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The Bridge at Loys Station

By On · Add Comment · In Arts & Entertainment

written by James Rada, Jr.

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

7: The Love of Your Life

Jessica Weikert walked up next to Thomas Hamilton, who was standing in front of the Loys Station Covered Bridge staring at it.

“Who are you talking to?” she asked.

“I wish I knew.”

Thomas had met the old man on the bridge twice. The first time, Thomas had crossed the bridge at the old man’s suggestion months ago and wound up in the 1950s. This time, the man had said he could come back to 2023 if he crossed the bridge again.

It couldn’t be that simple. Thomas had crossed the bridge at least a hundred times over the past two months, and he was still in 1951. Something more was involved with getting home than simply walking across a historic covered bridge in Frederick County.

The problem was Thomas believed the old man. Fog covered the other side of Owens Creek while this side was bright and sunny, just as it had been when Thomas crossed to 1951. If he crossed now, Thomas could cross the bridge and be back in his house in a few minutes.

However, with Jessica standing at his side, he knew he couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter that she was engaged to marry George Kirkpatrick, the son of a store owner in Thurmont. Thomas didn’t want to leave her.

Jessica walked up to the bridge to get a better look at the man.

“You look familiar,” she said.

“And you are as beautiful as ever,” the man replied.

“Do I know you?”

The man smirked. Then he turned and walked back to the other side of the bridge. He faded into the fog until Jessica couldn’t see him.

She turned to Thomas. “What was that all about?”

Thomas scratched his head. “I am not really sure.” He paused. “Jessica, do you want to marry George? Do you love him?”

Jessica said nothing. She just frowned. “He’s a good man and will make a good husband.”

That hadn’t answered either of Thomas’ questions. “Do you want to marry him? Do you love him?”

“No,” she said forcefully, as if she was being made to admit something she didn’t want to.

Thomas closed his eyes and sighed.

“Then why are you going to do it?” he asked.

They sat down there next to the road and talked for the next two hours. It got tense at times, but they had a deeply personal conversation. Thomas probed for why she was going to marry George, but only came up with that she wanted to please her father. Thomas also suspected it might be that she didn’t see another option. She wasn’t going to inherit the farm. John Weikert would leave that to his son, not his oldest daughter, who had proven herself capable at running it.         Thomas told Jessica about Paula, and how she had hurt him by breaking up with him using a text message, which led to a side conversation about what smartphones and text messages were. It also led to Thomas telling Jessica about Loys Station Covered Bridge and the first time he met the old man.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said when he finished telling the story.

He nodded. “I didn’t say it did, but it’s what happened.”

“You mean, if I walk across that bridge, I’ll be 70 years in the future?”

“It doesn’t work all the time. Believe me, I tried. All I know, is that it seems to have something to do with the bridge, the fog, and the old man.”

“And you.”

“Me?”

“Well, you’re the only person this has happened to, right?”

Thomas drew back, caught off guard. “I don’t know.”

“So why didn’t you go back if you had the chance?”

Thomas looked down at the ground. Then he reached over and took her hand. When he looked up he said, “Because home is where you are.”

They married in 1952. John Weikert wasn’t pleased that his daughter chose a farm hand over a successful merchant, but he understood being in love, and he respected Thomas.

Jessica and Thomas married on Loys Station Covered Bridge on a sunny day without a fog bank in sight. No one understood why they wanted to marry on the bridge rather than a church. They knew why, and that was enough.

Over the decades, they had five children, three boys and two girls. Thomas stopped visiting the bridge as his work and family duties took over. He wasn’t sure why he had even continued visiting the bridge after he married. Did he want to see the old man again and thank him? He certainly wasn’t thinking about going across the bridge. He was hesitant to cross it, in even the best weather. He didn’t want to chance losing his family.

At some point, Thomas realized his life was overlapping when he saw his parents walking along Main Street in Thurmont one afternoon, holding the hands of a toddler. He recognized his parents from pictures he had seen of them when they were younger. It took him a moment longer to register that the toddler was him.

Thomas stared at the little boy with the curly brown hair and wondered if he should introduce himself. He decided against it. Not only would his parents think him crazy, but revealing himself might change his future (or past; he wasn’t sure how that worked). He only knew that he loved his life and didn’t want to risk changing it.

