“Grandpa we can see you! Don’t scare us again!”

Frank yelled across the river, quite frankly annoyed with ol’ pops. Last time grandpa did it—he and Mary both landed in the pond, shivering.

“Come’on we talked about this before,”

He yelled again, noticing that grandpa didn’t respond.

No answer again. It was as if he was looking at him and Mary, but ignoring them? Or maybe he didn’t recognize their faces?

They were in fact a bit away from grandpa—just about to cross the river.

And grandpa’s vision indeed was a little ‘rusty’.

Frank grabbed Mary’s hand, a little concerned. A little frightened to say the least. But it was only grandpa across the river by their house. Right? Nothing to be afraid of.

The boards on the old bridge screeched as if screaming to turn back. The fog was thick, almost chokingly thick, and it was hard to get around.

“Are you sure that’s him?”

Mary said after long deadly silence, noticing the uncertainty written all over Frank’s face.

“Well yea, who else could it be?”

Frank smirked, pushing away the idea that Mary was proposing.

“But it doesn’t really look like gramps…”

She let out a shiver.

He looked up again, and it really didn’t look like the old grandpa they lived with since they where little.

The granfather they knew stood proudly, his back straight against the air, pretty athletic for someone his age, with a short white beard and that same smell of peppermint and oak tree.

He loved to goof around, play jokes, jumpscare them, and fish.

This one though, the one across the river—was slouched down. Almost touching the ground. Horrifyingly skinny and bony. Definitely not grampa they knew.

“Grandpa?” Frank’s hesitant voice echoed across the river, as him and Mary came closer and closer each step to the figure in front of them.

“I don’t know, Frank, maybe we should call him first? What if it’s, you know who—“

“Oh come on—it’s not that. Not them. Plus, even if we wanted to call, gramps lost his phone, remember?”

Frank gulped down a chunk of air. He tightened his grip on Mary’s hand, tiny drops of sweat rolling down his face.

The figure across the bridge slowly raised his hand.

Frank froze. Mary froze.

The figure twitched, then it staggered forward, its limbs located in very unnatural positions. It creaked and snapped its bones, like dry branches snapping in winter.

“Frank—RUN!”

Mary screamed.

The boards beneath their feet screeched even louder, as the two ran back across the bridge.

The figure followed, slowly, as if unsure, and then it sprinted. Sprinted towards Mary and Frank.

———

Grandfather woke up to the sound of the kettle shrieking, and the pop of the bacon frying.

There was a faint scream in the distance. But he was too tired to pay any more attention to it. His head thrubbed, pulsing under his wrinkled skin, and his eyes felt swollen.

He looked around to examine the room, but the only thing he could find was—just his room.

“That was a nightmare”

After a while of sitting up on his bed, he sighed, relieved it was all just a bad dream.

Or was it?