Part 3: Alberson Bridge
I was momentarily confused as I stood, staring at the closed door to the old barn I now faced. Not only had the almost deafening sounds of what happened at the bar left my ears ringing a bit, but the sun beaming down upon the dry rotted wood of the ancient shack had my mind reeling. I snapped out of my pensive daze as Grant lay a hand on my arm again, causing my fragmented bones to piece themselves back together in an instant.
He just gave me an awkward smile, accompanied by a shrug. He almost reminded me of a kid who just got busted doing something his folks told him not to; that sort of half guilty ‘my bad’ sort of look.
“So, um, ouch…” I said, “did you have to break every bone in the arm?”
“Had to be sure, mate. You only responded to the slap for a second. Didn’t exactly have time to experiment.”
After a bit of an uncomfortable stare-off, with Grant darting his eyes from one side to the other in an attempt to avoid making contact with mine, I started to crack up. We weren’t exactly strangers to bizarre and haunting events, so it didn’t take long for me to find the humor in how he had brought me back to my senses.
These were the moments that reminded me of how we had grown so close. Regardless of the fact we may as well have been from different planets altogether, we had that same batshit crazy sense of humor. We met in that dingy, awful prison so many years ago, and even there we found reasons to laugh. While we were treated like garbage by our superiors in the factory job, there were always opportunities to have a bit of fun.
When I had no doubt I would never see the outside of that haunting building that still wanted to drag me back; even then we laughed in the face of what it had planned for us. Perhaps had it not been for those times, I wouldn’t have been able to so much as giggle after what happened back at that strange little pub, but I had confidence in the fact that my friend had my back, just as I had his.
By this point, we had Ashley still in pursuit, the mysterious Alberson Bridge ahead of us, not to mention the senior Mr. Orchid we hoped to find beyond that place. On top of that, Grant still hoped to find answers to who or what had played the part of Lucifer; someone who was apparently in league with the powers behind that maddening building. It was a lot, but I still tried to take it in stride. It couldn’t get much worse than what I’d already lived through, right?
I didn’t ask too many questions while we made our way to the highway, just twenty or so feet away from the broken-down old barn. I was curious how close we were to the bridge, as well as what our plans were when we got there, but I think I enjoyed the peace of being surrounded by little more than sporadic woods, with the occasional vehicle speeding by on the road.
After a good ten minutes of walking, along with my curiosity getting the better of me, I asked Grant about both where we were, as well as how we got here. The fact that only moments before, we were drinking pints in a bar in downtown Atlanta, and were now seemingly in the middle of nowhere, having left a run-down old barn had my mind spinning in circles. I’d witnessed my fair share of unusual events throughout my fairly chaotic life, so I probably shouldn’t have been all that bewildered by our circumstances, but that didn’t make it any simpler.
“About fifty miles north of Vermont,” he replied with a shrug, as though crossing the country through the back door of a pub was a perfectly natural occurrence.
“And? How’d your bar send us to a barn about fifty miles north of Vermont?”
I couldn’t help but laugh while I repeated the question.
“Well, this is only one of many doors it leads to, depending on the combination, of course.”
“So, I know this is your line and all, but are you taking the piss?”
He went on to explain that not only was there a replica of the bar in every major city across the planet; replicas that were in fact that very same tavern we had only just fled from, but the back door was something of a gateway. Not only could it relocate him to just about anywhere in the world, but also to many different planes of existence. I still couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it, but at least he didn’t talk shit about how ridiculous British slang sounded coming out of my mouth.
Within close to a half-hour after our hike from the broken-down old barn, we found ourselves standing right alongside the time-worn street sign labeled ‘Alberson Road’. When Grant knelt to begin the removal of his shoes and socks, I followed suit. In some ways, I was more nervous about potentially walking barefoot for miles, than whatever awaited us at the end of the road. Even though I had spent a great deal of time shoeless in the sand over the past couple of years, I didn’t know how well my naked souls would hold up to the occasional jagged rock.
Given the fact that every bit of luggage I had brought along for the road trip was still in the backseat of my Bronco on the other side of the country, I didn’t exactly have anywhere to store my shoes after slipping them from my feet. I just tied the laces together, hung them around my neck like a leathery necklace, and shoved my socks in my pocket. Grant gave me a smirk and did the same with his.
