Halloween Ghost Story Contest -- 2009
Adult Winners

The Bridge Between Us

by
Eric McBride

They Are Everywhere.

 

As I lay here, gazing up at the plain white tiles on the ceiling above me, I can’t stop thinking about them. They haunt my mind and consume my soul. It’s impossible to forget or to block them out. They have found a place in the darkest part of my mind where they can enter at any moment. When I close my eyes I can hear them screaming in agony as they call out for me, and when I open my eyes the sounds stop but the images surface, I can see the faces of evil, demonic souls staring at me, burning holes into my eyes with their piercing looks of hate and discomfort. What did I do to deserve this? Why have they chosen me to carry out their acts? Back, deep in the part of my head, the part of my mind that still allows me to have rational, and sane thoughts, I know.

It was a chilly, and damp Halloween night as I was riding around with my friend, John at the time. John was sort of a goofy kid who seemed to pride himself on being the “class clown”.  We were cruising around in my Ford pickup trying to find something to do, which is incredibly tough when you live in a small town. Even on a Halloween night such as this the town had already seemed to die. The trick or treaters had already retired for the night, and the traditional Halloween pranksters had successfully decorated a few houses in the neighborhood with toilet paper hanging from trees and vehicles blasted with eggs. It was about 10:30 p.m. and the full moon was hanging high above the earth overlooking the darkness and casting its own faint light.

As we turned off the main highway that runs through the town, we ventured onto an old dirt county road, John looked at me and asked, “You know what’s down here right?”

“No, what”? He began to tell me a story of a mother and daughter that was driving down this road one winter night.

The roads were covered with ice, and as they approached a narrow bridge about two miles down the road the mother slammed on the brakes for some unknown reason. The car slid out of control and they ran off the bridge and into the river below. The car was found floating in the river, and the mother was found dead with her seat belt still wrapped around her. However the small girl was never found. There’s a rumor that says if you go there after dark and turn off your lights and sit and listen you can hear the mother call out for the child.

.“Oh give me a break,” I said. “That is just another stupid urban myth.”

“Man, I swear! Seth Jones was telling me the story of how a couple of freshman kids decided to go check it out and they have not been right since, it totally freaked them out hardcore man!”

Shaking my head slightly I ignored him and continued to drive; as we turned into a small bend in the road there it was…the old narrow metal bridge. I looked at John as he encouraged me to do it. Why not I asked myself at least it would give us something to talk about on this Halloween night. I pulled up to the bridge and stopped dead in the center. I turned off the engine and the lights. I looked over at John who was staring outside; I began to laugh at how much he was into this. After sitting about five minutes nothing had happened and I began to grow restless, and felt just a tad bit stupid. So I reached down to turn my truck on, and that’s when I noticed that the clock on the radio read 6:66, then I heard a loud crash.

“Wait” John said, “Did you hear that”?

Hear what? I replied…. then there it was again. This time I could not deny it. What I heard sounded like the wind had picked up and it was making a horrible sound as if it was groaning and calling out to us. Then as we sat in the quiet night, the sounds became more distinctive instead of the winds I could clearly hear the moans and groans of a woman. I began to feel my heart race as I turned the truck back on I had decided we had enough. I hit my lights and pushed the gas pedal. As I came to the end of the bridge I saw a small girl with long brown hair, in a blue dress standing in the middle of the road, I slammed on my brakes throwing John into the dashboard.

“What are you doing man?” he asks sounding a little scared and excited.

I couldn’t speak I just stared at the child as she looked into my eyes and I could feel a burning sensation flow throughout my body. Inside the child’s eyes I saw fire. A bright red glow that seemed to paralyze me, as the innocence of the small child gave away as her eyes continued to burn, and when she smiled at me I could see razor sharp teeth and a black tongue protrude from her mouth. We only sat there for a few seconds but it seemed like an eternity. I began to feel a warm wet sensation coming from my groin area.

“Go”! John commanded me. I snapped back into reality and she was gone. I knew instantly John had not seen her, I didn’t even have to ask, I doubted if I had actually seen it… but in the back of my mind I knew. I just wanted to go home after that, I dropped John off at his house, neither of us commented on the events that had taken place, I doubted if John even realized what had happened to us. He just opened the door and got out with his head down, his chin buried into his chest, in a kind of daze that was unlike John, normally I might have been concerned but at that moment I realized I had my own thoughts to worry about. I took off not looking back and began to drive to my house. Once I turned down my street I felt the same burning again, this time in the back of my head, and I knew I wasn’t alone anymore. I looked into my rearview mirror and I saw the face of the little girl looking at me. Even with her hands reaching out towards me I couldn’t look away. Her long fingernails felt like sharp claws as she dug them into my burning, aching neck. Then the image of the little girl vanished. Instead, in her place was a raging beast with horns coming from its bloody forehead suddenly appeared behind me, its look was one hundred times worse than the child’s. I must have blacked out and lost control of the vehicle. The haunting look of that man…or beast would be the last thing I would recall.

