The House on Thole Avenue

“Evicted.” A word both painful and predictable to see on one’s front door. Jessica Loam had known that this was coming for a long time: three months, to be exact. It wasn’t her fault, per se, it’s just that her landlord raised the rent, and then he raised it again, and again, and it turned out that occupying a 1600-square foot apartment in Manhattan with plate-glass windows while working as a columnist for an online publication wasn’t exactly sustainable. Especially while she was spending half her salary on her little white purse dog, Angelica. In her defense, Angelica was a really cute dog who needed to go to the groomers every week to retain maximum fluffiness. In any case, Jessica now had a really cute dog, no money, and no apartment. All of her worldly possessions were sitting in a cardboard box on the street.

“I was just helping you pack,” said her landlord, when asked about it. He laughed, but Jessica did not find that at all funny.

Fortunately, she had seen this coming, and had been talking to a realtor, who she called.

“Hey, Thereasa, please tell me you’ve got something,” said Jessica into her pink bedazzled cell phone.

“I do! You’ll love it, I’m sure. One drawback, it’s not in the city-”

“That’s fine,” she sighed and scooped up Angelica, who was harassing a rat as big as she was. “I think I could use a break from this place anyway.”

“Perfect! It’s a little suburb upstate, about two hours away from the action. A charming little cottage with—get this—a fully automated home system! I’m talking smart-fridge, smart-microwave, smart-bed, smart-couch, an AI security system you can talk to that can operate all the systems in the house. I mean it’s really something! You can say: ‘I wish the house wasn’t so dirty’ and the vacuum activates by itself! Pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah, it’s cool. What’s the rent like?” A gust of wind filled with fallen leaves blew past, leaving several leaves in her hair. She picked them out, annoyed. Late October is always like this, even in such a big city, where she thought there would be less trees.

“Seven hundred, monthly.”

“You’re joking!” shouted Jessica. Some passerby stared at her. She lowered her voice. “You’re joking, all that for that much, it’s gotta be a scam.”

“No joke, no scam. The owner says the place is haunted, that’s why he doesn’t charge much.”

“What’s the address?”

“666 Thole Avenue, in Hypoburg, Accloy County.”

Jessica punched the address into her phone; she’ll need two hours and 13 minutes to get there. “Start drawing up the papers, I’m on my way.” She put her cardboard box of stuff in the backseat of her car and drove to her new home.