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!