“Once we get to the bridge, we should be able to put them back on. Just watch where you step, yeah?”
He gave me a chuckle, gesturing to my wiggling toes with a tilt of his head. It was another one of those times where I wasn’t entirely sure if he had somehow peeked into my thoughts, or just knew me well enough by now to know where my head was at. After one more nod to confirm I was good to go, we set off down the road in pursuit of the elusive bridge, during which my friend regaled me with a bit of background knowledge on the unusual bridge.
“Where we’re headed is not a place you’ll find in any maps, mate. Yeah, there’ll be the occasional car driving down the road, before cutting onto the next one up, but the second we crossed through barefoot, we’re not on that same road anymore. For all we know, there could be a veritable convoy speeding down Alberson road as we speak, but they would be no more aware of us than we are of them.”
He was speaking as casually as if he was giving me directions to a local flea market, while fishing a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his cargo shorts, inspiring me to do the same.
“The only town nearby is some miles away, and many who live there are well aware of the existence of the bridge. Once in a while, a carload of curious teens, or even some sort of paranormal investigator will come out this way, but even if they do know how to get there, they’ll never be inclined to walk any further once they reach it.”
I won’t even attempt to claim everything he was saying was quite registering with me, but he most certainly kept my interest. Were it not for his responsibilities, I couldn’t help but think he could’ve made an amazing storyteller, had his destiny led him someplace else. The way he spoke, it was impossible not to be pulled into his tales. Sometimes I thought he could just read off the instruction manual for a new vacuum cleaner and make it sound interesting.
“I can’t speak to the reasons why those who seek it out feel no desire to walk any further once they’ve reached the bridge, to tell you the truth. Maybe they’re just intoxicated by the beautiful lake running beneath it, or perhaps somewhere in the back of their minds, they can sense the dangers beyond. Of course, some have managed to go on, leaving their cars deserted by the opening to the road until they’re removed. To my knowledge, there haven’t been many who’ve crossed over into what lies beyond the bridge, but rarely do they make it back.”
“Dangers?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little more hesitant.
Grant had asked me to stay behind, I can’t deny that. Of course, I assumed that was more related to the fact that we were in search of Orchid senior, not that the road to get there would be somewhat perilous. With how casually he talked about people essentially going missing, never to be found again, I had to wonder how Orchids goons had managed to come and go as they pleased. If nothing else, the knowledge that hired guns would be able to go back and forth, made me feel far more confident that I had nothing to worry about, especially with Grant by my side.
“The moment we crossed onto this road, we entered another plane; another level of reality, you get me?”
I gave a shrug and a nod to confirm. It made sense, even if this sort of thing was generally above my understanding.
“On the other side of the bridge, we’ll descend a bit further into other realms. For the most part, I can keep you safe, though every plane comes with its own rules, for lack of a better term,”
It was only then, as the conversation had reached a more serious point, that I realized my friend’s accent had reverted to his business voice. That, more so than the topic at hand, was what suddenly inspired my back to tense and my heart to race a bit quicker.
“I won’t be quite as stripped down as I was in the old factory, but I most certainly won’t be at my full strength either; not while I’m like this anyway,” he gestured to his body, as though to introduce me to his freshly dry-cleaned meat suit, “but I’ll need you to stick with me, yeah? Don’t wander off, don’t take your eyes off the path ahead, and do what I say, when I say it, you get me?” He stopped in place, turning to face me with something of a stern expression on his face.
“I get you, man.”
“Just trust me, mate.”
“Always,” I gave a less than enthusiastic, false smile, accompanied by another shrug.
I don’t know if it was the full-on goofy expression my face wore while my mind still attempted to wrap around what he told me, or just the exaggerated, phony grin itself, but Grant burst out laughing. Naturally, I joined in. There we were; my closest friend and I, standing barefoot on the road to a bridge nestled underneath our plane of existence, cackling like freaking idiots under the blistering sun.
Though we’d been through almost literal hell together, there was just something about being around him that made me revert to the fun-loving child I never had the opportunity to be. Perhaps it was my brutal and anguished childhood that allowed me to find the humor in the darker times, but I felt as though that was something we had in common. We were from two different worlds, but it was our scars, I think, that set the seeds for our friendship.
