“He came back later. I heard he was fine.”
“He’s such a bad cat.” Sarah shook her head. “I feel just awful for Maggie. Do you think anyone believes she saw the Mothman?”
“Her parents didn’t. They tried to convince her she saw a large bird or something.”
“What about Ryan and Caden?”
Ryan was Maggie’s other brother. Only a year older than the three of them, they often hung out with him and his friends. Fun and kind of goofy, he was unlike Caden, who Eve thought as dreamy and mysterious as an ancient knight.
“She said Ryan believes her, but Caden thinks she’s overreacting.”
“Well, he is eighteen.” Sarah shrugged. “He’s one of them. An adult.”
How could she have a crush on an adult? “My mom was talking to Mrs. Flynn earlier, and she said Caden was going to try to get Maggie to go Christmas shopping tonight. You know how she’s wanted to visit that new department store in Gallipolis? He thought that might get her out of the house.”
“I hope it worked.”
“Me, too.” Eve’s stomach did a queasy flip-flop. Did she really hope so? It would mean Caden and Maggie would be on the Silver Bridge. “It’s getting near dinner time. If it worked, they’re probably headed back right now.” Like my dad. “Do you notice all the birds?”
Sarah eyed the sky. “Yeah. Weird, isn’t it?”
More horns from the stalled traffic.
“Something’s wrong.” She started walking faster, bypassing the Santa who waved shoppers into the five-and-dime with a hearty “ho-ho-ho.” As the doors opened and closed, the cheerful notes of “Jingle Bells” carried onto the street, spurring her into a jog.
“Eve, wait.” Sarah hurried to catch up. “What’s wrong with you?”
“The traffic.” Goose bumps broke out on the back of her neck. “Look.” She’d never seen it stacked up like this before. Friday nights were always busy, especially around rush hour, but even with the addition of Christmas shoppers, there were far too many cars.
The pungent tang of exhaust snarled with the rumble of idling motors as they neared the entrance for the bridge. From her vantage point on the sidewalk, she spied the tall rocker towers erected against the sky. The sun had yet to set, the fiery ball ebbing toward the horizon, painting the silver framework with splashes of tangerine and copper.
“The light’s green,” Sarah said at her side. “Why aren’t they moving?”
Eve glanced at the traffic signal just as it cycled to yellow, then red. Not a single car had inched forward. “The light must be out on the Ohio side. Everything’s backed up.”
“So people are going to be stuck on the bridge.”
Like her father. Like Maggie and Caden.
It shouldn’t have bothered her, but an unsettled feeling gnawed at the pit of her stomach. The Silver Bridge defined Point Pleasant, much like the Parrish Hotel. Eve had been on the bridge once when the rocker towers swayed slightly, but her dad had told her they were designed to be flexible, and she shouldn’t be afraid. The towers moved with suspension chains to help reduce strain on the bridge piers. She didn’t understand the construction, but knew the people of Point Pleasant were inordinately proud of their beloved Silver Bridge.
Sarah shook her head, apparently deciding they’d seen all there was of interest. “Hey, we missed the poster for The Graduate. Let’s go back.”
Eve nodded, trying to mask her uneasiness. “Okay. If my dad’s on the bridge, he’s going to be stuck in traffic anyway.”
She started to turn from the sight when a deafening boom split the air like thunder. A woman’s shrill scream knifed deeply into her bones. Within seconds, the terrified shriek was echoed by a dozen more voices raised in horror. Those stalled in traffic poured from their vehicles. On the ramp for the Silver Bridge, reverse lights flashed as cars tried to back away from the traffic signal amid a mad chorus of blaring horns.
“Oh!” Sarah shrieked. “Oh, no. No, no, no!”
Her friend lurched forward, rushing toward the bridge, and Eve jerked in her wake as if pulled by an invisible string. A sob built in her chest. It wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening! But even before her gaze fell on the rocker towers looming above the Silver Bridge, she understood the horrified screams, the frenzied bleat of car horns, the chaotic cries of starlings wheeling overhead.
As if trapped in a slow motion bubble, the solid framework twisted sickeningly above a bridge crippled with stalled traffic. Christmas shoppers, truckers, workers returning at the end of the day, even visitors crossing from state to state. How many lives were clustered in that frozen string of cars? Her father. Her friend. Caden.
“Daddy.” The name was a pitiful squeak, pushed past the lump in her throat. She lurched another step, vaguely conscious of people swarming past her. They came from cars and stores, from traffic that had stopped haphazardly on Main Street. Screams and voices that made no sense. Birds shrieked above her. Somewhere in the background “Jingle Bells” still played through the open doors of the five-and-dime. Even the suited Santa raced past, waving and hollering for people to get off the entrance ramp.
A scream built in her lungs. Someone yelled for police, someone else for an ambulance. Three steps ahead of her, a woman huddled on the street, hugging a small child to her chest. From the look of the open car door behind her, she had been on the ramp but managed to scramble free, abandoning a brown station wagon. Both the woman and the child were sobbing.
No more than thirty seconds had passed, Eve was sure. Why couldn’t she scream? Why couldn’t she look away from the twisting rocker towers? In the span of a single heartbeat, they collapsed, the entire bridge folding like a mammoth deck of cards. A heap of metal, steel, and headlights plummeted into the Ohio River.
Eve stumbled to her knees, the scream in her chest ripped lose in a mournful wail.
In little more than sixty seconds, the Silver Bridge was gone, claiming the lives of those she loved.
Chapter 1
June, 1982
Point Pleasant, West Virginia