The doctors diagnosed Jessica with breast cancer in 2018. She fought it as best she could, but in the end, whether it was the drugs or the disease, she seemed to wither away right before him.

As he sat beside her bed, clutching her hand in his, she whispered, “It’s not over, Thomas. It’s just beginning.”

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to share her faith in an afterlife, but staring at her on the bed, he just couldn’t.

“You don’t see it, do you?” she asked.

“See what?”

She smiled. “Sometimes you can be so blind, but I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I know, and we will continue loving each other.” She coughed. It was a raspy sound. She lifted a frail hand and pointed to the water pitcher.

Thomas grabbed the pitcher and filled the glass. When he brought it to his wife, her eyes were closed.

“Here’s your water, Jessica.”

She didn’t stir. He stroked her cheek and then felt at her neck for a pulse. There wasn’t one.

His children told him that the funeral had been large because so many people wanted to say goodbye to their mother. Thomas had barely noticed. He had stared at the casket and felt the growing emptiness inside him.

The children did what they could to help him, and they did, but not in the ways they thought. He could see his Jessica in all their faces, and if it didn’t make him forget that she was gone, it brought him comfort that she was still around in some way.

It took months, but eventually, he started coming out of his grief. He would remember Jessica and then put that memory in a box in his mind. It was something he would be able to look back on, but it wouldn’t be ever present.

He was watching the Weather Channel one morning when he noticed the date: February 4, 2023. That date nagged at him. He knew it wasn’t one of the children’s or grandchildren’s birthdays. It definitely wasn’t his anniversary. He had never once forgotten that day.

His eyes widened. He hurried to his truck. His kids had been asking him to stop driving, but he wasn’t ready to give it up yet.

He drove out to the Loys Station Bridge Park. He climbed out of his car and walked to the bridge. Then he saw himself running down Old Frederick Road.

It’s not over, Thomas. It’s just beginning.

He walked up to himself, who was staring through the bridge at the clear skies beyond. Thomas was tempted to walk across the bridge to see Jessica again. He knew she was walking along the road just on the other side. That wasn’t what happened, though, and he would see her again.

“Hello, Thomas,” he said to his younger self.

Yes, the love of your life awaits you across the bridge.

The Bridge at Loys Station

By On · Add Comment · In Arts & Entertainment

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

written by James Rada, Jr.

6: The Decision to Cross

Surprisingly, Thomas Hamilton found it easier to accept that he was stuck in the 1950s than to accept that his boss’s daughter, Jessica Weikert, was going to marry George Kirkpatrick, the son of a store owner in Thurmont. Thomas had met the man. Not that George was mean or boring, but he wasn’t a farmer, and Jessica wanted to farm. It was in her blood, just like it was in Thomas’s. George wanted to take over his father’s store, not John Weikert’s farm.

Thomas kept working on the farm through the harvest. It was easy and hard working beside Jessica at the same time. Easy because he enjoyed talking with her, laughing and thinking about life while they shared the labor. However, it was hard knowing she left the fields to see George in the evening. Did he make her laugh? Did George know how much Jessica was tied to the land?

Thomas felt those conflicting feelings helped him decide. Since it appeared he had no way to return to 2021 and no farm in Rocky Ridge, he had no reason to remain in Thurmont. He had no life here any longer. His farm was somewhere in his future. His parents were children at this time. He was alone.

Thomas often went running after work. He wasn’t sure why since he was usually pretty tired, but the run worked different muscles in his body and got his endorphins flowing. It allowed him to familiarize himself with the new, or rather old, Rocky Ridge. He often ran by his old farm, feeling nostalgic about it.

One day, he was running near Loys Station when he saw fog on the other side of the covered bridge. He stopped and stared at the bridge. It was the exact opposite of what had happened to him two months ago, except he was standing on the clear side and looking at the fog on the other side of Owens Creek.

Thomas walked along the road until he could see through the bridge. He saw an old man standing in the middle of the bridge, a stupid thing to do in the fog. If a car came along, it would hit him before the driver could see him.