Maybe some will never be able to accept that the Devil himself was able to change; to become a better and braver person than most, but I know who he really was. He told me once that everything Grant said and did was from him, and I think I never really put all that together in my mind before all of this. He admitted to me the atrocities he committed so many lifetimes ago. Once the truth came out, he didn’t try to portray himself as the hero of the story; only one who found a better way. I don’t care who Lucifer was, but I know who he became.
I’m sorry. Got off on a tangent again. After Grant laid out a vague idea of some of the dangers ahead, we pushed all of that to the side for a time. The walk to the bridge itself probably lasted a good two hours, but we spent the majority of that time cutting up and laughing, just like we always did. We probably went through a pack of cigarettes between the two of us throughout the course of our stroll.
A casual observer would’ve likely thought we were headed to the damn circus, or even that we were wasted or something, with how we carried on, but once the laughs began, there was no stopping them. It was like a damn floodgate full of chuckles had busted open, and we couldn’t remotely hold them back. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d heard so many ‘buggers’, ‘wankers’, and ‘tossers’ in such a short period, but my face was hurting from laughing so much.
As soon as we set foot on the wide, wooden bridge, it almost felt heavenly to press my souls against the smooth planks, as opposed to the rough concrete we had been strolling across for hours. Grant had not remotely been exaggerating the beauty of the lake beneath. It looked crystal clear and so inviting that I almost gave in to the urge to leap over the railing. While he began to slip his socks and shoes back on, I just gazed over the side taking in the gorgeous water that rippled below us.
With how hard the sun had been beaming down on us before, I wanted nothing more than to allow the subtle and steadily flowing rapids to guide me wherever they may. I mentioned that very idea to my friend, but he just shrugged and told me he had no bloody idea where the river led; only that it was likely not our world to explore. Naturally, that only made me more curious, but not enough to act on the impulse to jump.
“Maybe another day, mate,” he said with a smile.
I could tell he was as interested as I, but we couldn’t afford to distract ourselves from the path ahead; one that I was suddenly feeling quite nervous about. It had been easy enough to speculate about the dangers ahead while we were still on the road, but now that we were on the cusp of it, I was feeling far more apprehensive.
Grant sat down upon the planks while I slipped my shoes back on before we lit one final duet of smokes before moving on. Also, I think we both needed to take a minute to rest our aching legs. I can’t speak to whether or not he experienced muscle aches or cramps while dressed in his meat suit, but I knew mine felt as though I’d run a damn marathon.
We talked a little more as we leaned against the railing; just shooting the shit about potentially taking a more relaxing trip when all of this was behind us. We hoped that it may be possible to bring Brandon along for that one too, though whether his girlfriend would be invited was still up for debate. It did reawaken that sadness within me while we spoke of my housemate and business partner, but I wasn’t about to rule out bringing him back home; not yet anyway.
When Grant’s knees and back popped and cracked as he got back to his feet, I couldn’t help but smile a little when mine did the same. It would seem we were indeed more alike than I had thought, or it was simply the effect of the rules of different planes, as he had said. As we slowly paced to the end of the bridge, we pinched the cherry of our cigarettes off, before sliding the butts into our pockets. I just did what he did on this, as I did not quite know if snuffing out a smoke on a bridge such as the one we were on, would be acceptable or not.
Grant stopped right at the very last plank before we would walk onto the concrete on the other side. I just looked at him, while he gazed out into what lay beyond. Of course, all I could see ahead of the bridge was more forest-lined road, not much different the path we walked to get here. Still, I wasn’t about to move until he did, but his hesitation was making me far more nervous than if he’d just screamed for me to run at the top of his lungs.
“Ready?” He said after a heavy sigh.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Stay close to me. Keep your eyes on me at all times, no matter what you hear. If we do get split up, don’t shout out, don’t stop moving, but do not run. You with me?”
“Yeah…I’m with you, brother.”
He gave me a single nod before stepping one foot upon the concrete. With that lone footstep, his whole body suddenly appeared blurry and out of focus almost. For a split second, I damn near allowed myself to give in to the burgeoning panic, but I managed to keep my cool. Without giving it a second thought, I placed my foot on the road beyond the bridge, but when my friend suddenly came back into focus, everything else around us was not what I had expected to see at all.
