Kelly stood in front of the ancient Victorian, her mouth twisted into a frown. She studied the dust-caked windows, surrounded by warped boards and covered with flaking white paint. At least, she *thought* it was white. Dirt had grubbed up the paint to the point where it could have been gray, and she wouldn't have known the difference.
Earlier in the day, the town garbage company had rolled in with two large, greasy black dumpsters and unceremoniously parked them on the dried crabgrass lawn. They almost looked like they were guarding the stairs.
"This was grandmother's house," she explained to her boyfriend, Clark. He was halfway out of his worn red Neon, hanging onto the door. He had dark hair set against light eyes, eyes that seemed brighter than usual thanks to the contrast with the brilliant green shirt he was wearing.
"You told me. She passed away here and no one found her for days because of the mess." Clark looked up at the darkened overhead windows, then down at Kelly again. "Do you think it smells like dead person in there?" he asked in a whisper.
"That's my grandmother you're talking about!" Kelly snapped back, running her fingers through her brownish-red hair in thoughtful frustration. She felt bad about snapping, as she knew Clark hadn't meant to upset her. The situation was just so... not funny. The doctor said grandmother had died from a stroke, dead before she even hit the ground. Kelly could only pray that were the case, and that her grandmother hadn't starved to death, smothered in her own things and forgotten by her family.
"I'm sorry I snapped. To tell you the truth, I'm glad you're here. Grandmother was always a little weird, especially during the last years. She always seemed to be talking to invisible people. It was enough to almost make me believe in ghosts."
"Lots of older people talk to missing loved ones. My grandma does it too," Clark said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. He'd been a football player until a torn ACL had waylaid his career. Now, he was studying to become an accountant.
"That's the funny thing. When I was younger I'd ask her if she was talking to grandpa, and she'd always say no," Kelly sighed in response. She flicked a floating seed off of her ribbed orange shirt. She wished she'd thought ahead and worn something old. "When I got older, I learned to just stop asking. It was too creepy."
Kelly took out the worn silver key and opened the front door. She'd expected it to creak open like something straight out of a horror movie, but to her surprised it was mostly silent. It only swung a few feet, however, before impacting a pile of cardboard boxes as tall as herself. She managed to wriggle in far enough to turn on the lights, Clark squirming in behind her. Thank God the electric bill was paid for the month!
"Oh, wow," Clark gasped.
"Grandma had hoarding disorder. It got really bad when mom moved to Florida and stopped visiting to check up on her," Kelly said with a sweep of her manicured hand.
"When will your mom be back from Florida to help you?" Clark asked, looking over the piles.
That was another sore spot. Her mom hadn't even flown back for the funeral. This time, however, Kelly restrained herself from snapping at Clark. "As soon as she can take the time off from work. With this economy, she doesn't want to risk taking unexpected days off..."
"Are you sure you want to take on this by yourself? After my big exam next week I'll be free to help," Clark offered.
"That's okay," Kelly smiled weakly. She really didn't WANT to be alone, but she didn't really have a choice. "The electricity is still working, and I've brought enough food to last me until you come back." It wasn't the ideal situation, but the young couple shared only one car between them, and mass transit didn't go out far enough to be of any use. The housing crisis had been the two in the one-two punch that had knocked this neighborhood out of commission, leaving it only sparsely populated at best. All around them, empty house windows looked down like accusing eyes.
"Just don't get crushed under any boxes while I'm gone!" Clark called as he returned to his car.
Kelly waved as Clark's car disappeared down the road, turn signal blinking left. Messily tying her reddish hair back, she set the mop bucket down on the floor with a loud metallic clang. She paused, looking around the house. Every place her pretty green eyes looked, there were boxes. Dusty old boxes filled with things grandmother had hauled home from every auction and rummage sale she'd managed to drag herself too before her failing vision forced her to give up her car. Dusty old boxes filled with the broken pieces of other families' lives.
