The River Girl

The River Girl is a strange story about a girl who is haunted by the suspicious drowning death of her twin sister. I can’t decide whether this story belongs in the “creepy stories” section or the “stupid stories” section. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Creepy or stupid? You decide.

Legend has it that there was a 16 year old girl named Carla who was living in a mental hospital. Carla was a smart, outgoing, pretty girl and nobody could explain what a girl like her was doing in an insane asylum. The only thing the doctors could find wrong with her was that she never spoke. Her parents swore that the girl had always been well-behaved and never had any problems until the death of her twin sister, Natalia.

Natalia’s dead body had been found floating in a river near their home on July 17th. Nobody could explain what she had been doing there or how she had drowned. It was all very mysterious and suspicious. After much investigation, the police eventually ruled it an accident, but everybody in town still had questions. For one thing, Natalia’s body had been tied up underwater. Had she tied herself or had somebody else tied her up and murdered her by tossing her into the river to drown?

Ever since the death of her sister, Carla had been acting in a very bizarre and erratic manner. Her parents would wake up in the middle of the night and find Carla’s bedroom empty. They would always find her standing in her nightdress at the bank of the river, holding a rope in her hands. She always went to the river at the exact time her sister’s body had been found – 12.43 AM.

Fearing that their strangely silent daughter was planning to harm herself, the worried parents had her confined in a mental hospital. They felt it was for her own good. After Carla had spent ten long months in the mental hospital, the doctors told her parents that she was free to leave. They could take her home. However, her parents refused because they said that the anniversary of Natalia’s death was approaching and they feared that their daughter would kill herself. So Carla was confined in the mental hospital indefinitely.

On July 17th, Carla’s parents were at the hospital visiting her. They watched her through a small glass window in the metal door of her cell. Suddenly, Carla started going crazy, running all around the room and bouncing off the walls. The doctors rushed into the cell and wrestled her to the ground.

She kept screaming over and over “Carla! Let go! No! Carla! Please!”

Finally, the doctors were forced to inject the poor girl with sedatives. As her terrified parents watched, Carla fell into an uneasy sleep.

“It was like she was possessed”, said her mother.

After discussing it for a while, the parents decided to consult with a priest.

A few hours later, the local priest arrived. The parents told him the whole story – how Carla’s twin sister had drowned under mysterious circumstances, how Carla had stopped talking immediately after Natalia’s death, how she had been screaming and shouting uncontrollably.

The priest examined Carla briefly and then took the parents into a nearby waiting room to talk to them.

“You were right”, said the priest. “Your daughter Carla is indeed possessed. And the evil spirit possessing her is none other than her dead sister Natalia. I suspect that she has been possessed ever since Natalia drowned in that river. Natalia has been trying to kill her every day since then.”

Carla’s parents were shocked. They began to cry.

“Wait a minute”, said the priest. “What day is it today?”

He grabbed a newspaper. The date was July 17th, the anniversary of Natalia’s death.

“And what time is it?” yelled the priest.

He grabbed a clock. It was 12.42. One minute before Natalia’s dead body had been discovered.

“We have just one minute to save your daughter’s life”, he yelled.

The priest and the parents ran down the corridor and arrived at Carla’s cell. The door was standing open and the little padded room was empty.

“Where’s Carla?” screamed the priest.

“She’s taking a bath”, said a doctor who happened to be passing by.

The priest and the parents ran to the bathroom and busted down the door. They were too late.

Carla was hanging over the bathtub. A rope was wrapped around her neck and tied to the curtain rail. Her eyes were bugged out, her face was purple and her head was hanging at an odd angle. There were little wet footprints all over the bathroom floor. On the wall, written in blood were the words: “You killed me and now you will die with me.”

They say that Carla’s parents never recovered from the unimaginable sorrow of losing two daughters. Even now, ten years later, every night before bed, the parents still stop outside their daughters’ empty bedroom and say “Goodnight, Carla! Goodnight, Natalia!”

And every night, at 12.43 AM, two ghostly girls can be seen walking hand in hand, down by the river.