It felt and looked as though we were fighting our way through a horrendous hurricane. Given the fact I had lived on a beach for two years, I was no stranger to how brutal such storms could be, but I had never experienced anything like this. It was similar to those scientific experiments, making tornado effects with smoke. The fog was thick but also lined in an almost turquoise haze, with the wind violently slicing through it in one direction or another.
I felt my body sway and shift, threatening to send my barely controllable footsteps in any direction but the one my friend was going in. Even though he was only a foot or two ahead of me, he was hard to see through the rippling mist, as well as the thick blots of rain beating against and around me. I wanted to call out, or even just scream to convince myself I was still in control, but I was warned that’d be a bad idea. I couldn’t say what the reasoning was behind this request, but I didn’t need to know that; only that I shouldn’t under any circumstances.
I was unsure how long we would have to travel before we reached whatever our destination was to be, but I was sure I couldn’t maintain this for long. It almost felt like trying to walk through waist-deep water with the tide plowing the waves against me. Every single step required such effort, I was already winded from the short distance we’d walked so far. Though Grant had told me to keep my eyes on him, I had to fight against the urge to look around me and up to the sky. There were flashes of near blinding light emitting from all around me, inspiring me to seek out its source, but I did what was asked of me. Well, I did at first anyway.
As something that seemed like lightning blasted against the ground only feet from where I pushed through the storm, my head turned before I had a chance to stop it. That’s when I noticed the shadows. There were so many that my eyes couldn’t even register them all; each one looking as though it was flailing its limbs against the wind and rain. It was like being in the middle of a parade or something, as mine was only one of so many faces in the crowd. Of course, though I couldn’t make out any details, something about these silhouettes felt not entirely human.
I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, aside from the fact they looked like nothing more than darker and thicker chunks of otherwise whispy and greyed fog. There were so damn many of them just weaving in and out of one another’s path as if this was some bustling city street. I could tell that some were closer than others, but even the ones I felt as though I could reach out and touch looked as though they had no actual, physical mass.
I flashed back to when my friend and I were blindfolded in the woods during the Orchid Grand Festival when I broke my staring eyes away from those whose company we shared, to see no sign of the man I had been attempting to follow. I felt my heart skip with the realization I did not simply have the option of removing my helmet this time. I just stopped in place, cutting my gaze in every direction.
I had been keeping up the same pace while I investigated my surroundings, so I was sure he couldn’t have gotten too far away from me. Of course, that was a rational thought; one that couldn’t quite make a dent in my chaos-fueled fear at the time. He told me not to scream out; not to yell and draw attention to myself, but I hoped I could at least talk. I couldn’t hear anything but the calamity of the storm around me, but I hoped my friend would be able to hear me.
“Grant…where are you?”
Only a crack of lightning responded to my words, once more striking the ground only feet from where I stood. I can’t say if there was some sort of shockwave from the blast beside me, or that it simply scared the shit out of me, but I almost leaped to the other side, stumbling to the ground. I pressed my palms to what I had assumed to be concrete, to find a texture I had never felt before. It was warm and sticky, flexible, but firm. I had to peel my hands away from it, but it left no residue on my skin.
In a way, it felt as though I had been walking down the esophagus of some enormous creature, but I battled against allowing that visual imagery to sink in. I finally pushed back to my feet before beginning to walk again, still speaking my friend’s name over and over with each step. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was even going in the right direction anymore, but I knew I had to keep moving.
After walking for another few minutes, I felt my shoulder bump against something, almost sending me back to the ground. Whatever I hit let out some sort of grunt, though it almost caused my stomach to churn in the way the sound vibrated against the howling wind. Another hit from the other side pushed me into a third from the right again and I suddenly understood how a pinball must feel as it bounced from one obstacle to the next. I was no longer following the isolated path, but the more crowded section of the street, it would seem.
Regardless of the fact I was now making regular contact with whatever the silhouette things were, I could still make out no more than their somewhat deformed and inhuman shadows as I bounced from one to the other. There were so many of them, that I had no way of getting clear before I rammed my shoulders and arms into another. I had no doubt I had strayed far from the path my friend had hoped to guide me down, nor did I believe myself to have a hope of finding it again. That was until I felt a hand grip around the top of my left shoulder.
“This way, mate,” a voice I hoped to belong to Grant said almost directly into my ear.
