my Dad. “We have to protect our children.” Her finger pointed accusingly at him, eyes narrowed with anger as she spoke.

Almost no fish or plants live there anymore. They float down river, belly up as the crows swoop down to catch them. Browning vines clime the concrete beams; swirling and twirling, and crisscrossing covering the signatures of the maze. My favorite is the one about Becky-Lou, she lives down the street, but Mom said I’m not allowed to talk about that.

My Dad told me that it has been here his whole life, and his father’s whole life and his father’s whole life. He could be fibbing though, Mom said he does that all the time. It is a green painted, haunted, vine and graffiti covered place. But I know it’s not haunted, no ghosts at all, none of the evil spirits that Reverend Edwards warns us about at church on Sunday. Only the little kids who dare each other to touch the old bridge think that it is haunted. The grownups don’t think about it being haunted at all. They just hold meeting asking who has to clean it, who has to take care of it and who should pay to tear it down. Lots and lots of meetings, they don’t seem to know what to do. After they talk about the old bridge well then they talk about other things like taxes, industrial spills, and missing people. Sometimes my dad comes home swearing never to go again but he always does. I think Mom makes him, she always says something about us keeping with appearances.

But I know something they don’t. I know what’s keeping that bridge from falling down, what’s keeping the grownups form tearing it down or fixing it. Him. It could be a Her I guess but again that’s not really the point. I know its there. For years, decades, maybe even centuries, its lived there eating up all the fish and plants in the water, hiding under the bridge and shying away from people. I’ve seen its strange cloudy smoke rising above the bridge from my house, I tried to show my Dad but he just told me to go to bed. I’ve heard its angry screams and hungry wails. They’ve grown worse over the last few months, when the factory had its accident.

I went there once, when I first suspected that there was more to that bridge then anyone else thought. After I had heard the wails, and seen the smoke. Once the school bell rang I hitched a ride with Johnny Marks, he has this great ten-speed, to about a half a mile away from the bridge, I told him that I was meeting my mom at her friend’s house not too far from there. In my backpack I had hidden a disposable camera and some frozen fish from the freezer that was all I could find to feed whatever was down there. At the time I just wanted to see what was there, if I could help it. When I got there my hands gripping the camera I found nothing. I searched, walking under and around and through ever shrub, tree, beam and post. I finally had to give up about twenty minutes before I had to be home, it would take me that long if I hurried. Just as I started to leave I heard a low hungry sound. It stood taller than my Dad, its back was toward me so I could not see its face, but I couldn’t help but run at the sight of its hairy back. My offerings of now thawed and stinking fish lay forgotten in my bag next to my pre-algebra book. I ran, as hard and as fast as I could making it home in under ten minutes, a record time.

That night as I lay in bed I thought about the creature. Its long and tangled brown hair, and furry arms and legs. Its curved back and long clawed hands. I remembered its tattered clothes, as that had confused me at first and still then. What if it were a troll or a goblin? Instead of the Big Foot creature I had thought. In stories faeries, goblins and trolls wear clothing right? They stole the clothes off their victim bodies after they were done eating them. I decided it was a big hairy troll wearing stolen clothing from years ago. That night I started my plan.

My mom would say that nothing is in our hands, God provides for all, my Dad would say that we need to take care of our own destinies. I believe my Dad. I gathered some of the guys who hang out at the park in the center of town and told them about the plan. James and his brother agreed because the troll tried to eat their little sister, the other guys I think just wanted to see the monster.

We all gather our best weapons, baseball bats, sling-shots, and even a bee-bee gun someone lifted off their older brother. I had my bow and arrow. Three of us, myself and two other guys one with a sling-shot and the other with the bee-bee gun stood above ground in the trees watching the backs as the others crept toward the bridge. We had been surveying the grounds waiting finding out the monster’s patterns and knew this was feeding time.

When the beast finally showed himself we were ready. I shot the first arrow and the others followed. The beast raised his arms in anger and thrust forward with jerky movements. We were relentless, arrows, rocks, shots we fired at will, trying to take down the beast. He staggered when my arrow shot through his stomach, I had been practicing for this moment gaining strength. The front force closed in on the beast, their bats raised they began to force him to his knees, cries of pain erupted from him. I glanced away not sure of my battle, but I, along with the others, continued on. When at last the beast laid still, only breathing slightly, Johnny stepped forward.

“This is for my sister, you fucker.” I watched passively as he reached into his jacket and brought out the knife his father had brought back after the war. The other boys punched their fists into the air, caught by the passion of the moment.

“Kill it! Kill it!” They screamed wild and unencumbered by society’s rules. The lust for blood, for violence over took us. We were judge, jury and executioner. Johnny thrust the knife into the beast’s neck; a great wealth of blood spurted out covering not only the beast but those of us surrounding him. Our faces stayed focused as he took his final breaths. We stood, our lust satisfied by the kill. They stepped away, all ready forgetting the life we had helped to kill.

“I have to get home, my mama will kill me if I’m not home for dinner.” One said, others agreed. They trudged toward their homes as I stayed, emotions I couldn’t identify raging through my mind. When finally I was composed I started to leave but a small leather triangle protruding from the pocket of the beast caught my eye. I reached for it with trembling hands, silently begging to god. Grasped in my hands was a wallet with a picture ID of a man with long tangled brown hair and a furry face.

The End

Thank you for reading this. I would enjoy any comments.