The Hole in The Bridge

The Hole in the Bridge

The old man kept mumbling something underneath his breath. Patrick snapped the handcuffs on his wrists. They didn't need to see the needle to know the man was as high as the moon on heroin, but the old man made it easy. He still had the damned thing in his arm completely unaware of the outside world. It's a wonder he could even stand up straight, but his breathing was steady.

It was about 10 PM and the light of the stars, though bright, was not near enough to see by, thankfully the flashlights were. This wasn't an uncommon spot for junkies, the old bridge on Dogwood Street was fairly isolated from the city and it gave nice cover to any would-be user.

Spittle flew out of the old man's mouth as he kept saying the same phrase over and over again except this time loud enough for Jessie to hear, "Don't go in the hole in the bridge! Don't go in the hole in the bridge!"

The man looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties. He had two missing teeth and the rest looked like they could wiggle out any second, a dirty half shaven beard and sunken, foggy green eyes. He wore a red flannel jacket, a scratched up old green beanie and a pair of jeans that you could tell were a size or two too small because they crept up on his ankles.

"Don't go in the hole in the bridge!"

"God damn lunatic," Patrick said, trying to keep the man upright. "You gonna help?"

Jessie yawned, "Yeah," he said, grabbing the old man by the shoulder to help him walk. For a brief moment he looked back and what he saw was a hole, a large and perfectly circular hole that covered the base of the bridge, large enough to walk through.

Jessie shook his head and kept going. The rest of the night was pretty ordinary, Patrick and Jessie brought the heroine user, Scot Davies into the station, what remained was mostly paperwork. But Jessie couldn't shake the image of that hole in the bridge and despite his best efforts after his shift ended at 3 AM he drove back, the loud chirping of cicadas heralding his arrival as his car kicked up the dirt on the old road.

Sure enough, as he rounded the corner, he could see it. Jessie's eyes widened as he stopped the car and turned off the lights. He got out, the loud slam of the door behind him stopped the cicada's chirps for a brief moment before they all started back up again. The dirt and gravel crunched beneath his feet, his heart beating faster as he approached what was beginning to look less like a hole and more like a tunnel.

Standing at the entrance, Jessie tried to keep his leg from shaking. The flashlight illuminated the front of the tunnel, the beam growing dim as it stretched through the vast darkness before it. The wind whistled and Jessie walked through the hole in the bridge. Curiosity overcame his senses as he kept moving farther and farther each step echoing softly off of the dirt walls. The tunnel twisted and turned, to call Jessie impulsive was putting it lightly and given the fact that his girlfriend Heather dumped him a month before didn't help. Most nights he would be at the bar, but not tonight. The tunnel opened up to reveal a misty and strange world that stretched out into the horizon, if there even was a horizon in this place.

The ground was smoothed over stone. Large floating jellyfish looking creatures without tentacles were the only things producing light as they jostled strangely in unison illuminating the land. Despite the expansiveness of the place everything could be seen clearly as the ground was strangely flat. That being said there wasn't much to see other than a small wooden house at the center and a cyclopean wall far behind it with a black gate adorned with green gemstones.

The mist and clouds danced and moved. The wind pushed against Jessie's back as he got closer to the house. The windows glowed softly. The wood was a light brown and the house itself looked fake and polished. The front door was a crimson red with a silver knocker in the shape of a man's head, the knocker itself held by the man's teeth, his face in an angry grimace.