The Accidental Apparition

This happened in the late 1930s when not many people had autos. You'd gather a lot of people together and drive to parties or dances. This particular night, a group of teens went to a party at the Grange Hall over at Gratis in Butler County. Speeding home, they missed a curve and hit the side of the Brubaker Bridge over Sams Run Creek.

It was the middle of the night, in the middle of the open country. No one saw or heard the accident. It was only discovered by a neighbor who had come out with a lantern to check his restless livestock. Se saw dark objects lying near to the bridge and found the smashed are and bodies all over his field.

He ran to his house and his wife ran to the neighbors' house for the phone. The ambulance came from the funeral home where it also served as the hearse. the farmer set up lanterns for the undertaker's men and they carted away twelve bodies.

The funeral was the talk of the county. The farmer and his wife had nightmares for months. Coming home from a Grange meeting a few nights later, their car got as far as the middle of the bridge when its lights went out and the motor died.

The farmer and his wife heard a sharp "rap rap rap:--13 raps in all--on the hood and windshield of the car. Then came a hissing sound--shhhhhh--like rushing water or wind. After only a few seconds, the lights came back on the motor began to run again. They drove off home at top speed. Later this same thing happened to different people, and everybody began to wonder.

Then word came that a boy was missing; that there should have been another body. they'd missed his corpse the first time because his only sister said sometimes he didn't come home for days. And in the gruesome darkness of the field, nobody really knew how many bodies to look for. The searchers hunted all along the creek, but they couldn't find the body. To this day, they've never found it.

And to this day Brubaker Bridge is not a place to drive after dark. First your engine will die and then you'll hear the raps and the hissing sound. They thumpings and the hissing noises are the boy trying to get attention, to have his body found and decently buried. He drums with the stumps of his wrists because the mice have eaten away his fingers and carried the bones down their holes. And he hisses because the crows have torn out his tongue . . .