The Old Man From Oak and Eve

A suspicious old man. A nineteenth century urn. Missing jewelry. Strange shadows and unnerving dream. People that were never there. Alice saw it all, but will she live to tail the story?

It was a cloudy fall day, and brightly colored leaves were blown around by a cold wind that could leave you shivering. The chill of winter was fast approaching and soon it would be too cold to do anything but curl up in front of a fireplace. 

The small town was a light with activity, with Thanksgiving not two weeks away, and one of the bigger neighborhoods had decided to host a neighborhood garage sale.

Friendly faces lined the driveways as people searched for that one treasure that would make the trip worthwhile.

 The smell of coco and baked goods filled the air; Mrs. Betty from down the street had decided to bring some warm refreshment since it was so cold out. Children crowded around the old lady as she brought out slices of apple pie and mugs of steaming coco. The sound of kids begging their parents for the sweets filled the air.

Mr. James was out on his front lawn retelling stories of his time in the war while trying to sale some of his old junk to the bored husbands who had been dragged to the sale by their wives.

Every yard was bustling with people and sales.

Except one, the house on the corner of Oak and Eve.

There was one particular house that had little to no customers eagerly pursuing the tables that lined the yard. The house was huge and looked worn and run down. The house was a faded brown that clashed with the big brick houses along the rest of the street. The tall grass was uncut and a few of the windows had broken glass, as if to suggest one of the neighbor kids had pitched a ball though it. The person waiting at the tables watching with beady eyes was a withered old man in clothes dark grey almost black clothes. The old man scowled at anyone that was with in viewing distance. The shoppers seemed uncomfortable even walking passed the house.

There was only one customer looking at any of his stuff, and that was Alice McClain who had just moved to the small town a few weeks. She couldn’t be more than twenty-three years of age and she had taken over at the local library when old lady Sue had retired. No one knew much about her, only that she was always had a smile and that she never seemed to make it to church on Sunday.

The young woman had bright blonde hair that was cut to her ears and lay in smooth waves on her head. She had pale skin and dark brown eyes that always seemed to light up when she was interested in something, and usually that was a book.

At the moment her eyes were on a small urn that looked as if it was centuries old, it was in good condition considering it was clay but the once bright blue colors had faded to a pale imitation of itself. It would look perfect among her books, she decided.

“How much do you want for this urn?” She asked pointing to it.

The old man examined her with a suspicious eye, scowling at her.

Alice only smiled in return.

“This urn was my great grandfather’s,” the old man spoke, his voice sounding as if he had forgotten how to use it. Paper thin and cold.

“His mama used it as a place to store important things, and when my great grand-pappy came back from servin' in the Civil War she gave it to him.” 

“It’s from the 1800’s? That’s amazing; it's in such great condition. It would be perfect to put next to all my Civil War books. How much would you like for it?" Alice questioned again, even more interested than before.

"Well I suppose I can't charge you an arm and a leg for it, but it is pretty special to my family so an even twenty dollars should do it." The old man said giving a sinister grin that would send chills down even the bravest of soul's back.

Alice frowned, that was awfully expensive. She really shouldn't, she had bills to pay and that wouldn't help at all. But something was compelling her to buy the small urn and with another glance down at the antique she was handing over a twenty dollars and loading it into her car.

She couldn’t help but buy it, just think of the history, the stories behind it, she reasoned with herself trying to understand why she couldn’t just leave it. 

She continued to reason with her self on the short drive home. It was such a beautiful urn with what could possibly be an interesting history and yet she couldn't help but feel a bit like she had just made the wrong decision in buying it.

She checked the mail at the end of the long driveway before continuing on to the one bedroom cabin she owned at the end of the drive. It was a small but comfortable place on the edge of town that was located down a mile long driveway in the woods. It had a bright reddish brown tint to the wood and a small brick chimney that stuck out at an odd angle. Around the edges of the stone walk way there were flowers wilting from the cold weather, and it was surrounded by pine trees.

Alice sighed as she closed the heavy door on the cold wind that was slowly picking up. 

Home sweet home, she thought glancing down at her watch hoping that she hadn't stayed out to long.

Huh. The watch was still, there was no ticking of the small metal hands, and the time was frozen at five twenty-three in the afternoon. That was a little over twenty minutes ago.

Alice frowned; she had just bought this watch not even a week ago and the battery was already dead.

Nothing she could do about it right now, she decided.

Kicking off her shoes she headed into her living room that had bookshelves lining corner to corner, the only exceptions being the small loveseat and the old box T.V. facing each other on opposite sides of the room. She happily went over to her bookshelf and placed the urn on the end.

As she turned away to go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea she accidently bumped against the bookshelf. The urn, which had been sitting too close to the edge because of the amount of books, toppled over and landed with a small bounce and a cloud of dust.

Actually, that was ash, Alice realized in a startle. She quickly skittered backwards to avoid getting any of it on her, her heart racing. 

That old man had sold her an urn with someone's ashes in it!

After the ashes had settled she quickly grabbed a broom and swept the ashes back into the urn, trying not to miss any.

She wasn't a religious person, but if any of the horror movies she had watched were anything to go by disturbing someone's ashes was never a good thing. And she certainly did not like the idea of having anybody’s ashes, or anything that once contained them in her house.

She quickly moved the urn out of the house and settled it softly into the trashcan.

That night she took an extra long shower trying to remove the feeling of unease that consumed her.

 

Over the next few weeks she started to notice a lot of strange things happening around her. 

