Thursday photo prompt: Transition #writephoto

Sue’s Rules:

Every Thursday at noon GMT, I publish one of my photos as a writing prompt.  If you know where the photo was taken, please keep it to yourself until the challenge is closed and I usually share something about the place during the round-up.

Use the image and title provided as inspiration to create a post on your own blog… poetry, prose, humour… light or dark, whatever you choose, by noon (GMT)  on Wednesday  each week,  and link back to the prompt post with a pingback to be included in the round-up.  There is no word limit and no style requirements, except to keep it fairly family friendly and not passionately political.

All posts will be featured in the round-up on Thursday.

Make Sure You Are Alone

By Teresa Smeigh 2019

Susan spent every day working in her garden. Only the rain kept her away. The sun was hot and so she always wore shorts and tank tops while working.

She thought she heard noises every now and then from the old building at the one end of the garden plot. She never went in there. She always brought her gardening tools with her. She had no idea what was in that building, but the noises were becoming disconcerting.

She assumed an animal had made its home in there. Another reason to stay away. She didn’t want an animal biting her for disturbing its home.

The noises were an animal of sorts. A human one. Daniel watched Susan every day while she worked. The bugs and vermin that were in that dark building were beginning to bother him and he knew Susan could hear him moving around as she was spending more and more of her time looking at the door to the building. He hoped she didn’t come over to investigate the noises.

He didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t let her see him. He decided the next day it rained he would come to catch the rats and hopefully make the building more inviting for his watching.

He came the next day and it was cloudy, but not raining. He secreted himself before her normal arrival time. While he was setting out the rat traps he didn’t hear her arrive and was shocked when she confronted him with a flashlight and a gun.

“Susan don’t!”

“You slimeball, I have a restraining order on you and you can’t be anywhere within 100 feet of me. I knew something was up in here.”

She threw a shovel at him and told him to start digging. He picked it up and started to dig. The hole was pretty big by now and his last shovelful showed a hand. “Susan, what…” He suddenly realized who else was buried in there. Her first husband had disappeared one day several years ago. “Oh no, not Roger?”

“He didn’t listen either.” She fired at him and when he fell she pushed him into the hole and covered it. She packed it down and went back to her gardening. Now she could garden in peace.

**************

Tessa –

Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses, also a devout Christian

Author – http://www.finallyawriter.com (this blog contains my old work mostly although occasionally I do add something new here), new work is mainly on this blog http://www.tessacandoit.com