River Ghost

From: Sarah-Louise (red_headed_devil28@hotmail.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Australia
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Mon Oct 13 01:26:23 2008

When I was about nine or ten me and my family was staying at my grandparent’s place in a town called Wooli in New South Wales, Australia. On one of our last days there, my and the rest of my family went down to the local river to swim.

The river was at least 100 meters wide and there was a slight dip in the sand underwater about 20 meters from the shoreline. I was walking out towards the middle on my own when I fell under the water because of the dip. I couldn’t reach the surface and I started to drown. I felt oddly calm as thought there was nothing wrong, as though this was meant to happen. It was a weird feeling because although my lungs and body were screaming for air my head and heart were telling me to relax and to let the water do with me as it would. It was so peaceful under the water that I decided to let me myself float away.

For some reason, I opened my eyes and tried to look around me. The water was murky and there were bits of seaweed floating past me. My eyes managed to focus in the gloom and I could see further out. Suddenly I could see a woman floating in the water alongside me. Her eyes were closed and her hair was floating around her neck and face. She was wearing a long white dress (think 1800’s) but there was something odd about it.

I looked closer and realised that there were slashes in the dress and that around that slashes the material of her dress was stained red. I looked back at her face when she moved her head upward and opened her eyes. Her eyes would have been a lovely shade of chocolate brown when she was alive. As it was, her eyes were red with only the faintest hint of brown. The skin around her eyes was also red, as if they had popped out of her skull. Her neck was horrific (for a nine year old anyway). Her neck had deep, red welts going all around it. There were also spots of blood in certain areas and in some places I could see straight through to the bone. She just lay there next to me staring at me with her red eyes.

The funny thing was, I wasn’t scared of her. It didn’t look as though she wanted to hurt me. It looked, as she just wanted to convey a message. She leant in towards me to relay said message and in a ghostly voice she whispered ‘Sarah-Louise’. I knew in my heart that I should be terrified, owing to the fact that she had just said my name. But I wasn’t. I just continued floating towards the bottom of the river. She went to speak into my ear again but before she got the chance my mum pulled me out of the water and back onto the shore.

For a long time I didn’t remember what happened but when I was on shore I didn’t feel as though I had almost drowned. I felt as though I had just witnessed something that was amazing and frightening and yet so calming. I haven’t been back there because my grandparents moved but I do plan on going back and seeing if she comes to me again.