Waiting

• Alana Christiansen, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2014

Even with the pitter patter of the rain on my window, I was focused on one thing. She stopped at the gate, wearing nothing but black. Her ghostly pale face looking up at me through my window, her pitch black eyes looking into my blue. Her face contorting into a beaming yet deadly smile, her hands held together tightly in front of her stomach. Then she vanished. I knew she'd come back. I was ready, I hope.
I left the window and was walking down the stairs when I heard a whisper.... A loud echoing whisper ..."I'm coming" I turned to see where the noise came from and saw that the window was open, the smell of rain luring me in. When I got there to close it, there she was again. She gave me a wicked smile, full of pearly white teeth. Behind her, the ghosts of the children she murdered crawling towards the house. I guess I'm next......
I ran for my life, locked everything in the house and made my way into the emergency shelter. If she came there was no turning back, one way in and one way out. I sat there with trembling hands, wondering when she was coming, then I heard it. The lock to the front door clicking open, she was in. The footsteps of the children going up the stairs sounds like thunder roaring through the night, her laugh, cackling and menacing. She doesn't know about down here, she will find it soon, I know she will. She can smell me, hear me, feel me, she's not human, not anymore.
The footsteps disappeared and I was holding my breath thinking she could hear it, and she could, that's when it happened. The door to the shelter opened and there she stood, her smile growing that slight bit bigger, her eyes glimmering. She spoke words of silk, "I've been waiting on you."
Looking down to my sweaty hands, she was closer now, three steps. I cowered back, she let a little high screeching laugh out, her smile going from ear to ear. "I remember your Dad being scared like you, these children watching me suck his soul out. His eyes turning as black as mine, his dead body falling limp at my feet. I killed him, oh the joy it brought!"
She took one giant step closer, and I stood up. There was a quick flash of fright in her eyes when I grabbed my Aunts gun, the 'chivalry', a gun made for killing things like her. My aunt was and still is out there, hunting them, killing them. I held the gun up to her head and told her three words, my eyes showing nothing but the confidence I was pretending, "rot in hell." She laughed wickedly and then snarled "I already do dearest daughter, and once I'm done with you, you'll be there too." I cocked the pistol, and right before I shot, my Mum vanished.