I awoke several days later hooked up to a number of machines all displaying different information and making unique beeping sounds I had no idea what any of it meant, and really didn’t care. All I know was I awaked alone and with my body aching all over. My mouth was extremely dry I would kill for a glass of water, I looked around the room and on a small table set in the corner of my room I saw balloons and flowers the balloons were huge and read ‘Get Well Soon”. An instant feeling of relief came over me and I realized someone was here for me. On the other side of the room was a large mirror hanging over a sink where the nurses and Doctors wash their hands, I looked into the mirror trying to get a glimpse of myself but the mirror was to far over I could just see the balloon’s reflection. As I began to look away something caught my eye in the mirror, I continued to stare at it and something began to happen, the mirror started turning black as if smoke was rising inside. I closed my eyes as my heart rate began to increase, one of the machines started to make a more rapid beeping, as I lay there with my eyes closed I began to focus on the beeping sounds coming from the machine on my right. Next thing I hear is the door flying open I turned and looked and saw a nurse rushing towards the machine and behind her was my mom rushing to my side.

“Jacob you’re awake Oh thank God” my mother says as she wraps her arms around me and begins showering me with kisses on my forehead.

A terrific sensation overcame me as I felt the warmth from my mother’s body pressed against mine taking me back to when I was younger when I was sick with a cold, Moms always make things better, for the time being I forgot everything else in the world.

“How are you feeling Honey”

“I feel a little sore and thirsty other than that I am ok.” The nurse reached over my mom and hands me a glass of water  

“Something must have spooked you, you’re heart rate was through the roof, it’s beginning to stable out now”

“I don’t know… I thought I saw something…it was probably nothing” The nurse looks at me

“Well stop scaring yourself,” she said as she walks out of the room. I looked over at my Mom who looked as if she had aged a few years since the last time I remember seeing her.

“What happened Mom?” was the first thing that came out of my mouth; she looked deep into my eyes and gave a small smile

“You were in an accident honey, you must have fallen asleep or something because you ran your pickup into a tree, you were out for a few days, you would come to every now and then and ramble something, but we couldn’t understand you, the doctor thinks you had a severe concussion, but you seem ok now, I’ve been praying for you.” I began to smile at her.

“Do you remember anything that happened that night?” I looked towards the front and stared off into space, I couldn’t remember much of anything and at that moment that was the truth “That’s ok honey you just need some rest.” She reaches her hands out and placed them on top of my forehead, her cold hands felt good, then my mind began to jump around as it triggered a thought.

”John! Where is he?” My mother’s eyes grew big and she had a look on her face that for some reason terrified me.

”Mom…what’s up?”

She didn’t answer me right away; she was searching for the right words to tell me. I looked into her eyes and I could see she was beginning to tear up as her eyes became glassy, and her skin had gone pale. She placed her cool now damp hands over my hands and looked off for another second then with a croaky voice she is able to get it out.

“ Well, honey, I was going to wait until I felt you were better to tell you this,” I looked at her with fear growing with every word that she spoke.

“The same night you had your accident…John… well John committed suicide,” I looked at her in total disbelief as she spoke.

“His parents said he never came inside the house, and in the morning when he wasn’t in his room they walked into the garage and found him. His funeral is tomorrow…I’m so sorry Baby”

I felt my stomach drop and my heart began to hurt, I couldn’t believe what I just heard, I could feel myself beginning to tear up as I removed my moms hands off mine and sunk back down into my pillow.

“I can’t believe it”

“I know honey, it doesn’t make any sense but you just don’t know what people are capable of doing no matter how well you know them. John wasn’t capable of doing that though he was a great friend is what I wanted to say but my throat felt like it had a big knot inside it preventing me from speaking. So I just lay there, my mom sat back quietly allowing me to soak everything in. I remember closing my eyes as tears began to fill up behind my eyelids, the news took a lot out of me, so many emotions were fighting inside me and after a few moments my eyes began to feel heavy and I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke and I was lying in the middle of a dirt road. I looked around and saw nothing, it was dark but the full moon gave off enough illumination to see pretty well. The winds were gently blowing as the trees on the sides of the road rustled slightly. In the distance I could hear something, it almost sounded like someone crying out for help. The sound was calling to me, and I began to move closer towards it, all I could see was a few feet away. The road slightly curved hiding what was around the bend. As I walked through the turn my legs felt like cement in the distance I could see an old narrow bridge. The crying came in much clearer now; it was the sounds of John crying out for help.

