You’ll Never Catch the Bunny Man!

The twenty-second hour stuck in the air like the lingering darkness surrounding the perimeter of the neglected woods of Fairfax County, Virginia. Martin exhaled, his heavy breath hung frozen in the air momentarily before dissipating into the yawning darkness. A nearby car door closed and a voice came to him.

“We really want to do this?”

The moon hung high and indifferent in the night sky, casting spots of moonlight precariously through the thick canopy of assorted trees. Martin reached into the car and pulled out the flashlight. He turned it on and waved the beam around, cutting through the pitch black that consecrated the autumn night. Thinning leaves hung loosely like patches of fabric along bony appendages that gave wake to terrifying elongations that stretched towards the couple standing before a jagged, murky path.

“Yea,” Martin sighed. “Yea, I do.”

Kelsey, Martin’s girlfriend of two years, broke the dirt of the forest trail first. Martin, impressed by her bravery, followed. Shortly after their mergence, the couple was swallowed by the night. In looking back, Martin’s sedan was cooling there out of sight. After they had gone a few yards, Kelsey stumbled.

“Careful.” Martin squeezed her hand tighter and brought her closer to his side. With his other hand, he squeezed something in his pocket.

“You got it, right,” Kelsey interrupted the hanging silence.

“The rag?” Martin squeezed the contents of his left pocket once more. Kelsey nodded. “Yep.”

“Good,” Kelsey added. “We’ll need it to show those scaredy-cats a thing or two.”

The two carried further on into the woods in silence. The trail turned, directing them into thicker patches of woods. Long, low-hung branches scratched at their jackets and fibrous fingertips tore and tangled their hair. The flashlight Martin held bounced around, guided by his frustration, initiating a dance not unlike that of a cinematic Sabbath. When the two were free of their spell, they came up to level ground where the branches hung higher.

“We’re almost there.” Martin pointed with the flashlight to where the trail disappeared into the darkness at another bend in the path.

“How long do we have to stay here?” Kelsey stuttered. Martin couldn’t tell if it was the cold or her nerves. Still, he felt sympathy. He couldn’t tell with his state, either.

“Two hours. Then we tie this handkerchief around a nearby branch to let them know we were there.”

Kelsey thought for a second.

“What about if we just tie it around the tree and get the hell out of here? I’m cold.”

“Now, now, we can’t cheat. Besides, they might be watching. You never know with the three of them. Besides, it’s fifty bucks a piece and I don’t want to take chances.”

Kelsey sighed as if unsatisfied with Martin’s explanations.

“I don’t want to spoil the chance at some easy money.” Martin stopped and looked at Kelsey.

“You aren’t scared, are you?”

“Oh, no no,” Kelsey spoke up. “It’s just the weather tonight. It’s cold and I don’t want to get sick.”

Martin agreed somewhat gullibly. He didn’t get cold easily. And he knew that Kelsey didn’t either. But maybe she really was just cold this time. Either way, he had a way to get her to stay.

“I tell you what, you can use my jacket. It’s not that cold out, anyway.” Martin pulled her closer to him.

“Besides, it’ll go a lot quicker with both of us there.” Martin smiled wide.

“A lot less scary, too.”

Kelsey chuckled and playfully pushed Martin away.

“I’m not scared. Maybe you’re scared and you just don’t want to admit it.”

“Oh no no no. Don’t turn this around on me.” Martin brought Kelsey further to him and they continued towards the slow approach of the turn that would soon bring them to their destination.

Another ten minutes and a less adversarial turn brought them to the straightaway that revealed the ominous covered bridge that awaited their arrival. Martin and Kelsey squeezed each other’s hands. They were both sweating. Be it from fear or exertion, they would not admit, the palpitations of their hearts and the fluttering inside of their guts couldn’t hold the secret their lips were sure to keep buried deep beneath the surface.

“There it is,” Martin whispered. Kelsey swallowed hard, wiped the sweat from her palm and grabbed ahold of Martin’s hand, squeezing tighter than before. The moon dotted the bridge’s broken wooden floor. Through the dilapidated roof it wove through, like eerie luminescent thread. As the two approached where the dirt path free-fell and the wooden planks began, the haunting silence was broken by earnest creaks of protest under the weights of their adolescent daredevils. Understanding its warning, the two proceeded to their destination slowly.

