New Medium Article: The Haunted Bridge: A Ghost Story
Happy Friday everyone! I just posted a new (or not-so-new) story on my Medium page. This story has been posted on fictionpress for awhile now. It's The Haunted Bridge: A Ghost Story! As always, link to the full article and sneak peek are down below.
Link: https://alysonserenastone.medium.com/...
Sneak Peek:
When growing up in a small town, you are bound to hear certain things. Stay away from the old well, your father nearly drowned there. Don’t go near Mrs. Johnson’s yard, so will chase you. Mr. Wilcox is cheating on his wife with the local dinner owner. These are just the normal small-town whispers that everyone expects.
Perhaps there is some truth to them, but they are just normal gossip, normal whispers after Sunday’s church service.
However, there is one rumour, one whisper, that everyone seems to know and seems to believe it is true. Stay away from the old bridge on the dirt road at night. Now, I understand that this may sound kind of vague to you and kind of silly, but in my town, we believe that there is something to this. For you see, a couple of summers ago, two teenage boys were down there fishing and they were never seen again. There was this big investigation into their disappearance and no one found them.
I know, I know, you are probably thinking those boys were just playing a prank and are probably somewhere laughing about it. That may be true in some towns, but not here.
For you see, this isn’t the first time that something has happened like this.
The history of my town is riddled with these strange disappearances and they all seem to go back to that bridge on that lonely dirt road after the sun has set. There have been rumours of funny sightings down there as well. You know: the kind that no one wants to believe. Stories of Civil War soldiers wandering around, two children walking down the road, and, of course, the headless person waiting at the end of the bridge.
Now, of course, the issue is that no one has ever been able to confirm these sightings. Those who have said they have seen these things were deemed to be drunk or out of their mind. However, nothing has been able to take away the facts. The facts are still there and everything still seems to point to the old bridge after dark.
In the day, the bridge looks like a normal bridge on a lonely country backroad. The dust kicks up every time someone drives over it and the loose boards creak if you hit them in a certain place. The stone foundation may look run down and sad, but it has, yet, to let anyone down. The small creek that runs under it is the perfect wading pool in the summer. It just looks like a normal bridge on a normal country road.
Yet, just make sure you are away from it when the sun goes down.
I know some of you are wondering if the landowners have ever seen anything.
Well, the problem is that it’s hidden away from the houses and is kind of in a dip. The hills seem to gather around where the bridge is. In the summer and fall, it creates a postcard moment with the trees showing off their wonderful beauty. In the winter, it’s a death trap. Many times, the ice and snow sent people sliding down the hill toward the bridge.
What about night travel?
Again, would you want to be travelling over a bridge that has been linked to strange things?
This hasn’t prevented outsiders from attempting to see just what is going on there. They think that just because they stay in their vehicles that they are safe or think that it’s just all a bunch of nonsense. Still, it never fails. Every time someone shows up to look at the bridge at night, something terrible ends up happening to them-meaning they are never seen nor heard from again.
The locals all just shake their heads, mutter “I told them so,” and move on. It’s the same old cycle, one that has yet to be broken.
Oh, yes, there have been many attempts to remove the bridge, but they all end up in failure. You see no matter how many times the process to tear down the bridge starts; it always seems to be undone. Why? Who? How? Again, those questions have yet to be answered and given the bridge’s track record, they never may be.
All of this brings up back to a bridge on a lonely dirt road.
!!!
The daytime is safe. I peer down over the bridge, staring at the water. It seems to be begging me to come and play in it, but I know better. Even though the sun is still up, I know that darkness will soon set in and this is not where I want to be once that happens. Even I know better than be caught here at night. For I am not one of those people who live in denial.
The wind picks up, sending little chills down my back. Someone is there, watching me. I whip around looking, but I am only greeted by emptiness and stillness. For even the birds do not sing here.
I slowly move away from the bridge, so that now I am completely off it. The wind still blows, kicking up bits of dust. My heart pounds in my chest as my hands grow sweaty. I should follow the road up the hill, past the church, and go home.
On the last day, heat drifts down from the thick overgrowth of the trees as the wind picks up. The sweet smell of rain fills my nose. I don’t need an excuse to get moving. When my older brother makes fun of me for running home, I will just simply use the rain as an excuse.
Unlike me, my brother is not a believer. He’s captain of the football team, class president, and everyone’s favourite boy; he doesn’t have time deal to with something as stupid as a haunted bridge. However, I have pointed to him many times that he doesn’t come down here after Every time, he just tells me to mind my own business and not to get involved in things that I don’t understand.
