Haunted

• Charlee Vernon, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2017

Ever since Camilla died, quiet midnight walks along the old train track were normal for me. She loved them. I could still feel her spirit next to me, watching me, guiding me.
The railway track winded from the back of my house, crossing a river, over to the cemetery, where Camilla was buried in. That was my destination…
I’ve been haunted ever since ‘it’ happened. The dreaded accident. I’ve had terrifying hallucinations ever since. Thick, red blood dripping from her body. Drip…Drop…Drip…Drop… Her neck bones popped out like jagged stones, making my stomach churn. The sound of a car alarm going off in the distance. A poor child, an unknown stranger, no me, screaming for help. Blood dripping on the road and on my trembling hands. The silence consuming me.
SNAP
I shake my head after hearing bones…no a stick being snapped. Shining my bright torch to the trees, the red eyes of a possum glare back at me. I continue on…
I walk past all the names of the dead, all the way to my sisters’. But there’s nothing. Just a hole in the ground stares back at me. A coffin shaped hole…
BEEP
I jump, only realizing that it is my phone, with an unknown sender. I tap it and read with a shaken white face;
i have ur sister. come alone @ Dark Seer and u can have her. Hurry…
XX
Dark Seer? The lake Dark Seer? Only a 45-minute walk. I’m going. Luckily I came prepared, I thought to myself, my hand going protectively towards my knife. I’m coming, sister…..
I arrive there at Dark Seer, to find Camilla’s coffin there. But, it seriously can’t be that easy, can it? Twigs snap behind me, and I come face to face with a hooded person. Covered in black except for…his face, no, mask was a white sad face. He slowly raised his hands to his face to remove the mask. It was… ”Shaun”? the face of Camilla’s boyfriend Shaun stared back at me. “She loved this place and I wanted to take her here one last time.” A tear slipped from his eye and he didn’t bother wiping it away. “WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!?” he screamed. I started to cry, not from being scared but because it was the right thing to do.
We had a cry together, an hour at least, then decided to re-bury my twin. It was strange to know that below us, there was another one of me. My shadow self. My other half. I lay down my necklace, the one she gave me, and placed it on her grave stone. I slid down to sit next to her coffin, as Shaun lowered her back in. “RIP, sister, my twin,” I whispered…
I thought it would be all be over. It was for at least a month. Until they came…