Martin and Kelsey had just about reached the half-way point when Kelsey let out a bloodcurdling scream.

“God, Martin, oh God, Martin! Something’s got me!”

Martin swung around to see Kelsey clawing at the floorboards, her lower half sinking amidst rotting planks into the oblivion that awaited her below.

“Martin, please!” Her eyes grew wide and she kicked and pulled and scratched and pleaded. Martin grabbed her arms and pulled upward and outward with all of his might.

“C’mon, Kelsey, c’mon.”

Finally, her legs breached the surface and she popped out with all the finesse of a wine cork. She sat down, panting, her hands tearing involuntarily at her unfortunate appendages.

“What, what the hell,” she cried out between gasps of breath. “What the hell happened?”

Martin looked at her in sympathy and amusement.

“You stepped on a weak spot and fell through the bridge.”

“Scared the shit out of me,” Kelsey exclaimed.

“Me too,” Martin replied. “I haven’t heard you scream like that ever. Pull up your pant legs.”

She obeyed and he looked her over.

“Well,” he determined. “You have a few scratches and I’m sure you’ll have some nasty bruises…”

He stuck his flashlight down the hole she had made, looking for any potential hazards. The beam barely touched the ground below and, from where he was, it seemed that if Kelsey had fallen completely through, she could have fallen forever. Martin shivered at this thought and quickly returned to his rattled companion.

“Doesn’t look like there were any nails there,” he assured her. “We can go to the doctor’s tomorrow if you feel we can carry on to the end.”

Kelsey looked up at Martin and smiled.

“Thank you. I think I’ll be okay. Just let me stand.”

Martin backed off and she strained to gain her strength at first. It reminded Martin of a colt attempting to walk for the first time. Soon thereafter she accomplished the task and took her afflictions for a quick, gentle test of endurance. Kelsey winced in pain at first, but her legs soon adjusted to the pain and it waned in lieu of more important things at hand. Martin shone the flashlight down the hole once more and waved it around.

“There seems to be a beam that runs along the middle of the bridge. It looks to be strong. Let’s just stick to the middle so no one gets hurt further.” He looked over at Kelsey with concern. “Sounds good?”

“Oh yea.”

“Look, we’re almost to the end.” Martin shined the light straight ahead into the hungry darkness before them. Like with the hole Kelsey had made, the flashlight’s beam could barely penetrate through the veil. Oblivion awaited as the two advanced. The creaks of the floorboards had ceased and the unsettling silence conjured terrible possibilities to nest in the adventurers’ minds. They crept further, perhaps suspecting a troll of unimaginable hideousness and bloodthirst to which fairy tales just couldn’t do justice. As the two continued, they saw no such troll and they found no end to the bridge—their premonitions simply wouldn’t allow it.

“How long is this thing, anyway.”

“I don’t know, Kels. Wait!“

As the two proceeded, a stream of moonlight broke through its obstructions, illuminating the edge of the bridge’s wall and covered the adjacent floorboards in a tide of white.

“We’re almost there,” Kelsey replied enthusiastically.

The two cautiously hastened their paces and closed the gap relatively quickly. When they arrived, the two tested the floorboards where the moonlight shone for like weaknesses. It dropped off of the trail at a gap that was most likely caused by erosion.

“Let’s sit here and wait,” Martin suggested. “If they’re watching, there’s no chance they can’t see us so long as it stays lit here.“

“Yea. But why would they just wait here to make sure we were here?”

“Because,” Martin added. “Because, they’ll try anything to find a way not to pay us.” Noticing Kelsey was still shivering, Martin removed his coat and draped it around her. “I know it doesn’t make sense. But trust me.” Martin turned off the flashlight to conserve the battery. Kelsey looked at him with admiration. His courage and convictions were inspirational.

“So what now?”

Martin squeezed her hand and looked at the time.

“We wait.”