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Please remember this story is being written and posted 'live' every day. I am writing today's episode and posting it here without benefit of a read-through, let alone an edit. I don't usually work this way and this experiment is exciting and different for me, not my normal work-ethic at all. To that end, please forgive me any typos, grammar errors and anything that you may think should have been picked up in an edit - it WILL be picked up in the edit.
I've already spoken with a publisher about getting this story published - possibly after Christmas, we'll see how it goes.
Images from Google
Ash dodged through gardens, over fences and gates, her agility would have done her proud in a gymnasium, a natural gymnast. Constantly looking behind herself, she made her way back to the junkie. She estimated he’d either be just coming around, ready for another fix, or he’d be dead.
She got to the street of condemned houses and strolled along the lane, making certain she was alone.
A few houses from the one where she had left Nigel, she nipped through an alley and up the garden path. Ash jumped over that gate and scrambled through the bottom of the back door.
It was not the house where she’d left Nigel.
Ash made her way tentatively through the kitchen and back room of the abandoned house. Picking her way carefully across broken glass, debris and hidden dangers, such as rotten floorboards, she made her way to the front room to check it out before heading back to the staircase.
She crouched to pull at the bottom step. A couple of sharp tugs and it came loose.
Under the next-to-bottom step of the stairs, just within her reach, lay a small plastic box with a lid – similar to a fast-food take-away container.
She clicked open one corner and peered inside. The ‘stash’, a syringe, a spoon, a couple of needles and a few baggies, each with a small amount of beige-brown powder lay inside the box, exactly as she had left it.
She took out two of the baggies, leaving one, and she placed the baggies back under the step, covering them with a piece of board so no one would see them even if they found the hiding place.
Then she went out of the door the same way she’d entered and moved on to the next house – the house next-door to where she’d had Nigel delivered.
Again, she entered the house through the broken back door and made her way across the dilapidated kitchen, avoiding suspicious piles of stuff she didn’t want to even think about, let alone accidentally step in.
The floor of the back room had partially collapsed and she had to step carefully in order to avoid falling into the cellar.
Some of the floorboards had been removed, they were leaning against the wall, some bending like damp cardboard, others snapped like matchwood. It was obvious even to Ash that the floor was rotten, but she was light and agile and she’d made the trip across the room before. She knew what she was doing.
She stepped on crossed joists wherever possible.
More than once she pulled back her foot as she tested the floor.
At last, she decided against making her way straight across the room, the floorboards that had taken her weight before had deteriorated. She made her way around the perimeter, where the floor would be better supported by the foundations of the building.
The edges of the rooms were littered with wallpaper that had peeled down the walls because of the increasing dampness. While the houses were occupied and kept relatively warm, the wallpaper managed to defy gravity and stay where it had been pasted, sometimes a decade or more before.
Two, three and sometimes four layers of old wallpaper flopped down to the floor in great strips, leaving dingy, flaky paint on the wall if it hadn’t come away with the wallpaper, of course.
Ash went to the stairs and looked up. Lengthening shadows played tricks on her eyesight, a bird flying past a window could create a menacing shadow magnified beyond the bird’s actual size.
Nothing moved, not even rats and mice and she climbed the stairs, keeping tight hold of the handrail as she went. She planted her feet on the outer edge of each stair because she just didn’t trust the rickety staircases in the old houses.
At the top of the stairs right above her head, a square hole loomed dark and foreboding. A ladder leaned from one bedroom, across the top of the stairs and into the hole. She clambered up the ladder without a thought as to who had put it there.
Ash had discovered the ladder and various other tools and equipment as she explored the houses over the weeks since the demolition team had finally evicted the last tenant. As the floor rotted and crumbled, the equipment would have been either forgotten or abandoned – not worth risking life and limb for.
Some, but not all the houses, had a peculiar quirk in their attic space. Sometimes, the attic would stretch further than the house itself. That meant it was possible to clamber across from one house to another. It had probably been a way of cutting down on building costs.
The attic had never been boarded out for use as storage and therefore, the anomaly had probably never been discovered. That only worked if the next-door hadn’t looked up there, either. In this case, that’s exactly what had happened.
Some of the houses had bricked-up the space, but the one she was scrambling about in had not.
It meant that she could get in and out of the house where she had left Nigel, without being spotted.
Ash crawl-clambered across the bare joists in the attic, treading from one to the next, keeping her hands on the joists ahead for extra stability and balance.
Though the floors in the house had given up the ghost and rotted, the roof was still intact, keeping the house dry from above, at least. That meant no chink of light snuck through to help light Ash’s way and as she got further from the loft hatch, the darker it became as her body blocked out the light, meagre though it was.
It wouldn’t matter if she went through the ceiling of the room below from a monetary or aesthetic point of view, but she could well be injured and/or stuck and no one, including Rob and Justin, knew where she was.
great job
Ash really is an agile little monkey. She would make a great gymnast if given the chance...
Reminds me of someone I used to be close to...
I thought so...
You all story were awesome i have read your all post you are a great writer and i think you are a great story writer .. your story inspire us .. i highly appreciate your hard work keep sharing ... @michelle.gent
Thank you, I appreciate your kind words :)
work very well
I love it and love to follow you
vest plz follow me @mudatnad and give me want value from esteem.t
thank you
Thank you for sharing :)
Wow this is actually the first episode i have read , already feeling the suspense on whats gonna happen to Ash,,,, i hope to view the previous episodes, so i can know who or what Nigel is and why Ash is so desperate to find it even to the point of risking herslef,, Nice writing @michelle.gent
Thank you. All is explained in the previous episodes.
thanks for the share
Very suspenseful story leaving us on tiptoes with anticipation.
Thank you, I'm pleased you like it.
the best line i found in this post..
The attic had never been boarded out for use as storage and therefore, the anomaly had probably never been discovered. That only worked if the next-door hadn’t looked up there, either. In this case, that’s exactly what had happened....
thank you @michelle.gent for sharing another fresh new episode with us
Thank you for reading :)
What is it about that line that you particularly liked?
@michelle.gent, great story, i love how descriptive you are with your words and pictures. im a writer too and i know how hard it can be to make readers see things the way you want them to. Great piece.
Thank you, appreciated :)
Well done! Very interesting, I will follow.
I don't normally do this, but can you check out this true life story
nice contents ypur vote is important for me @deshwal
beautifulllllllllllll
@michelle.gent Thanks for sharing your activities with finding up and jogging. The 1st yrs tend to be the hardest. We are at our for six yrs non-halt.Carry on Performing at it. Perseverance and exertions tend to be the keys to results.
What?
I don't understand the connection between this comment and my story. Could you please explain?
Hey Michelle! I'm new to your blog, but the finesse with which you write and your eye for detail has me gapping for more! The photos just take your story to another level, and a good read always makes me a happier person! Looking forward for more :D
Thank you. I'm pleased you like my writing.
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STOPi read your full story . its remind me the time of WORLD WAR...
.when people leave their house . and all aria is empty ,broken house , rotted floor and wall . broken windows . creepy air flows . no sound ........no....no ......not even rat ..........
a small plastic box with a lid – similar to a fast-food take-away container.........
those things are very well written
the part of Nigel. is very interesting i love to read it . hope i can create a drama like this story .
thank you @michelle.gent for this post ,i enjoyed it , hope we can get more story like this
Thank you. I'm pleased you enjoy my work :)
Your welcome dear
Great to read your work in progress, first 🏆
Thank you. It's exciting from this side too ;)
@michelle.gent Great submit. Hardwork pays a lot more so preserve Functioning tough!.
👍👍👍