The Recording
Rachel's hands trembled as she pressed play on the ancient cassette player. The machine whirred, spitting out garbled static before a voice cut through—young, male, terrified.
"—don't know where I am. It's dark. The bridge isn't—" A wet crunch, then screaming.
Jake's stomach twisted. That wasn't Liam. But it sounded just like him.
The recording dissolved into noise—a deep, rhythmic thudding, like footsteps too heavy for a man. Then, underneath it all, a whisper:
"Come closer."
Rachel slammed the stop button. The silence that followed was worse than the screams.
"That was Dean Whittaker," she said quietly. "Went missing in '99. His brother left this tape running when he went looking for him." She ejected the cassette, her fingers brushing over the handwritten label: "DON'T LISTEN ALONE."
Jake's throat felt lined with sand. "How many of these do you have?"
Rachel didn't answer. Instead, she pulled out a map, spreading it across the hood of her car. Red X's marked bridges across three states.
"All these places have the same story," she said. "A big man under the bridge. Kids disappearing. And this—" She tapped Black Hollow. "—is where it started."
Jake stared at the map. Liam's last text flashed in his mind:
"It's not just here. It's everywhere."
Liam's Car
The tow yard smelled of oil and decay. Liam's beat-up Honda sat in the back, its driver's door still slightly ajar, as if he'd just stepped out.
Jake forced it open. The interior reeked of stale sweat and something sour—like spoiled meat. The seats were strewn with fast-food wrappers and energy drinks. Normal kid stuff.
Then Jake saw the notebook.
Wedged under the passenger seat, its pages were filled with Liam's messy scrawl. Jake flipped it open, his pulse kicking as he read:
"Met a guy at the gas station who said his cousin vanished near the Milltown trestle. Same story—something big under the bridge. Took his cousin in the middle of the damn day."
Page after page, Liam had been tracking the disappearances. Names. Dates. Locations.
And at the very back, a single sentence, underlined three times:
"IT FOLLOWS YOU HOME."
Rachel leaned over his shoulder. "He knew."
A rustle came from outside.
Jake's head snapped up. The yard was empty—just rows of dead cars under flickering floodlights. But for a second, he could've sworn something tall moved between them.
The Folklorist
Dr. Eleanor Voss's office was a cluttered nest of books and bones. The university's resident folklorist, she'd spent thirty years studying the Big Man legend.
Now, she adjusted her glasses, peering at Liam's notes. "Your brother was right. It's not confined to one location." She pulled a brittle newspaper from a drawer. "The earliest account I've found is from 1882. A lumberjack reported seeing a 'giant black figure' under a railway bridge in Michigan. The next morning, his crew found his boots… with his feet still inside."
Jake's skin crawled. "So what is it? Some kind of spirit?"
Voss hesitated. "I think it's older than that. There are similar entities in global folklore—the Nalusa Falaya of Choctaw legend, the Bridge Walker of Scottish lore. But this one?" She tapped Liam's notebook. "It's learning. Early accounts describe a silent stalker. Now, it whispers. It mimics voices."
Rachel stiffened. "You think it's getting stronger?"
Voss's smile was grim. "I think it's getting hungrier."
A phone buzzed. Jake pulled out his own—no signal.
Then whose phone was ringing?
The sound came from Voss's desk drawer. She yanked it open, revealing a cracked Nokia. The caller ID read: "UNKNOWN".
Voss went pale. "That's impossible. This was my assistant's phone. He…" Her voice cracked. "He vanished last month. Near the bridge."
Jake grabbed the phone. Answered it.
Static. Then, faint but unmistakable:
"Jake?"
Liam's voice.
Jake's blood turned to ice.
The line went dead.
The Second Tape
Back at the motel, Rachel played the message on speaker. Over and over, they listened to that single word—"Jake"—until the syllables dissolved into nonsense.
"It's him," Jake said hoarsely.
Rachel shook her head. "No. It's imitating him. Voss said it learns voices." She rewound the tape. "But if it's using Liam's, that means…"
It's got him alive.
Jake stood abruptly, chair screeching. "We're going back to the bridge. Tonight."
Rachel grabbed his arm. "And do what? We don't even know what it is!"
Jake wrenched free. "I don't care. If Liam's under there—"
A knock at the door.
They froze.
Three slow, heavy raps. Not on the door—low down, near the base. Like something crouching.
Rachel's hand flew to her recorder. Jake reached for the lamp, yanking its cord from the wall. The room plunged into darkness.
Silence.
Then, from right outside, a wet, rattling breath.
And a whisper:
"Rachel… let me in."
Dean Whittaker's voice.
What Waits Beneath
They didn't sleep.
At dawn, Jake drove to the bridge alone, ignoring Rachel's protests. The morning mist clung to the river like cobwebs.
He stepped onto the railroad ties, the wood groaning under his weight. Below, the Black River churned, its surface oily and still.
"Liam!" His shout echoed, swallowed by the fog.
No answer.
Then—a splash.
Jake spun. Something broke the water's surface. A hand?
He scrambled down the embankment, boots sinking into the muck. The riverbank was littered with debris—beer cans, rotting sneakers. And half-buried in the mud, a phone.
Liam's.
Jake wiped the sludge from the screen. It powered on, displaying a single video.
He pressed play.
The footage was shaky, dark. Liam's voice, panting: "It's not under the bridge. It is the bridge. The beams—they're bones—"
The camera tilted up. The underside of the bridge wasn't steel.
It was ribs.
Then something lunged at the lens.
The video cut to black.
Jake's head snapped up. Above him, the bridge creaked.
Something was moving across it.
Something big.