Though the words he spoke assured me that it was indeed who I hoped it was, the vocal tones sounded almost gargled and strained. At the time, I chalked it up to being no more than the effect of the bizarre acoustics of this place, but when he began to push me in a different direction than the one I had been almost blindly following, I got a little more at ease with the fact he was guiding me back to the right pathway.
“I’m sorry, mate. I should have done this from the beginning.”
“No, I’m sorry, man. I got distracted. I know you told me…”
“No worries. You are going to be just fine now.”
As the crowd of shadows began to thin out, I hoped we were nearing the end of our journey. Even the thick fog was beginning to dissipate as the storm calmed down around us. I breathed a heavy and grateful sigh that this whole ordeal may finally be reaching its end when I was able to make out what appeared to be some sort of unusually shaped building ahead. It looked tall but quite thin. It leaned to one side at the base, before shifting dramatically to the right in the middle. As we got closer, I realized it was not a structure, but a massive tree with a cavern-like entrance facing us.
“See,” the voice spoke, sounding graveled and almost ancient, “I told you we would make it…” the hand on my shoulder spun me to look upon what had led me away from the crowd of shadows, “mate…”
I could not hold back the scream that breached my lips as I looked upon the twisted face of what was most certainly not my closest friend. It looked like some sort of stitched together puppet made of flesh. What appeared to be meaty twigs and glossy red fibers pushed through the splits in the uneven threads holding it in one piece. It had thick and curly hair on the left, while the right was bald as a cue ball where another seam ran down the center of its face.
One eye was twice as large as the other, while the wide mouth reached from just below the long and slanted nose, to where more yarn hung from where the crease of its smirk touched an upside-down ear. It looked taller than me but was hunched over, bringing us to eye level. The rags of clothing it wore were just as pieced together as almost every inch of its body. The left-arm hung significantly lower than the right, while more of those sticks jabbed through the gaps between the stitches.
“Don’t scream, Michael…you are safe now…”
As it forced its mouth to smile even wider, the yarn holding its lips together on the smaller side popped, causing the lower lip to split and hang open like an unbuttoned pair of pants. I tried to back away, not caring if I would have to just haul ass back to the crowd of God knows what, but at my fist motion, it grabbed onto my shoulder again. It began to drag me towards the opening in the tree, regardless of the punches I was landing against the almost plush feeling skin of the arm that pulled me along.
Finally, as it set one parody of a human foot across the threshold of the mouth of the darkened cavern, I rammed my fingers through the wide stitches of the forearm that held onto me. It wailed a howling shriek as I spread apart the loosely tied flesh, pouring the slick roots and fibers across the ground. I kicked against the midsection of the thing as I yanked myself away from it, tearing the remaining strips of skin and meaty strands with the hand still latched onto me.
I wasted no time before sprinting away; leaving it echoing its anguished screams as it gathered up its bits and pieces from the sticky ground. I peeled the disembodied hand from my shoulder, tossing it to one side as soon as I got it loose. I ran until the thick mist began to surround me once more, attempting to scale the outskirts of it like a wall, with the storm echoing around me once more.
After reminding myself of Grant’s words, I slowed my pace, hoping that my moment of weakness had not drawn any further attention. I kept on that route for what felt like ten to twenty minutes, trying to control my pants and whimpers so as to not alert anything else to my presence. As I plundered onwards, I noticed a subtle light through the fog; something I was not sure whether or not to seek out.
Even with the bright stabs of lightning breaching through the sky above, that soft glow remained constant. Whether or not this would bite me in the ass, I made the semi-conscious decision to head towards it. The closer I got, the more I grew aware of the sound emitting from it. Though I was still on the outskirts of the storm, I could make out little more than the cracks of thunder and splashing of the thick droplets of rain beating against me and the ground, but as the light grew brighter, the louder the concerned voice of a cocky limey calling out my name sounded.
Regardless of the vibrations of the thick air distorting everything else around me, the words calling out to me were unmistakably coming from my friend. I took no hesitation in speeding towards the light until I could finally make out the shape-holding his glowing hand above his head. I practically tackled him, not so much as slowing down for a second until I wrapped my arms around him.
“I thought I’d lost you, mate,” he said, folding his shivering arms around my back.
“I thought you did too!” I replied, attempting to force out a falsified chuckle.