It Waits in the Woods

by Josh Malerman

these hushed tales all centered on a simple bridge. A white bridge with yellow trim outlining the many curves of its handrails, the paint old and chipped, the footboards in bad shape.

There was, allegedly, an entity, a creature, the demon imp who owned the bridge and was certainly close by if ever the white-and-yellow carvings were seen through the trees. The legend said that it was not so much strong, but smart and cruel, and stalked its prey in the woods. The one constant description of it was this: it’d lost its face and longed to find a suitable replacement.

She thought of how most terrible things in life began as terrible motivations.

And she thought about filming and what it meant to her. How the footage was like a mirror to her, how it reflected who she was by way of what she filmed. She thought, too, of the three years in which no video—no slice of life—made its way onto her phone. There had been nothing inside her to reflect.

Fear and discovery. Discovery and fear.

A voice came through the headphones. Sibilant: “Do you have my face?” Brenda flushed red with paralytic fear. What was it? And was it talking to her? “My face . . .”

She started the car, pulled out of the lot, and drove fast and determined, knowing they’d never be the same, knowing they’d always hear that wailing from within the woods, no matter where they moved, no matter how much they healed, how old they grew.