Greater than Death – Featured Story #7

We are sharing the next story in our series, Featured Short Stories, written by students in the Creative Writing Club.

Every week, the students in the club work on writing stories, sometimes from their own ideas, and sometimes from story prompts.

This story was written by Amy, aged 10. Enjoy!

Greater than Death

There was nothing Carrie and I wanted more than a dog. We would stare at dogs on the street, pick up books about dogs from the library, sit on the roof every night in the summer when our parents were asleep, just to talk about dogs.

“I’d like a poodle, we’ll name it Katie and we can both dress it up, making it the most beautiful dog in the town!” Carrie would say.

“I won’t like to dress a dog up all day!” I would reply. “I’d rather do that to myself. I want a golden retriever and name it Doris, and it would pull sleds for us in the snow.”

And that would be our dog talk, going on and on up on the rooftop of our house.

Tonight, Carrie and I were sitting on the roof as always. We had been chatting about dogs for a while, and we were beginning to feel tired, so we leaned against each other, listening to the cricket’s songs. Our long brown curls fell loose, mingling like one single head of hair. We were both in silence when I saw a shadow.

“Hey, Carrie, look.” I said, pointing to the shadow.

“It’s a dog.” Carrie said. “It’s a dog!”

We both got off the roof as quickly and quietly as we could. We sprinted to the front yard. On the driveway, there was a shaggy black dog. Its tail was a mane of dark hair and it was small and thin.

“Here boy!” I called.

“I think it’s a female.” Carrie said.

The dog came and I patted her. I gasped. I could almost feel her bones underneath its jet black coat.

“Carrie, look, it must be hungry.” I said.

“I remember Mom has some food in the fridge.” she said. “I’ll be right back. You guard her, Sarah.”

A few seconds later, she was back with Mom’s aluminium platter and some bits of leftover chicken from dinner, and some milk that she got from our room. We gave it to the dog, but it wouldn’t eat. It just stared at us with its huge brown eyes. So, we got into our room to make it look as if we were going to bed. We watched from the window.

The dog still didn’t eat. Instead, it started to drag the food away with its teeth. Before long, it was gone. Carrie and I told ourselves that the dog was just shy and didn’t want us to see it eat.

The following night, the dog came back. And the next night. We started to use paper plates. We got a new platter for Mom with our allowance, and kept everything a secret.

“Do you know what to name her?” I asked Carrie one night on the rooftop.

“Shadow,” she said confidently. “Her name is going to be Shadow.”

We started to call her Shadow every time. Every night, Shadow would drag the food away. The strange thing was that she wasn’t getting any bigger. Instead, she was even thinner than before.

One night, when she had already dragged her food away and we were in bed, she came back and started to bark for us to follow. We grabbed our housecoats and shoes and ran out after her. She ran over to the far end of the driveway, looked back at us to see if we were following, and ran off again into the night. I didn’t want to get Shadow lost, so I ran after her. The wind blew through my hair and stung my face, and Carrie ran side by side with me. Her smooth, tan legs were strong, and she was racing over to Shadow. We were both having a hard time keeping up with her.

Shadow was heading towards the creek. The creek where Carrie and I used to go swimming together on hotter days, and where we caught frogs and dragonflies and watched water lilies poke their heads from the water. My legs were starting to get sore, but I ignored the pain and still ran after Shadow. She kept barking for us to follow.

She went towards the creek, and for a second, I thought she was going to jump in. But she didn’t. Instead, she headed towards a small opening that looked like a cave and disappeared into the darkness.

We stopped running and paused.

“Sarah, no way I’m going in there.” Carrie said.

“Well, neither am I going.” I replied. “I’m not going to go into some dark creepy place.”

“What should we do?” Carrie asked. “It’s creepy here. I mean, Shadow’s not getting bigger, and she’s dragging her food away. And also, she’s now trying to get us in this place.”

I shivered. “Who knows what could be down there?”

We waited for a while, looking around and watching the cave.

“Look, we can’t leave Shadow alone. She might be lost or something. Let’s just go in together, okay?” Carrie said finally.

I nodded.

“As long as you follow me, don’t scream, or make me scream, that’s all right.” I warned her.

We held hands and went into the pitch-black cave.

Suddenly, Carrie screamed and so did I.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Didn’t I tell her not to scream?

“I don’t like this, Sarah.” Carrie said. “We should go home.”

“But what about Shadow?” I said.

Carrie sighed. “Let’s just find her, and then go home.” She said. “Mom and dad shouldn’t know this.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and switched on a light. We walked slowly, and quietly until we reached a stone wall. Then I heard a sound, and I looked down to see five adorable puppies on the floor, snuggled together. Mom’s aluminium platter and the paper plates were on the floor too, and in a corner, lay Shadow, motionless.

Carrie and I gasped as we both realized what had happened. Shadow had been dragging the food to her puppies and feeding them and ended up dying herself.

We took the puppies home that night and hid them until we could give them away to nice homes. We kept one puppy for ourselves, he looked like Shadow with his brown eyes and black fur, and we named him Henry. We told our parents that a friend at school gave him to us. I don’t think they really believed us, but they allowed us to keep him.

As for Shadow, Carrie and I buried her under mom’s favourite rosebush, and Carrie engraved a sign saying:

“Here lies Shadow, whose love was greater than death.”

If you have a child who loves writing stories and you want to encourage them to explore their creativity and their imagination, then we would love to have them join our writing club! Just click on the link to register, and we will be in touch. Creative Writing Club – Registration Form.