Watching And Waiting

• Hannah Moon, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2007

Winter hit the little town of Sanders with a blast. It was extremely sudden, no one expected it. It began with the nights getting a little colder, and then a little darker, then suddenly it turned pitch black, and downright freezing!
Every night Emily lay tossing and turning feverishly, except this was not because of sickness. ‘The Voices’ echoed through her head like someone shouting in a dark enclosed tunnel, “come Emily, come down to the river, I am waiting for you, watching and waiting.”
So why, on one of these dark, cold nights was Emily making her way down, fully dressed, to the place she feared the most of all, ‘the River of Death’. The reason it was called this was because over ten people had drowned in it just in the past year!
The banks of the river were so slippery and crumbly, and the water moved so rapidly, that you only had to come a little to close to the edge and it seemed as if death itself was watching and waiting for you, for you were never seen again.
One of the most unfortunate people who had drowned had been Emily’s mother. In fact Emily had been there, she even remembered the day: 21 April 1999. In fact it was her fault, her father tried to convince her otherwise but she knew it was true. It was her ball that had started to roll near the edge of the river; it was her who had cried out to her mother to help. Emily remembered the grave look on her father’s face. She also remembered the look on her mother’s face, the last look that she ever cast over Emily, a look of despair, as she sank beneath the water.
Maybe that was what was drawing Emily there tonight. Maybe it was the fact that it could have been he mother calling to her from beneath the murky water. For whatever reason, Emily did not know, she just found herself walking there.
As she approached the river, she noticed the raging wind gradually dying down. She didn’t think much of it, until she was standing on the bank of the river and it was deathly still. She suddenly noticed a ripple in the water, not too far from where she was standing. She slowly walked over to the spot, expecting it to be some fish jumping. She gazed into the strangely deep water and stiffened, her mouth gaping open as she tried to scream. Then, as if she couldn’t bare it any longer, she fled. As she ran she thought about what she had seen. The two eyes had appeared out of nowhere, shining brightly in the dark water, then the greasy smile. It made her shiver just thinking about it, as she vowed never to return to where ‘The Thing’ lay watching and waiting.