TUESDAY 

Lucas woke up and his body hurt. He felt exhausted. Jasper was already awake sitting on the mattress. It hurt Lucas to see his friend like that but what could he do. Jasper was texting on his phone. He looked up after a moment.

“I think I'm going to head home,” he said.

“You want me to go with you?” Lucas asked.

With a sigh Jasper shook his head. “I want to be alone for a while. I’ll, I’ll call you later.”

“All right.” Lucas said.

Lucas’ dad insisted that he stay home from school. But Lucas insisted on going to school saying he wanted to stay busy. 

It felt strange to go to school after knowing someone he had honestly seen as a  kind of mother figure, was in fact dead. He could not get what Jasper had said out of his head, about her being ripped apart. School was mostly the same as normal. He noticed Roxanne was not there. He texted her asking how she was. She responded saying she was fine but did not want to go anywhere. Lucas didn't really blame her. 

Lucas sat alone at lunch, lost in his thoughts. The thing that kept coming back was just what now? He didn't even notice when Penny walked over to his table.She tapped his shoulder after a few seconds of her standing there unnoticed. Lucas looked up sharply.

“Hey,” she said in a soft, kind voice. “How are you doing?” 

Her eyes sparkled. She looked so sincere. 

“I'm fine,” Lucas muttered.

 She had obviously heard the news.

“Can I do anything for you? I mean if there's anything you need at all,” she said.

Lucas’ phone began to ring and he glanced down at it. It was Jasper.

“Just a second, I need to take this,” Lucas said, mustering a weak apologetic smile. 

“Yah no worries," Penny said. 

“Yah, what is it?” Lucas said fearing the worst.

“I'm going to confront my dad. I want you there,” he said.

“WHat?” Lucas almost shouted. He glanced at Penny. Lowering his voice he said, “Jasper. Is that a good idea? I mean what are you going to do. I mean either way. Bro-” but Jasper cut him off.

“Do you think he didn’t do it then?!”

“Bro.. I don't honestly know, but I mean-” 

“Oh, shut up. We are both sure he did it! Forget all these dumb idiots who don't know the man is a completely useless waste of space as a guy. We both know he hit her, Lucas. But now he's done it, I’m gonna make him pay. So you know the footbridge outside of town. I'm going to meet him there. And well. I think you get the point,” Jasper even laughed. It was the same kind of laugh that he had done with Lucas just the night before.

“Jeez man, this-this, this isn't what you want,” Lucas said, eyeing everyone around him. 

“You can come and try to stop me if you like but man I swear I'm going to do it.”

Before Lucas could say another word Jasper hung up the phone. He stood there for a few seconds trying to force a plan to form in his head. 

“Lucas? Are you ok?” Penny asked, stepping closer.

He stared at her blankly. 

“Is there anything you need?” 

“Um… can I borrow your car?” Lucas asked, suddenly coming to his senses.

In about fifteen minutes the two sped down a highway. 

“Lucas. Will you tell me what this is about now?” she asked, Lucas could hear the smallest hint of anger in her voice. 

“It's.. it's a lot to explain.”

“I'm trusting you skipping school and you're not going to tell me anything?” she said, sounding almost hurt.

“That's not really trust is it?” Lucas said, watching the road.

“What do you mean?”

“You don't really trust me, you want to know more and you won't just trust me.” Lucas said, sounding more irritable than he meant to.

Penny sighed deeply. “OK fine. I'll trust you,” she muttered.

“Turn here,” was Lucas’ only response.

They left the city and were up near the woods that bordered the city. Dark trees seemed to peer down at them. They parked in the lot that had the foot path to the bridge. There were already two cars there. Lucas felt his stomach drop.

“Penny, stay here!” he shouted and began to sprint down the trail. 

“Lucas you can’t just…!” she shouted, but Lucas was already gone.

Lucas sprinted down the trail, his heart pounding. There was a heavy fog here. And the thick foliage the trees provided make it look dark even in mid day. It threw everything into a kind of muddy twilight. Finally he left the woods and came to the bridge. It was over a kind of crack in the earth. Far below a little stream flowed. The bridge was about twenty feet long and only about four feet wide. The fog was so thick he could not see the other side. Lucas stepped out onto the bridge and shouted, “Jasper! It's me Lucas!”

But there was no response. Lucas was still panting but held his breath to listen better.

He heard nothing. No, wait, he did hear something. Listening closely he heard a kind of dull scraping sound. Like someone was scraping two rocks together. Lucas began to walk forward slowly, almost trance-like. Lucas put his foot down and almost slipped as the bridge felt slick in that spot. He looked down and only saw a darker spot. Without thinking he looked down and touched it, why would there be one puddle of water, it had not rained and there was no lower spot here. The spot was so slick his fingers slid through it with ease. He looked at them and saw red. It was blood. He felt like someone had stabbed a spike through his spine. He clenched his jaw but he felt his entire body begin to shake. Lucas pulled out his phone and with shaking hands clicked the call button on Jasper's contact. His head jerked up as he heard a song playing. It was Buddy Holly by Weezer. he had heard the song hundreds of times. Jasper had been using it as a ringtone. 

