The Bridge (Para-Earth Series) (46 page)

             
“Some of its tentacles must serve different functions,” Veronica observed and then looked at the cane in her friend’s hand.  Where the thing had touched the wood, a circular white glow was slowly fading.  “And it looks we’ve still got something to work with.”

             
“Sarge, should we throw the wires in the water?” asked one of the patrolmen anxiously.

             
“No!  Hold your positions and wait for my signal,” Roy instructed, joining the two women.  He stared down the dead limb and shook his head.  “We need to kill that thing.”

             
Ronnie agreed, but how?   Alex had said Rachel was coming for her baby.  Where was she?

             
Just then Julie spoke up. “I bet if we could get this scabbard rammed into one of the larger roots we can really hurt that thing.”

             
Roy nodded, “Probably, but I can’t let a civilian risk her life trying to get close to that…” his voice trailed off as he spotted something in the water nearby.  “What the hell?” he muttered and drew his weapon.

             
Ronnie followed his gaze and saw a corpse with long black hair was rising out of the water, wearing a man’s jacket.  “Don’t,” she cried, pushing his weapon away, “It’s Rachel, she’s come to help.”

              Roy stared at his second-in-command as if she’d lost her mind, but said nothing.  Then he watched as she headed to the water’s edge to meet Rachel’s corpse.  As soon as they were within reach of one another, the two embraced. 

             
Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the below the bridge where the dead were being slowly devoured.  There were so many of them.  How could that many lives have been lost without anyone’s knowledge? 

             
Behind him, he heard Ronnie calling to Julie and turned to see the black-haired girl reluctantly joining her and the dead teen.

             
He watched them talking for a moment and saw Julie pass the wooden scabbard to Rachel, who headed back into the raging waters and disappeared.  For one panicked moment, he wondered if they had been tricked and had lost their last decent weapon. 

             
But then Veronica hurried towards him saying, “Get ready to give the order to toss the jumper cables into the water.”

             
Roy nodded and noticed Julie was still standing by the stream, staring into the darkness.  ‘It’s all gotten too much for her,’ he thought sadly and checked in with this team, telling them all to be ready.  They were only going to get one shot at this.

              After telling Roy to be ready, Ronnie raced over to one of the patrol cars to grab a rifle and found Cassandra’s chauffer helping himself to one of the weapons.  She cleared her throat meaningfully, and he looked up.  For a moment, they stared at one another.  Then the man expertly locked and loaded the weapon with barely a glance. 

             
Wordlessly, she grabbed another rifle and gestured for him to follow.  Together they headed over to the foot of the bridge and took up their positions.

             
Thunder roared and rain continued to fall, but no one moved.  Everyone was waiting.  For what exactly, they didn’t know.  But, they knew it was coming. 

             
Their wait was not a long one.  A tremendous flash of light appeared near one of the bridge supports, which seemed to send the creature into spasms.   A searchlight revealed the scabbard was now sticking out of one of the black limbs jutting out from the stonework.

             
“I THINK IT’S LOSING ITS GRIP ON THE HOSTAGES!” yelled one officer.

             
Looking up Veronica saw that indeed the limb holding Alex and the baby was trembling high over the side of the bridge.  It looked like it might drop them at any second. 

             
“They’ll hit the water,” yelled Casey, climbing onto the railing ready to jump in and rescue them.

             
Then it happened…

             
Alex felt the creature’s agony and for an instant he was able to see into its mind.  Then he was falling, with the baby still in his arms.  Twisting his head around, he could see they were going to miss the bridge by inches, unless he could grab hold of the railing.

             
He stretched out an arm, but they were falling too fast and his fingertips barely grazed the stones.  In the distance he could hear Ronnie screaming, as they plummeted alongside one of the bridge supports. Looking down he saw the raging waters that awaited them.  But then something dark bursting out of the stonework and caught them.

             
At first he thought it was another of the tendrils, but then he realized the thing that had saved them had bones.

             
Amazed and shocked at this new turn of events Alex turned and looked closely at their savior.  It wore the remains of a dress from long ago and cradled a skeletal child in its other arm.  Then he remembered what he had seen from the window at Jason’s cottage.  “The White Lady,” he breathed.

             
The corpse nodded and showed him everything…

              She had haunted the bridge for three years looking for her child and had succeeded that fateful night
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The Being’s attempt to merge with her baby had failed.  The child had been too attached to her, and she had managed to get him back.   In retaliation, the creature proceeded to imprison the two of them within the stonework, and crushed her father as he tried to come to their aid.

              Now, Alex understood.  The creature had needed a being from this world in order to survive.  Its own physical form could not exist fully in this reality on its own.  It had tried with animals back in the time of the Paleo Indians but failed.  Then it tried a child, but again failed.  It needed a being whose mind could grow and become strong, but was still undeveloped.  Like that of a newborn babe.

             
The White Lady lowered him to another skeletal figure, which had also burst forth from her stone prison.  She too was cradling an infant and touched him…

              She had been pregnant in 1845.  The thing tried to rip the baby out of her very body.