Somehow, though, Thomas didn’t think a car would come along. This was the same old man he had seen on the day he walked across the bridge and back in time.

“This is my way back, isn’t it?” Thomas asked.

“Back, yes, but not forward,” the old man said.

“What do you mean?” Thomas wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

“You fought to get Paula back after she dumped you with a text, but if you cross this bridge, you’re letting Jessica go without a second thought.” Paula Clark had been his girlfriend. They had been dating for a year when she dumped him with a text message and didn’t return his calls.

“Jessica’s engaged.”

“So? Engagements are broken.”

Thomas stepped closer to the man, who looked familiar. “Who are you?”

“Someone who made the right decisions and still got hurt. Sometimes, you have to gamble. You may not win, but if you try to understand the game, your chances are better.”

“I understand the game. If I cross this bridge, I will be home.”

The old man shook his head. “You’ll be in 2021, but you won’t be home.”

“Who are you? Are you the one making this happen?” Thomas paused. “Are you an angel?”

The old man laughed. “Does this look like heaven?”

“No. It’s Rocky Ridge.”

“Then I’m not an angel.”

“No, you’re a cryptic smartass.”

The man laughed again. “I’ve been called worse. So, are you going to cross?”

Thomas looked around. He saw the nearby farms, but he knew he was looking for something farther away. He wasn’t looking toward his old family farm where he had scared his very young grandmother when he walked in two months ago. He was looking toward the Weikert Farm where Jessica Weikert was probably out in the fields checking on crops before she got ready for a date.

“Why won’t you explain things to me?” Thomas asked.

“You’re an adult. You need to make your own decisions.”

“You said the first time we met that if I walked across the bridge, I would find the love of my life.”

“Yes.”

“I only wound up going back in time, apparently.”

“Yes.”

“So, where’s the love of my life?”

The old man gave him a look as if to say, Are you that stupid?

“Jessica?” Thomas asked. “An engaged woman who can’t wait for me to leave her farm is the love of my life? How do you know that?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

The old man shook his head. No, I think it only matters how you feel.”

Thomas hesitated. “Okay, so I like her. I like her a lot.”

“More than a girl who broke up with you via text?” the old man asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I think you know whether you should cross this bridge right now.”

“What will people think if I just disappear?”

He wasn’t sure whether he meant the people here in 1951 or those in 2022.

“I don’t know,” the old man admitted. “I can’t tell the future, and it’s still the same day here that you left.”

Movement caught Thomas’s eye. He turned and saw Jessica walking along the road towards him, but she wasn’t looking at Thomas. She was staring at the fog bank across the creek.

Could Thomas break her engagement to George? Could he really be in love with Jessica, or was he just fooling himself like he had with Paula? Jessica didn’t seem to be in love with him. Yes, she had held his hand the one time, and they had grown close enough to call each other a friend. That was a lot different from her being in love with him, though.

The love of his life. Could it be?

Thomas turned to the old man. “I want to stay and see what happens.”

The old man smiled and nodded. “I knew you weren’t an idiot.”

The Bridge at Loys Station

By On · Add Comment · In Arts & Entertainment

written by James Rada, Jr.

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

4: You Can’t Go Home Again

Thomas Hamilton was in no rush heading back to Rocky Ridge because he had no idea what he would do when he got there. All he knew was that the bridge at Loys Station was the key to him getting home. Scratch that. He was home. He needed to get back to his own time, and the bridge was the way there.

The problem was that he didn’t know how it worked. He had wound up in the 1950s simply by walking across the bridge at the wrong time.

It didn’t make sense to Thomas. He only hoped it was all part of a bad dream he was having and that he would wake up. Maybe a car had hit him while he had been jogging in the fog. He rolled his eyes. How worried must he be if he was wishing he were unconscious by the side of the road?

Until he figured out what was happening, his body still told him he needed to drink and eat. He inquired at the farms he passed whether they needed a hand. Thomas knew farming. He was a farmer, so it was work he could do. No one needed help. Some paid him for odd jobs that he did, like sharpening plow blades or chopping wood, but they were one-time jobs. Thomas wanted to find steady work in the area while he tried to sort through what was happening to him.

