The Bridge

This happened when I was just 3 years old... It happened when one of my mom's relative died and need to be bereaved the next day.

We left manila that night and started our trip... We made a left turn going to bayambang. According to my mom we entered a street with a gas station in the corner. We continued to travel that two way road... Along the way we passed seven bridges, and a kilometer of balete trees covering almost the whole sky... After a few minutes we stopped on a bridge, we didn't notice that the jeep we were riding was just a few meters from a very high fall. My dad saw a boat with people holding a gas lamp... He called them and asked for directions when suddenly the light vanished into thin air and so did the boat.

My mom decided to get help down the road, along the way they passed a group of frogs, she said it could be more than hundreds of frogs. After a few minutes of walking along rice fields, they noticed that they were being followed by a red Volkswagen; they noticed that the drivers were all wearing grey suits but had no faces at all... They didn't mind the car, after a few seconds the car vanished behind them... It's impossible for the car to just vanish because they were walking along rice fields.

That got them scared so they tried walking a little bit faster this time, after a few minutes they noticed that they are being followed by another vehicle... To their surprise, a 10 wheeler truck was travelling with them in a very narrow road; again people wearing grey suits were driving the truck. Just like what happened with the Volkswagen, the truck vanished after a few seconds.

They started to panic; they reached the end of the road and saw a house. They knocked and asked the gatekeeper if we can spend the night in their house... The gatekeeper said that the house was already full, when they peeped in the house; the people lying on the floor were just like the drivers of the car and the truck... Wearing grey suits and no faces at all!

They hurried back to the jeep so we could get out of the creepy place... We travelled the same road where we passed the bridges and the trees... Everyone was surprised; we stopped on a cliff like road... The bridges were no longer there! Five of the bridges were gone and we passed a very steep road, as if the bridge had really removed! We passed the balete trees almost lying on the floor; the last two trees were even blocking the road. So my dad's friends cleared the way... We got out of the creepy place after a few hours and reached the gas station again... We filled the jeep with gas. My dad asked the gas boy about the bridge, the boy said that the bridge was out... He pointed a very big signboard saying the bridge was washed out. A very big sign that only a blind person would not see... Funny right? None of us in the jeep saw a sign as big as the ad on billboards in edsa...

We continued our travel to pangasinan, no matter how far we tried to move away from the gas stations, in spite of the lefts and right turns that we did, we always passed the same gas station with the washed out billboard. This time we knew we were being played by "engkanto" (evil spirits/elementals). We decided to take a rest in the house of one of my dad's friends. We stayed there for the night... My dad asked the caretaker of the house about the bridge, same thing, the caretaker said that the bridge was washed out from the first bridge that we have passed...

This next part is what I can only remember because most of the time I was just sleeping... Around 3 am, my relatives were awakened by a familiar sound... Ice cream bell! Though we didn't see the vendor and the ice cream cart, we are hearing the bell and vendor cart moving outside the house... Imagine an ice cream vendor... During wee hours?

My dad decided to go home, in the morning... On our way, we stopped by a fruit stand; we asked the owner where they got the sweet fruits from. The owner said that they were from the other province. My dad asked how it was delivered there, the owner said that they passed the bridge to our surprise,

We left the stand after eating... On our way to manila, while travelling nlex (north Luzon expressway), my mom was still seeing the red Volkswagen still following us and just vanishing after reaching balintawak exit...