Brutally Honest: 10 - Neighbours

My recollections of growing up in and around my neighbourhood are vivid and strong. So many memorable characters, so much (mostly mischievous) fun that we all got up too. It's makes for a time of my life I'd never want to change in any way whatsoever. But one of the highest ranking reminiscences that’ll always stick with me for as long as I live, has to be my neighbours located to my direct left. Actually, the ones on my right were pretty darn strange too, but that’s a story for another time…

You guys ever seen that movie, Monster House? Where this rickety, spooky ass house seemed to cast an evil finger over the entire street? Well, the next door house "I’m" now referring to ain’t far off. This place was a ghastly horror show and I’m talking just from the outside. Windows all stained with rotted wooden frames encasing it. Paint peeling off over each separate panel. And what looked like a set of filthy, dust-ridden netted curtains concealing whatever inner contents existed within. If ever there was a haunted house, this would be the perfect candidate. And all that kept the demonic infestation at bay from entering my own home, was but a single brick partition. After all, all the houses on my street were terraced. Man, the shivers I’d get just imagining what devilish fears lurked over on the other side of the divide. But everybody knew of at least three of the occupants. A mother, her son and daughter, as well as legions of rats and cockroaches. Well, I’m not sure about that last part, but it sounds about right.

The small trio living there were perfectly suited for this dishevelled residence. As the fact of the matter is they were, in a word, crazy! I knew them to be the sole inhabitants of that house for as long as I could remember. So, in a way, I was used to "hearing" some of the insane shit that used to go on behind closed doors. I will never forget the first time my wife-to-be at the time, @rea, first saw the "son". He wore a tattered old suit, musty and torn at the seams, finished up by wearing a bright yellow banana peel on his head. Yes, you heard me right. Though a shocking freak who regularly forced people to cross the road in his presence, he was harmless enough. I think so, anyways. His name was Aubrey and an old habit of hard class A drugs had tipped him over the edge. He stumbled through life, barely able to contemplate what planet he was living on.

His older, yet just as cuckoo, sister Patricia, was some sort of religious cult fanatic. The people on our road would watch as she paced up and down the pathway to the entrance of their house, waving her clasped hands in the air and reciting something akin to “prayers” under her breath. It was a most disturbing sight, at the very least. Though she, too, appeared harmless. Whereas Aubrey had all but lost the art of communicating with others altogether, she was the exact opposite. I’d hear her from the window of our downstairs lounge, shrilling to some poor soul on the road about the importance of protecting the world from itself. How secret concentrations of groups roam within our society, waiting for their chance to overthrow the government and enslave us all. In case you were wondering, she’d lost the plot too and her nonsensical ramblings caused others to attempt to steer well clear of her.

Finally, the mother. Creator of these two broken oddities of our otherwise sleepy suburb. This may sound hard to believe, but I swear this as God’s honest truth. During the many years I’d seen her “rare” appearances out in the open, never once did I hear her speak. I knew she did as the older set of locas in our area confirmed they had spoken to her many decades ago, but not anymore. Not for years now. They had this large bushy hedge circling the main compound of their house. On days when the sun would shine at it’s brightest, she’d emerge with a pair of garden shears held in both hands. Most of the afternoon would be spent snipping away at the few scant leaves that happened to catch her blades. Though, on the few occasions I actually observed her from the relative safety of my window above, most of her cutting technique involved snapping haphazardly at mid-air. Yes, she was barbering the hedge inflicting hardly any contact upon it! So, several hours later, a faint outline of thick green leaves lay scattered on the floor. Nothing really given all the effort she’d put into it. I found the three of them oh-so-creepy. How I wished they’d move. But people like that find a way to endure. And that they did, for many years to come...

This was a short prerequisite to a few upcoming stories you need to hear. The level of crazy is astounding, but all very true. However, as eerie as I found them when they lived next door, it actually helped shape my childhood and adolescence into what it is today. Anyone who knows me on here is well aware I love “horror movies”. Though part of that is deep-seated in my intrigue concerning that grotesque house. What lurked behind those walls, encapsulating a true definition of pure madness? It scared the absolute hell out of me, as I did dream a few nights of waking up in one of the accursed rooms, pitch dark and nowhere to run. Chills me to this very day, I tell you. So, prepare yourself for what actually happened to the insane family that were my neighbours from hell.

Hope you enjoyed this story, please look out for more on the way... (author: @ezzy)

---