The Possible Haunting of Old Man Norton

Old Man Norton fell and broke his leg. It would've been a tragedy if it hadn't been the third time this week. Eloise Via, the housekeeper, couldn't tell if he was breaking it in more than one place or healing faster than any person alive. In the end, she decided it wasn't her business. Her business was to clean the very old house, which she was sure, had started rotting in the basement.

While whatever Old Man Norton, as everyone in the neighborhood called him, did was none of her business, it did however make her job more difficult. It'd started with a fall down the stairs. The loud crash would've woken everyone in the ancient plantation house had it not been just him and her. Small mercies. She had, of course, checked to see if he was fine only to get a high-pitched whining whistle response.

Old Man Norton had a deep scratchy voice. This was a complete turnaround and more than a little suspicious. For a moment, she thought he was sick, but he assured her he was fine. Though his leg was dangling at a weird angle for a good bit afterward. If he said he was fine, Eloise was keen to believe him. The next hospital was a good hour away and she'd never learned to drive. Eloise doubted that she could even fit Old Man Norton on her standard two-wheel bicycle, let alone pedal him to the hospital in a timely manner. She wasn't superman after all. So, she took him at his word.

Around the second crash down the stairs, Old Man Norton started walking into the walls. Just completely missing the doorway and cursing up a storm in some vile language that made his skin crawl. Literally. It was one of the freakiest things she'd ever seen in her life. Like a Halloween costume gone wrong mixed with the stomach flu. She'd kindly asked him not to do that again as the neighbors wouldn't like it. And by neighbors she meant those feral cats in the woods, they may have been demons from the pit the way they howled all day, but they didn't deserve that. He agreed to stop though, so the problem was averted in her mind.

The third fall down the stairs made her begin to think this was a habit. It was only Wednesday after all. He'd fallen down the stairs every day this week; it was beginning to be a problem. He still said he was fine; he was still walking and paying her so Eloise paid it no mind. She had a mile-high mountain of student debt she had to pay for after all and Old Man Norton paid more than average. Way more now that she thought about it. Wasn't her right to judge if it got the job done, so she kept her nose out of it. It was a little weird when he started crawling on the walls and the ceiling like some old-timey version of spider-man, but it kept his muddy boot prints off the clean floor so maybe he was just being considerate. The basement was still rotting though. She was refusing to go down there; he hadn't said anything about it yet. If anything, he seemed to be ecstatic about its state.

Old people were weird.

The fourth fall down the stairs brought a frustrated exclamation of 'how do you work this thing?' which ended up with her having to teach Old Man Norton how to walk again. This was by far the weirdest experience of her life, but he raised her pay afterward, so it was probably worth it. Even if his eyes were turning this weird red color. Maybe he got new contacts, he didn't seem to use his glasses anymore either. He was still crawling on the ceiling though. Luckily, he didn't have that many guests, so she really didn't have to worry about it.

On the fifth day, he managed to miss falling down the stairs. The relief was short-lived as he toppled over the banister and fell that way. But it was still an improvement.

The toaster fascinated him too, but it made cleaning the kitchen difficult. Though it at least kept him from crawling all over the ceiling while the termite guy was here to check out the basement. It was starting to smell like rotten meat and no amount of Febreze was helping it. The termite guy said it wasn't his field, so she gave him one of the less burnt pieces of toast and showed him the door. It was worth a try.

On the sixth day, blood was flooding the basement. She took one look at it and shut the door. That was way too much for her to clean up. She told Old Man Norton about the problem of course, though he seemed super excited and decided to go swimming. At least she could clean the kitchen now. She left some towels by the door with a laundry hamper and some clean clothes with a note saying to change before coming back to the main part of the house. She didn't want to clean up bloody footprints or dripping either. She was a housekeeper, not a serial killer; she knew how to get blood out of clothes but not hardwood. There was no way she was calling a professional for that either. They'd think Old Man Norton was an axe murderer and then she'd be out of a job.

On the seventh day, she handed in her resignation form. She was going back to school in the next few weeks so she figured might as well get it out of the way. The temper tantrum Old Man Norton had thrown was legendary. He must've been practicing some weird yoga to be able to do a backbend at his age. She gave him some raw cookie dough and he calmed down. Well, at least after eating the raw steak she had packed away in the refrigerator too. She was going to cook that for dinner before she left for the night but at least he enjoyed it. Even if she needed to mop the kitchen floors again.

On the day before her resignation, he was refusing to let her leave the house. Speaking in that weird creepy cursing language that made his skin crawl. Though it was less creepy as he wailed and cried while he was at it. Finally getting tired of it she hit him in the head with her mop to shut him up.

"For the love of God, I'll be back in the winter when I'm on break! I'm not vanishing forever. You can survive for a few months on your own!"

Old Man Norton kept whimpering but nodded solemnly. She was just hoping the mess she found when she got back wasn't as bad as she feared it would be.