When she was alone she would see flashes of grey in the corner of her eye and quickly turn to see what it was but nothing was ever there. When she would walk into her house or another room she would catch a faint whiff of whiskey or tobacco, which confused her to no end because she never drank or smoke. Things would be moved or go completely missing from her house when she went to look for them. 

One time she had put down her Civil War book that she was reading in front of the fireplace to go and make a sandwich, when she returned her book was in the fire and the smell of cigarettes lingered in the room.

Some of her jewelry had gone missing too. One night she was doing the dishes and she had taken off her class ring so it wouldn't fall down the drain. She set it on the dinner table in the center, so she wouldn’t accidently knock it off. While she was the rinsing a plate she felt a light breeze and turned to see what had disturbed her, seeing nothing she went to turn around but the spot where she had put her ring caught her attention. It was gone, it had been right there and it was gone! 

A flash of grey caught her eye and she turned to face the door to the living room but no one was there. She grabbed her phone and one of the kitchen knives and went to see if the was anyone in her house before she turned her whole house upside down looking for the ring just in case she had imagined putting it on the table but it was nowhere to be found.

She had been having nightmares too. In some she was running though the woods away from an unknown source, in others she was drowning. And in some of the most terrifying ones she was buried alive with thousands of spiders crawling all over her. Every time she had the nightmares she would wake up with a scream and would lie in bed trying to calm her breath. She would always be panting and swimming in sweat. She wouldn't go back to sleep on these nights.

 

It was a rainy day, and thunder and lightening disturbed the silence of the library. Nearly no one was in the library except for Alice and Mrs. Betty from the garage sale.

"How are you today, dear? You look tired. And you’ve been really jumpy lately” Mrs. Betty said, handing over the books she wanted checked out.

"It's going to sound stupid, but ever since I bought that urn from that old man on the corner of Oak and Eve, I've been going crazy. I've been seeing things. Things keep going missing and I haven't slept well. I'm always waking up with nightmares these day." She told the sweet old lady that gave her a funny look at the mention of the old man.

"I would say you are seeing things, dear," the Mrs. Betty answered, "no one's lived in that house in over fifty years, the last resident was a young lady like yourself, she was a sweet girl not even nineteen years old. Her boyfriend came over one night and found her strangled to death. The police say he did it but I know that’s just malarkey, that young man couldn’t hurt a fly." She huffed.

The old woman collected her books and gave Alice a final smile before venturing out into the pouring rain, leaving Alice to her thoughts.

She had seen an old man she knew she did, and what’s this about a girl being murdered at that house. She wanted to know more, so she went to the room that held all the town records and began to snoop.

Half way through the pile she found what she was looking for, a newspaper containing the orginal article about the murder.

“Murder Calls In His Own Crime

Early this morning Alex Rodgers 21, was arrested for the murder of his girl friend Sylvia Andrews 19. The young man claims that he’s innocent and there was an old man in dark grey clothes there standing over his girlfriend when he arrived at the house. Sources claim Rodgers had been mentally unstable for awhile and his girlfriend had called the police on him before for stealing things from her and breaking into to her house, though the police never found the things she claimed he stole or find him in the house when they were called in for the break ins.”

Alice couldn’t read anymore, she knew it couldn’t be the same person but it was a bit eerie, the old man in grey clothes, things going missing. And why was she the only one that saw him?

She reluctantly made her way to her house that night. She had never been scared to go back to the little cabin in the woods, but now she was.

On her way home she stopped by the local Dollar General and picked up a Bible something she had never given a thought of owning before.

She slowly went into her house and looked around before sitting the Bible on the coffee table and sitting down placing her head in her hands. The kitchen light was on. She hadn't turned it on before she left.

Tears stung at the back of her eyes but she forced them back before squaring her shoulders and going about her nightly retinue.

She was not going to let a little ghost rule her life, she decided.

 

She was relaxing in a hot bubble bath, the lights were dim and the house seemed peaceful for once. The sound of running water made her drift in and out of sleep. She let the soft scent of the lavender bubble bath sooth her.

Everything was calm.

She closed her eyes resting her head on the back on the bear claw tub. She let out a yawn.

When the water was high enough she opened her eyes to turn the water off.

As she leaned up to turn the water off she noticed that it was no longer running crystal clear, it had turned to a murky black and she panicked trying to get out of the tub, but she found that she couldn't move she struggled against the invisible force that was holding her down. Water splashed over the sides of the tub and the light flickered on and off.

Suddenly the water wasn't water anymore; it was hundreds of black widow spiders crawling their way over her, biting at her skin. She could here the tiny pitter-patter of their eight legs crawling up the sides of the tub and the walls. 

She let out a scream and bolted up.

She sighed in relieve flopping backing into her pillows trying to control her breath.

Another dream that was all. She needed to she a doctor about this.

She wiped a hand down her face before turning her head to look at the clock. I read five twenty-three AM. 

She gave another sigh before lying back; she was not going to stay awake this time. 

As she felt around on the bed for her covers her hand came across something cold and metal, picking it up she realized it was her ring.

Dread settled in the pit of her stomach as the sensation that you get when someone’s looking at you came over her

Slowly she opened one eye a glanced around, before screaming in shock.

There at the foot of her bed was a figured covered in shadow but she could somehow tell he was grinning a sinister grin.

He tilted his head before suddenly lunging himself at Alice.

Alice let out a shrill shriek and tried to get away but she couldn't.

Hands wrapped around her throat and the last thing Alice saw before the air left her throat was the beady eyes and sinister smile of the old man from the corner of Oak and Eve.

Author's Note

Please leave any tips that might help, I can't learn if I don't know where to start right?