After Dinner

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

The screams pierced through the sleepy quiet of the neighborhood at exactly 8:01 pm. Jeanne had just been placing the last impeccably polished crystal glass back in her breakfront and the shock of the obtrusive noise nearly made her drop it on the floor. More annoyed about the sudden disturbance than afraid, she carefully pulled aside her living room curtain and peered out to the darkened street, looking for the culprit. Across the way old Mrs. McClatchy was staring out her window as well, and Jeanne followed the elderly woman’s gaze down the road to the yellow house on the corner, sitting solemnly in the shadows, but nothing appeared to be awry. Then, just as abruptly as it started, the screaming stopped and silence settled on Blue Pine Lane again. Jeanne looked back over to Mrs. McClatchy’s house just in time to see a papery hand close the drapes. Hmm, she thought, if Mrs. McClatchy isn’t worried, then it’s probably nothing.

As Jeanne settled into bed that night she still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that something was amiss on her normally serene little street, and if Mrs. McClatchy, the self-appointed neighborhood busy-body, wasn’t going to do anything about it, then it was up to her, she supposed. I don’t want to be nosey, she assured herself, but perhaps I should go over to that house tomorrow and introduce myself, after all the new occupants moved in several weeks ago but have scarcely made their presence in the neighborhood known… I could bring over some muffins as a welcoming, and make sure everything about them is alright.

So the next morning, bright and early (but not too early as to seem impolite, of course) Jeanne took her perfect little basket of freshly made muffins to the new neighbor’s house and gently knocked on the door, but there was no answer. After waiting the appropriate amount of time (and not a second longer, mind you), she knocked again, just a little bit louder this time, but still there was no response. Disappointed that her curiosity would not yet be satiated she tucked a welcome note she had written on her second favorite stationary into the basket of muffins and set them on the porch (which she noticed was overdue for a good sweeping).

Much to Jeanne’s dismay the muffins remained on that porch, exactly where she had left them for the next two days. On the morning of day three she decided she had better do something, after all, the muffins would begin to attract pests. As she bent down to pick up her basket from the still un-swept porch she was startled as the door to the house suddenly creaked open. Her tentative “Hello” morphed into a blood curdling scream as an unseen figure grabbed her and yanked her inside. The last thing she saw was an exquisite, though unacceptably cobweb-covered chandelier, hanging in the front hallway, right next to a gently swinging body that had once been Mrs. McClatchy.