Bridge Crossing

Photo credit: oatsy40

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I wake in pain, my eyes bandaged, to a voice.

“Kyavak, is that you?  Fates be kind, you found me.”

*    *    *

We’d planned to meet by the bridge. Surely by day, the woods would be safer.

While I waited, a hunched, rag-covered peddler lumbered nearer.  Just when I wondered why I hadn’t passed him earlier, the hood fell back. Its face was grotesque, inhuman, like half-melted wax.  It sprang.

*    *    *

“Kyavak?”

My arm’s stuck.  No, bound.  I’m swaddled, neck to toe.

Something exhales close by, rotten, fetid.  I gag.  Moist flesh covers my mouth, sucks in.

With my last breath, I scream.

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Word count: 100.  Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers challenge.  Big thanks to our hostess, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.  See below for the original photo prompt, and click here to read the other stories, or join in with your own!

Photo © Peter Abbey

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