Okay, so here is how this contest works. I have to use the first and last sentence they suggested (which I have), and the story has to be under 600 words (mine is 590). Other than that, it is fair game. Read it over and please give me any ideas on how to improve it.
Here it is:
NEVERMORE
Some people swore that the house was haunted. The Millers left it twenty years ago following the death of their nine-year-old daughter. They just boarded up the windows and moved away, leaving everything. The pantry was full of old cans, now bulging and near explosion. When they shut off the power, the food in the refrigerator decomposed, flowered, bred, and died. The yard grew, turned brown, and filled with dog crap. Even Cindy's room was the same, decorated with ponies and pink flowers, her dresser filled with her clothes.
We found out about the house unexpectedly. I lost my job two years earlier when my company, in the throes of financial collapse, laid off half of its workforce. I hadn't found anything new since, and spent most of my days writing, or so I told my wife. Each day Melissa would come home from her secretarial job, put her purse on the kitchen table and begin on dinner while I sat on the computer, researching. Our house was in pre-foreclosure, and the calls from creditors had moved from concerned to nasty. We figured we had about two more weeks before we would have to move out. Hannah was having problems in school--I'm sure the stress of home was getting to her. I was gaining weight.
That's when the call came. I picked up the phone warily, expecting a creditor. But the call wasn't about that. John Miller was my maternal uncle, and, apparently, after his death, he gave his cast-away house to me. I wouldn't have been grateful, knowing how creepy it was, but with our situation, it was a chance to be in a home without a mortgage.
"Melissa, we're moving," I said quietly.
"You son-of-a-bitch, what have you done to us now?"
"Uncle John just gave us his house."
Silence. Muttering.
It's in a great neighborhood. And the same school district."
And that was it. We packed up our suitcases and left, leaving our house and its crap furniture and cheap romance novels on the bookshelves behind.
It took us two weeks to clean up the mess. Mice had nested in the oven, and the refrigerator was a microcosm of delight, but it cleaned up well. We took down some pictures and rearranged some of the furniture, but Hannah wouldn't even let us change the sheets in Cindy's old room. "I like them," she said, sitting cross-legged on the bed, "Don't you touch anything in here, or I'll scream."
I never liked the place. I felt like I was wearing someone else's skin. The doors creaked at strange times and there was always a draft. My wife was bitchy, but that wasn't anything new. I spent my days sitting at the kitchen table in a melamine chair, online, doing nothing. Hannah immediately improved. She spent less time in the principal's office and began to excel in her class. When I asked her what happened, she told me, "I've got a new best friend," then walked away.
That night, Melissa told me she was leaving. "I can't take it anymore," she said. "You're just a leech."
She was right, but I started yelling anyways. Then I heard a scream, quickly muffled. I stopped mid-rant and ran to Hannah's room. She was on her bed, her legs crossed, cupping her hands. In her left palm was a small, blue flame, wavering gently in the draft. She looked at me.
Nothing was ever the same again after that.
