A Bad Workman

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

When I pulled into the driveway, I saw the lights in the house were still blazing. I’d left in such a hurry yesterday I didn’t even turn them off. They were so bright in the misty morning, they must have been quite the site, lighting up the neighborhood all night, what with the lack of blinds on the windows and all. Oh well, hopefully it didn’t bother the neighbors too much, goodness knows I was already making quite the impression, screaming, squealing tires, burning lights, and such.

I’d ended up at my parent’s place after my rather hasty retreat from my brand new (to me) house the night before. I told them I just wanted to drop in and see how they were, I didn’t need to provide much more of an excuse than that, they were always happy to have a visit from their only child. They wanted me to stay for dinner, of course, and I happily accepted, of course. Then I had a few too many glasses of wine and had to stay the night. I may or may not have done that on purpose.

But now here I was, back at my extremely well-lit place, red wine hangover in tow (oh tannins, why do you hate me so?). I dragged my pounding head to the front door, unlocked it, and stood in the Pepto Bismol pink foyer (I could really have used some Pepto Bismol right at that very moment). Everything was quiet, just as it should be. Slowly I made my way into the house and down the hallway. The floorboards creaked with every other step. Stupid old house.

Finally, I made it into the kitchen. I picked up the sledgehammer I had discarded on the floor the night before, and with my heart starting to race and peered around the corner. Staring back at me from the other side of the dingy grey plaster wall I had been demoing just 24 hours before, was the creepy ragdoll, still holding a rusty knife. I almost turned and ran right back out of the house (I could just live in my parent’s house forever, right?), but then I saw it, a yellowed slip of paper tucked into the doll’s other hand. I was frozen with indecision. One the one hand, I could run right out the front door and never come back to the house with the creepy knife wielding doll (never mind I had just spent every cent I had saved for the last ten years to buy the place), on the other hand, I did have a sledgehammer, and there was a mysterious note.

Slowly I crept across the floor, sledgehammer poised ready behind me, and snatched the note from the doll’s creepy little hand. I ran back into the foyer and carefully unfolded the note. Inside, in red ink (or at least I hope it was ink), the note read:

“Hi, I’m Billy, I killed the last family that lived here. Good luck!”