Over the bridge

Over The Bridge

“It was a dark and stormy night…” Edgar began. “C’mon you little twerp tell a new story! You do that one on every camping trip!” Samuel had to interject. Edgar slouched down in the corner of their homemade tent, arms crossed and lip pouted. In his attempt to fit in Edgar Poe had tried everything to impress the seven kids that surrounded him, especially Samuel. After being invited to one of Beowulf’s camping trips, which ventured so far out as he corner of his yard, Edgar new he had to get some new story material. The only problem was Edgar had never been very good at making up stories, especially scary ones.
After a long pause, one of the other boys crawled to the front of the crowd. He was a small, quiet boy with long brown hair and a small scar on his cheek. He had never volunteered to come to the front before, so as he migrated his way all the boys stopped and watched. “I’ve got a story for ya!” Ethan Frome said excitedly. He grabbed the story-telling flashlight and flicked the switch. He raised the beam of light to he tip of his chin, allowing and eerie glow to mask his face. The scar, very prominent with his illumination, seemed to catch the attention of all seven boys cramped together in front of him. Ethan smiled a near wicked grin before inhaling, “Do you fella’s see this scar on my cheek? Well, I didn’t get it from no bike wreck if that’s what you ha been thinkin. No sir, I got this from a headstone at the cemetery while I was running for my life.” He looked around his audience, “you guys don’t believe me do ya? Well I will have to tell the whole story then!” All the boys leaned in with anticipation to hear ho poor Ethan had gotten that scar on his face.
“It was a day like any other, not one of those that makes you think something bad will happen or even give a weird bubbly feeling in your stomach. Just a plain old sunny day, and I had been riding my bike through the trails in the woods. It wasn’t long before I ran out of trail, and found an exist in the thicket that lead to an old cemetery. And when I say old I mean hundreds of years old, and hadn’t been touched in probably that long. Weeds covered every inch, and the head stones seemed they would fall to pieces I you so much as dropped a feather on one. I couldn’t help but park my bike and look around since our exploring had never made it that far before.  It seemed like a whole new turf walking between the head stones. The air felt cooler, and the sun didn’t feel as warm.
I looked further into the cemetery, before taking a closer step to the big graves-stones in a far corner. It’s sad that you can tell who the rich people are, even after everyone is dead. Walking past the stones I began to realize how weird the name choices were, almost as weird as Beowulf’s here!” Ethan smiled at one of is closest friends of the bunch, and he just smiled among all the other young boy laughter that filled up the sheeted ceiling.  “Anyway, the names were weird. But something told me t make it to the really big ones in the back. So I walked on, stepping over limbs and broken pieces of concrete. Before stepping into the fenced off part that contained the rich stones I heard a sound to my left. I peered over my shoulder and stood practically face to face with an ugly monster! His teeth were yellow and rotten and he smelled of tuna sandwiches with sauerkraut. His head was misshapen, and he lacked an arm, if that is what you could call it. Huge razor sharp talons glistened at the end of each finger and this guy did not look like he was afraid to use them. His breath was so drenched with evil that it left a dark red cloud of fog every time he exhaled. It took everything I had not to scream.
I cried, “What is your name beast?” taking a few steps back for comfort, though he could probably clear the distance between us in one bounding step. He lowered his head towards my shaking body, His lips parted and I waited for a reply. “I Grendel.” He panted out, but the words brought sympathy to my eyes instead of fear. The big guy was in pain from something, and from the condition on his beaten body I would say it had to be a fight. He collapsed there in front of me, rattling the trees with a heavy thud.  I wanted to near the monster, but though he was hurt, I knew he could take me out with one swoop of that armed hand.