              All around him, Alex saw corpses of women embracing their undead babies, bursting out of the bridge.  The sealed rooms of the hidden fourth floor suddenly made sense to him.  Someone had impregnated all these girls, while planning to offer their babies to the creature for merging.  They had been locked inside those rooms until they gave birth, after which they and their children were given to the creature.  Afterwards their rooms had been sealed off along with all evidence the girls had existed.

             
Now another girl took hold of him.  She had been a servant at the manor during the 1830’s.  In her mind Alex saw the face of the man who fathered her child.  It was the same one that had loomed over him when had seen things through Rachel’s eyes.  Cyrus Graham! 

             
Before he could find out more, he was handed down to another set of waiting hands.  These belonged to a child who had wandered from its mother and had been lured onto the bridge.  Quickly he was handed to another, then another…

             
With each new set of hands he felt another mind touch his. 

             
Now, he and the baby were carefully lowered into the waiting arms of the many other victims, who had risen from their watery graves beneath the bridge. 

             
Like performers at a concert the two of them were passed from one group of hands to another.  Although, he wasn’t able to see their faces Alex heard their stories in his mind.  One after another as each new set of hands held them aloft.   

             
The final set of hands did not pass him on.  Instead the owner began to carry the two of them towards the shore.  Looking up he saw it was a man, dressed in the tattered remains of a Native American.  “A shaman…” Alex whispered and the figure paused in mid-step, and glanced down him with empty eye sockets.  Then its mouth, long devoid of lips, began to move.  Although no sound came out, Alex still heard the words and the story they told…

              The white men had built near the waters that held the stone.  One of them, a boy called Cyrus heard the creature call to him in his dreams, and he welcomed it.  Soon an alliance was formed.  Cyrus would be given a life that stretched far beyond normal human existence.  In return he would try to free his benefactor and find a suitable being for it to merge with.
 

             
As the years that passed, Cyrus attacked the stone with strange metal tools he had found on his journeys.  Eventually, he succeeded in cracking the stone.

             
While he rejoiced in his success, Cyrus failed to notice that he had been watched by a young warrior sent to check on the stone.  The brave went back to his people and told them what he had witnessed.  Soon he returned with their spiritual leader Cloudwalker, and several other braves.

             
They arrived in time to witness the tragedy of the girl trying to cross the raging waters with her child.  They witnessed her father’s efforts to save them only to have the child lost.  Unsure of what would happen next, the group stayed nearby and spent the next three years watching.  When the stone was lifted out of the stream and placed in the center of the bridge, they became alarmed and made preparations. 

             
Finally, the night came when the girl heard her child’s cry.  The merging had not succeeded and the young mother managed to retrieve her child.  But, the creature was furious at the failure and escaped through the crack Cyrus had made.  Running its tentacles between the stones, the thing was able to move entire sections of the bridge and give it movement.  First, it sealed the young mother and her child within one of supporting pillars.  Then, using one end of the bridge like a giant club, it crushed girl’s father as he tried to intervene. 

             
Cloudwalker and his followers waited until the servants had fled back to the manor, with the father’s body, before beginning their chant.  Their aim had been to drive the creature back into the stone.  When that failed, they attacked the creature physically.  The battle raged well into the night.  One by one, each brave fell until only Cloudwalker and his guide remained.  Both were injured, but so was the creature.  It had retreated back into the slab for protection, leaving only a few tentacles visible and ready to fight.  If the two men could destroy those, then they would be able to seal the crack in the stone’s surface. 

             
As they approached the enemy, Cloudwalker suddenly pushed his companion off the bridge and into the water below.  Then, he rushed the creature by himself.  The remaining tentacles met his charge head on, piercing his body in several places.  Then they lifted his dying form high above the waters in triumph. 

             
Cloudwalker smiled, as with the last of his strength he pulled out a strange-looking blade and slashed at the tendrils.  One by one they crumbled and withered, dropping him into the dark waters below.

             
The surviving brave wept bitterly at his mentor’s passing, but knew the job of repairing the stone was now his.  Remembering Cloudwalker’s instructions, he managed to re-seal the stone and made the lonely journey back to his people.  Upon his return, he was honored for his bravery and was made the tribe’s new shaman.  He took the name Cloudfoot in honor of his teacher and friend.

             
Knowing that the stone was now out of the water, the elders agreed that a family would live near the stream and keep watch.  Cloudfoot and his wife volunteered…

              The moment was suddenly over, and Alex felt himself being passed to another set of hands.  These had flesh as well as bone.  Looking up he saw a familiar and very welcome face, “Julie!”

             
But his friend did not seem to hear him.  She was staring at the figure that had brought him to her.  It reached out and touched both sides of her face, leaving markings like war paint on her cheeks.  Then the being fell back into the water and disappeared. 

             
After a moment she looked down at Alex and smiled, “You okay?”

             
He nodded, “You?”

             
“Never better,” she replied, and gently lowered him to the ground just as Veronica came running. 

             
His love threw her arms around his neck as she laughed and cried at the same time.

             
Meanwhile Julie asked, “Can I hold the baby?”

             
It was obvious she had finally overcome her fear of the child’s appearance and he wanted to indulge her but couldn’t.  “I’m the only thing keeping her alive,” explained, “We’re linked.  Once she’s taken from me she won’t last long.  And it’s not her time yet.”