INHERITANCE

by Danna Shirley
Writing assignment: Use the following words in a story:

 Aghast     Stricken     Fearful     Danger     Risk     Unsure     Panic     Afraid

I didn’t remembered meeting or even hearing of a Great-Aunt Opal on my mom’s side of the family, until I was notified that she had left me an inheritance. And now I had to travel to the boonies in south Alabama to claim the prize.  

As I drove through the small town of Cranson, I looked for the side-street and almost missed the turn due to the foliage over the rusting sign. The road was overgrown with brush and covered in weeds that scraped against the undercarriage of my car. I was stricken with fear as I crept slowly through the thicket until I reached a broken-down fence that surrounded a sagging porch and a drooping roof. The house sat back in a nest of trees giving it a ghastly appearance and a mist of gloom and doom. 

I looked at the old place with pity. Time and weather had done its job. My heart sank. “Now what am I supposed to do with, with—this thing?” I moaned out loud, disappointed that it wasn’t at all what I had hoped. The weeds and briers scratched my legs as I approached the front porch. I tried each board carefully, unsure of the rotten wood beneath my feet until I made it to the door. A wave of gratitude swept over me knowing I had risked danger and survived. I opened the door and entered a dusty and dank room. The downstairs seemed to have been untouched by human hands for several months. A musty smell attacked my nostrils and my nose crinkled at the unpleasant odor. I made my way across the living room and up the stairs. There was a bathroom to the right and a small bedroom on the left. I continued down the hall to find two more bedrooms, one held a twin bed and an old four-drawer dresser. The other was piled high with boxes, bags, furniture covered with sheets, and pictures hanging on the walls. This room would be fun to investigate.

As I passed back by the bathroom, a wave of a memory suddenly came to me. This hallway looked familiar and so did the bathroom. The claw foot tub was tickling my memory bank as I tried desperately to hold onto the vision and then it came to me. I had once taken a bath in this tub; had played in the water with plastic dishes and squirt bottles and rubber duckies. A woman had poured a glass of warm water over my head to rinse the shampoo from my baby-fine hair. I had pretended to be in a fort with my eyes barely peering over the edge. A lady knelt beside the tub wearing an apron with blue flowers on it. My mind’s eye could not go above the apron. There was no face above the blue flowers.

            “Hey?” said a angry male voice behind me.

I panicked and drew in unexpected air that caught my breath away. I gasped and choked.

“You startled me,” I replied, a little afraid as I turned around to see this stranger. It was an old man with a cane, bent over from years of laborious work. He seemed to have the same haze of doom surrounding him. “Who are you?” I asked annoyed.

            Ever so slowly he replied, “I’m the caretaker of this property and you aren’t welcome here!”

“Well, I’m here whether you like it or not,” I replied miffed at his pronouncement. “I now own this place and if you’re the caretaker, you haven’t been doing a very good job.”

He turned without a word and descended the stairs slowly as if he might fall forward with every step. I followed and when I reached the bottom, he was gone. Just gone! How could that be? He was not agile in the least. I heard no footsteps, not even a cane softly striking the floor. To the right was that musty living room still intact; to the left was an opening with darkness beyond. I went to the threshold and groped inside for a light switch. There was none. When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw a plain box room with no windows or doors. No little old man.

Suddenly I heard a cane softly striking the floor behind me. I turned to see the little man lift the cane and push me into the dark room. I fell, and fell, and kept falling. I vowed I would give up this house and all my inheritance just to escape descending into this darkness. The little man said I wasn’t welcome here and now I agreed wholeheartedly. Good bye, Alabama. It’s all yours!

Then I woke up!