Noah's sign said read:
Will work for food!
Can do landscaping, building, renovating!
And so he'd expected that the first time somebody would ask him to work for them that he'd be doing something basic like repairing a garden wall or setting up a fountain. When the stranger had approached him they'd just offered him £8,000 in exchange for him closing and locking all the doors in their old house.
Of course he'd been suspicious, as any same person would, and of course he'd accepted, as any broke person would. He could afford to rent a room for a while with that money and get food too so within an hour he was being driven to the stranger's house, £1,000 in his pocket as cash and the rest waiting for him when he got back.
The house was several miles out of town and surrounded by deep woods, isolated enough to make him reconsider the offer. The stranger, having introduced himself as Alfred Barker, claimed he'd just divorced his "monster of a husband" and wanted to secure the house before he sold it. The place had too many bad memories for him to do it himself and it all made sense to Noah at the time so he didn't question it any further.
He didn't wonder why Alfred refused to go within half a mile of the place, pulling into a nearby car park for some touristy sight off the highway before telling him to head down the small path nearby and keep going. He even gave Noah a bulky torch as he'd shut off the electricity to the place and the set of keys, each with a small label attached to make the job even easier.
Despite the path being more overgrown than it should be for a "recent" divorce, he carried on with the thought of a cosy hotel room and decent food outweighing the way Alfred had looked so scared when Noah was walking away. It could have been that as an older man Alfred was just worried about whatever expensive things he might have left behind and thought Noah would steal them (the thought had crossed his mind but he felt morally above that) or perhaps he just didn't like the dark?
The house itself was much larger than he'd been told, three storeys high with a massive conservatory on one side. He knew he'd be there for quite some time just orienting himself and figuring out how he'd lock all the doors without locking himself into a corner. Perhaps starting from one corner and working his way around until he hit the main hallways would work? Yes, he decided, it would.
He left the front door unlocked behind him, mindful that it was at least an escape route, before he set off on the left side first to close off the reception area, living rooms, kitchen and conservatory. Despite the torch he missed the large footprints along the floor in the deep gloom of the place, leading from the back door and circling the ground floor.
He spotted them going upstairs and thought they must be a way to scare off intruders with the way they looked like human feet that ended in tiny hands for toes. What a joke! He followed them around the upper floors, locking the doors behind him as he went and not thinking about how they now lead down the stairs where he'd only seen one set of them on the way up.
It wasn't until he'd closed the last door - the downstairs hall door leading to the front entrance room - that he noticed there were no prints at all in there and that the glass windows on either side of the door looked... different. One seemed to show a silhouette of a large figure that flinched from his torchlight and dashed to the back of the room. He heard them banging on the door,trying to break it open and wisely decided to flee, locking the front door behind him.
He ran the rest of the way to Alfred's car, praying it would still be there.
Will work for food!
Can do landscaping, building, renovating!
And so he'd expected that the first time somebody would ask him to work for them that he'd be doing something basic like repairing a garden wall or setting up a fountain. When the stranger had approached him they'd just offered him £8,000 in exchange for him closing and locking all the doors in their old house.
Of course he'd been suspicious, as any same person would, and of course he'd accepted, as any broke person would. He could afford to rent a room for a while with that money and get food too so within an hour he was being driven to the stranger's house, £1,000 in his pocket as cash and the rest waiting for him when he got back.
The house was several miles out of town and surrounded by deep woods, isolated enough to make him reconsider the offer. The stranger, having introduced himself as Alfred Barker, claimed he'd just divorced his "monster of a husband" and wanted to secure the house before he sold it. The place had too many bad memories for him to do it himself and it all made sense to Noah at the time so he didn't question it any further.
He didn't wonder why Alfred refused to go within half a mile of the place, pulling into a nearby car park for some touristy sight off the highway before telling him to head down the small path nearby and keep going. He even gave Noah a bulky torch as he'd shut off the electricity to the place and the set of keys, each with a small label attached to make the job even easier.
Despite the path being more overgrown than it should be for a "recent" divorce, he carried on with the thought of a cosy hotel room and decent food outweighing the way Alfred had looked so scared when Noah was walking away. It could have been that as an older man Alfred was just worried about whatever expensive things he might have left behind and thought Noah would steal them (the thought had crossed his mind but he felt morally above that) or perhaps he just didn't like the dark?
The house itself was much larger than he'd been told, three storeys high with a massive conservatory on one side. He knew he'd be there for quite some time just orienting himself and figuring out how he'd lock all the doors without locking himself into a corner. Perhaps starting from one corner and working his way around until he hit the main hallways would work? Yes, he decided, it would.
He left the front door unlocked behind him, mindful that it was at least an escape route, before he set off on the left side first to close off the reception area, living rooms, kitchen and conservatory. Despite the torch he missed the large footprints along the floor in the deep gloom of the place, leading from the back door and circling the ground floor.
He spotted them going upstairs and thought they must be a way to scare off intruders with the way they looked like human feet that ended in tiny hands for toes. What a joke! He followed them around the upper floors, locking the doors behind him as he went and not thinking about how they now lead down the stairs where he'd only seen one set of them on the way up.
It wasn't until he'd closed the last door - the downstairs hall door leading to the front entrance room - that he noticed there were no prints at all in there and that the glass windows on either side of the door looked... different. One seemed to show a silhouette of a large figure that flinched from his torchlight and dashed to the back of the room. He heard them banging on the door,trying to break it open and wisely decided to flee, locking the front door behind him.
He ran the rest of the way to Alfred's car, praying it would still be there.
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