Cypress Bridge

"Tim!"

I drag Liz behind me, stepping onto Cypress Bridge. Night in the forest. No better time. Reaching the centre, I let her go, the sound of the rushing river below loud in my ears.

"Tim." Tears are streaming down her cheeks. In the pale starlight, they glisten like diamonds. "I—I don't understand w-what's—"

A skeletal hand erupts through the rotting wood of the bridge, latching onto Liz's ankle as a scream tears free from her throat. She kicks and thrashes, but with a sudden powerful jerk, her leg is pulled partially through the planks, dropping her to her knees.

I don't want to watch.

I can't look away.

Liz grabs wildly for the railing, her nails scrabbling at the decades-old wood, sobbing in terror and pain. God, she's so pretty. In another life, she could've been my everything—my Christie.

We lock eyes for a final time as her body is wrenched through the remains of the bridge. A terrible splash that cuts short her last shriek.

I close my eyes, a muscle pulsing in my jaw as I try not to vomit. Liz didn't deserve this... but neither do I. What happened to Christie was an accident. Its not my fault. But now I have another death to cover up. I exhale loudly, running a shaking hand through my hair, and turn to leave.

"Where do you think you're going, Timothy?"

The wood beneath me splinters, and I gasp as bony fingers wrap around my ankle in a vice. Off-balance, I tumble backward, landing on my ass as a nightmare made real drags itself onto the bridge. Christie.

"A soul for a soul!" I choke out. "That's what you said!"

"I did say that." Her grip tightens, and I cry out in pain. "But I didn't tell you everything." She leans forward, leveraging herself on my body. A strip of green-black flesh falls from her skull, dampening my shirt. "That night, before you pushed me off the bridge and left me to drown one year ago, I had brought you hereto tell you some news."

"Oh, God," I whimper.

Something dark and horrible moves in the empty sockets where her eyes used to be. "I was going to tell you that I was pregnant."

The stench of decay is overwhelming. I push her corpse away from me, frantically clawing at the hand around my ankle.

"A soul for a soul, Timothy," Christie hisses and, with inhuman strength, pulls me through the wood of Cypress Bridge and into the river below.