A sudden gust of wind blew by and the mist cleared for a second. The greasy outline of something. The word Monster does not fit well in this scene. Monster is too soft, you think of a dragon, a troll, the monster in your closet. It was big and looked even bigger on the small bridge.  But this thing. It was tall and bone white. An almost leathery looking skin. It had at least six legs, possibly more. And seemed to have spikes sticking out of it. Not in places that seemed to make sense but just a few in random places, giving it the appearance as if a group of people had just thrown spears and huge needles into the thing’s flesh. It was sharp and bony, the skin seemed to stick tightly to it like a canvas sheet pulled flat around someone to suffocate them. It was standing on five of its legs, the sixth held in the air. There was someone impaled through it. Blood dripped down the bony arm contrasting dirastickly with the white of the thing's body. It seemed as if in slow motion. It lowered the body down and opened its mouth wide. It looked as if the thing's face split in half. It lowered an arm into its mouth before biting down hard. Lucas heard the crack and sickening tearing sounds as bone, muscle, and skin were ripped. Its eyes looked like a knife had been sliced into some sort of pumpkin. Two fleshy cracks in a head. The sickening thing chewed in a kind of contented way. Bones snapped and blood and saliva dripped down its face.

“Lucas there you ar-” 

Lucas spun, seeing Penny walking out, brushing off dirt from her jeans. She stopped and her eyes went wide. She trembled for a moment and then her lips parted and she began to scream as if she were being strangled. 

The monster's head jerked up and two pale yellow eyes stared at him. They looked so human, like the eyes of a dead man. There was a moment of silence. And then the thing flicked the body off of its arm and before it even fell past the bridge the satanic thing was already scrambling forward for Lucas. 

He screamed and began to run. Penny was still screaming. And then the monster screamed right behind Lucas. Its scream was like nothing he had ever heard before. Like the tortured scream of a man who had lost everything. The scream tapered out into what sounded like a thickly choked giggly laugh. No, it was definitely a laugh. Cruel and cold. It was worse than anything Lucas had ever heard before. 

And then he was shoved. He felt the thing speed past him; its eel like smooth skin slid across his face. He could smell the blood and earth the thing seemed to radiate. He heard it giggle as it passed him. It was heading for Penny. Lucas watched it get closer but before he realized what he was doing he ran at the thing and slammed into it with his shoulder, throwing all his body weight at it. He fell and pushed the thing off balance. He rolled and the thing rolled. Its massive bodyweight falling atop Lucas knocked the air out of him. 

There was a steep slope before the bridge and they rolled right down it only being stopped by the support of the bridge hitting them both. Lucas heard something cracking. The monster's weight was on him and the only thing that was keeping him from falling off the cliff was the bridge's guardrail. He heard another crack and only then did he realize it was the bridge.

 There was a loud sound and the bridge’s support beam was ripped from the ground. The bridge was breaking. The monster rolled over Lucas again. He screamed and clung to the ground, closing his eyes. He heard the bridge cracking behind him and loudly crashing. He opened his eyes after the weight was lifted and whirled around. Both the monster and the bridge were gone. The bridge had collapsed and the monster had seemingly rolled off the cliff. Lucas sat up and then gingerly stood. His entire body seemed to be screaming. He began to walk over to Penny who was shaking and sobbing.

“Lucas, what was that thing? What happened?” She was repeating it over and over again. 

Lucas shook tremendously and fell down beside her. Penny half jumped on him hugging him tightly and bringing her head to his shoulder. She sobbed hard. Lucas hugged her back. His mind seemed dead. What in the heck was that thing, was it dead? He heard the laughter behind him but nothing was there but still he heard the insistent giggling of the demon. He stiffened and clapped his hands to his ears. He heard himself scream.

“Make it shut up!”

 Penny hugged him tighter. “There's nothing there! There's no sound!” she sobbed. 

“Make it shut up!” Lucas screamed again. 

He was sobbing now. The two kids hugged each other tightly, neither knowing what they had seen and held each other tightly.

They both sat in the car. Both were too afraid to speak. 

After another hour of sitting in the car finally Penny spoke in a quavering voice, “What in the heck is that?” 

Lucas ignored her. Her voice sounded far off. Like soft and warm.

“Lucas,” she said again.

“Whaa?” he muttered, looking over and blinking slowly. 

“Lucas, what was that thing?” she said again.

“I-I don't know,” he said. Visions of the monstrous thing flashed in his mind. 

“What do we do know?” she asked, looking far off. 

“It ate Jasper,” Lucas said, feeling tears come to his eyes.

“It's already getting dark.” Penny said. 

They both sat in silence again. Tears running down Lucas’ face. 

“We should go home,” Lucas finally said after a while. 

“What do we tell people?” Penny asked, looking at him, fear written across her face.

“Nothing,” Lucas said urgently. “We say nothing, we leave, go home and say nothing.” 

“But people will ask where we were. My parents,” she said,

“We say that I needed to get out and you offered to take me for a drive. We just drove out for a while and that's it,” he said, staring at her.

Penny took a deep breath and nodded as she started the car.

She dropped Lucas off at home. His dad was sitting on the couch. He gave Lucas a look. Obviously the school had called. But his dad did not say anything. He nodded in acknowledgement. His dad gave a faint smile. Lucas mustered a smile back. He grabbed a soda from the fridge and started off towards his room. 

He sauntered to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He had been lucky that when the monster rolled over him he had been able to keep his face safe. The rest of his body on the other hand was not so lucky. He pulled off his shirt and examined his torso. His body was bruised to a degree that just looked unreal. He turned around and twisted trying to see his back in the mirror. He grimaced in pain. There was a long purple bruise across his back where he had hit the bridge. He grimaced and put on a new shirt. Lucas laid on his bed grunting in pain. 

Again he thought of the monster. The giggling laughter. The screaming. And the bone crunching. And he could even hear the blood dripping from the corpse. The corpse that had been his friend, the corpse that he had known. The corpse that was dead.