The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge Read Online Free

Creek?”
    Mrs. Zimmermann looked at her sharply, and Uncle Jonathan, who was putting the hamper in the trunk of his big old car, froze. He turned slowly around. “That’s a strange idea, Rose Rita! What put it into your head?”
    With an innocent smile, Rose Rita said, “I just wonderedwhat the new bridge is like, that’s all. And if they’re taking down the old one.”
    Uncle Jonathan exchanged a look with Mrs. Zimmermann. To Lewis it seemed to be a dark look, as if Uncle Jonathan were asking a question without speaking aloud. Mrs. Zimmermann gave him a quick, short nod, really just a downward jerk of her chin.
    â€œSure, why not?” Uncle Jonathan asked in a hearty voice. “We can take Twelve Mile Road over to Wilder Creek Road. I haven’t been out that way lately myself. We might as well see how the construction is going.”
    Lewis opened the door for Rose Rita, and as she started to get in the car, he whispered, “What’s the big idea?”
    â€œJust checking up,” Rose Rita whispered back. “We’ll watch your uncle and Mrs. Zimmermann. If something is wrong, those two will know it!”
    Lewis swallowed hard, but he climbed into the backseat beside Rose Rita. Maybe it would be better to know than to remain in an agony of uncertainty. They left the cottage, and after a while, Jonathan took a little back road. It wasn’t even paved, just covered with loose gravel that crunched and popped under the old car’s big balloon tires. Mrs. Zimmermann said, “I thought we were heading for Twelve Mile Road.”
    â€œShortcut,” said Uncle Jonathan with a grunt. For some minutes the car moved over the gravel, traveling slowly. Looking out his window, Lewis saw some pretty wild land, overgrown pastures, woods that seemed to have run riot with thick growths of thorny brush, andhere and there, an abandoned farmhouse or two. Jonathan slowed the car to a crawl.
    â€œLooks like there’s been a forest fire,” said Rose Rita.
    Lewis felt his heart thud. Off to the right, a big patch of ground, several acres at least, was dead. The trees were leafless, the bark crumbling off their trunks. Their branches and twigs seemed to claw up at the sky in desperation, as if the trees had tried frantically to escape before they died. The stubble on the ground lay gray and lifeless. A farmhouse near the center of this desolate land didn’t look burned, but it was ruined. Its rusty red tin roof had fallen in, and the windows gaped dark and empty, like the eye sockets of a skull. Lewis wrinkled his nose. The place had a sickening smell, faintly sweet but rotten too, with a strong, bitter tinge of mildew. He knew with every ounce of his being that some evil thing had visited this patch of barren earth.
    â€œJonathan,” said Mrs. Zimmermann in a testy voice, “I think we could safely go a little faster than this.”
    Jonathan put his foot on the accelerator, and the car rolled away from the blasted farm. The trees began to have leaves again, and soon everything looked normal. Deserted, but normal. Then the gravel road led onto Twelve Mile Road, which was paved with asphalt. They turned, and before very long they reached the spot that Lewis still saw sometimes in his nightmares. A rusty Civil War cannon stood in a grassy triangular park. An old white country church with dusty stained-glass windows was on one side of the road, and across from it stood a general store with a green SALADA sign in itswindow. This was where Jonathan had made a desperate screeching turn that night when Lewis was only ten and the ghost of Mrs. Izard had been pursuing them in a deadly race.
    The car was on Wilder Creek Road now, heading toward New Zebedee. No one said anything as the road wound its way over hills and past farms. At last they came to the top of a high hill, and below them Lewis could see Wilder Creek winding in the afternoon sunlight. To the left, the old