Windkill

The trees thinned faster than Bob expected. In the dark it almost seemed the trees were dissolving, the land clearing of all obstacles and reverting to a condition the valley enjoyed a long time ago. After the trains, he was nearly willing to believe anything.

As intriguing as the idea was to him, Bob fixed on finding his wife. The trees were something he could think about later. He concentrated on walking quickly without stumbling or getting run over by another phantom, the stalk lights on his shoulders more a hindrance than help.

Breaking from the trees, he stepped onto a tar road and saw the bridge only a few dozen yards away.

Bob’s practicality had taken a beating in the past half-hour, enough that he suspected the urgency he felt. He quickened his pace but did not follow the urge to run up the bridge, eyeing the structure intently as he neared it. The moon broke from the cover of the clouds.

A man stood on the steep incline of the concrete surface, his hands on his hips and a fierce grin suggesting bridled violence.

The surface of the bridge glowed and shimmered in the moonlight like an aurora. For a second the man standing on nothing, then the span solid and unyielding.

His boots sliding on the tar, Bob came to a halt, and he studied the man. The engineer who threw Bob off the train seemed like a Good Samaritan compared to the man standing on the bridge. Something not readily visible suggested disease, spoke of a man who could easily have been the source of the destruction in this valley through sheer sloth.

In his mind, Bob could see the man lean against a wooden box full of fist sized shells in paper batting. The man pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit the smoke. Without thought, he let the match drop into the box, then walked away; the batting catching fire in a few seconds. As he walked to the other end of a platform, the box burst to flames stacked upon dozens of similar boxes.

Flames expanded to more boxes until the entire stack was ablaze. Then the man smelled the smoke. He turned to the danger in time to be the first person to die in this valley.

Bob snapped back to the bridge, the man still standing only a few yards away with a scowl on his face. As if he had read Bob’s thoughts, the man advanced on him, his hands balling to fists held low at his sides.

While not typically a fighter, Bob could feel the menace coming from the man and crouched lower while bringing his arms up to the ready, his hands gripped into tight fists.

The stranger dove at Bob, who tensed for the impact, shocked to see the man lose substance and become nothing more than a pale blue blur that hit his chest.

Flying backward from the impact, Bob was unconscious before he hit the ground, his head cracking against the tar surface of the road. He lay immobile, the camera on his chest knocked askew and the image of Bob’s chin dominating the picture.

The phantom slipped away to the north, a blur of color dodging through the trees and out of sight.