The Edge of the Cul-De-Sac

It seemed a pretty unassuming place at first. It was located in a neighborhood full of landscaped lawns and winding streets. And dead end cul-de-sacs. It was near one of these where her house sat.

I had heard the stories before I ever stepped foot inside for the first time. But, much like Dorothy's revelation at seeing a beatuiful witch in "The Wizard of Oz," I was taken aback. Haunted houses were supposed to ugly and wretched. Not manicured and full of light.

That is, until the sun goes down.

Nothing too overt ever really happens there. But over the years enough has happened to make for good stories.

Two men died there, her father and uncle. Her father had a massive heart attack and died at a young age in the kitchen. The other was her uncle, gravely ill and slowly deteriorating, who quietly passed while sitting on a backyard swing. It seems these two have never left.

The old swing on the back porch still swings. Quietly, slowly, and almost unnoticably. But, at times, the activity has been more pronounced.

My friend thought she was just seeing things. Hell, she and her friends had been drinking all night while swimming in her backyard pool. So, when she saw it, she almost discounted it as an effect of the beer. But it looked so real. There was a man, a tall one, standing there in the darkness. But it wasn't a shadow. She looked more closely. He had depth.

And he was watching them.

She turned her head away, but when she looked again, he was gone. She thought it was all in her mind. That is, until the next day, when a friend of hers asked, "Who was that guy watching us from your back porch last night?"

Another night we were watching a movie when I noticed a flash from behind us. It was an old lamp. I asked my friend if she noticed it. She nodded yes, obviously used to the activity. A few seconds later, I looked back again. The lamp was on.

It didn't help to find out the next day that the lamp was unplugged.

It was another dark night when I sat next to my friend at the computer. There was loud noise that came from within the kitchen. We looked and saw something that sent chills straight up our spines. A knife had fallen from the counter and was sticking straight up out of the floor. We went into the kitchen to get a closer look. The knife had fallen directly on top of some letters, pinning them to the floor. We looked closer. They were papers pertaining to my friend's mother selling the house.

Something was against it.

I spent many a night in that house. There was a cold and unused room in the furthest corner of the house. It served as the father's office until his death. Then it was converted into a guest room. It was there that I slept.

The room creeped me out, so I always slept with the door open and with a lamp on. This particular night, however, the lamp would not turn on. But I was tired so I turned in anyway. As I lay on my stomach with my eyes closed, I felt something on the bed. I opened my eyes expecting to see one of their cats joining me. There was nothing.

I haven't spent a night there since.