You Know That Old Urban Legend?

If you grew up in the country as I did, you’ve heard it. The one about some bridge or some location, usually in a valley and almost always near water, where something horrible supposedly happened to a mother and her baby, and at night if you are quiet you can hear a baby crying or a woman calling for her child? Yeah, that one. It’s a great excuse to take your girlfriend out to a dark secluded location, get her all scared and have her jump in your lap. When she feels all safe and secure, the panties come right off, right? Scary places always landed me the choice ass back in the day. Know what I mean bro?

Yeah well, I know what really happened, and I know the place where it occurred. You see, there’s this old bridge down in a valley that crosses a small river. It’s not far from here, If you want I can take you out there. Yeah, we can go tonight.

The legend usually says a mother was rushing her sick baby to the hospital and ran her car off the bridge. The story also goes that the mother got out of the car, but drowned after repeatedly trying to find her baby in the dark water. The next morning the police found the car and the two bodies after a farmer called the wreck in. Years later teenagers used to hang out in the fields on the north side of the bridge, and they told stories of hearing a woman screaming “Oh god MY BABY SOMEONE PLEASE HELP OH GOD MY BABY”. There are variations, but this is usually the gist of the tale. Well, the truth is, the valley was haunted a long time before anything like that ever happened, and it wasn’t haunted by some woman screaming for her lost baby. Not then at least.

You see, out in the country here, there’s things that never see the light of day. Things not meant for mortal eyes. They wander the countryside looking for food. They feed on humans you see. They wear the skin of their kills, look just like us. Once it’s on them you can’t tell them apart from us. What they look like under the skin, nobody alive now knows.

The woman in the story, she WAS rushing her baby to the hospital, and she did wreck, but she didn’t run off the bridge. She came close though, and she seemed to be in luck, as a truck came along just minutes after she ran off the road and smacked a tree. Her lights were still on, and the driver of the truck spotted her waving in the middle of the road. What happens next, well… it’s pretty horrible. You see the driver of the truck, well, he was one of those things, and he was wearing the previous owner’s skin. He pulls over, offers to help. The mother is on the verge of passin’ out, so he helps her get the baby out of the car. He found it impossible to resist the tender, sweet flesh of one so young. The smell of it’s innocence was too much, and its appetite overtook it. He ate the baby right there in front of the mother. Jaws split like some sort of horrible giant snake, bit it right in half, swallowed it in two bites. Right in front of that poor woman. That’s where the screams come from you see. Right before he ate her too. Of course, she didn’t die so quick, being a much bigger meal than a little baby.

The real horror of these things is, once they eat you, your soul or whatever, it doesn’t move on like it does after a normal death. It lingers, you see. How do I know all of this? Well, I grew up around here. My grandfather told me all about it. He was one of the cops that found the car, you see. He ran across one of those things here in town once. Said it looked like a person, just didn’t seem to move right. His grandmother was an old Indian wise woman, she told him stories of the skinwalkers when he was a child. Said he’d know when he met one.

So you want to see the place? It’s just a few miles from here. Yeah, hop in the truck, I’ll take you out there. She’s a beaut ain’t she? Belonged to my grandpa too, she’s a 55 Chevy. Restored it myself. Finish your drink, we’ll head out there.

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Credited to CaptainYetiZombie