The windows stared back at him, as cloudy as his grandmother's cataracts and almost as accusingly as the old bat. Of all the miserable bastards in the family, she just had to leave her house to him. He had to wonder what he'd done to deserve this or if one of his uncles had altered her will so that they wouldn't have to deal with it themselves.
It sounded about right for them, lazy and overly entitled as they were, but perhaps the old bat had her reasons for bequeathing him an absolute behemoth of wreck that she called home in her final days. It looked like she'd become the house at this point - cloudy eyes/windows, cracked face/facade, weather beaten as all hells and smelling distinctly of vinegar and lavender.
Overall the place was so rundown there was no way he'd be able to restore it and demolishing it was just as expensive so leaving it to collapse seemed the best option, if a little too close to how his grandmother had ended up dying to be a comfortable choice.
It's not every day you see a death in the family on TV before you hear about it from a relative but that was her way. She'd just do her own thing and let the rest of the world chase after her in a fearful flurry until the rest of the world got fed up and left her be at the ripe old age of one hundred and two.
The only reason anybody suspected something was wrong was that they hadn't seen her in the local news. Turns out she'd tried to repair her own electrics and fried herself to death. Her charred corpse was found fused to the ladder but at least her hair was back to its original black and she'd have been happy with that, less so about dying or so everyone assumed.
The thing is that the woman who found her, a 'concerned neighbour', originally reported that the old bat had been breathing. The police report said she'd told them that there'd been a nasty shock and that they should call an ambulance when they got the time. Bloody woman made it sound like his grandmother had poked a toaster, not toasted herself!
Five weeks later they sent a squaddie over to say hello and there she was, or whatever was left of her. The news reports varied so much that the only consistent detail is that they had to cut her body from the ladder and that they left the ladder behind.
A small part of him, a morbid part that he probably inherited from the old bat, wondered what the ladder looked like. As he found himself stepping inside the unlocked front door he swore he heard her wheezy snigger coming from the living room. Of course he must have been the only person there, who else would visit?
It didn't stop him from seeing her shadow flicker in the corners of his eyes, like she was leading him to the blackened leathery flesh that the forensic team had been to lazy to remove. With her attitude, not even burying the ladder in a church would stop the old bat from following him now that she'd gotten a taste for haunting.
It was so typical of her to carry on being a nuisance even in death.
It sounded about right for them, lazy and overly entitled as they were, but perhaps the old bat had her reasons for bequeathing him an absolute behemoth of wreck that she called home in her final days. It looked like she'd become the house at this point - cloudy eyes/windows, cracked face/facade, weather beaten as all hells and smelling distinctly of vinegar and lavender.
Overall the place was so rundown there was no way he'd be able to restore it and demolishing it was just as expensive so leaving it to collapse seemed the best option, if a little too close to how his grandmother had ended up dying to be a comfortable choice.
It's not every day you see a death in the family on TV before you hear about it from a relative but that was her way. She'd just do her own thing and let the rest of the world chase after her in a fearful flurry until the rest of the world got fed up and left her be at the ripe old age of one hundred and two.
The only reason anybody suspected something was wrong was that they hadn't seen her in the local news. Turns out she'd tried to repair her own electrics and fried herself to death. Her charred corpse was found fused to the ladder but at least her hair was back to its original black and she'd have been happy with that, less so about dying or so everyone assumed.
The thing is that the woman who found her, a 'concerned neighbour', originally reported that the old bat had been breathing. The police report said she'd told them that there'd been a nasty shock and that they should call an ambulance when they got the time. Bloody woman made it sound like his grandmother had poked a toaster, not toasted herself!
Five weeks later they sent a squaddie over to say hello and there she was, or whatever was left of her. The news reports varied so much that the only consistent detail is that they had to cut her body from the ladder and that they left the ladder behind.
A small part of him, a morbid part that he probably inherited from the old bat, wondered what the ladder looked like. As he found himself stepping inside the unlocked front door he swore he heard her wheezy snigger coming from the living room. Of course he must have been the only person there, who else would visit?
It didn't stop him from seeing her shadow flicker in the corners of his eyes, like she was leading him to the blackened leathery flesh that the forensic team had been to lazy to remove. With her attitude, not even burying the ladder in a church would stop the old bat from following him now that she'd gotten a taste for haunting.
It was so typical of her to carry on being a nuisance even in death.
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