An Unexpected Encounter by the River
Emily and her husband, along with their daughter, had taken a bold step—leaving the clamour of London behind for the quiet charm of a village in the Cotswolds. They bought a cottage, tended a garden, and even kept a few goats. Life had turned a new page. Each evening, Emily would stroll by the river with the goats, watching the sun dip below the hills, savouring the stillness.
“Mum, it’s getting dark—where are you off to with the goats?” called her daughter, Charlotte, bewildered.
“Just down to the riverbank—the grass is sweeter there,” Emily replied. “I’ll be back in an hour, don’t fret.”
But an hour passed. Then two. When Emily didn’t return, Charlotte grew uneasy and persuaded her father to go searching. They found her at last—huddled on the garden bench, pale and trembling, caught between laughter and tears.
“Mum, what happened?” Charlotte demanded.
“I saw something,” Emily whispered. “Not a ghost… worse.”
Just an hour earlier, she’d been walking the familiar path to the river. The goats grazed while she dozed off on a patch of soft earth. She woke to dusk, startled, and scrambled to gather the flock. Of course, the stubborn creatures had wandered into the thicket. Emily chased after them—until she spotted movement in the tall grass. Something long, black, slithering after the last goat, Daisy.
Her first thought: a stoat. Then fear seized her—what if it was rabid? The creature wouldn’t relent. Daisy bleated in distress, and Emily raised her walking stick, ready to strike—when suddenly, the thing lurched forward as if to attack.
But when it was over, and she dared to look closer… it was just an enormous pair of men’s underpants, tangled in fishing line, snagged on Daisy’s collar. Some angler must’ve left them drying on the bushes, and the goat had dragged them along.
Emily collapsed onto the grass, laughing—releasing all the terror, the tension, the adrenaline in one hysterical burst. That’s how her husband and daughter found her. And back at the cottage, they forbade her from taking the goats to the riverbank ever again. After all, who knew what else might come “alive” out there?
