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SHORT STORIES
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SHORT STORIES
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THE POND
She watched as Bobby raised a leg yet again and relieved his bladder in several short spurts
of yellow urine. Steam rose up from the grass like a wisp of foggy smoke. Then he had four
legs on the ground again and was off, sniffing the earth and nuzzling through the grass with
gusto.
That was two defecations and four urinations she'd counted within the space of five
minutes. The poor dog must have been close to bursting point!
Susan swung the dog lead by her side and watched the alsatian with a smile as he pranced
along, zig-zagging this way and that, increasing the distance between them. She drew in a
deep breath, filling her lungs and then flushing them out. And again. It was good to be out in
the fresh air at last, despite the fact that it was getting late and the light was beginning to fade.
She had been late getting home from work after being stuck - literally, stuck, not moving -
for the best part of two hours on the motorway due to a fatal accident. As a consequence, it
was now after 7pm and the darkness of night was slowly but surely on its way. But it was
still a welcome world away from the gridlock and pollution and stress of the clogged
motorway. Not to mention the claustrophobia of being trapped inside a small car for so long.
The two worlds couldn't have been more different: here was an expanse of wide, open
fields and greenery, fresh air, and peace and quiet - an environment to relax in and let the
stresses and strains of the grinding Rat Race drain away... well, at least for a precious hour or
so at any rate.
Susan was taking herself and Bobby along her normal circular route - off the beaten
track, down the usual public footpath where she ventured almost every day; although she
knew full well that it would almost certainly be dark by the time she reached home. Twilight
was almost upon them, and she could have made tonight's walk shorter by simply popping
down the road and back. But a mixture of guilt at leaving Bobby cooped up for most of the
day alone, and her own need to get out into the open after being sealed inside the stale and
cloying capsule of her car made her want to complete the full circuit and give Bobby some
decent and much deserved exercise. Had she been alone it would have been a different story,
but with an large alsatian dog for protection, the dark didn't seem so threatening and
oppressive. Besides, she would probably make the main road before darkness had
enshrouded them completely.
The temperature was dropping rapidly too and Susan lifted a hand to her nose. She
dabbed at her nostrils with the back of her hand and glanced down at her knuckles and saw
the moisture glistening there. Sniffing, she reached into her pocket and took out a tissue and
gave her nose a good blow and a wipe before pushing it back into her pocket.
The public footpath weaved this way and that - a continuous "S", snakelike, bypassing
fields on either side, the odd gateway, two small farmhouses and a golf course. About
halfway along, on the left, was a small pond of stagnant water that she and Bobby passed
almost every night.
And a pond that had put the fear of God into her as a child; a feeling that had never
completely left her...
The water was murky and thick with clumps of green algae; or Jenny Greenteeth as it
was unaffectionately known locally. As a child she had been terrified by stories of what the
green slime would supposedly do to you if you so much as dipped a toe into the water: it
would reputedly wrap itself around you like living vines and drag you screaming to your
death beneath the water. There, the story forked into several different versions with the
"kinder" one claiming that you were killed almost instantly as you breathed in water and
drowned. Only then, were you slowly and horribly digested by Jenny as she sucked your
body dry of it's nutritious juices in a way similar to a blood sucking leech - though a giant
leech at that! If that wasn't bad enough, the more morbid version of the myth insisted that
Ms Greenteeth somehow kept her victims alive and dragged them down to the very bottom
of the pond where she slowly and awfully digested her still living human meals over a cruel
and torturous period of days, weeks, or even - depending on how morbid the particular
storyteller was - months or years, causing her victims to suffer a truly horrible and gruesome
drawn out death of absolute agony.
To say that the stories were enough to give a child nightmares was an understatement
and, as a young girl, Susan had been hurtled from terrible dreams on more than one night -
sitting bolt-upright in bed with an awful, petrified wail; panting for breath and in tears, the
trauma of being drowned and the truly terrible pain of being eaten alive still lingering well into
wakefulness. And it would be a long time before she'd be able to fall back asleep: a half hour,
if she was lucky; a couple of hours if she wasn't. Some times she wouldn't be able to fall
back asleep at all and would toss and turn the rest of the night, usually with the bedroom light
switched firmly on!
Maybe the story had been originally devised by well-meaning parents in an attempt to
keep their children away from the perils of water and the danger of drowning, and for the
most part it worked; but, as bits were added and exaggerated, the horror story had become
much more chilling, elaborate and horrible. And even now, as a 35 year old grown woman,
Susan couldn't help but shiver and her heartbeat quicken everytime she passed the pond. In
fact, she did her best not to look at it. She had read or heard once that most human fears and
phobias were implanted during childhood, and, with the dreaded Jenny Greenteeth at least,
she could only agree...
... and she was almost upon the pond right now...
Ahead of her, Bobby had paused and had now turned to look at her. He looked
momentarily frozen - totally motionless - a posture that dogs often adopted, staring at her,
ears pricked up, as if aware that his owner was thinking troubled thoughts. And then his tail
was wagging and his ears fell back, and he bounded away, suddenly no longer a statue. He
was almost level with the pond and now wandered over towards it, sniffing the ground
leading towards the bank.
'Hey!' Susan called out, slapping the dog lead against her thigh. 'Come away!'
She immediately felt foolish for her reaction, yet couldn't deny that she'd felt a moment
of panic. A sudden vision of her beloved animal getting dragged, yelping and then gurgling,
beneath the filthy water by awful slimy green tentacles had flashed vividly before her eyes!
She cursed herself for being so ridiculous and allowing her imagination to take hold. She
shook her head; she never usually gave the pond as much thought as this.
She blamed her current tired state of mind for kicking her imagination into overdrive: the
extremes of being stranded all that time inside the stale atmosphere of her tiny car,
contrasting now with the bombardment of fresh air was probably to blame more than
anything else. The darkness was creeping up fast too, which probably had something to do
with the apparent eeriness.
Yet still, despite her attempts at reassurance, Susan suddenly wanted to turn around and
go back. She wasn't even halfway through the walk and was a long way yet from the
sanctury of the main road at the other side. But it would take almost as long to go back the
way she'd come.
Betwixt-and-between...
But to turn around would simply confirm how ridiculous she was being by allowing her
silly imagination to control her actions.
No, of course she'd carry on. She'd walk straight past the pond - like she did almost every
other day - and she'd be okay; would be perfectly safe. Nothing would happen......
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