The Crossing

I managed a quick scribble squeezed into a busy weekend, not on my project with a September deadline of course, but that’s okay. In between celebrating my son’s 10th birthday, I figured I should get at least a few words down on something to build my writing habit back up. And be a little more active here. So, courtesy of the awesome Kat Avila, here’s my response to the #SwiftFicFriday prompt. Once you’ve perused my response, please don’t forget to stop by her blog to see what other great writers have spawned from the picture prompt there.

The Crossing

Jimmy stared at the bridge. Everything kept coming back to the old, covered bridge over Milford Creek. He knew of at least five disappearances connected to the bridge. They’d been closed as accidents and such, but it seemed strange no one ever recovered any bodies. Milford Creek wasn’t that big a creek to wash a human body away with no trace.

Thinking through the cases, he knew they all happened late at night when it got foggy in late summer. Again, too strange a coincidence for him to ignore, no matter what others said.

“Okay Jimmy,” he whispered to himself as he stared at shapes moving in the fog on the far end of the bridge, “let’s go.”

With a deep breath, Jimmy tapped record on his phone and stepped forward. Each footstep on the gravel approach to the bridge sounded so loud in the thick fog. He hesitated at the step onto the bridge. But Jimmy’s determination overruled his nerves.

As Jimmy got to the far end of the bridge, he’d relaxed considerably. Nothing looked amiss beyond seeing the occasional odd shadow darting around in the fog, but that wasn’t unusual as fog always created bizarre illusions.

When he reached the end, Jimmy paused a moment to look around. Nothing. Not even the random shadow. Shrugging, and with his guard down some, Jimmy stepped off the bridge. Once again, the gravel sounded too loud. Jimmy took a few more steps but saw nothing unusual.

He turned to cross back over the bridge to his car, disappointed he had found nothing. Until he discovered the bridge had vanished. Gone. Disappeared. Jimmy dashed to the creek, heart in his throat, but found only the grassy bank.