The House at The End of The Street (standard:mystery, 924 words)
Author: Fanny11	Added: Jul 23 2009	Views/Reads: 5701/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
When Mary walks her dog Fred, she notices the man who lives at the end of the street. He is acting a little weird, and sometimes she feels anxious walking by the apartment house where he lives.

The House at the end of the street 

Word count-926 

The house at the end of the street was built around the eighteenth
century, as were most of the houses on the street where Mary lived. The 
house stood like a big dark shadow at the end. It was in disrepair the 
paint was chipped around the old weather beaten windows. The large 
front porch was in dire need of a new paint job. The house looked as if 
it had been remolded and made into small efficiency apartments. 

This house in particular caught Mary's interest because every time she
passed by the house while walking her dog Fred, there would be a man on 
the front porch. Mary felt overly anxious walking by the house when the 
man was out because of the way he acted. So she started walking Fred on 
the other side of the street. She could then watch the man from a 
distance. He seemed weird because of some of his actions and the way he 
dressed. He was of small stature with dark hair around his ears, while 
the top of his head was bald; he always wore a sweatband around his 
head. Since it was the spring of the year Mary never saw him wear a 
shirt, and under his blue jean cut-offs he wore a pair of women's black 
panty hose. He looked to be around forty years old. To Mary he seemed 
like a flash back from the sixties. 

His odd outfit made Mary wonder, but his actions were more bizarre for
example he always had county music blaring from his apartment, while he 
danced around on the porch with a broom as if it were his dance 
partner, in addition to this weird behavior he was always decorating 
his porch, but from across the street Mary could not make out what the 
decorations were. 

One day Mary was walking Fred on the other side of the street going to
her apartment. She heard someone yell out to her  “ Hey, are you 
walking him or is he walking you?” Startled, Mary looked across the 
street to see who had yelled at her.  She saw the man standing there 
looking at her with a smile on his face. Mary mumbled something to him, 
and thought to herself he seems normal. 

A week later Mary was walking Fred as she did every day.  When she
glanced over at the apartment building from across the street. She 
noticed the man wasn't on his porch as he usually was. Mary felt brave 
that day, so she decided to cross the street and see what the man 
always busied himself with. As she walked slowing by the porch taking 
everything in. she was shocked to see dried weeds and flowers sticking 
out of beer cans they were sitting all around on the porch. The broom 
that the man danced with had a woman's dress draped over it.  The porch 
looked like a terrible mess to Mary. She continued on up the street to 
her own neat apartment. 

It was a warm, sunny day in May, and Mary was getting ready for work,
but she knew she had to take Fred out before she left.  Mary was 
walking down the street when she noticed the sky had darkened, it 
looked as if smoke was coming from the apartment building where the man 
lived. She hurried quickly down the street to see what had happened. At 
that moment she heard the loud, shrill of the fire trucks as they came 
speeding down the street. Mary arrived at the house the same time as 
the fire trucks and she saw the black smoke mixed with red flames 
shooting upward from the man's apartment. Her heart was beating so fast 
as she thought OH NO!! Where is the man who lives there? 

Mary then noticed him just standing there among the people who had
gathered. He watched everything he owned go up in smoke. As the strong 
spray of water came from the firemen 's hoses Mary heard him yell  “ 
hey, you idiots watch the flag.” he was worried about the American flag 
he had hanging on his porch and he didn't want it to get wet. Mary 
turned to go back to her apartment knowing she was already late for 
work. She saw the man standing alone along the street. He was   holding 
a big yellow flower from a peony bush.  He looked at Mary and said “ 
Man it looked like the Chicago fire didn't it.” Mary blurted out, “did 
you start the fire?” he replied “ no, we were just sitting on the porch 
drinking -----------coffee he said when we smelled the smoke.” Mary 
left and walked back up the street wondering where the people who lived 
in the apartments would go. 

The local newspaper wrote an article the next day about the fire. All
nine of the tenets would have to find somewhere else to live due to the 
extend of the damage. The man who lived in the apartment where the fire 
had started lost all of his possessions. His name was Charlie. The 
newsmen asked Charlie if he lived there?“ I used too. ”He replied. The 
newspaper article read that Charlie's apartment was so cluttered with 
papers and other junk that it created a fire hazard.  Charlie told the 
newsmen that he had a lot of Billy Graham literature that he had lost 
in the fire. That was the last time Mary saw any of the people who 
lived there. 


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