My Missing Grandpa

“My Missing Grandpa” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Armaan Jeelani, Artistic Strategies Academy, Singapore.

My Missing Grandpa

One snowy morning, it was as serene as the calm sea. I was so excited as it was Christmas! The snowflakes looked so gentle where I lived in San Francisco on thirty-seventh avenue. As I was singing very merry songs, I wore a sweatshirt and got ready to go outside. That day, my friends and I started throwing snowballs at nine o’ clock and ended up making a snowman two hours later. At last, my instincts told me someone was missing and he was one of my favourite people. My grandfather, Steve had disappeared. I started to sob. I needed to find him.

But I couldn’t sit crying all day. Before I started my journey, I realised that I couldn’t do it myself. My two best friends, Dustin and Lucas, could help me. I took my walkie-talkie and asked both of them to come to Cherry Street. They both came after ages. When they finally reached, they enquired about why I called them and I told them in a soft and tragic voice, “Grandpa Steve has gone missing.”

We began our journey by shouting out Grandpa’s name. We searched the whole town. After we ran out of ideas, we went to the Looming Forest. I had sweaty palms. Dustin had broken out in a cold sweat and Lucas’s face was ashen. I could hardly see anything as the trees were completely blocking the daylight. It was like a swamp, so there was mud all over. It was totally pungent because there were dead bodies everywhere. There was a rustling sound and the howling of wind. Lucas, Dustin and I were terrified because many had gone in the forest and never came out. We also heard a growling sound.

We wanted to turn back but we had already gone so deep into the forest that Lucas’ foot had gotten stuck in the weeds that were engulfing it. We had found a piece of wood and tried to cut through the long weeds. We were extremely tired by walking a long way. Just when Dustin was talking, we heard the growling sound again but this time, it was louder and we could smell blood everywhere.

We then took numerous pieces of rocks, pebbles, twigs and stones and looked on the horizon, hearing a rustling sound behind us. When we looked back, we saw the deadliest, blood-quenching, chilling looking monster we have ever seen. It had no face, only a mouth. It also had a long tail. All of its teeth were fangs. It made a groaning sound which sounded like it was going to call more of its own kind. However, before he could do that, we threw rocks at it but that just made it more furious. It started chasing us. We tried to hide in the bushes because in the monster movies,the victims do that. Unfortunately, this monster could smell blood from kilometres away. It started chasing us again when it saw us in the bushes.

After running so much, we could not run anymore so we thought that it would be the end of our lives. But just before it was going to swallow us, it collapsed in front of us and we saw an old man with a knife. I was walking on air when I saw that it was Grandpa Steve. I darted at him and gave him a tight hug. Grandpa Steve told us, “I have been surviving in here for four days when I found this knife beside one of the dead bodies. I knew it would come in handy.”

We took Grandpa Steve home and before you know it he was fast asleep. At night, we had the best turkey I had in my life. I opened all my gifts but best of it was the most memorable Christmas of my life. I was glad that he was back home and I learned that we should always stay together as a family because we never know when someone will go missing.