Crybaby! Crybaby!

I learned about the Weird Club from Diana. She’s my best friend from when I was living in Key West, Florida. But I’ve moved twice since then. (My mother’s a journalist and she has to move a lot because of her job. There’s nothing I hate more than moving!)

Right now, we live in Ohio in a town called Eaton, and I’m writing because I found out about something weird here.

There’s a road near me called Fudge Road. And near the end of Fudge Road is a haunted steel bridge. At least, people say it’s haunted.

They say that, a long time ago, a horrible woman threw her baby boy off the bridge and he drowned in the murky water. According to the legend, if you park your car on the bridge and you shut off your engine and headlights, and if you say, “Mama Mama Mama,” then you’ll hear the distant, muffled cry of the dead baby’s ghost.

Creepy, huh? But the weirdest part is that this isn’t the only Crybaby Bridge in Ohio!

Near Egypt Road in Salem Ohio, there is a rusty old bridge with a different tragic ghost story. In this gloomy tale, a family once had a picnic not far from the bridge. The mother and father fell asleep and the child wandered off.

When the mother woke up, she saw her baby crawling onto the bridge.

“No!” she shrieked as the child fell off the edge.

The woman raced to the bridge and dove into the water to save her child. Sadly, she failed. The mother and the baby died together. And when the father woke up and saw what happened, he screamed, ran into the woods and was never seen again.

Now, this bridge in Egypt Ohio is also called Crybaby Bridge because if you go there at night and listen very hard, you might dimly be able to hear the baby in the water, gurgling and sobbing.

And there are dozens of other bridges in Ohio with similar stories. Each one has its own twisted legend that involves the death of a baby. And every one of these haunted bridges has the same name: Crybaby Bridge.

But wait! It gets even weirder!

I phoned my friend Brian – he was my best friend from when I was living in Maryland – and I told him about the Crybaby Bridges in Ohio. I thought he’d be scared, but he started laughing.

“You have Crybaby Bridges in Ohio?” he chuckled. “I thought the only Crybaby Bridge was here in Maryland.

Brian said that there is a bridge on Governor’s Bridge Road in Prince George’s County Maryland, and it has the same legend as the Crybaby Bridge near me. But he mentioned one very bizarre exception: Brian’s Crybaby Bridge comes with a monster known as Goatman, a creature that’s half-human and half-goat!

“I hear that Goatman carries an ax!” warned Brian. “And he uses it on cars. So, if you go to Crybaby Bridge to hear the ghost baby crying, you better be really careful!”

Whew! I’m glad that the Crybaby Bridges where I live in Ohio aren’t guarded by Goatman. A sad little ghost child is scary enough for me!

So, Weird Club, I’ve become obsessed with Crybaby Bridges, and I was wondering if there were more of them out there. Is there a Crybaby Bridge near you?

 

After reading Tilly’s note, I was wondering the same thing. So, on the internet, I googled “CRYBABY BRIDGE” and I found that Crybaby Bridges are like shoe trees. They’re everywhere!

In New Jersey, there’s a Crybaby Bridge only an hour away from Basking Ridge by car. It’s in Middletown, New Jersey, on Whippoorwill Valley Road. The legends says that the baby drowned at 1 o’clock in the morning, so that’s the only time you can hear the ghost wailing. Another twist is that, if you stop on the bridge and you shut off your car, then, when you try to restart it, the motor won’t run.

Excited, I asked my father if we could take a midnight drive to check out the haunted bridge.

“OK, lemme get this straight,” answered my dad. “You want me to drive you to Middletown at 1AM so we can hear a crybaby ghost, and then maybe my car will break down?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“No way!” snapped my father.

I guess, I’ll have to keep working on him. He usually comes around, eventually.

WAAAH! WAAAH!

What’s the deal with all these Crybaby Bridges? Who would have thought there would be so many???

My aunt told me about one in Georgia. It’s near the town of Columbus on Whitesville Road, and the story is that a deranged woman drowned her two children there.

The bridge is now haunted by the ghosts of the two kids. But it’s also haunted by the ghost of the crazy woman. So, if you go there at night to hear the crybabies, don’t be surprised if a spooky woman in white comes after you!

P.S. My aunt is a skeptic. She says that some bridges make crying sounds when the wind blows against them. What do you think? Is it the wind or crying ghost babies?