The Last Bell at Kookaburra Creek

Marla had been a traffic controller for eleven years, and she thought she’d seen every kind of road, every kind of driver, and every kind of weirdness that came with standing on asphalt for twelve hours a day. But nothing prepared her for the Kookaburra Creek job. The site was a narrow, winding stretch of mountain road that cut through thick, ancient forest. The nearest town was an hour away, and the only sign of civilization was a derelict church at the base of the valley, its steeple crooked and its bell still hanging by a thread of rusted metal.

Marla, along with her crew—grumpy old Vince and silent, lanky Danny—were put up in a pub that had seen better decades. The pub’s owner, a woman named Pearl with eyes like wet stones, warned them, ‘Don’t go near the church after dark. The bell rings for the lost.’ Marla laughed it off. Danny didn’t. Vince just grunted and ordered another beer.

The work itself was mind-numbing. Marla would stand at her post, holding the stop/slow paddle, watching the cars crawl past. The forest around them was oppressive, the trees leaning in like eavesdroppers. On the third day, Marla noticed something odd. Every time she turned her back, she heard a faint, dry clack—like a twig snapping, but rhythmic, almost like the ticking of a clock. She spun around several times, but saw nothing. Danny, at the other end, looked pale. ‘You hear it too?’ he asked. Marla nodded. Vince dismissed it as ‘mountain noise.’

Then the bell started ringing. It wasn’t loud, but it carried through the trees like a cold breath. It rang at odd times—mid-morning, just after lunch, once at 3 AM. Marla tried to ignore it, but her dreams were filled with the image of a bell swinging without wind, and a voice whispering, ‘Count the rings.’ She woke up with her heart pounding.

On the fifth day, Danny didn’t show up for his shift. Marla and Vince searched the pub, then the site. They found his stop/slow paddle by the side of the road, propped up as if he’d just set it down. But no Danny. Pearl said, ‘The forest took him. It’s always the quiet ones.’ Marla called the police, but they found nothing. That night, the bell rang seven times, each ring slower than the last.

Marla decided to investigate. Against her better judgment, she walked to the church. The door was ajar, creaking in the wind. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of old incense. The bell hung above, motionless. But when she looked at the floor, she saw fresh footprints in the dust—small, barefoot, leading to a trapdoor she hadn’t noticed. She lifted it, revealing a stone staircase descending into darkness.

She climbed down, her flashlight cutting through the black. At the bottom was a small room filled with old wooden crates. In one, she found a journal, its pages yellowed. The last entry, dated fifty years ago, read: ‘The bell tolls for the ones who watch, not the ones who pass. We are all just keepers of the road. When the road takes you, the bell takes your voice.’ Marla felt a chill crawl up her spine. She heard a noise behind her—a dry, rhythmic clack. She spun around, and there, in the shadows, stood Danny, his eyes empty, his mouth open as if trying to scream, but no sound came.

She ran. She didn’t stop until she reached the pub, where Vince was waiting, his face pale. ‘You found something,’ he said. Marla told him. Vince shook his head. ‘I saw it too, last night. Through the window. A figure walking up the hill, carrying a stop/slow paddle, but it wasn’t walking right. It was like it was being pulled by strings.’

That night, the bell rang twelve times, and then stopped. Marla and Vince didn’t sleep. They sat in the pub’s common room, listening to the silence. At dawn, Pearl came in with two cups of coffee. ‘The road is finished today,’ she said. ‘You’ll be leaving.’ Marla nodded, but she knew it wasn’t over.

As they packed, Marla caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. For a split second, her reflection was slightly off—her eyes too wide, her mouth slightly open. She blinked, and it was normal. In the distance, the bell began to ring again, but this time it wasn’t mournful. It was cheerful, almost welcoming, as if it had found a new listener. Marla looked out the window and saw a figure standing at the edge of the forest, holding a paddle. It was Danny—or what used to be Danny. It raised the paddle, slowly, deliberately, and pointed at her.

Marla grabbed her gear and got in her car, leaving Vince behind without a word. She drove for an hour, the roads getting thinner, the forest darker. But no matter how far she went, she could still hear the bell, ringing in perfect time with her heartbeat. She pulled over, gasping, and checked her phone. No signal. She looked at the rearview mirror, and there, sitting in the back seat, was the figure from the forest—Danny’s face, but with Marla’s eyes. It smiled.

Marla screamed, but no sound came out. And then, the bell rang one last time, and the mountain road fell silent.