He finally came upon a farm along Myers Road that could use his help.

“What do you know about farming?” John Weikert asked him. John had broken his leg earlier in the week and needed help. His daughters and wife were doing their best, but they had other things to do besides work in the field all day.

“I’m a farmer,” Thomas said. “I have a degree in agriculture.”

John snorted. “My youngest has a coon-skin cap, but that doesn’t make him Davy Crockett.”

“I grew up on a farm. I’m working my way out to Western Maryland to help my brother with his farm near Grantsville.”

“I need someone to help until I get this thing off.” He slapped his cast. “I won’t hire someone only to have him leave in two days.”

“I understand, sir.” Thomas didn’t know how long it would take him to figure out what was happening at the bridge. He doubted it would be something he figured out quickly, though.

In the end, John hired Thomas. Thomas got room, board, and what Thomas assumed was a fair wage for the time. He had to adjust his thinking about money. Even expensive things in 1951 seemed cheap when he compared them to 2021 prices.

John showed him to a room in the barn that had been built for a hand to live in, although the Weikerts hadn’t used a hand regularly for years. Thomas unpacked his clothes and sat on the bed. The room was small but comfortable. It was well-lit with a bed, bureau, sink, chair, and desk. John explained that Thomas still had to use an outhouse and the claw-foot tub behind the barn for his other needs. The barn had power, but the waterline had only been run to a spigot behind the barn.

Thomas came into the house at 7 p.m. for supper. He was looking forward to having his first full meal in two days. Up to now, he had been living off what he could scrounge from farms he passed, but the fruits and vegetables weren’t always ripe.

As he walked into the kitchen, John said, “This is Thomas. He’s going to be our hand around here until I get the cast off.”

Thomas looked around at the Weikerts. John and Amelia had three children, and one of them was the young woman Thomas had frightened when he came across the bridge yesterday. Her name was Jessica. He saw by her expression that she recognized him. The Weikerts also had a 10-year-old named Nathan and a 6-year-old daughter named Emily.

As soon as Thomas smelled the sausages and vegetables on the table, his stomach growled loudly.

Amelia laughed. “Someone’s hungry.”

“I guess I am, ma’am,” Thomas said. “It smells wonderful.”

He ate dinner quickly, or as quickly as he could between answering questions from the family. He tried to keep his story as close to the truth as he could. He didn’t want to have to remember too many lies.

He woke up early the next morning and dressed in his sweat clothes. He had washed them in the sink the night before and hung them in his room to dry. They would have to serve as his work clothes until he could find something else.

When he walked into the kitchen for breakfast, Jessica laughed at him. “I thought you knew farming.”

“I do.”

“You don’t look it.”

“It’s all I have right now. I’ll buy something else when I get paid.”

Amelia laid an arm on his shoulder. “Ignore her, Thomas. She’s just mad.”

“About what?”

“She is learning she can’t run this farm by herself.”

Jessica blushed. “That’s not true,”

Thomas tried to suppress a grin. She looked like a young child who was pouting.

John gave them instructions on what he wanted to accomplish for the day. He had Thomas harvesting the corn using a Massey-Harris combine Thomas had only seen as an antique, although this model was fairly new. The children, including Jessica, much to her chagrin, picked tomatoes. John tended their roadside stand, freeing up Amelia to handle the additional work around the house that the children usually did.

It went smoothly. Thomas enjoyed driving the old combine. It also gave him time to think about his predicament.

After dinner, Thomas walked over to the Loy’s Bridge and walked back and forth across it, hoping to find a way to trigger whatever had sent him into the past. Nothing happened.

When he came across the bridge a third time, he saw Jessica standing to the side.

“What is it with you and this bridge?” she asked.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Why are you here?”

For a moment, Thomas thought she was asking why he was in the 1950s, but then he realized she meant the farm.

“I needed work,” he said.

“We don’t need your help.”

“It looks like you do. Your father can’t work in the fields, and he probably needed the help when he was healthy.”

Jessica put her hands on her hips. “It’s going to be my farm someday.”

Thomas cocked an eyebrow. “Okay.”

“Just in case you had any ideas.”

“About what?”

