They told us in Ohio that the house at 13 Ashford Lane has no owner.
That was the second lie.
I have passed that house every day for 6 years. It's a two-storey white colonial on the edge of our neighborhood in Dayton. Paint peeling, roof sagging, windows broken like blind eyes. The front door has a rusted padlock that has been there since I was in third grade. Every kid on Ashford Lane knows not to go near it.
The first lie is that it's empty.
Last Tuesday, 6:23 PM. It had just stopped raining. The streetlights on Ashford Lane were out and it was getting dark fast.
That's when I saw it.
A yellow light upstairs. Not a flashlight. Not a phone. A real bulb, warm and steady, like someone just turned on a lamp in a house that hasn't had power in ten years.
I froze in the middle of the sidewalk.
The light started to move. Slowly. From the downstairs living room, to the first bedroom, to the second. Room by room, as if someone was searching for something.
I couldn't breathe. I wanted to yell "Who's in there?" but nothing came out.
Then it reached the last window — the small attic window at the top that looks straight down at the street.
The light stopped.
And someone looked out.
I couldn't see a face. Just a small figure, standing perfectly still behind the cracked glass. Looking right at me.
I ran all the way home and didn't stop until I was inside.
I told my older brother. He laughed and said it was just a reflection from the houses across the street.
But this morning, I walked past 13 Ashford Lane again.
The padlock was still locked. But the dust on it had fresh fingerprints. Someone had touched it recently.
Behind the house, where the old wooden fence by the Miller's property is broken, there were footprints in the wet mud.
Small footprints. Like a child's.
And they were only going in. There were none coming out...
.......to be continued
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