I would be lying if I said that I understood what is going on here, so I can’t even come up with a comeback when he says things like that. After all, what is the use of trying to pretend you understand something when you don’t? The truth will come out at some point.
I look back at the bridge. It’s just a lonely, sad bridge that people drive over during the day, but never at night. For as long as the rumours and whispers have gone on, there surely has to be some truth to them.
Right? Aren’t all the stories supposed to be based on some kind of fact or are they just something the old people tell us to make us go away? I don’t know. Even though I’m young, I can tell that the outside world is a very complex place.
I start up the road, just as the first raindrops hit the ground. I pick up my pace to a slow run. I have had too many bad experiences with running up this hill at a full run. You see it’s a lot steeper and longer than what it appears. You don’t want to use up all of your speed at the bottom and not be able to get clear up to the top.
The wind picks up. In the distance, thunder rumbles. The rain is now covering the road in fine little spatters. Indeed, it does seem like I have made the right choice to leave when I did.
The rain patters against the leaves, sending a few of them down on me. In the distance, the thunder claps; only this time it is closer than ever before.
I look up the hill. The end is in sight. I push myself harder.
The sky around me begins to darken. Even though I am not close to the bridge nor is it the setting sun, my body screams at me to get out of there. I don’t know if the bridge comes to life in the middle of a thunderstorm and I most certainly do not want to find out.
!!!
The thunderstorm lasts through the night and into the next day. They call it a derecho and it’s one of the worst to come through the area. In its wake, it is left a mess of destruction. People are without electricity. Trees are down everywhere. A hundred and fifty-year-old church in the next town is gone. They say it’s a miracle that no one is killed.
The only thing that seems to remain untouched is the bridge. No one seems to understand. Those who don’t know any better call it a miracle, an act of God. Those of us who know better know that it is only because whatever haunts it did something to protect it.
There’s no sense in lingering on the bridge though, not when there is so much damage to repair and another round of thunderstorms coming later on in the day. It’s not supposed to be as bad, but given what we just went through, everyone is more than a little one edge.
I spend the morning helping my brother clean up the brush that managed to find its way into our yard. My mother checks the freezers and the rest of the house to make sure that nothing is wrong there. As we work, I find myself wishing that the air would move just a little bit. It’s hot, probably pushing a hundred. Our power is out, which makes our house just as hot as the outside.
We work in silence, only our grunts fill the air. Now and then, a breeze will kick up, but it doesn’t help. It’s the kind of breeze that only seems to bring in warm air. At this point, I think I would be happy with a thunderstorm; at the very least, it would make it cooler.
Every hour or so, we hear the clunk, clunk of someone driving over the bridge. It’s a constant reminder that it is still out there, waiting for us, taunting us. I know it can’t have its own mind and be watching us, but it feels like it.
The sun beats down on me as drag another limb over to the brush pile. The wind has picked up just a little bit. While I can’t feel any moisture, it sure feels like there is something there. I can’t put a finger on it, but something is watching me.
I look around, only to be greeted by nothing out of normal.
My brother comes over to me. “That’s the last of it. We should go cool off in the creek.”
I look at him. There is only one creek nearby, only one with a decent wadding area. “The river would be better.”
He shakes his head. “It will be too high and there are trees down all over the place.” He laughs and shakes his head. “You are afraid of the bridge. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” I snap. “Don’t you find it just a little bit odd that everything else had damage and, yet, it remained untouched?”
He shrugs. “It’s old and has good bones. They always say that old stuff is better able to withstand this kind of stuff.”
“Peters’ barn is old and it has a lot of damage,” I point out. “The church was destroyed.”
“Look, I don’t know how these things work, but it just happens. I’m hot, the air is out, and this is the only thing I can think of. If you are too scared to come with me, then, stay here.”
It is pretty hot out, I do have to admit that, and the water down there is pretty cool. It is tempting, far more tempting than I care to let on.
“I don’t know,” I say. “The radio said more storms later on.”
My brother looks up at the bright sky. “I think we’ll be okay.”
I don’t doubt it, but there is still something that is stopping me from going with him. I know the bridge is just a bridge during the day, but it sure doesn’t feel like it now. It could be just because of the storms last night. That must be it; it is perfectly safe to go there during the day.
Sweat pours into my eyes, making them sting. “Just promise me that we’ll go back if anything strange happens.”
He nods. “If you are really that afraid, we’ll come back, but, trust me, nothing bad is going to happen.”
Even though I don’t believe his words, I still find myself nodding along with them. There is just something so calming about the way he tells them that makes me feel a little bit better.
