The Bridge

Let me set the record straight. Trolls do not live under bridges, and vampires don't exist.

There, I said it.

Most times, legends are like the childhood game of telephone. It starts with one so-called witness swearing up and down that what they think they saw really happened. This information gets whispered into the nearest available ear. Then that person processes, interprets, and computes the data. The results are immediately spewed out, posted on billboards, set to print, and e-mailed in bulk. Either way, by the time point A reaches point B, there's no resemblance to the rumor that started the great ball rolling in the first place.

So once again, trolls do not live under bridges, and vampires don't exist.

At least, that's what I had heard.

* * *

When my tire went flat in the right lane of the Third Avenue Bridge, I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. I could get out of my sedan and change the tire, that much was true, but the problem was a nagging question that seemed to whisper from all directions at once.

What lives under the bridge?

I felt like a fool. I was like a frightened boy jumping at shadows. I could envision myself at six-years old again, pulling the bed covers over my head. There were so many wasted nights spent praying for salvation from the boogeyman.

But it was pointless to entertain any of these childhood observations. I had a spare tire and a car jack in the trunk. And I was sure the troll had to have much better plans on a Friday night other than eating me.

Right?

I exhaled sharply, took my hands off of the steering wheel, and stepped out of my vehicle. An orange and white moving truck sped passed me.

I looked down at my shoes. The metal grating beneath them was an open framework revealing the East River below. From what I could tell, there was nowhere for a troll to hide. Wait a minute. Hold up. Of course there wouldn't be a troll here. Everybody knows trolls do not live under bridges.

So where do they live?

I clapped my hands and whistled piercingly. "You're losing it, Benson," I informed myself. "Let's get this meat wagon back on the road."

Oh, did I mention it was after midnight?

I popped the trunk, lifted the filthy carpet up, and yanked out the spare. The jack was covered in rust, but worked fine.

It was a calm, cool autumn evening and I'm sure there were stars somewhere above my head, but I was too busy discovering scuffs and scratches in the paint of my left rear fender to notice. There were three large gashes scraped into the fiberglass curvature. It was probably some old woman with a shopping cart in the parking lot again. This car was like a magnet for attracting reckless elderly shoppers.

Periodically, a yellow taxi cab or other generic motorist blew by without the least bit of interest given to my situation. Other than that, it was silent work conducted under dim lampposts and pockets of moonlight.

Then something grunted from the darkness beneath me.

I had just removed the first lug nut and dropped it into the plastic hubcap. The breath caught inside my throat. I was squatting in jeans that had grown tight over the years, and my heart was beginning to quicken.

Okay, remember when I said it's like the game of telephone?

"Hello," I said, knowing this one specific word uttered in every horror film will ultimately lead to the speaker suffering a horrible death. And yet, I repeated the query. "Hello? Is someone there?"

There was no gust of wind, flapping of invisible wings, impatient car horns, or shadows flickering from the great beyond. That would have been welcome, because when the deep, grumbling laughter rose up from beneath me, I almost created a work of art in my pants.

I stood up instantly, wanting very badly to exit the area, but something took a firm hold of my foot. And it was a something that had black, blood-encrusted fingernails on three thick, hairy fingers.

I'm not ashamed to admit I screamed like a girl.

My legs began to shake in tandem. I felt like someone had plugged me up into a wall socket. It was pure, blinding panic.

"Get the hell off me!" I jerked my foot loose and jumped three feet in the air. Losing my balance, I landed flat on my ass. I shuffled backwards like a sand crab and smacked my back into the car door.

The rectangular section of steel grating on the bridge floor began to flex and pop bolts into the sky like champagne corks. A bulbous head covered in warts and infected with oozing lesions rose out of that hole. It was still laughing, but its mouth never smiled.

"Got me a sweet piece of candy," the troll growled, facing me.

He had to be every inch of eight feet. His eyes were black, empty sockets that managed to sparkle in the faint light. Where a nose should have been, I saw only a brittle cavity of exposed bone. His wide mouth was an open wound, dripping with rows of stained fangs, thrusting out of black and bleeding gums like a crown of thorns.

