Last summer when I was fifteen, I had the scariest experience of my life. It all started with a game called manhunt. I was playing with kids in my neighborhood. We had just looked for the other team and we were hiding so me and my friends Sam and Mikayla decided to hide together, but we didn't know where. Then Sam came up with the idea to hide across the bridge.

I was hesitant about this because Id always been scared of the old bridge, but I went with the idea. We started heading towards it and we could hear the other team counting, 54, 53, 52, 51.... fading with every couple of steps I took. I could feel the dew on the grass gather up on the sides of my shoes once we cut through the woods off of the trail. When we broke through to the path that boarded the marsh I was blasted with the swampy, salty smell and the feeling of heavy air weighing down my lungs. We ran further down the path until we reached the edge of the bridge. I looked around in fear of a seeker that may have followed us, but the tree line was too thick.

Since it was about 10:00 p.m. and dark, I couldn't see more than a fifteen foot circumference around me. The bridge was old and with every step you could feel it flex and sway due to the weak splintered antique wood it was made of, but apparently we weren't alone. We heard moaning and what I could make out to be a man mumbling. The moaning was a sharp and obnoxious noise. By this time we were halfway across.The moment we heard the noise we all paused and looked at each other. It stopped. Then continued and I felt my heart stop and my stomach drop.

Finally, Sam was brave enough to look over the edge and when he did, I could see his body freeze. He turned his head slowly and stared at me. He nodded his head as if motioning for me to come and look myself and when I peered over the railing there was a man who I believe was homeless staggering around in a such way as though he was intoxicated. He had a gray beard and was wearing a beige, beat up jacket and jeans with stains from paint on them. He had a satchel, but I couldn't tell what color it was. Mikayla tiptoed over and did the same thing as I did. She froze the moment she saw him. After we all saw him we were terrified and began lightly jogging back towards the paths, but once we started doing this he heard us. I looked back and saw him stop, turn, and look right up at us.

As he looked he singled me out and was staring as if we knew me. Then everything went quiet. I was so scared I couldn't hear or move. Then he sharply shot his head to the edge of the marsh and turned his raggedy body and jogged with high knees to avoid the deep marsh mud. When he started toward the shore I was kicked out of my trance and I started back up again to where Sam and Mikayla were about to reach. They were at the end of the bridge and I was about thirty feet behind them.



When I was running, I had a fear of the advantage he had with his angle and there was a chance that we'd meet right at the end. When I realized this I felt a sudden burst of adrenaline and could feel myself starting to speed up, and I'm pretty sure to this day that is the fastest I've ever run in my life. At the last ten feet of the bridge, he was almost right under me and I could hear his grunts. When I was on the last two feet of it, I was terrified because I lost all sight of him. I also couldn't hear his grunts or his occasional swears. This felt like when you run up the stairs when it's dark because you feel like something's going to grab you from behind. Then I was finally off the bridge, but I still couldn't see or hear when he was.

I took a right to head down the shoreline and when I did this I heard him burst through a set of bushes about five feet behind me and scream f*** but I just kept running and I met up with Sam and Mikayla behind some trees on a hill and we sat there and waited to see if he kept on following us. After about fifteen minutes of waiting there was no sign of him. When we felt safe and like he wasn't going to come, we got up and ran back up to the rest of the kids that were playing.

We tried to tell them what happened, but they didn't believe it and some of the older kids we were playing with went down to the bridge and came back. They said they saw nothing, and ever since that day I refuse to cross it alone or at night, and even when I cross it during the day with other people I think about what happened.