The+Hooded+Figure


 * __ The Hooded Figure __**

In a thunder storm on a dark night a hooded figure steps into the street. His pace is quick, he doesn’t slow as he comes to a bridge. A carriage starts toward him, he jumps into the shadows, hidden by the dark abyss. He is still. He stays this way until the world goes still around him. He steps into the soft moonlight. His face is indistinguishable. He walks slowly toward the end of the bridge. Then he turns around with a jerk and sprints toward the railing of the bridge. With a strong leap he goes over the edge. The river rushes. The water below is freezing from the spring snow melt. Rocks stick out from even the deepest points of the river. The fall is over fifty feet. The man is most assuredly dead.

The next morning in the small town in which the bridge is located there was terror! People saw the mangled corpse on the banks of the river. The man couldn’t be identified.

"This man is most likely a drunk or a depressed person who wanted to end his life," said the police chief.

"I think this was a murder," said the towns craziest member.

"We do not believe this was a murder at this point in time. We will be keeping the public updated as we get more facts," said the police chief.

That night a woman and her young baby were walking across the bridge to go back to their house after a visit into town. Their bodies were found the next morning mangled on the banks of the river. The townspeople were in a frenzy. The police chief could not explain why two nights in a row people were killed by falling off the bridge into the river below.

The police chief was getting so many questions and complaints that he was driven mad, and tried to clear his head with a walk in the silence of the evening. When he got to the bridge a power came over him. He could not scream. He could not control his motions. With a silent scream and a look of horror on his face he sprinted toward the edge of the bridge and leaped over the edge. The next morning he was found just like the others on the banks of the river mangled by the rocks.

The remaining police force organized a group of men to go out on the bridge that night to see who or what was doing this. When the group got out onto the bridge they began to feel a change in the wind. The trees blew over. The water beneath the bridge rushed.

"Stand your ground!" yelled the leader of the group.

Screams came from the men as they fell to the ground covering their eyes, as if they had seen a sight that burned their eyes and was eating away at the goodness of their souls. Dirt blew onto the bridge so fast it stung like needles on the exposed skin. Women ran from their houses on either side of the　bridge, screaming as they ran for their bloodied husbands and sons. Then they themselves were hit with the wind. Tears turned red. The water began to rise up from its already high spring level. A wave came down the river sweeping over the bridge. The last thing the people of the bridge saw was a hooded figure jump off the bridge into the wave.

The remaining townspeople fled the town in fear. The next night the whole town burst into flames from an unknown cause. A cloud of black smoke rose from the inferno and people say the giant cloud looked almost like a hooded figure.

When people now go through the valley of empty space that used to be the small town they drive the lonely road and cross the only structure that survived the fire. An old bridge.