Angel of Light (A Zak Bagans Story)

Chapter 47: Emily

I stopped for a moment to take a sip of water before I continued.

"When I had arrived home, I noticed some cotton stuffing on the porch. I went inside and found our Uncle sitting in the living room, watching TV. I asked him where Emily was, and asked him about the stuffing. He told me about the note Emily had brought home, and said that he had told Emily that she shouldn't of been taking the 'stupid toy' to school...he had tried to take it from her, and with the two of them fighting over it, the head ended up getting ripped from the body...he said Emily started crying and had run out of the house. When I asked him where she had gone, he said he didn't know..." I said, starting to feel the emotions kicking in.

Zak frowned as he watched me, and gently squeezed my hands.

"I was furious, so I left my book bag there and went back outside and started searching for Emily, calling out her name..." I said softly, the memory flooding back to me.

~*~*~*~*~

"Emily!" I yelled as I ran around the house to our backyard.

I noticed another small piece of stuffing on the ground near the gate that led from our backyard to a small wooded area, with a path leading to a nearby river.

The gate was open.

I went running into the trees, following the path toward the river.

"Emily! Where are you?!" I called out.

Still no response, only the sound of the rain falling.

As I came to the end of the path and looked down along the edge of the river, I finally spotted her. She was jumping from one rock to another, across the water, clearly trying to get to something.

"Emily! Get off those rocks! You'll fall in!" I called, as I started running down toward her.

She stopped on one rock and turned to look at me, the headless, stuffed monkey under one arm, tears falling down her face.

"I dropped Bongo's head and it rolled into the river! It's just over there!" She pointed back behind her.

I didn't look, I didn't care about Bongo's damn head at the moment.

"I'll get it! But please come back to the edge before you slip!" I called, finally reaching the spot where she most likely had started jumping from.

"But I'm almost there!" She called back, and started to turn to jump to the next rock. But her foot slipped on the wet surface of the rock, and she tumbled into the water, screaming as she fell.

"Emily!!" I yelled, starting to rush along the river's edge, keeping my eyes on her but also looking for someway to get to her.

That was when I saw a fairly large, old, fallen tree hanging over part of the river.

"Ali! Help!!" Emily cried, frantically trying to keep her head above the water.

Because it had been raining all day, the river was overflowed and running faster than it normally did.

"Swim toward the tree!!" I yelled, running as fast as I could along the water's edge.

As I ran, I saw Emily making headway through the river's current toward the tree.

When I finally reached the tree, I quickly climbed on top of it, and as quickly as I could, crawled along it to the very end. I did my best to secure a grip on a branch of the tree that was sticking upward, and leaned down with my other arm to prepare to grab Emily.