The truth was, she wanted to find her grandmother's jewelry alone. Clark was too nice, too honest of a guy. If they found it together, he'd tell her mother they knew where it was, and Kelly's mother would snatch up the family heirlooms and skip away to a Florida pawn shop, using her treasured memories to buy beer for whatever pot-bellied man happened to be laying her currently. Kelly wasn't about to let that happen.
She had to move sideways up the stairs to the second floor, as the boxes were too close together to allow her to go any other way. A few times she stopped, fear slipping through her chest, as the stairs moaned beneath her as if threatening to give way and dump her into the dusty basement. Each time, though, she stood as still as a lawn ornament and drew a few deep breaths until the groaning went away. Only the thought of the jewelery kept her moving upward.
As she reached the landing, she spotted something silver glinting on the ground, reflecting light from the nearest window. As she bent over to retrieve it, a sudden blast of cold air blew across her back, causing the hem of her shirt to flip up over her shoulders, exposing her back and revealing her pretty pink bra with the strawberry-shaped clasp.
Kelly stood up quickly, pulling her shirt back down over her belly. She was a thin girl, but that came from genetics and not a strict gym regiment. She was trim, but soft. For that reason, when she made awkward love to Clark, she insisted they do it in the dark.
To Kelly's great relief, the second floor wasn't as nearly packed with stuff as the first. True, a baby grand piano sat upright on its keys in the hallway just off the stairs, along with four worn couches, but at least there was enough space that she didn't have to squeeze sideways. The unfortunate side of this, she noticed, was that most of the bulbs on the second floor seemed burned out or broken, and the sun was only an hour from setting. She'd be alone in the dark if she slept upstairs, or sleeping on piles of dirty boxes if she slept downstairs. She wasn't sure which option she liked better.
She couldn't remember which room had been her grandmother's. She tried the first door on the left. As she opened it, something gray burst out and streaked across her foot. Kelly screamed, practically leaping as high as the overhead lights. On the ground, an old gray cat looked at her indignantly, and then disappeared off by crawling through a cat-sized hole in the junk. Oh, great, Kelly thought. She wondered how many other feral cats were up here, waiting to leap at her, pooping in her grandmother's things?
The room she had just opened was so stuffed with boxes, only a cat could have gotten inside. She knew her grandmother had still been using her bedroom at the time of her death, so that couldn't have been it. The next room was the same, the same, the same... until finally Kelly opened a room with no boxes, the sweet smell of old lady perfume rolling out and assaulting her nose when she entered.
"Phew!" she cried, waving away the scent as best she could. This was it, complete with pink walls. The mass produced pressed wood bed in the center of the room was definitively out of place among the antique heavy oak furniture in the rest of the room, but it made Kelly happy to see it. It had been a gift from her family, before everything had gone wrong. She was glad her grandmother had been getting use out of it.
But, now was no time for sentimentality. Kelly began hunting. She pulled open every drawer. She searched through every sock. She even flipped the mattress, having heard somewhere that old people liked to hide money in their beds. Nothing there, not even some old coins.
Kelly groaned in loud frustration. The light from outside was disappearing rapidly, and the one working bulb in the room wasn't going to be enough for her to search by. She'd even pulled up and torn open the couch cushions- she'd blame that on the feral cats if her mom asked.
When the last light disappeared from the sky, leaving only a small circle of light for Kelly, she resigned herself for the night. She'd pulled all the paintings and photos down from the wall, accidentally cutting herself in the process. No hidden safes in the wall. Her knowledge of old movies was really failing her this time. Exhausted, she collapsed onto her grandmother's bed, still fully dressed in her now dust-covered clothing, falling into a fitful sleep.
She woke up with a start, hearing something scratching in the walls. Oh no, she thought. Rats! As if the cats weren't enough, now she had to deal with rats, too? Didn't the presence of the cats mean there shouldn't be any rats?
Kelly rolled, reached and turned on the light, glaring around the room with an expression that could have killed any rat dead in its steps. Nothing was there, however. In fact, she noticed, the scratching had stopped the second she'd turned on the lights.