“About trying to take my farm.”

“Your farm? I think you have quite a few years before it becomes your farm, and even then, your father might split it between you and your brother and sister.”

“No, it will be mine. They won’t want it. I do. I can turn it into a first-class operation if my father would just listen to me. There is so much being done that is helping farmers get more from their land. I intend to grow our farm and make it larger and better.”

“It sounds like you’ll need help.”

“Not from you.”

“Why not me? What do you have against me?”

She stared at him for a few moments and then she said, “I don’t trust you. You are lying about something. You say you’re a farmer, but you don’t dress like one. You say you have a college degree, but you don’t have anything more than the clothes you’re wearing. And you keep coming to this bridge.”

Thomas was about to reply, but Jessica turned away.

And this was the woman who was supposed to be his future. It didn’t look too promising to him.

Look for what happens next in our March issue

The Bridge at Loys Station

By On · Add Comment · In Arts & Entertainment

written by James Rada, Jr.

A new serial fiction story for your enjoyment

3: Lost in the 50s

Thomas Hamilton couldn’t believe he had simply walked back in time by crossing the Loys Station Covered Bridge. It made no sense. How many times in his life had he driven, jogged, and walked across that bridge? How many times a day did other people cross that bridge? Not to mention that time travel was impossible!

He looked around Main Street in Thurmont and shook his head. This was not the Thurmont he knew. The cars were bulkier. The streets were more crowded with people, and none of the businesses were the same. Mechanicstown Park hadn’t been built yet. The lot had a small garage and gas station on it. When Thomas looked down Water Street, he could see the marquee for the Gem Theater, which he had never seen in his Thurmont.

Thomas took out his smartphone from his armband. It had power, but no signal. He had no money and identification on him because he had been jogging. The only reason he had brought his phone with him was because he had been listening to his running playlist while he exercised.

He noticed the odd looks people gave him. He wondered if it was because of the way he was dressed or the smell of dried sweat on him.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Thomas turned and saw a police officer walking along the sidewalk toward him. He looked like Andy Griffith in his uniform on The Andy Griffith Show, which now that Thomas thought about it, wasn’t even on the air yet.

“I don’t believe I know you,” the officer said. “Do you live in town?”

“No, I live out in Rocky Ridge,” Thomas said.

The officer looked him up and down. Then he sniffed. “You don’t look like a farmer.”

“I am. I’m just making a trip into town for a break.”

“I’m not sure how much the store owners and customers will appreciate you in their shops.” He pinched his nose.

Thomas frowned. “Well, that’s rude.”

“I’m just trying to head off any vagrant complaints the police might get, sir. If that happens, we’d have to ask for identification, and things could get unpleasant. I wouldn’t want to see that happen. After all, you’ve done nothing wrong… yet.”

Thomas nodded. He also didn’t want to have to produce a driver’s license to show who he was. Not only didn’t he have one, but if the police checked the address on his license, they would find someone else living there and expiration date 70 years in the future.

“Thank you, officer. I guess I should have showered and changed before I came. I’ll head home and remember to dress for the occasion next time.”

The police officer nodded. “A good idea, I think.” Then he continued walking down the street.

Thomas headed in the opposite direction. People kept staring at him. They had certainly seen sweaty people, and they wore sweat clothes from time to time, perhaps not outside in public, judging by the crowd he saw, but it wasn’t unheard of. Then he remembered his smartphone. It was in a case attached to his arm so he could run with it. He grabbed it, slid it off his arm, and stuffed it in his pocket. He couldn’t do much about his reflective vest unless he wanted to stuff it in a trash can, which he didn’t want to do.

If Thomas was going to get by until he figured out a way to get home, he needed a change of clothing and money. He might look like a beggar, but that didn’t mean people would feed him.

He turned down an alley because there was no one down there to stare at him. He needed to think, and he couldn’t do that if he felt like every eye in town was watching him. He saw laundry hanging on clotheslines behind the houses that were built along the alleys north of Main Street.

He wasn’t a thief, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He slowed his walk, studying the laundry, trying to guess the sizes as best he could. He didn’t need long johns or socks. He could get by with a pair of pants and a shirt. He would look passable with those, even if he kept wearing his running shoes.