He starts down the road, leaving me with no other choice but to follow him. Everything in my body screams at me, begging me to stay in the yard, but I can’t. I can’t let my brother go down there by himself, because he will not have enough sense to turn around when things go bad.
Link: https://alysonserenastone.medium.com/...
Sneak Peek:
When growing up in a small town, you are bound to hear certain things. Stay away from the old well, your father nearly drowned there. Don’t go near Mrs. Johnson’s yard, so will chase you. Mr. Wilcox is cheating on his wife with the local dinner owner. These are just the normal small-town whispers that everyone expects.
Perhaps there is some truth to them, but they are just normal gossip, normal whispers after Sunday’s church service.
However, there is one rumour, one whisper, that everyone seems to know and seems to believe it is true. Stay away from the old bridge on the dirt road at night. Now, I understand that this may sound kind of vague to you and kind of silly, but in my town, we believe that there is something to this. For you see, a couple of summers ago, two teenage boys were down there fishing and they were never seen again. There was this big investigation into their disappearance and no one found them.
I know, I know, you are probably thinking those boys were just playing a prank and are probably somewhere laughing about it. That may be true in some towns, but not here.
For you see, this isn’t the first time that something has happened like this.
The history of my town is riddled with these strange disappearances and they all seem to go back to that bridge on that lonely dirt road after the sun has set. There have been rumours of funny sightings down there as well. You know: the kind that no one wants to believe. Stories of Civil War soldiers wandering around, two children walking down the road, and, of course, the headless person waiting at the end of the bridge.
Now, of course, the issue is that no one has ever been able to confirm these sightings. Those who have said they have seen these things were deemed to be drunk or out of their mind. However, nothing has been able to take away the facts. The facts are still there and everything still seems to point to the old bridge after dark.
In the day, the bridge looks like a normal bridge on a lonely country backroad. The dust kicks up every time someone drives over it and the loose boards creak if you hit them in a certain place. The stone foundation may look run down and sad, but it has, yet, to let anyone down. The small creek that runs under it is the perfect wading pool in the summer. It just looks like a normal bridge on a normal country road.
Yet, just make sure you are away from it when the sun goes down.
I know some of you are wondering if the landowners have ever seen anything.
Well, the problem is that it’s hidden away from the houses and is kind of in a dip. The hills seem to gather around where the bridge is. In the summer and fall, it creates a postcard moment with the trees showing off their wonderful beauty. In the winter, it’s a death trap. Many times, the ice and snow sent people sliding down the hill toward the bridge.
What about night travel?
Again, would you want to be travelling over a bridge that has been linked to strange things?
This hasn’t prevented outsiders from attempting to see just what is going on there. They think that just because they stay in their vehicles that they are safe or think that it’s just all a bunch of nonsense. Still, it never fails. Every time someone shows up to look at the bridge at night, something terrible ends up happening to them-meaning they are never seen nor heard from again.
The locals all just shake their heads, mutter “I told them so,” and move on. It’s the same old cycle, one that has yet to be broken.
Oh, yes, there have been many attempts to remove the bridge, but they all end up in failure. You see no matter how many times the process to tear down the bridge starts; it always seems to be undone. Why? Who? How? Again, those questions have yet to be answered and given the bridge’s track record, they never may be.
All of this brings up back to a bridge on a lonely dirt road.
!!!
The daytime is safe. I peer down over the bridge, staring at the water. It seems to be begging me to come and play in it, but I know better. Even though the sun is still up, I know that darkness will soon set in and this is not where I want to be once that happens. Even I know better than be caught here at night. For I am not one of those people who live in denial.
The wind picks up, sending little chills down my back. Someone is there, watching me. I whip around looking, but I am only greeted by emptiness and stillness. For even the birds do not sing here.
I slowly move away from the bridge, so that now I am completely off it. The wind still blows, kicking up bits of dust. My heart pounds in my chest as my hands grow sweaty. I should follow the road up the hill, past the church, and go home.
On the last day, heat drifts down from the thick overgrowth of the trees as the wind picks up. The sweet smell of rain fills my nose. I don’t need an excuse to get moving. When my older brother makes fun of me for running home, I will just simply use the rain as an excuse.
Unlike me, my brother is not a believer. He’s captain of the football team, class president, and everyone’s favourite boy; he doesn’t have time deal to with something as stupid as a haunted bridge. However, I have pointed to him many times that he doesn’t come down here after Every time, he just tells me to mind my own business and not to get involved in things that I don’t understand.
I would be lying if I said that I understood what is going on here, so I can’t even come up with a comeback when he says things like that. After all, what is the use of trying to pretend you understand something when you don’t? The truth will come out at some point.
