The Haunting of the Five Bridges

A true story of teenage hijinks

I’m sure every community in small town America has its ghost stories and haunted locales. My hometown is no different; we have a few haunted houses and unexplained things have been seen in a few areas. In my teenage years I spent more time at the five bridges on Sarecta Road than any other haunt in the county. Nestled deep in the swamps of Duplin County, five consecutive concrete bridges connect the base of an enormous hill to the highway. Supposedly, there was a woman decapitated in a traffic accident on the third bridge. Since her death, her spirit haunted the third bridge, frightening passing motorists. Having heard stories from various people, my friends and I decided to go ghost hunting. There were five of us: Mike, Johnny, Kenny, Stacy, and finally I rounded out the group. We began frequenting the haunted bridge every night; at first driving through incredibly slow - until an owl or a bat flew out of the darkness and scared us. We would then speed away into the night and back to the relative safety of the land of the living. After a few weeks of owl haunting, the novelty of the scare disappeared; however, we began parking our cars on the side of the road and walking out onto the bridge just to hang out.

One night, while Johnny was absent, we noticed the support beams for the bridge jutted out past the bridge railings. The excess support beams left about a two-foot platform big enough for someone to stand on. If someone were to squat down on the small platform, they would be completely hidden from anyone who crossed the bridge; they would also be hidden from anyone standing on the bridge. After testing out the platform to see that it was safe, Mike and I devised a plan. It was pretty basic; at some predetermined time, I would hide on the platform and wait for the others to show up. Once everyone comfortably propped on the bridge railing, I would pop up growling and scare them half to death. Now Johnny was always breaking his glasses; he had to wear his mom’s oversized glasses more often than not. This just made his already deplorable eyesight much worse. He was also a habitual liar - and terrible at it; he told tales so tall everyone knew he was lying. Couple those characteristics with the fact that he was almost a foot shorter than the rest of us, and as you can probably guess, he was the butt of every prank the group pulled. This prank would be no exception; everyone was in on it but him.

On the day we put the plan into action, we first met at Kenny’s house. Johnny was there, surrounded by four conspirators without a care in the world. It was five friends hanging out after school - business as usual. Then, just before sundown, I made an excuse to leave and Mike carried me home. We had two stops to make; the first was my house so I could change, the second was the bridge so I could lie in wait. Mike would then return to the others and bait the trap. When we reached my house, I ran inside and put on the thickest winter coat I could find. I covered the coat with a pair of long sleeve black coveralls, and I tightened the waist with a military surplus army belt. This alone made me look twice my normal size; but I wasn’t done yet. Next I wrapped a t-shirt around my head and pulled a camouflaged ski mask over the shirt, making my head look enormous. The only part of me still visible was my hands, so I covered them with thick padded ski gloves. Finally I added the ultimate piece to my ensemble - the hockey mask. When I emerged from the house in full Jason Voorhees gear, Mike and I started to laugh sardonically, we knew Johnny didn’t stand a chance. I hopped in Mike’s car, and we left for the five bridges.

During the drive to the bridges, we finalized the details. As they crested the hill, someone would blow the horn; that would be my signal to get into position. The rest was a waiting game, and we laughed about the scare we knew was to come. When Mike dropped me off and sped away to get the others, I noticed we had forgotten one minor detail. The five bridges on Sarecta Road were really creepy. As the taillights to Mike’s car disappeared over the hill, I realized, I had to be down there for about ten minutes, in the dark, alone. Determined not to be frightened by something that wasn’t there, I ventured out onto the bridge and began to busy myself with the details of where the platform was, how to easily get onto it and how to strike when the time was right. Though still too frightened to actually get on the platform with no one else around, these details kept me from thinking about the unknown horrors I suspected were lurking in the swamp surrounding me. After what seemed like an eternity, I saw the headlights of a car coming over the hill. Since there was no horn blaring and no signal, the car passed without incident; but the second passing motorist was a different story.

At least twenty minutes ticked by while I waited, growing ever more impatient and paranoid. While trying to keep my mind off the ghost lady in the swamp, I made note of the sections of bridge railing. The platform I was to hide on corresponded to one of these section gaps. All I had to do was run along with my hand on the railing, feel the gap and hop over. After getting all the details down in my head I decided to sit in the middle of the road and wait for my friends to show up. Finally, car lights shone over the hilltop. Without a moments hesitation I hopped to my feet and ran along the bridge; hand on the rail, searching for the gap that would indicate the spot to climb over. When I felt the gap, I threw one leg over, then the other and started to lower myself down onto the platform. I dropped myself lower and lower until my forearms were locked over the bridge railing barely keeping me supported, but the platform was not there. I had climbed over at the wrong gap. Dangling over the side of the bridge, all I could think of was the ghost lady; lurking under the bridge waiting to drag me down to a watery grave in the swamps below. Suspended somewhere between both doom and embarrassment, I had completely forgotten the oncoming car. When it dawned on me this car had never blown its horn - and therefore couldn’t be my friends - I noticed it had also slowed to a crawl as it crossed the bridge. I can only imagine what those people thought they saw when I poked my head up from behind the railing; but the sight of a huge man in a hockey mask climbing over the bridge railing must have been too much for them. All I heard was screeching tires and one word being screamed repeatedly from the passenger of the car as they disappeared, “Go! Go! Go!” I laughed so hard that I nearly lost my grip on the railing. I struggled back onto the bridge and sat on the railing for a moment, trying to catch my breath between laughs. After a few minutes, I realized I was no longer frightened by what was waiting below or anything else in the swamps. Shortly I saw lights cresting the hill once again, and I heard the familiar sound of a car horn blaring repeatedly. I would later find out that it was Johnny himself who was blowing the horn. They had even tricked him into giving me the signal. I checked the bridge gaps and found my platform, the second gap, not the first. I climbed over the railing and took my position. This was going to be great.

Crouched on the platform - in full costume - I could hear everyone talking as the car pulled up and stopped. Everyone got out laughing and generally carrying on like any other night. As they got closer, one by one they took their usual spots on the bridge railing. Mike propped on the railing and leaned back in a gesture so casual you would never know he was looking to see if I was on the platform as planned. As the minutes passed and the joking calmed down a little, I glanced up and saw Johnny propped on the railing just out of arms reach. Seizing the moment, I stood up and reached for him, growling like a thing from hell. When he saw something coming for him, his eyes grew to the size of saucers, and he began to scream like a child faced with his worst nightmare. Within seconds of my attack, he had jumped off the railing and ran about twenty feet. In his haste, Johnny must have forgotten where the car was because he ran the opposite direction from where it was parked. At the site of his hurried retreat, the rest of us burst into laughter. I propped my arms on the railing and rested my head in my hands cackling, but the greatest laugh was yet to come. When Johnny realized he had been tricked yet again, he stopped running and jumped into a defensive kung fu stance. I guess, once he had put twenty feet between him and his attacker he was ready to fight. I climbed over the railing and pulled off my mask, still laughing, as Johnny returned to a semi calm state. He was visibly shaken, but laughing just as much as the rest of us.

We never went back to the bridge as a group, but we all still talk about that night. I have since told everyone about dangling over the edge, scaring myself and scaring the passing car. One day I even went down to the bridge where I was dangling and saw the ground was only about two feet below me. Johnny tells the story too, but he omits the part where he runs away. Still, one thing remains constant; every time one of us mentions the five bridges on Sarecta Road we all share a laugh. You see, we know the place is haunted, because we haunted it ourselves.