Week 11 Story: Deception

 Deception

Once upon a time, seven male college students shared a house near the University of Oklahoma. They were all aviation majors and lived together to cut down the cost of living. Since they didn't have much money, they had to resort to renting an undesirable house that has remained vacant for over two years. The house was in a great location and was in seemingly good condition. The reason why nobody wanted to rent it was because of neighbor that everyone said was creepy. All sorts of rumors had been spread about the widowed man. Including one that he killed his wife. Of course this was nonsense, right? After a thorough investigation he was not found to be at fault. 

Despite the rumors, the boys decided to sign the lease. How bad could it be? On the day that they moved in a couple of the guys decided to go next door and greet the gentleman. To their surprise, nobody answered after they knocked on the door. The man's car was in the driveway but they just assumed he was taking a nap or something. The guys finished moving all of their belongings into the house before they would head over to try again.

Later that evening the same two guys headed next door to introduce themselves to the creepy neighbor. As one may expect, he answered the door! After what seemed to be a pleasant and lighthearted conversation the two guys head back to their house to let the others know that the rumors were certainly not true.

Later that evening, one of the guys, Todd, had to head to work. His roommates expected him to return around midnight but he never did. Although a little out of the ordinary, his friends did not suspect anything was wrong. They just figured that Todd had gone to hang out with his girlfriend as he usually does. 

Around two in the morning, one of the roommates left to head to Todd's girlfriends house to see if he was there. Yet again, this roommate never returned. 

At this point, the five remaining roommates weren't sure if the there two roommates were playing a joke or if something tragic happened to them. In either case, they decided to play it safe and call the police. 

Creepy Neighbor - Via iHorror

Author's Note: This story is very loosely based off of "The Hypocritical Cat" from The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India. In the original, there is a troop of rats that live by a river. There was a cat that always saw them and had always wanted to eat them. The rats were curious about the cat and decided to go talk to him. The cat did not come across as a threat and the rats even started bowing to the cat as they would go by. Unbeknownst to the rats, the cat began to slowly start taking the rats one by one until finally the chief of rats caught on. 

So in my story, I obviously used people instead of animals. I changed the cat to the so-called creepy neighbor. The rats became a group of male college students. Also, in my version, there is intentionally no closure to what had happened to the guys unlike in the original where we know exactly what happened. 

Bibliography: The Hypocritical Cat, The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse