This is it everyone, we have made it to the last prompt of the week. I don’t know about you, but it has been a really long week for me. It has felt like I was walking against a treadmill so that every step I take merely holds me in place instead of moving me forward. I think a weekend of just complete collapse may be what the doctor ordered. Maybe with an apple. but let’s get started on our morning prompt shall we? Getting Friday started off right. So 1…2…3 and off we go.
Okay, I like this one. I can actually see the entire ghost story unfolding and feel my fingers twitch as I want to type it. Not a bad way to end the week.
Friday, May 20th: A low growl came from the shadows.
A low growl came from the shadows. Andrea peered into the shadowed depths. She could see nothing, no flash of teeth no eye shine, not even an indistinct form. She blinked and straightened. ‘Perhaps I’m imagining it,’ she thought.
She looked away but the growl came again, low and deep. Her heart leapt to her throat and she took an involuntary step backwards. That time she knew she heard it. There was no imagining that sound. Even though she couldn’t see anything, Andrea backed away slowly from the house.
‘Maybe it’s just deep enough under the porch that I can’t see it,’ she rationalized.
As she could see the brick wall of the house under the wooden porch, the white mortar shining like strips of silver, she didn’t place much faith in her own rationalization. Still she followed the reasoning she used with any angry animal and backed away slowly so it wouldn’t feel threatened. She had no need to go into the house, a curiosity, but no real need. ‘Especially if something plans on attacking me for trying to knock on the front door,’ she thought.
The minimum wage the company paid her to conduct a door to door survey wasn’t worth a trip to the hospital for an animal bite and the round of potential rabies shots. In truth the wage was enough for host of unpleasantness she had endured during her time here. The company she worked for was not well liked in these parts. After two weeks taking a survey to ask how the locals felt, she was pretty sure the feeling was universal. She had been called names and twice had the hose turned on her for simply mentioning the companies’ name.
This was the last house on the block and she was willing to fill in the comments, pretty certain they wouldn’t differ from any of the neighbors. Andrea stepped off the property and out of the gate. The growls were still coming from under the porch. As she was further away they weren’t as loud, but they were still threatening. She eased the gate closed and without turning her back on the house, she walked around to the driver’s side of her car and got into the driver’s seat. Even with the car door shut and locked there was something threatening and she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. She pulled away from the curb and drove away from the house. Before she turned off the road and onto the street leading out of the neighborhood, she looked in the rear view mirror.
She blinked in surprise and then shook her head. For a second it looked like there were two people standing on the porch. One held the leash to what looked like a large dog. She looked back into the mirror and they were gone.
Andrea shook her head again and turned onto Fifth street. She was eager to be away from this neighborhood and that house. She didn’t think there was anything especially spooky about it, but there was something that felt off about it. Like air held too long in a closed room. The entire neighborhood had that feel. Andrea tried to shake off the feeling but remained tense until she left it behind. She turned on the more heavily populated street and merged with traffic.
“Maybe it is just because there was so little traffic there.” She shook the thought off as irrelevant. She was done with her survey. She could turn in her papers, collect her last check and never worry about the Morristown neighborhood ever again.
Ten til Midnight 