“JACOB…. HELP ME”

My skin began to crawl at the sound of his distress. I took off running towards the bridge thinking I could help my buddy It felt like I ran forever as I approached the bridge, I could hear the crying well now but I saw nobody. I ran onto the bridge and halfway across I saw the silhouette of a small girl standing in front of me.

“Hey, who are you?” I called out but the shadowy figure gave off a little giggle and ran and dove over the railing of the bridge.

I quickly ran after her and looked over the edge, there I could hear John sobbing, and I looked down and saw his body hanging from a rope off the bridge below me.

“John, I’ll help you,” I screamed…. At that moment, as if he heard me John raised his head up and tilted it back towards the skies, and looked at me. My body turned cold and once again I felt the same feeling of being paralyzed by that look. His eyes were pitch black there was nothing inside him not even a soul.

“Look, at what you have done to me Jacob, You killed us ….he has risen!!!

John’s head then fell down as his body shut down and became lifeless. The winds began to pick up, and lightning began to strike, at first at a distance, but after a few seconds the bolts were coming down all around me, hitting trees causing sparks to fly, which led to fires. I turned around to see that I was on the bridge surrounded by blazing flames that shot high into the air. I was trapped; I could feel my clothes and my skin beginning to burn. Out of the fire walked a black shadowy figure, its presence made me tremble with undeniable fear, causing me to lose all control and urinate in my pants. As the thing got closer I could make out it was a man…or at least resembled one. It walked all the way up to me, I could only stand there and wait, it had control over me…I could feel it. It was a man wearing a long black coat; its face was covered with a black hood. He stopped in front of me and ripped off its hood. It was no man. It had long black stringy hair, with two small horns coming out of its head; its eyes were a glowing reddish color, like embers from an extremely hot fire. Its nose flared out with every breath it took. It opened its mouth to reveal a long black tongue and sharp fangs for teeth. I recognized the beast. It was who I saw before I had my accident. In a rough deep voice it spoke to me.

“You have been chosen to serve your Lord, Jacob. You must tell everyone of our arrival, so that they may prepare for a new reign on earth. I have been sent to you by my God the time has come for the rivers to fill with blood, and the skies to rain fire on all of Mankind. Tell of me Jacob and your life may be spared if you do well in the eyes of the Lord”.

Every word he spoke was like a bullet going through my head, it was delivered with such authority, I would have been an idiot not to agree with every thing he commanded of me. The fire continued to burn around him, then I remember thinking this must be hell but this horrible beast staring at me and talking to me wasn’t the Devil, somehow I knew, and then a voice seemed to talk through me

“You’re not my God,” I said in a calm and confident voice, that I did not recognize as my own.

However my confidence was short lived, because I could feel his anger grow at me, it was in his eyes, his breath and even the air around us. He threw his arms up at once and the fire that was surrounding us grew larger, as if this beast even had the fire of hell under his command.

“I AM THE ONLY GOD!!” he yelled so loud I could feel its voice vibrate off my chest. Then it was gone.

“You’re not my God, You’re not my God”

“Jacob honey what’s wrong with you?”

I woke up once again in my hospital room, my mother was over me trying to restrain me down to my bed, nurses were running into the room, checking monitors, and yelling out jargon I didn’t understand. After a few moments one of the nurses began putting medicine inside my IV, and I began to relax. My mom was rubbing my head down with a cool rag.

“I had a horrible nightmare”

“It was more than a nightmare honey, you were going into seizures for the last several minutes, it was very scary.”

“Mom…how did John die?”

“What?”

“You said he killed himself…how did he do it?”

“I don’t think you need to know right now.”

“Mom, I want to know. Please just tell me” I could feel frustration building up inside me. She let out a big sigh

“Well, apparently he hung himself in his garage, they think it was related to a satanic ritual”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not really sure apparently he had some kind of symbols or phrases carved on his body. You know I don’t like to talk about that crap.” I could tell it was hard for her to talk about it; it was hard for me to hear it so I decided to stop there I found the answer I wanted.

“I’m going to step out for a second Hun and talk to the nurses are you going to be okay?

“Yea I’m ok” she gave me a little kiss and left the room.

I laid my head back down, its kind of funny looking back, because I believe that was the last peaceful moment I would ever enjoy, because that was when my mind was acting as a blocker, to keep me from remembering everything, then it gave out and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I remembered driving around, the bridge, the little girl, I remembered dropping John off, then I remembered the Beast. Then I could see John hanging by his neck off the bridge, and I was face to face with the monster, and it spoke to me…it really spoke to me, that wasn’t a dream I know it, the surroundings may have been a dream but the Beast was as real as I. My stomach began to drop, and I started to feel hot all over, I could feel sweat running off my forehead. The door swung open and a nurse walked in, I felt at ease and as she walked to the foot of my bed she picked up a chart.

“Could I please have some more water? I’m getting hot”

She looked back up at me and back down to her charts, as if she was ignoring me.

