Imagining the ultimate monster

But just imagine if there was a bridge that didn’t just passively wait for distraught and despondent victims to offer up their lives upon its span…. What if there was a bridge that would actively seek out and claim its prey? Of course, thankfully, such a dreadful horror is only the provenance of fiction. But what if something like that actually existed? When I was a kid there was this TV show called The Dark Side. During the opening credits the narrator, backed up by eerie music, said something to the effect of “Beyond the sunlit world of reality there lurks a dark side…” And then there was the venerable classic The Twilight Zone, which was before my time but was still in reruns when I was growing up. In the vein of such horror anthologies, I can just picture an epic bridge that is a totally sick combination of some of the worst offenders in the rogue’s gallery that I’ve already mentioned. Imagine this nightmare bridge possessing the fearsome reputation of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the body count of the Golden Gate and the horrific history of the Sunshine Skyway. Add to that the New River Gorge Bridge’s way of drawing victims from far and wide, and the impressive height and scale of the yet to be built replacement Key Bridge. What might this ultimate metal monster look like? I picture it as being of the weird and sometimes creepy looking kind – a cable stayed bridge. Neither the Delaware monster or the Bay Bridge are really creepy looking, in my opinion anyway, so this mega monster wouldn’t be a suspension bridge. The Key Bridge was rather sinister looking in its own way, so my horror story monster could possibly be a truss bridge. The Talmadge Bridge in Savannah wasn’t really creepy; rather, it was just strange looking. But the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is definitely ultra creepy, so my monster would end bearing a strong resemblance to it. This evil structure would be taller, bigger and much more intimidating looking.

So now that I have described the ultimate terror among scary bridges, where might this monster call home? I can see it serving as a vital link between two locations, not unlike the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Yes, it is possible to reach the eastern shore of Maryland by driving across land, but it is far more time consuming and requires going way out of one’s way to avoid the bridge. My monster would span between a mainland, and then a geographical area isolated by water, like a peninsula or possibly an island. This ultimate monster would link these two areas together and enable travel and commerce to and from each side. This previously isolated location would feature a city, possibly a summer resort, not unlike Ocean City or the Jersey shore. A city that would be flooded with tourists all summer long, but also have some locals that would call it home year round. This bridge from Hell would be the main way (or perhaps only way) in which to access this city. And it could also be the only way out of this seaside town…