Bridge Hollow Shifters: The Complete Collection

by Samantha Leal

  He had to know…

  He sat down in his tall leather chair and slid under the glass desk, taking one last sip of the whiskey and draining his tumbler before he tapped the keyboard, the monitor of the computer blaring back to life.

  He had spent so many nights alone, he had isolated himself from the world, and there was still no escaping it. He opened a search page and typed in Bridge Hollow, his fingers shaking with each tap of a key.

  His eyes scanned the page, watching the results flash ahead of him. He saw the articles, some from only hours before, with various headlines all alluding to the same things…

  MISSING HUNTERS….

  MASS ANIMAL DIE OFFS…

  STRANGE WEATHER PHENOMENA…

  And his heart beat even harder beneath his ribcage.

  “Christ,” he whispered as he rubbed his forehead and exhaled.

  He knew it wasn’t good. How could it be?

  None of this was his fault, and yet, he had to know more. He couldn’t help but wonder if any of this was relevant to him and his past…

  He quickly clicked the X at the top of the screen and closed the page. He leaned back in the chair and steepled his fingers underneath his chin. He had sat on this for almost two weeks, but now that he had seen what the internet had to offer, he knew he was going to have to react.

  His fingers grazed over the two files sitting in front of him. Two profiles of the people he was going to entrust. Ernest scanned the photographs pinned to the top of their identity documents and resumes, and his eyes stopped on the girl. He knew the man personally and had done for many years, but the girl was a stranger, someone selected for her knowledge and educational background. She was young and new to the field, recently graduated and coming with a set of fresh eyes. She didn’t need to know the reason she was truly being sent to Bridge Hollow, and she certainly didn’t need to know who she was working for.

  He reached over to the phone sitting unassumingly on his desk and pulled the receiver up to his ear, the long wire trailing down almost to his knee. It was one of the oldest things in the entire building, but he didn’t care. Why change something that would never be seen by anyone but him?

  He flipped open his Rolodex and his fingers flicked through the pages until he stopped on one and bit his lip.

  He didn’t know if he was going to regret making this call, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his life hiding up there in his gilded cage.

  The ringing drilled away in his ear, and when he heard the click on the other end of the line his breath caught in his throat.

  “Hello?” the voice sounded half asleep and dazed.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Sean, I need your full attention.”

  The voice on the other end seemed to clear its throat.

  “Yes, sir?” Sean replied, suddenly sounding a lot more awake than he had only a second before.

  “I have something I need you to do,” he said sternly. “Pack a bag and meet me at HQ.”

  “Yes, sir,” the voice replied, clipped and military like.

  He hung up the call and sighed, leaning back into his chair. The darkness seemed to be closing around him, just like the silence and sense of dread, but now, he would hopefully be setting the wheels in motion to bring him and everyone else back out into the light.

  He spun around and looked out of the window behind him, at all the bright stars twinkling in the sky, at the deep, inky blue of the heavens and at the moon shining high above. He smiled.

  This was his world, not anyone else’s.

  And he wasn’t about to give it up without a fight.

  2.

  Present Day, Bridge Hollow

  Pamela looked out the window as the world flashed by her in a haze of green, brown and blue. The train was speeding across the country toward the mountains, and even though staring so intently at the scenery around her was making her dizzy, she couldn’t help but be drawn to it.

  The carriage was crowded and stifling, and she reached for the magazine that was laid face down on the table in front of her and began to wave it back and forth in front of her face like a fan.

  She had spent the first couple of hours of the journey reading all about how to get that summer glow without actually having to sit out in the sun and expose your skin to harmful rays, she had read ten book reviews on the perfect beach reads, and she had perused articles on how to find the elusive G-Spot, all the while cringing at how predicable everything in this kind of mag was. Nothing was new and exciting any more, it was all the same stuff, recycled and churned out again and again every year.

  She kept fanning her face, and with her free hand, she reached for her sparkling water and took a sip. At least the service on the train had been decent and she hadn’t had to clash her way down to the bar cart and sit among god knows how many others trying to just pass the time and stay hydrated on what was starting to feel like a never ending trip.

  Her colleague, Sean, sat in front of her and he glanced up momentarily and caught her eye. She smiled and looked away, but he sighed and placed the file he had been reading down on the table between them.

  “I thought you might be excited rather than full of misery?” He said it with a wry smile, and she found herself rolling her eyes at him and grinning.

  She had only known Sean for a few days, but already, his humor was beginning to rub off on her slightly. He was dry and witty, and even if they were sat in an overcrowded train cabin hurtling toward The Rockies, at least he was there to crack the odd joke and keep her sane.

  “I know,” she admitted, raising her hand and lowering the magazine in the other. “I can see that I haven’t been the most enthusiastic companion.”

  Sean leaned across the table slightly and raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s an understatement,” he said, before he leaned back and opened the file again, pulling it onto his knee.