“Miss…”

She looked back at me, but this time her face had changed to a greenish coloring, she had several deep cuts on her face, and her eyes were dark black.

“What are you?” I asked trembling she could hear the terror in my voice and she fed off it.

She gave me a smile with her yellow sharp teeth beginning to show and she lifted up her hands which were covered in what looked to be blood, then she began to walk towards me, I jumped out of bed knocking over one of the monitors, I cornered myself against the walls, but she was unfazed and continued to come to me, I began to scream at the top of my lungs.

“Someone Help Me” but I could tell no one could hear me it was as if we were in our own little world. I felt so helpless and scared; I sunk down and cowered in the corner like a small child. I closed my eyes, but I could still feel its presence in the room, it was undeniable. Then it began to laugh an awful evil laugh that showed how much it enjoyed torturing me. Next thing I knew I felt a hand grab my arm, and as an instinct I swung at the person in front of me, and began to scream again, that’s when I felt a sharp pain in my other arm, the sting was quick and surprised me more than anything, it also made me feel better. My body relaxed, and when I opened my eyes I saw my doctor kneeling in front of me, with a needle, I saw two other nurses standing behind him, one of them had a Kleenex up to her nose with her head tilted backwards, she had a nose bleed. I looked to my left and saw my mom standing back away from me; her eyes and nose were red from crying. The room was a mess, broken equipment was scattered all over the floor. I will never forget how everyone in the room looked at me, then it hit me…. they must think I am crazy, I mean I have to look like a total nut to them, but I felt sane, and normal inside. But their looks told me what they were all thinking even my mom, that’s why she was crying. The doctor, who was an older man with short grey hair and glasses, reached out to me and began to help me up. I got up under my own power, I felt very defensive like the world was against me.

“Now, Jacob you need to get back to bed, you still need rest you’re still sick”

“ I am fine, I’m not crazy” which made me actually feel a little crazy saying that with a room full of people all staring at me. “I know Jacob just listen to me okay I’m a doctor, lets lie down and rest son you’ve been through a lot”

I allowed my guard to drop for a second, until I saw two small horns beginning to force themselves through the graying hair of the doctor, then his eyes changed, I looked around and everyone in the room continued to stare at me, like they were waiting for me to do something. I backed up against the wall and pointed at the doctor who was beginning to morph into a demon in front of me. “He’s the Devil” I shouted, I looked over at my mom and she turned away, she couldn’t take anymore. The doctor smiled exposing the black tongue and sharp teeth, the door shut behind my mom and the nurses turned towards me they too began to change to monsters, they surrounded me. My heart felt as if it would push out of my chest, I couldn’t breathe, then the demon leaned into me “Welcome to our world, you belong to me now” The two female demons began to laugh again, their laughter caused the mirror to break and out poured black smoke which filled the room, the smoke crawled into my chest, and I began to cough it was so hard to breathe, I fell to the floor and closed my eyes, that’s when I felt all of them touch me, they were all around me putting there filthy, and evil hands over my body, and they never stopped laughing the whole time. I still hear that awful laughter when I close my eyes, it haunts me.

 

Do you still see them Jacob?

I hesitated before answering

Jacob?

Yes, I see them in mirrors, paintings, and even people walking through the hospital. They come to me all the time.

When is the last time you saw one?

Today

Oh really…when?

I sit up on the black couch and look at the psychiatrist, and then I look behind him, and point.

That one has been there all session…they are all over you just have to look, it’s an Army.

The doctor cracks a small uncomfortable smile; and begins to shift uneasily in his leather chair, I know I just spooked him. He looks at his watch.

“Well that’s a good first day, Jacob, but I think we will wrap up here.” He leans forward and pushes a button “Okay we are done here Jacob needs to be taken back to his room thank you”

You wont be back doctor… they never come back.

What? Sure I will Jake, it’s my job I’m here to see you get better.”

I look at the young doctor right in the eyes.

“Oh it wont be up to you, he told me he was going to kill you”

The doctors face became very serious, the door opened as Brutus a large black man comes in to escort me to my room down the hall with the rest of the crazies.

“Have a good day doctor.” I walk out of the office behind Brutus who led me away.

I was touched by a Demon that night and it used John and I to gain access into this world. My life has become a living nightmare; a good day for me is if I go a while without a visit, or maybe a few hours of sleep. But that’s far and between for me. Sometimes I think John had it right, he too must’ve had been touched that night, he took the easy way out. I know its bad to say that but you haven’t spent a day in my shoes, because if you ever do, you too will lay awake at night crying and praying for death, but it never comes. I live in my very own Hell, or should I say it lives inside me.

 

We had no business messing around with the dead on that Halloween night, I believe that the realm between the dead and living is very thin, and I allowed the evil that lurks around us into my world.

Continue to the 2^nd place story

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