The Death of Alex Smith

A week earlier…

         “Has it been lived in before?” Alex Smith asked as he followed the tour guide through the house Alex was looking to buy.

         “Yes. But the guests have never stayed very long” said the tour guide. He was dressed in regular clothes and was unusually pale, but Alex was too engrossed in looking around the house that he didn’t notice.

         Alex turned toward the man. “Why is that?”

         “I cannot answer that question.”

          “Ok. Well then…I’ll take it.” The tour guide pulled the contract to the house out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Alex. Alex signed it, and the house was officially his.

         “I do believe I better get going now,” the tour guide said. And with that, he walked out the front door. Alex ran to try and catch him, but the man had strangely vanished.



Now…

         Alex Smith was one of those ordinary people who lived a fairly normal life. He was not married, he was looking for a job since he had just graduated college, and he was moving out of his parents’ house. He was on his way to his new home now, which was a fairly large house that looked like it was built a long time ago. He had already taken a tour of the home a week ago, signed the contract, and was following the moving truck as it pulled into the driveway of his new home. He did not know it, but by buying this house, he made the deadliest mistake of his life.

         He and the moving truck pulled into the driveway and started to unload. They walked in, and everything seemed normal. Alex told the moving men where he wanted things while he himself did some work. After it was all finished, the moving men left Alex to his newly refurbished home. He plopped down on his couch, happy that all the hassles of moving into a new home were over with. He grabbed the remote to his T.V. and turned it on.

         That was when his troubles started.

         The T.V. would not turn on. Alex got off the couch and checked the wiring. All of the wires had gotten unplugged, which was odd because he and the moving men had plugged everything in just moments before. He got them all plugged in, tried to turn the tube on again, and this time it worked. Alex started watching, but he dozed off into a deep sleep. Nothing was going to wake him up.

         Except for a loud banging at the front door.

         Alex awoke with a start to someone banging on his front door incessantly, which was odd due to the fact that it was the dead of night outside. He slowly rose off the couch and moved towards the door cautiously. The knocking continued until he peered out to little side windows. Nothing was out there. He quickly swung open the door, only to find a note on his welcome mat. He unfolded it to see eerie green letters that looked like they were scratched onto the paper. It read:

“Welcome to the neighborhood! We know you’ll love this place forever!”

         “Forever?” Alex read aloud. “How do they know I’m staying here forever?” Alex ripped up the note, threw it in the trash can, and walked into his bedroom, which was nice and tidy. Alex crawled under to covers, trying to forget about the creepy note.



The next day…

         Alex awoke quickly to the strange feeling of a cool breeze come over him. He sat up in his bed, glancing around his room, checking to make sure something (or someone) wasn’t there. After the room was inspected, Alex got out of bed and went downstairs, where a surprise met him. There were cobwebs almost EVERYWHERE. Alex slowly walked down the stairs, avoiding cobwebs along the way. He got down the stairs and started to check doors. He checked inside closets, behind the large grandfather clock, and almost everywhere else in the house. When he got to the last door, he opened it, and to his surprise, there was a whole different part of the house that the tour guide had not showed him. It was dimly lit, with only one three-pronged candle at the end of the hallway. He cautiously walked towards the candle, wondering if someone was living back in this part of the house. While he was walking, he stepped in what sounded like a puddle of water. He moved his foot, looked down at it, and jumped back in surprise.

         There was green ooze in the shape of a footstep where he just stepped. And that wasn’t the only one in the hallway.

         Alex gathered himself and continued on down the hallway. When he neared the end, he saw that it forked off into two different rooms. He didn’t even want to look in those rooms, so he turned around and started back toward the main part of his home. On the way back, he noticed there were no more green footsteps. They had magically disappeared. He finally got to the door, which was still open, and walked back up to his room. He changed his clothes and went to the park, where he could get away from what was happening inside his new house.

         While Alex was in the park, storm clouds that looked like they were carrying buckets of water loomed on the horizon, forcing Alex to leave his safety and head back to his house. He punched in his garage door code, but to no avail. He tried over and over, but with no luck on any of the tries. So he walked to his front door, which, to his complete surprise, was cracked open. Goosebumps run down his spine as he entered. He slowly closed the door, but it ended up closing with an extremely loud CRASH! Alex jumped, but re-gathered himself. He took a step and the floorboards creaked. He took another step, and a brilliant flash of lightning lit up the house. Alex was scared out of his wits now. He never thought he would have to face these issues in buying and living in a new house right out of college. He took a few more steps, and when nothing happened, he un-tensed his shoulders and relaxed a little bit.

         But then it happened.

         A loud crash came from what seemed to be the roof. More crashes came, one after the other. After a few, they stopped. Alex was frozen in his tracks, completely confused and more scared than he was before. And then came the creaky floorboards again; only this time, Alex wasn’t the cause. It came from the attic this time. Alex, against his better judgment, decided to go and check things out. He wanted to be doubly sure that he was just hearing things and that no one was in the house. As he was walking up the stairs, he heard someone whistling, which confirmed his worst fear.

         Someone was in his house.

         He so badly wanted to head straight out the door, but there was bad weather outside. Incessant lightning, pounding rain, and loud cracks of thunder could be seen and heard from outside the walls. Alex had to keep moving or else the stranger might just keep coming back, or even worse, start taking up residence in his new home. He got to the top of the stairs. The floorboards creaked, and the whistling stopped. Alex froze. Rain and thunder were the only noises that could be heard. The house went eerily silent. A door creaked open down the hallway, but no one appeared. After a moment’s hesitation, Alex continued down the hallway. Upon reaching the door, he saw that there was a long flight of stairs that led to what Alex supposed was the attic. Without thinking twice, Alex started to ascend the stairs. The whistling started up again, the floorboard started to creak from above, and small crashes could be heard. And what was even more eerie was that the green footsteps he had seen earlier in the day were on the staircase leading up to the attic. Alex reached the next-to-last step, took a deep breath and took the last step up. Everything went silent. Alex was frozen in his place as he looked around. The attic was nice, neat, and organized. Goosebumps ran up and down his entire body. His body was growing cold, and Alex started to shiver a little bit. Alex didn’t know what to do. He didn’t come this far just to abandon the noises and go back downstairs, but he didn’t really want to face the person in his house.

         So he took a step forward.

         A voice seemingly from nowhere said, “COME NO FURTHER!” The voice was so loud Alex almost fell. The floorboard creaked under him, sounding like they were about to break.

         “W-w-who s-said t-that?” Alex stammered.

         “I LIVE HERE! LEAVE OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!”

         “I’m s-sorry sir, but I didn’t know that. I just bought this house-

         “ARGHHHHH!” the person yelled. Alex stared forward as a paint can flew past his head. Alex kept dodging items the person threw at him, but ended to no avail. A rope caught around his neck, and the person tightened it, apparently trying to choke him. Alex struggled against the rope, when all of a sudden a cold breathe blew against his face. But no one was there.

         “I’ll only tell you one last time, Alex. Leave, or suffer,” the ghost told him.

         Alex could not speak because he was still being choked by the rope the ghost was apparently holding with his invisible hand.

         “Fine then. Suit yourself. Enjoy the house forever, Alex!” And with that, the ghost stomped on the floorboards below Alex, and he fell towards the ground level of his house.          There was bad news for Alex, though: the ghost was still holding the noose. And when the rope ran out, the noose tightened around Alex’s neck, Alex’s body jolted, and his became a permanent resident of the house. Eerie laughter filled the house as the rain continued outside. Lightning lit up the clouds and the thunder rolled through the sky. Alex Smith was dead.