  Pamela had been casting her eyes toward the file, wondering what was inside and what information he had that she didn’t.

  Pamela had been hired by the government agency that Sean worked for only a month before, and now, she was out on her first job in the field, to investigate a series of strange environmental happenings in none other than the infamous Bridge Hollow.

  When she had interviewed for the position she hadn’t a clue what she would be doing on the job, only that they were looking for someone with as much experience as possible with the environment, geology, geography and science, and with her past degrees and PHD under her belt, Pamela had been the perfect fit.

  She had spent her whole life preparing for this moment. Working hard at school and grad school, taking unpaid internships, and pulling some serious all-nighters. Her life was her career, and now, she had finally aced it by being hired by the government and pulled straight out into the field on a somewhat secret mission. But at this moment, her mission in life was to make sure that she did the best job possible and made the agency proud.

  Sean cleared his throat and turned another page and Pamela watched him suspiciously. She wished she could see what he had in front of him, read what he was reading.

  She was second-in-command to him. With Sean being the leader and the man in charge, he would be setting out and exploring more of the scientific side of things while they were in Bridge Hollow, and Pamela would be looking more at environmental factors. She closed the magazine-fan and placed it back on the table before she opened the lid of her laptop and pressed the power button so it came brightly to life. She was still new, and she didn’t want to be seen as slacking, even if they were in the midst of one of the hottest days of the year, on a cramped train, with minimal air conditioning.

  She waited for the computer to load and looked back to the window and at the scenery on the other side. The train seemed to have slowed slightly, and she smiled as she took in the lovely fresh greens and crystal-clear blue of the skies and lakes that weaved their way through the mountains below.

  “Really beautiful, isn’t it?” Sean said, break
ing her concentration.

  She nodded and smiled.

  “Yes, it really is.”

  “Have you ever been out this way before?” he asked.

  She turned to look at him and noticed that the file had been closed and placed back in his bag. She could see a set of documents peeking out the top, all the spines a crisp white.

  “No,” she admitted. “I’ve never been to the mountains before.”

  His eyes widened slightly, and he leaned in again.

  “No way, you haven’t even been skiing?”

  “Nope,” she half laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve always been too busy working my butt off and making sure I get where I need to be with my career to be taking vacations.”

  Sean cracked a smile and shook his head.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said.

  “It’s true,” she said smugly. “If I hadn’t, then I wouldn’t be sitting here today.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and let her head lean against the side of the window. Her vision began to blur again, and she got swept up in the intense colors.

  “Well, you’re in for a treat then,” Sean said as he rose to his feet and stretched.

  She watched as he made his way down the aisle toward the doorway, clinging to the top of each seat as he passed.

  When she was alone, Pam finally let herself breathe and relax. She was trying to be professional, but at the same time, Sean was so annoying she couldn’t find it in herself not to slip into her regular girl mode and tease him a bit.

  She took another sip of her water and looked down at her watch. It was coming up close to 3pm and she knew the train was supposed to arrive in Bridge Hollow around half past. She had thirty minutes left on the sweltering train, and then, hopefully, she could disappear into this new little town and just be herself for a while before the working day began all over again and her and Sean would be back out on the job.

  When the door between the carriages slid open and she saw him coming back down the aisle, she picked up her cellphone and pretended to be busy. She scrolled through social media until she lost signal, and she realized that they were heading up higher and higher into the mountains.

  The small windows had been slid open slightly to let in some air, and the higher they climbed, the fresher it seemed to become.

  “You smell the pine?” Sean asked as he sniffed in deeply. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  Pamela raised her eyebrows and nodded before she looked back down at her phone and closed the apps.

  “What’s the plan then?” she asked as she leaned forward across the table. “Are we heading out tonight or would you rather leave it until the morning?”

  Sean reached up and ran a hand through his hair before he brought it back down and laid his arm along the full length of his bag, blocking her view of the files inside.

  “I think we rest and go out at first light,” he said, and suddenly, Sean the joker had disappeared and he was back to all business. “See what information we can gather at that time of day, and then stagger it out.”

  Pamela thought on what he was saying and nodded in agreement. He was right, if they were going to get a good cross section of what was happening in town, they were going to have to do the same tests at different times of the day, and what better place to start than at dawn…

  “Okay,” she said. “And what about getting around, do we have transport arranged or are we going on foot?”

  Sean picked up his cellphone and tapped it to life. She saw him open an email and scroll through it.

  “Transport will be there if we need it,” he said as he shut the email down and smiled up at her. “You seem nervous.”

  The change of tone took her by surprise, and she found herself lost for words.

  “This is your first time being sent out into the field,” he said genuinely. “I get it, it is a bit nerve-wracking, but I wouldn’t take it all too seriously, just do your job, gather what information you’ve been assigned to, and then, when it’s all over, we get out of here and let the other’s take over. Simple as that.”

