The burnt man came to with a start, air flooding his lungs as if he were emerging from under water.  The lag time between sleep and waking was nil, his mind engaged and ready to begin what had by now become a familiar process, for even with all his knowledge of what was coming—all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again—, he was incapable of avoiding even a single step, starting with the room. Read the rest of this entry »

CHAPTER TWENTY

The tinny song was repeating by the time Bridge determined its tune was emanating from him.  After that, the process whereby he retrieved the phone from his coat pocket was lengthy and arduous.  He was in need of fingers, which forced him to swap his lighter from his left hand to the right, balancing it in the center of the wide, flat stone.  Only then could he pull out Rook’s cell and identify the caller. Read the rest of this entry »

My apologies for the delay, but the publication date for the season two finale of BRIDGE will have to wait a week.  If push came to shove, I could probably finish it by the due date, but I’d prefer to take the extra time and get it right.  I still have a lot of loose ends to wrap up before the project goes on hiatus again.  The upside is that chapter twenty should be a substantial one.

See you for the big finish on Wednesday, May 9th.  Promise.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

By the eighth Mississippi, Bridge had his map back in hand and a good idea of where he was headed.  It must have been a long walk from the cemetery to The Bethany for a man who’d been forced to vacate his own grave, but in the van it was a short ride from their current location to the outskirts of the city.  The hope in making the trip was to find something—anything—at the gravesite that would point him forward in the investigation.  Between himself and the cat, they had killed off all other viable leads. Read the rest of this entry »

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Silence was a third passenger in the vehicle. Read the rest of this entry »

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sirens wailed in the distance.  Someone must have called the cops.  There were numerous apartment buildings along this street, all of which would have a perfect view of the goings-on below.  Had they simply heard a commotion or witnessed actual bloodshed?  The results were the same either way.  Bridge intended to be long gone by the time the first squad car arrived on the scene.  He wasn’t one for answering questions, especially when the first question asked would be How did this guy happen to lose his skeleton? Read the rest of this entry »

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The possibility existed that Mullet knew nothing of the symbiotic relationship between Bridge and Spade.  He may have had no clue that, without the cat, the man he was facing off against was little more than just that—a man—, and the kick signified only a deep-seated hatred of cats.  Whatever the case, from here on out, Bridge was on his own. Read the rest of this entry »

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Peering into the empty elevator shaft, it was difficult not to at least imagine the prospect of tossing Rook’s body down into the darkness.  Despite the fact that the man’s fingers remained animated even after being severed from his body, Bridge was convinced that even they would cease to function once the killer plummetted fourteen stories. Read the rest of this entry »

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As always, the duality that came from channeling Polly gave Bridge a headache.  Or, in this case, worsened the one he already had.  Most humans—himself included—had difficulty maintaining a single point of focus, much less two, but here he was.  And there he was as well.  On the physical plane, he was seated in a chair in his office, gazing into the eyes of a dead man.  At the same time, his body was also floating weightlessly in space, surrounded on all sides by tiny flickering lights, hovering like fireflies. Read the rest of this entry »

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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