He saw a set of clothes he thought would work. He looked around, opened the back gate, and quickly took them off the line. The pants were still damp, but they would dry. He jogged out of the yard and headed down the alley and crossing the railroad tracks. He ran into a field of corn and changed into his new clothes.

One problem solved.

The next one was more difficult. He started walking to the farms he saw to the north and east of town, asking if they needed any field help in exchange for a meal. Thomas knew farming. He was a farmer, so it was work he knew he could do. He made up a story about his own farm failing and heading to Western Maryland to help his brother with his farm.

He only wished it was true. Things would be so much easier. He could walk to Western Maryland if need be. He couldn’t walk to 2023.

He didn’t find any takers for his services that day. He did manage to snag an apple off a tree while walking away from one farm. It turned out to be his dinner for the day.

He found a place in the woods away from the roads where he bedded down for the night. Once it got dark out, he worried he might twist his ankle in an unseen hole. He ignored the smell of his dirty sweat clothes and wadded them up to use as a pillow.

It was all about the bridge, he decided. The bridge had been a tunnel through time. It had shown him a clear scene on one side while all around had been foggy. He had known something was weird, but how many people traveled over that bridge in a day? Certainly, they all didn’t travel back in time.

Also, did it only work one way? He had gone back in time when he crossed over, but he hadn’t come back to his time when he crossed back. Still, if there was a way to travel back in time, there had to be a way to travel back to his time. He just had to figure it out.

Look for what happens next in our February issue

The Bridge at Loys Station

By On · Add Comment · In Arts & Entertainment

written by James Rada, Jr.

A new serial fiction story for your enjoyment

2: Times Past

Thomas Hamilton walked across the Loy’s Station Covered Bridge, ignoring the wooden beams around him. He focused his attention on the other side of the bridge, where the sky was clear and the sun shone. It stood in stark contrast to the thick fog on the side of the bridge he had just left.

He reached the other side and shook his head. It was a cloudless summer day in Rocky Ridge. It wasn’t even overly hot. He looked across Owens Creek and saw that it was now clear. The fog had lifted in the time it took him to walk across the bridge.

He couldn’t see the old man who had encouraged him to cross the bridge and find the love of his life. How could the man have walked away so quickly that he was out of sight? Thomas looked back across the bridge, wondering if the man had followed him, but it was empty.

He shook his head. This was turning out to be an unusual day. First, his girlfriend had broken up with him via a text message. Then, he had met the old man with his message that Thomas would find the love of his life on this side of the bridge. And, finally, Thomas had seen the odd fog that had moved in quickly, stayed on one side of the creek, and disappeared just as quickly.

The woman he had seen walking across the field was closer now. She was an attractive redhead who had her hair tied up in a kerchief. She wore overalls and work boots. He had grown up in the same house his father had grown up in. He thought he knew just about everyone in the area, but he didn’t recognize this woman.

“Where did you come from?” she asked.

Thomas shrugged. “I just walked across the bridge. You had to have seen me. You were looking right at it.”

“I must not have been paying attention. It was clear and then, suddenly, you seemed to be standing in front of it.”

She looked him over and then her nose wrinkled. Thomas realized he must still be sweaty from his run.

“Sorry about that. I was running earlier.”

“Running? From what?”

“For exercise.” She looked at him like he was crazy and stepped back. “I don’t recognize you. Do you live around here?” he asked.

“All my life. You’re the one who’s not from around here.”

“Of course, I am. My name is Thomas Hamilton. I live out on Old Mill Road.”

“I know the Hamilton Farm, but not a Thomas Hamilton.” There was only one Hamilton Farm on Old Mill, and it was his family’s farm. The woman cocked her head to the side. “You don’t look like a farmer. You look like someone dumped a can of fluorescent paint on you.”

He looked down at the reflective vest he was wearing. He didn’t think it looked that unusual, and it helped protect him from getting hit when he ran.

“You should talk. You look like someone trying to imitate Rosie the Riveter.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. What’s your name?”

She raised her chin and glared at him. “I’m not sure I should say.”

Thomas shrugged.

