The Massacre at Crybaby Bridge: An Oral History

I was in preschool when it happened. I wouldn’t hear about it until I was much older, though. I suppose they kept it from us back in those days, and rightfully so. Who in their right mind would expose a young child to such a story?

Still, there was only so much the adults could do and as I came of age I heard about some of the occurrences of that terrible night. It was in junior high where I first heard about the death and destruction, the grief and gore. It was always worse around Halloween and every version I heard of the story seemed to be different. In some versions the killer wielded a chainsaw, in others a machete. He wore a mask or didn’t. The body count changed frequently. The causes of death, too. He had run over a guy with a brush hog, fertilizing a pasture with him. He strung a girl’s guts around a tree like tinsel on a Christmas tree.