From Datsun Pickups to Dark Fiction
In a feature for the October 2026 issue of Atlanta Magazine, a horror novelist traces a literary career directly back to daily childhood drives through Smyrna’s historic Concord Covered Bridge. The essay follows the author’s evolution from a terrified four-year-old passenger in a Datsun pickup into a professional teller of scary stories, finding the origins of suspense in the pitch-black interior of a local landmark.
A 19th-Century Landmark on Nickajack Creek
Originally constructed around 1840 to serve water-powered mills along Nickajack Creek, the timber-pier crossing underwent a complete reconstruction on stone piers with a wooden roof in the 1890s following severe flood damage.
Today, the 131-foot-long structure holds a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. It ranks as the most trafficked covered bridge left in Georgia, standing as one of only 16 covered bridges remaining across the entire state.
Local Legends Inspire Eerie Bridge Folklore
The essay casts the structure not just as infrastructure, but as a dark, nearly windowless tunnel that felt alive. The site accumulated generations of local folklore, anchored by the persistent legend that a child or group of children drowned in the creek below. Oral tradition held that drivers who parked in the center of the bridge at night and turned off their engines could hear the faint sound of footsteps.
Superstition even dictated placing a Snickers bar or any piece of candy on the car hood as an offering to the spirits. The author’s father leaned heavily into these stories during their daily commutes. He would cut the headlights halfway through the tunnel, tap his fingernails against the driver’s side window to mimic footsteps, and roll the truck forward in the dark before laughing as his children screamed in terror.
The Permanent Blueprint of Suspense
That precise mix of dread and exhilaration left a lasting mark. The single-lane bridge features a seven-foot clearance and continues to see frequent accidents, closures, and modern traffic bottlenecks today.
For this particular writer, however, the structure’s deeper impact was entirely creative. The shiver in the memory remained long after the family moved away, providing the emotional blueprint for a future career built on suspense and horror.