  “Yeah…,” Pamela said as she gazed back out of the window. “I know, you’re right.”

  She saw the flicker of light in among the trees, as if the sun was catching on a pane of glass, and it was quickly followed by another. She sat forward and watched as a small smattering of log cabins came into view, followed by a long winding road, and then some other buildings. She cocked her head to one side and took it all in. Sean had been right when he said she was in for a surprise. The cabins and buildings all looked so quaint, like nothing she had seen before, and she could tell that this was just a taste, they were nowhere near the main hub of town.

  “They look so cool,” she smiled. “Like something out of a movie…”

  The cabins began to fade into the distance, and she remembered the Christmas films she used to watch when she was younger. She always loved the idea of going out to the mountains with a big family, with a mom and a dad, a brother and sister maybe. But, in reality, all Pamela had ever known was her mom. She had been raised by a strong woman, she had never known her father, and for that reason, she had all but sworn off men. She had seen the heartbreak that had come from a man leaving her and her mother behind, and she was determined that it would never happen to her. And she certainly would never put a child through it.

  It was the main reason she had focused so much on her career. She found that the more time and attention she gave to pushing forward with her education and then her work life, that she didn’t have time to even think about meeting men anyway. And she, for one, was glad of it.

  Some more cabins flashed into view and she felt a pang of want, which she quickly buried. It had been a childhood fantasy and nothing more. Now that she was in her mid-twenties, there was no way she was going to let herself be sucked back into the fairy tale ideal that was shoved down girls’ throats since the second they opened their eyes.

  There was no such thing as a prince to come and save them, and the perfect nuclear family was surely all but dead.

  She felt herself grumbling and closed her eyes.

  She couldn’t let her past keep creeping up on her like that. She had her first serious job, and just because she was going out to a mountain town, which was completely new and unfamiliar, didn’t mean she had to worry like she was.

  She glanced down at her hands crossed in her lap and smiled.

  She had already come a long way, and she had proven herself successful, now a big government agency had seen her worth too, and she was going to smash it.

  She pushed her insecurities to the side as the train glided into Bridge Hollow. This was a new chapter for her, and she was determined to enjoy every moment.

  3.

  As the private car made its way out of the train station and into the main stretch of town, Pamela couldn’t help but stare out the windows with wide eyes.

  If she had been impressed by the look of the mountains and cabins on the journey in, then the actual town itself was like that but amped up to the max. The buildings were almost like gingerbread houses from the fairy tales she had read when she was a child. They were wooden, with red and green painted windowsills, some had thatched roofs, and others were decorated with hanging baskets of multicolored flowers and twinkling lights. It reminded her so much of Christmas and Easter together, but in the middle of the summer months, and everything seemed to have the most welcoming vibe to it, that she already felt completely at home.

  She watched the people of the town conversing with each other. She saw the way they all smiled, how they walked with a spring in their step, how they all seemed to know each other. Coming from a big city, Pamela had never seen anything like this before, she was more used to avoiding eye contact and being shoved aside on the subway.

  Bridge Hollow was cute, and she was looking forward to exploring this place and learning a lot more about it.

  “Not what you were expecting?” Sean asked, clearly aware of the l
ook of delight on Pamela’s face.

  “No,” she laughed. “I guess not.”

  “The legends and rumors about this place,” Sean snorted and rolled his eyes, “I mean, they must have some real nutjobs around here desperate for this place to be a tourist destination. But I guess they have to earn a living somehow…”

  Pamela shot him an annoyed glance and leaned forward.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “Surely, there must be something behind it, no smoke without fire or whatever you want to call it.”

  Sean shrugged his shoulders and instantly looked disinterested.

  “I’m here to prove fact,” he said sternly. “I’m a scientist, not a fantasist.”

  She found herself looking completely in the other direction and rolled her eyes herself. She had heard plenty about the town of Bridge Hollow before she took the job at the agency, but since she had been assigned this task, she had looked it up even more and had been surprised by what she had found.

  There were deep legends that spanned back decades. Details online were vague, but she had found a few forums where fanatics had been discussing the ins and outs of the town, and it had sparked her interest. She liked the fact that there were so many people determined that the legends were true. She read about the sightings of strange bear like creatures, or huge wolves and other monsters lurking in the forests and mountains around town. The place had become famous for it, and the tourists had flocked there every year, all year round, to try and catch a glimpse of one of the infamous and elusive monsters. It had become so popular a legend that the town even had an annual festival where hundreds of people would gather and celebrate all things magical and mystical, of all the legends and crazy stories that surrounded those woods and the land around it. When Pamela had read about it, she couldn’t help but be drawn in and found herself wishing that she would be around to see it happen, but her assignment should be over long before the festival rolled into town, and she would just have to search for videos and pictures online to feel as if she had experienced it herself.