บท 30: Mrs. Samantha’s Unfinished Roll Call
When I was little and still in grade school, there was a teacher named Mrs. Samantha. She was an odd figure, someone no one really liked but neither did we dislike her. She occupied a strange space in our minds—just there, existing, without stirring much emotion. Every morning, she was in charge of taking class attendance, and she did so with a fervor that bordered on obsession. It became such a ritual that rumors began to spread among staff and students alike. The whispers claimed that Mrs. Samantha even took attendance on weekends when no one was at school.
One particular day, as Mrs. Samantha was conducting her usual roll call, the principal abruptly interrupted, his face pale and strained. He told us to evacuate the school immediately. Confusion rippled through the students and teachers, but we followed his urgent instructions.
It wasn't until much later that we learned the chilling reason behind the sudden evacuation. The local police had found Mrs. Samantha's body in a nearby river. She had drowned, and it seemed her body had been submerged for a long time before finally washing ashore. The news shocked everyone. How could Mrs. Samantha have been taking attendance that very morning if she was already dead?
As kids, we weren't privy to the full details. The adults in our small town in Oklahoma kept the real reason for the evacuation and the eerie circumstances surrounding Mrs. Samantha's death to themselves. We were left to speculate, our young minds filling in the gaps with ghostly imaginings.
I remember the unease that settled over the school after that day. Every morning, as we lined up for attendance, we half-expected Mrs. Samantha to walk in, her soaked form dripping water onto the linoleum floor, her eyes vacant but her voice insistent as she called our names one by one. The thought of her taking attendance from beyond the grave haunted us.
The author of this book, whose stories I admire greatly, has done an incredible job capturing the essence of such tales. I'm grateful he allowed me to share my own experience here. It's not exactly a ghost story, but it has the unsettling quality of one—an eerie slice of life that reminds me of the thin line between the ordinary and the supernatural.
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