If They Have A Heart

Caleb and I used to come to this place nearly every day. He loved running along the river’s shore when he was younger. When he got older, we’d walk on this bridge and he’d joyfully watch the waters flowing below us. Now I am watching the waters on my own. The last time I came here with him, he was resting peacefully beside me.

Just admitting this out loud makes my eyes well up, even now.

This is goodbye, my friend… Rest in peace buddy, I love you.

No, this isn’t goodbye yet... You’re still not resting easy…

God, I'm so sorry, boy, I'm so sorry…

Caleb never got to rest peacefully.

After he had passed away, I thought it would be only appropriate to send him off to dog heaven on the waters of the river he loved so much. I brought him here on a cloudy day, just like today, in the early hours of the morning. It’s usually dead silent here in the early hours of the morning, but that day a low hum and a tapping sound resembling a funeral march echoed somewhere below.

How fitting it seemed at that moment…

I carried him here wrapped in his favorite blanket and once we stood overlooking the waters below; I unwrapped his face to catch one last glimpse of his peaceful expression before saying my last goodbyes. With tears flowing down my face, I covered his face and released my hold on his body, watching as it gracefully fell into the water with a splash reminiscent of the ones he used to make when he was at the height of his life.

I watched his body float into the distance until the currents appeared to have rejected him and his body ended up on the shore.

At that moment, I didn’t pay it any mind.

Slowly making my way down the bridge, I strolled, lost in my memories. I didn’t even notice the strangely melancholic melody that accompanied me seemed to disintegrate into a deafening silence.

I took too long to get to him and by the time I reached the spot his body had drifted to; it was nowhere to be found. The disappearance of his remains drove me over the edge. Emotions overflowing, I broke down. I let myself lose balance and fall onto the ground before I began crying, and I wept as I hadn’t wept since I was a little kid.

The sound of soft splashing in the water made me think the river pulled him back in. I forced myself to look at the water. I wanted to watch Caleb drift away into the sunset. Instead, an overwhelming feeling of dread grasped my arm once I realized it wasn’t the water that had taken him.

A heartless pair of bulbous black eyes bulging out of a massive slimy head stared at me. A long bush of algae crowning the grotesque cranium spread in the middle, revealing an abyss of a maw laced with a sea of jagged teeth sucked in air. The pisciform demon was staring at me with malicious intent. Darkness from the deepest depths of the unexplored oceans danced in its eyes. A sinister intelligence lurked in the back of its gaze. It threatened to devour me whole if I dared get closer to the creature.

And by God, I wanted to get closer…

Had my sense of self-preservation not kept me at bay by chaining me to the damp sand with a chain made from pure fear, I would’ve.

A pair of eerily primate pallid gray hands held onto Caleb’s body.

The creature was taunting me, mocking… I could hear its chuckling-like rumbles as we stared at each other.

It lingered a while longer before finally submerging its disgusting form in its entirety and disappearing into the depths.

Caleb’s blanket was the only thing that remained above the surface, floating aimlessly into the distance as I watched it disappear, wiping the cold sweat from my brow while still wrestling with the crawling sensation of unease.

The horror might’ve all but disappeared, but the wounds it left still ache.

I doubt time will heal these wounds. That’s why I’ve been coming here nearly every day ever since. As much as it hurts to come here without Caleb. As much as it pains me to relive that awful morning in my mind again and again, I return to this same spot over and over.

I’ve seen these things lurking around here. There is more than one of those things hiding in these waters. Sometimes they’ll reach out of the water with their pallid gray hands to tap on the stones and hum; creating these ironic somber melodies. I’ll be returning until the day I can finally unload a bullet into what took my friend and hopefully leave one of its kind with a gaping hole in its chest like the one who took Caleb from me.

If these things even have a heart.