“Whatever.” He had been crazy to give that old man any credence. This woman was the love of his life? Not likely.

He turned and walked back across the bridge. When he reached the other side, he still didn’t see the old man, but other things were different, too. The road wasn’t paved. It was macadam. And the playground in the park off the right was gone.

“What gives?”

He hadn’t thought things could get weirder. He was wrong.

He jogged back to his house to shower and change. Even the house looked different, particularly when he walked inside. All of his furniture was missing, replaced with the type of stuff he would see in an antique store. Wallpaper, not paint, covered the walls. He smelled ham cooking when he knew he had left nothing in the oven.

A woman screamed, and Thomas spun around. She had walked out of the kitchen, her face red from the heat from the oven and stove.

“What are you doing in my house?” she shouted.

“I–I live here,” Thomas said, even though he wasn’t sure of that any longer.

“You do not! This is my family’s house. Leave this instant before I call the police.”

“But this is the Hamilton Farm. I…” He was about to say “I live here” again, but while the house itself might match his home, these furnishings and the wallpaper all said someone else lived here and had for some time. Certainly, longer than the hour Thomas had been out.

“Can you…?” he started to say.

The woman ran back into the kitchen and came back with a rolling pin covered in flour. She waved it at him.

“Get out now!”

Thomas held up his hands and backed toward the door. Once he stepped out onto the porch, the woman slammed the door, and Thomas heard the lock engage.

He sighed and walked back down the driveway to the road. He headed toward MD 77, although he wasn’t sure what he would do when he got there. Something unusual was happening, but he had no idea what it was.

He walked along the road toward Rocky Ridge when a vintage truck pulled up alongside him.

“Need a lift?” the driver asked. “I’m headed to Thurmont.”

Thomas didn’t recognize the man, but he had friends in Thurmont who might help him, or worst-case scenario, that’s where his doctor’s office was located.

Thomas climbed into the truck bed, and the driver started off. A confused Thomas looked over the countryside. He recognized the landscape and many of the buildings, but others were different. It was like he was in Rocky Ridge, but not his Rocky Ridge. It became very obvious as they entered Thurmont. The two elementary schools, police station, and housing development on the east side of town were all missing. The truck pulled over to the side of the road and stopped across from the middle school, which now had a sign that said it was the high school.

The driver hopped out and said, “This is as far as I go. I have to arrange for some lumber.”

Thomas jumped out of the bed to the ground. “Thanks. I appreciate the ride.”

He walked toward the center of town. He grew more nervous with each step. This was all wrong. He stopped when he saw a sign in the window of a clothing store. “New Styles for 1951 Are In!”

Thomas staggered and had to lean against the wall. It couldn’t be, but in the back of his mind, he had been seeing the signs and ignoring them.

He was in 1951…48 years before he was born.

Look for what happens next in our January issue

The Bridge at Loys Station

By On · Add Comment · In Arts & Entertainment

written by James Rada, Jr.

A new serial fiction story for your enjoyment

1: The Crossing

Thomas Hamilton reread the text message on his smartphone. He called Paula’s number a third time, and the call joined the other two in her voicemail. He texted, “Can we talk?” He doubted it would be answered.

“I don’t want to see you anymore.” Her message earlier had been short and direct, but it made no sense to Thomas.

Paula broke up with him using a text and then ghosted him. Who does that? Didn’t he deserve an answer as to why? He could drive over to her apartment but doubted she would even answer the door.

Thomas glanced at the ring box sitting on his desk in the den. What was he to do with that? It was his grandmother’s wedding ring. He had been planning on giving it to Paula on the first anniversary of their first date next week. He didn’t see that happening now.

He pulled open a drawer in his desk and dropped the ring box inside. Then he walked back to his bedroom and changed into sweat clothes.

He went outside and started jogging down Old Mill Road to Old Frederick Road where he turned right toward Loys Station Park. He ignored his anger, sadness, and confusion and just ran. If he could exhaust himself, maybe he could ignore things for a while.

Thomas wore a reflector vest over his clothes because the shoulders were almost nonexistent on the roads around here. There wasn’t a large amount of traffic, but it only took one careless driver to put him in the hospital, or worse.