I look back at the bridge. It’s just a lonely, sad bridge that people drive over during the day, but never at night. For as long as the rumours and whispers have gone on, there surely has to be some truth to them.
Right? Aren’t all the stories supposed to be based on some kind of fact or are they just something the old people tell us to make us go away? I don’t know. Even though I’m young, I can tell that the outside world is a very complex place.
I start up the road, just as the first raindrops hit the ground. I pick up my pace to a slow run. I have had too many bad experiences with running up this hill at a full run. You see it’s a lot steeper and longer than what it appears. You don’t want to use up all of your speed at the bottom and not be able to get clear up to the top.
The wind picks up. In the distance, thunder rumbles. The rain is now covering the road in fine little spatters. Indeed, it does seem like I have made the right choice to leave when I did.
The rain patters against the leaves, sending a few of them down on me. In the distance, the thunder claps; only this time it is closer than ever before.
I look up the hill. The end is in sight. I push myself harder.
The sky around me begins to darken. Even though I am not close to the bridge nor is it the setting sun, my body screams at me to get out of there. I don’t know if the bridge comes to life in the middle of a thunderstorm and I most certainly do not want to find out.
!!!
The thunderstorm lasts through the night and into the next day. They call it a derecho and it’s one of the worst to come through the area. In its wake, it is left a mess of destruction. People are without electricity. Trees are down everywhere. A hundred and fifty-year-old church in the next town is gone. They say it’s a miracle that no one is killed.
The only thing that seems to remain untouched is the bridge. No one seems to understand. Those who don’t know any better call it a miracle, an act of God. Those of us who know better know that it is only because whatever haunts it did something to protect it.
There’s no sense in lingering on the bridge though, not when there is so much damage to repair and another round of thunderstorms coming later on in the day. It’s not supposed to be as bad, but given what we just went through, everyone is more than a little one edge.
I spend the morning helping my brother clean up the brush that managed to find its way into our yard. My mother checks the freezers and the rest of the house to make sure that nothing is wrong there. As we work, I find myself wishing that the air would move just a little bit. It’s hot, probably pushing a hundred. Our power is out, which makes our house just as hot as the outside.
We work in silence, only our grunts fill the air. Now and then, a breeze will kick up, but it doesn’t help. It’s the kind of breeze that only seems to bring in warm air. At this point, I think I would be happy with a thunderstorm; at the very least, it would make it cooler.
Every hour or so, we hear the clunk, clunk of someone driving over the bridge. It’s a constant reminder that it is still out there, waiting for us, taunting us. I know it can’t have its own mind and be watching us, but it feels like it.
The sun beats down on me as drag another limb over to the brush pile. The wind has picked up just a little bit. While I can’t feel any moisture, it sure feels like there is something there. I can’t put a finger on it, but something is watching me.
I look around, only to be greeted by nothing out of normal.
My brother comes over to me. “That’s the last of it. We should go cool off in the creek.”
I look at him. There is only one creek nearby, only one with a decent wadding area. “The river would be better.”
He shakes his head. “It will be too high and there are trees down all over the place.” He laughs and shakes his head. “You are afraid of the bridge. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” I snap. “Don’t you find it just a little bit odd that everything else had damage and, yet, it remained untouched?”
He shrugs. “It’s old and has good bones. They always say that old stuff is better able to withstand this kind of stuff.”
“Peters’ barn is old and it has a lot of damage,” I point out. “The church was destroyed.”
“Look, I don’t know how these things work, but it just happens. I’m hot, the air is out, and this is the only thing I can think of. If you are too scared to come with me, then, stay here.”
It is pretty hot out, I do have to admit that, and the water down there is pretty cool. It is tempting, far more tempting than I care to let on.
“I don’t know,” I say. “The radio said more storms later on.”
My brother looks up at the bright sky. “I think we’ll be okay.”
I don’t doubt it, but there is still something that is stopping me from going with him. I know the bridge is just a bridge during the day, but it sure doesn’t feel like it now. It could be just because of the storms last night. That must be it; it is perfectly safe to go there during the day.
Sweat pours into my eyes, making them sting. “Just promise me that we’ll go back if anything strange happens.”
He nods. “If you are really that afraid, we’ll come back, but, trust me, nothing bad is going to happen.”
Even though I don’t believe his words, I still find myself nodding along with them. There is just something so calming about the way he tells them that makes me feel a little bit better.
He starts down the road, leaving me with no other choice but to follow him. Everything in my body screams at me, begging me to stay in the yard, but I can’t. I can’t let my brother go down there by himself, because he will not have enough sense to turn around when things go bad.
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