Covered Bridges

You likely hear a few of these all the time. Stuff that people claim to have happen to them. Bits of weirdness that in the end means nothing at all. Just a random thing that never goes anywhere, I know I've heard more than my share of such stories over the years. I tell about something weird I heard and everyone comes out with whatever weird unexplained thing they have. Usually they say it was UFOs, or Ghosts or some such. I don't make such claims with what happened to me, but I thought I might write down this story as a record of a small event that happened to me a couple years ago...

I was living in a town in Pennsylvania near the border by the Poconos. There was a park there, many parks really, that all sat around a little driving tour one could take to all the covered bridges in the area. I liked driving through this tour as many of the bridges are still in use today.

There was this one Bridge that use to let people drive through but a truck a few years before ruined the supports and it could not handle more weight than walking traffic anymore. So they closed off the two sides with concrete posts that would not allow anything heavier than a peddled bicycle a crossed. On one side sits a very old house, one of the oldest in the area. It was always very cool there, even in the heat of summer. I liked to go there to sit in the shade of the house and cool off.

One day it was very late summer into fall when we had an unusually warm day for the season that by this point normally starts to turn cool. I had gone to the old house and enjoyed the shade. Watched people crossing the bridge and heading off down the trail that followed the river.

After awhile I got up and started a crossed the bridge as I always had. My car was parked in the lot on the other side. I liked looking at the old timbers and staring out the slit windows at the river. This time as I crossed, there was no one else on the bridge when I heard the sounds of a baby bird in distress. It was very late in the season for baby birds, but I started looking for the source of the sound. Going through the bridge the sound grew louder.

Then beneath a rafter about at the middle of the bridge I could hear the sound, right on top of me. A little bird peeking franticly for help. I looked up at the source and it suddenly stopped. Cut off like someone had hit stop on a recorder.

There was no bird, at least, not a live one. Nailed to the rafter was a small mummified body of a sightless featherless baby bird. Nailed to the rafter by one rusty nail through its little wings.

I ran a crossed to the other side, and at the gift shop told the people about my grizzly find. They were horrified, and said it would be removed immanently.

But the lady I had spoke too, had also seemed very scared.

To this day, I still do not know why, but sometimes, the cries of that little bird, I can still hear them, and I don’t even live near that town anymore.