He crossed over the old Western Maryland Railroad track. He did not know who used it nowadays, only that if he wasn’t careful, it could trip him up.

He was glad he had worn his reflector vest because, as he neared Loys Station Park, it quickly grew foggy. He reached the parking lot for the playground at the park and started walking. He had run further than he planned, which was fine, but he needed to rest before he headed back to his house.

He hoped the fog would burn off soon or at least move on to somewhere he wasn’t jogging. It would only make things that much more dangerous for him.

As Thomas walked in a large circle around the park, he came upon an old man sitting on one of the stone walls that bordered the road and led up to the Loys Station Covered Bridge. The bridge was one of six covered bridges remaining in Maryland, of which three were in Frederick County. The 141-year-old Loys Station Covered Bridge spanned 90 feet over Owens Creek.

Thomas had noticed no cars in the parking lot, so the old man must have walked here and was probably waiting for the fog to lift.

The man raised a hand and waved. “Hello, Thomas.”

Thomas stopped his loop and walked over to the man. He didn’t recognize him, but he looked familiar.

“You look done in,” the man said.

Thomas nodded. “I just ran three miles.”

The old man chuckled. “You might be planning on running three miles, but you’ve only done two miles so far.”

“How do you know that? Do I know you?”

The old man cocked his head to the side. “I imagine you think you know me, but I know you a lot better.”

“Really?” Who did this man think he was? If he was a stalker, Thomas would have wished for someone prettier.

“Paula just broke up with you, didn’t she?”

Thomas’s eyes widened. “How could you know that?”

The old man grinned. “And she did it with a text. Who does that?”

“That’s what I thought.” Thomas paused. “Who are you?”

The old man stood up. “That’s not important right now. What is important is that you need to believe that you will find happiness again.”

It was easy to say, and it might even be true. Thomas didn’t feel that way right now, though. It would probably be a long time before he felt that way again.

“You didn’t deserve to be treated like that,” the old man said.

Thomas nodded. “No, I didn’t.”

“Do you want to know why she did it?”

“How would you know?”

“Because I saw it happen. Not the text you got, but I saw why she broke up with you. She was at the Ott House last night and met one of those big wigs at FEMA. He was all-right looking, I guess, but he was flashing a lot of money, and he took an interest in Paula. He was buying, and the last I saw, they were making out behind the bar and heading back to the FEMA campus.”

The old man said it clinically with no emotion, but every word cut into Thomas, and he winced from the pain. He wanted to scream for the man to stop talking, but Thomas knew the man was telling the truth. Paula liked to go to the Ott House because she had worked there a few years back. She was also very focused on making a lot of money while Thomas was happy running his family farm. It would never make him wealthy, but it made him happy.

“I know it’s hard to hear,” the old man said. “But what would you say if I told you the love of your life is on the other side of this covered bridge?”

Thomas moved closer to the stone wall and leaned over so he could look through the opening of the bridge.

On the other side, he could see a young woman walking along the sunlit road. He leaned back and looked down the side of the bridge. He couldn’t see the other side because of the fog, but what he saw looking through the bridge was clear and sunny.

“What is going on?” Thomas asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s no fog when I look through the bridge.”

The old man shrugged. “Some things can cut through the fog we see and focus our attention.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “You’re too tall to be Yoda, so don’t try.”

The old man chuckled and stepped onto the road. “I’ve told you everything you need to know.” Then he walked across the street and kept going until Thomas couldn’t see him in the fog.

Thomas climbed over the wall so that he could see more easily through the bridge. It was still clear on the other side. He could see the young woman walking across the field beyond where the road turned to the left.

He leaned over and looked down the side of the bridge. The fog was as thick as muddy water, probably even thicker on the other side of the bridge than this side.

Yet, Thomas wasn’t seeing that through the bridge. He walked across the road and looked down that side of the bridge.

Still foggy.

What was going on?

Was that woman the love of his life that the old man had been talking about? Not that he believed the crazy man, but Thomas was curious about how the fog looked from the other side.

Was it a dark wall or like a fluffy cloud that had settled on the ground?

He started across the bridge and changed his life.

Look for what happens next in our December issue