"Now I'm gonna eat you," he teased. His grotesque body was covered in skittering insects that fell off his shoulders like beads of sweat.

I had my keys out and was diving through the driver's side door before he finished speaking. I cranked her up, and hit the gas. The wheels spun in the back, but I wasn't going anywhere.

The troll had lifted the rear of the vehicle off the jack and was holding it up with one hand.

And he was smiling.

"Trick or treat, bring me something sweet to eat," It sang.

Over the burning stench of my engine, and the troll's roar, I could hear the engine of another car approaching from behind us. I looked up at the rearview mirror, but saw only hideous teeth.

"Let me go! Please, just let me go!" I sobbed. "I don't believe in you! I just don't believe in you!" I was punching the dashboard and swearing.

Five seconds later, a drunk driver supplied a much-needed and well-timed interruption.

* * *

I lifted my head off of the steering wheel and the horn ceased blowing. I was bleeding from a knot on my forehead and my back was killing me. I rapidly blinked my eyes and swallowed back a wave of nausea.

That's when a pair of clammy hands reached out from behind me and grabbed my head.

"No, no, no, no!" I cried out, frightened, "Don't eat me! Please, oh God, don't eat me!"

"Sir," a voice spoke clearly behind my ear. "Please, you need to calm down. My name is Jacob and I'm a paramedic. I'm here to help you."

"Oh, thank God," I bawled.

"Sir, you were in a pretty bad accident." He slipped an extrication collar around my neck, and continued. "Another vehicle struck you from behind and the driver was killed."

"What about the troll?" I asked him without thinking about how crazy it sounded. "Is he dead too?"

The medic fastened the last of the Velcro straps on the collar, paused, and exhaled impatiently. "Uh, I can't help with that." He then leaned his face forward between the two front seats.

"Sir, you probably have a fairly serious concussion," he said, annunciating each word like I was a four year-old, or more accurately, an emotionally disturbed person. "We're going to get you to the hospital as fast as we can." His eyes wandered to my lap where my right elbow hung at an uncomfortable angle. "That's strange." He climbed out of the vehicle and called his partner over. They spoke quietly to each other for a few seconds before walking back over to me.

"Take a look at it, Carlos," Jacob said to the younger man. "Look at his arm."

Carlos leaned his head inside the driver's side window.

"Well?" Jacob asked. "What do you think? Where'd that wound on his arm come from?"

"Hell, if I know," Carlos said, truly perplexed. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear something bit him."

* * *

I was released from the hospital exactly a week from the day of the accident. The nurses had gotten me a cab, paid the driver in advance, and sent me home with a dozen chocolate roses.

"You're at 1422 Steinway Street, right?" The cabbie asked.

"That's right," I confirmed.

"What's the quickest way there?"

I thought about it for a second. "The bridge," I told him. "But I want you to take the tunnel. Bridges aren't safe."

"Whatever you say, buddy," he said, shrugging his shoulders. He put the car in drive and we sped off.

The sun was bright and warm on the rear passenger window. I flattened my palm against it, and soaked up as much heat as I could. We probably passed a thousand small shops and about a million people going about their lives unaffected by things that go bump in the night. I stared at the bandages covering my arm. Of course the police never bothered looking for that troll, but I knew somewhere under the bridge, that monster had taken a souvenir.

Got me a sweet piece of candy, I heard the troll whisper in my head.

"Hey buddy, you hear me?" The cabbie interrupted.

"Huh?"

"I said do you want a piece of candy?" He flipped his wrist over his shoulder, revealing an open bag of peppermints.

"No, thanks," I said, smiling nervously.

"Suit yourself."

We arrived at the tunnel entrance, and as we waited to pay the toll, the cabbie handed me his newspaper.

"Check out page 9," he said. "Go figure, huh?"

The car was stinking like peppermint and old sweat. I was feeling nauseous.

I thumbed my way through to the right page, and as he dropped the coins into the toll basket, I read the headline:

Are there vampires living in our tunnels?

I didn't stop screaming the whole ride home.

Back to: Vol 1, Issue 3