Banshee's Call

• Isobel Hazel Stead, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2013

I was terrified, she was just lying there, lifeless on the bed. The wail of a banshee came from outside. Death was upon us. Then the doctors came, hauling away their bodies without a care. I stood at my doorway and watched them leave, carrying Mamma’s lifeless body away.
“Where’s Mamma?” came a voice, “Mamma!”
I turned, shutting the door and wiping the tears from my eyes, “She’s gone Billy, sweetie, she’s gone.” Together we cried, in each others arms when Billy coughed and collapsed. “No!” I screamed, “Not you too!”
He lay there limp in my arms, quietly crying out for Mamma and Pappa, but only I was there. I placed him on his bed and wrapped him up. A banshee wailed nearby, followed by more and more wails. The Plague was taking more victims. I sung to Billy, telling him stories and staying by his side. When he refused to eat his dinner I knew, right then, that was it. Three or four days later the banshee wailed outside and he was gone. The doctors knocked on our door, again, the banshee’s were like sirens, telling the doctors which house had dead. I could just picture the long-haired ghost of a woman, crouched on our roof signaling death. I opened the door to them, holding Billy’s lifeless body. The doctors snatched him from my hands and threw him mercilessly onto the bed of bodies. Tears welled in my eyes as they left to the next house when I saw her. She was across the street on the roof of a neighbours house. Her long, silver hair fell down past her. She shimmered in place, as pale as a ghost. When she screamed, her head was pulled back, her mouth opened and that piercing sound of death rang through my ears. In no less than a minute the doctors were at the doorstep. I looked back up at the banshee but she was gone. Leaving nothing but a shadow where she once crouched.
I shut the door and cried for my deceased family, not holding back. I cried over my mother, over my brother, over my father, over my friends, nothing could stop me from crying. I went through the house and packed everything away. By the time I was done, the sun had risen above the houses. I stood in my doorway and watched the sun rise. Sighing, I walked back inside when I felt limp and collapsed onto the floor in a coughing fit. “No!” I repeatedly screamed between coughs, “NO!”
I lay there on the floor, the door half open, crying in agony. I felt cold, warm, sick and angry all at the same time. My heart was beating ever so slowly until, days later, it stopped. The last thing I heard was the cry of the banshee on my roof.

When I opened my eyes, my family was standing over me. I was speechless, I only stared and smiled. Finally we were safe. Forever.