Flash Fiction
Black River Crossing
The snow was coming down in thick sheets when Eddie Sloan saw it.
A figure stood in the middle of County Road 14, pale in his headlights, tall and still. Eddie stomped the brakes. The truck fishtailed, tires screaming on the ice, and came to a shuddering stop.
The road was empty.
He sat breathing hard, fingers clamped on the wheel. Then he saw the prints—a single line of hoofmarks, sharp-edged in the fresh snow, leading straight down the center of the road.
Eddie climbed out, breath fogging in the freezing air. The prints were four inches long, three wide, spaced like a man’s stride. They led toward the old Black River Bridge.
He followed, boots crunching on the brittle crust. Snowflakes swirled in his headlights’ beam, and for a moment the hoofprints seemed to stretch endlessly forward, a perfect line dividing the world in two.
The Bridge
The bridge loomed, a wooden relic strung across the snow-laden black water. The hoofprints didn’t slow. They crossed the bridge, each one pressed into the snow as cleanly as the last. Halfway across, Eddie paused.
The prints continued to the center of the bridge. Then they halted.
Eddie crouched, fingers brushing the last mark. No scuff, no disturbance—just an abrupt end. Beyond it, the snow lay untouched all the way to the far end.
A low groan came from beneath the bridge, deep and wet, like water shifting under immense weight.
Eddie straightened slowly, heart pounding. The air felt wrong—too heavy, pressing against his chest.
Below
He glanced over the railing. The Black River heaved below, the surface shivering as if something vast moved just beneath the skin. For a heartbeat, shapes swam there: horns, shoulders, eyes that burned like distant coals.
The snow under his boots trembled. Hoofbeats, slow and deliberate, echoed up through the bridge’s frozen wood.
Eddie stumbled back, turned, and ran, the prints flashing past under his headlights.
They found Eddie’s truck at dawn, idling by the roadside, driver’s door torn from its hinges.
A single line of hoofprints led from the door, across the bridge, and into the river—without a single print returning.
For more Flash Fiction featuring Folk Horror.
- The Land Remembers: Aboriginal Monsters — The Bunyip - October 14, 2025
- Slavic Mythology: 4 Forest Spirits That Still Terrify Today - September 11, 2025
- The Devil’s Footprints: Black River Crossing - August 30, 2025
