Suscon Screamer

The Suscon Screamer from Geo Caching
Underneath the former Susquehanna Railroad Bridge (also known as Boo-Boo Bridge or The Black Bridge) that once crossed Suscon Road lurks the legendary Suscon Screamer.

There's many a tale speculating just whose apparition haunts the area. One story has it spooked by the ghost of a woman jilted at the altar who with a loud scream hung herself from the bridge. Another says she was a teen killed on her prom night who's still trying to hitch a ride home. Yet another says it's a mother and child who died in a car crash while rushing to the local hospital. One more claims that it's cursed by the ghost of a girl that escaped from an insane asylum and leaped to her death off the bridge, landing in the traffic below.

Whichever version you prefer, a spectral lady has been spotted floating about in the nearby woods surrounding Suscon Road, scaring the pants off of generations of local spook seekers.

Then again, some say it's not a human's spirit that haunts Suscon at all. Some believe the eerie sound is the roar of a lion that escaped from a traveling circus (or maybe its' leonine spook after all these years.) Others say it's a half human, half pig swamp monster arising from the bogs.

A Times Leader newspaper story said that a hunter was in a tree stand off of Suscon Road when he heard something coming up over the hill. Then he heard another hunter in the next tree start screaming. That hunter jumped from the his stand and ran. Then our hero spotted the creature through his binoculars.

He described him to the paper as “Being about 6' long with a long snout. It weighed about 200 pounds and was gray in color. It had webbed feet with long claws and had a huge head”. The hunter refused to take the Game Commissioner back to the site because he was too frightened. The man also said “The ground was clawed up as if 100 turkeys had gone through”. He told the officer that he was sure it wasn’t a bear or a coyote; it was a “Monster”.

Here's a Screamer tale shared by one of our readers:

"I used to live by the now gone underpass bridge, and though not a believer in "spooks or ghosts," had experienced the scream one spring night along with my family. We were so terrified we had called the Pittston Twp. police because we thought someone was being murdered in the woods behind our home.

Only later in the night had the screamer idea been thought of after the police found nothing but a few neighbors who had also heard something. I only heard it once and that I will never forget. The spooky part of this story though is 2 weeks later, at 2:30 in the morning, my parents were jolted from bed with that same scream and it lasted a short 30 seconds or so..we never heard it again"

In May of 1976 a family had a different encounter of the spooky kind with an odd creature. They were visiting a nearby lake and saw a family of four, 6' tall, hairy critters looking a lot like Bigfeet wandering around. Maybe it's a Suscon Sasquatch.

Whatever it is, it's supposed to have the most piercing, ear splitting shriek in all of spookdom. Just honk your horn three times when you get under the old bridge site if you need proof. According to local lore, a spirit will appear a'screaming.

And one of readers, Phil, said while he and a friend, John, were exploring the area, they sighted orbs, heard the bang of metal, and the sound of a phantom train rolling down the long-dead tracks (although others have written to say that the train sounds are carried from tracks about a mile removed from the bridge.)

One final urban legend. There's supposed to be 18 streetlights on Suscon Road. Eleven are always out - and every night, it's a different eleven.

Don't limit yourself to the old Boo-Boo bridge site. There are a couple of tales specific to it, but the Screamer and at least one apparition have been reported roaming the general Suscon Road area. So keep your eyes open.

The Suscon Screamer's screech is featured in Charles Adams III and David Siebold's Pocono Ghosts Legends And Lore II.

(We've confirmed that the RR bridge doesn't exist anymore. Phil wrote and gave us these directions: To find the spot where the RR bridge used to be, head up Suscon Rd and drive about a half mile past Duddy Deli. On the right hand side will be a turn-around road, a small hill that you can drive up and quickly loops in a circle back onto Suscon Rd., just before the road to Gable Crest. It seems that the grated bridge in the gamelands may be one site for the Screamer; the old bridge site is where the woman's ghost is located, with an occasional guest appearance from the Screamer, who apparently gets around.)