The river ran cold and relentless, its surface a sheet of glass hiding secrets no one dared to whisper about. Folks in town called it the Blackwater, not for its color but for the stories it carried—tales of loss, mystery, and something darker lurking below. I’d heard them all growing up, sprawled on my grandma’s porch while she spun yarns about the river’s hunger. “It takes what it wants,” she’d say, her voice low, like she was afraid the water might hear her. As a kid, I laughed it off. Now? I’m not so sure.
It started with a fisherman named Amos Tate. He was a quiet man, the kind who’d nod at you in passing but never linger for small talk. Last spring, he went out on his boat, same as always, casting nets where the Blackwater curved past the old mill. He didn’t come back. The sheriff found his boat tangled in the reeds, nets torn, oars floating like driftwood. No sign of Amos. People whispered about accidents—maybe he’d slipped, hit his head, drowned. But I saw the boat. Those nets weren’t just torn; they looked shredded, like something had clawed through them.
Weeks passed, and the town moved on. That’s what we do here—bury the strange and keep going. But then came the dreams. I’d wake up gasping, my chest tight, water dripping from my hair. In the dreams, I was under the Blackwater, sinking into its icy grip, and there was Amos, his face pale, his eyes too wide. He reached for me, mouthing words I couldn’t hear. I told myself it was just guilt, the kind that gnaws at you when someone vanishes and you didn’t even know their middle name. But the dreams didn’t stop.
One night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed my flashlight and headed to the river. Crazy, right? What was I even looking for? Maybe I just needed to see it, to prove it was just water and not some monster from Grandma’s stories. The Blackwater was still under the moonlight, its surface rippling like it was breathing. I stood on the bank, my boots sinking into the mud, and shone my light across the water. That’s when I saw it—a shape, just below the surface, drifting like a shadow. It wasn’t a fish or a log. It was human.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I wanted to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. The shape twisted, slow and deliberate, and then it looked at me. I swear it did. Two pale eyes locked onto mine, unblinking, through the water. It wasn’t Amos. It was… something else. Older. Hungrier. I stumbled back, the flashlight slipping from my hand, its beam spinning wild across the river. When I scrambled to pick it up, the shape was gone.
I haven’t gone back to the Blackwater since. I don’t fish, don’t swim, don’t even walk the trails nearby. But I still dream. Not just of Amos now, but of that thing, its eyes burning through the dark, calling me. Sometimes I wake up with wet footprints on my floor, leading from my bed to the door. I tell myself it’s just a leak, a trick of the mind. But I lock my door at night now, and I keep a knife under my pillow.
The town still talks about Amos, but the stories are fading, replaced by new gossip. They don’t know what I saw. They don’t feel the river’s pull like I do. Maybe it’s waiting for me, patient as the current, knowing I’ll slip up one day. Or maybe it’s already got what it wanted. What scares me most isn’t the thing beneath the river—it’s the part of me that wants to go back, to dive in, to see what it’s hiding.
Have you ever felt something like that? A pull toward something you know you should run from? That’s the Blackwater for you. It doesn’t just take people. It takes pieces of you, too.
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