It wasn't the noise that startled Andy from a less-than-fitful sleep into wakefulness. She had been used to her neighbors traipsing up and down at odd hours of the night. In the tiny one room hole that had been her apartment, there was a window directly facing the streetlight. Though broken every few weeks by the seemingly homeless urchins sulking on the street corners, the bright light shining into her home had never bothered her.

The drunk in the next door apartment would loudly abuse and beat his wife and Andy didn't lose any sleep. Sirens at all hours of the night were quite common. And yet, she had slept through them all.

But what she couldn't bear was this stifling, uncomfortable silence. She couldn't stand to not hear anyone cursing, yelling or wailing. 

It just wasn't normal. 

She looked up to the ridiculously intricate blue and white ceiling. It was supposed to depict clouds in a sky or something, before the water had seeped in and the paint had faded and created a mish-mash of the colors. Her aunt had left her a house, (yes an entire, freaking house!) in the absolute last place that civilized people would resort to living. And if that wasn't bad, she actually lived here now. In the middle of some non-descript Podunk town in Texas whose idea of nightlife was a broken-down club which gave senior citizen's discounts and closed at 10. 

It was almost three months and still she wasn't used to this blasted silence. It unnerved her and she couldn't shake of the feeling that someone was watching her.

Oh no, don't think of that!

Too late!

Now she was visualizing, a tad too clearly, the scene from Paranormal Activity where the demon stands at the foot of the bed for hours and just watches the man sleep. 

God, that was the creepiest movie ever made!

She shook off a shiver, threw off her comforter and put her feet on the faded and frayed red carpeted floor. Sleep was impossible now. How the hell had she expected to live in the middle of nowhere and actually adjust?

Not that she had any choice in the matter. The rents were sky-rocketing, even in the remote corner of Plano she lived, and here was a fine house standing all by itself. 

She had had great plans to sell it off within a month and move to a big town. Maybe even New York. But the condition of the house wasn't exactly great,in fact, many people wouldn't even consider it habitable. She would have to fix it up first if she had any hope of receiving any decent offers.

So now she was stuck in this god-forsaken place, for at least the foreseeable future. She would make it work, though. 

She hadn't a choice.

After an hour or so of tossing and turning, Andy gave up with a sigh. She washed her face in the only bathroom with ancient fittings which were probably in fashion when her Aunt was a toddler. Which was probably a hundred years back. She brushed by glancing in the mirror above the sink, barely noticing the black age spots on the ancient mirror that marred her reflection. She finger-combed her short red hair, slapped on sneakers,  stretched and set out for a jog.

A few feet from her house, she paused and turned to look at the house. Her house! Never ever ever in a million years did she think that she would own a piece of land bigger than a chewing gum, let alone a house to call her own. And she was only twenty-eight!

She must have done something right as her grouchy, disapproving Aunt Noelene had seen fit to pass her sole possession in the world to her "undeserving" niece. Since Andy was convinced that her Aunt had hated her, this had come as a pleasant surprise. And surprisingly, since Noelene didn't have any immediate family, no one had come forward to contest Andy's ownership. She could muster up a sense of solidarity with the old bat. Since she was probably destined to grow old and die alone like Noelene, she could almost sympathize with her.

Andy frowned as, in the barely-there early morning light, the property looked stern and forbidding. The house was set at an odd angle from the uneven and muddy approach road, a grim sentinel on the road to nowhere. The only other property in the vicinity was an old, abandoned shack setup near a lake, around half a mile away. She had to walk three miles to the town where she worked everyday. Time had worn out the paint years ago, the tiles on the roof were uneven and precariously perched and most of the shutters needed replacing as they were hanging off the windows as if breathing their last.

She had managed to claim one room in the two bedroom house as her own and make it habitable. To actually make this house presentable enough so she could put it up for sale, was a tall order indeed. Add to that, the house came with a tiny attic. She kept hearing noises from there, which could mean that it was housing either bats or rodents. Probably both. A rickety staircase led to the top and she had gone up only once. The attic was dank, straight out of some horror movie set. The entire place was shrouded in dust which looked to be about a feet thick. Curiosities like statues and stuffed animals abounded. Maybe her aunt's family were witches and carried out spells and incantations in the attic and flew out on their brooms through the circular window on the top. The thought caused her to stiffle a smile. It would certainly explain her less than charitable inclinations towards others.

Maybe the idea of leaving a haunted house to Andy was her aunt's way of getting back at her.

Maybe her Aunt had hated her, after all.

Andy usually preferred a brisk walk to a jog, but today she slowed down to a stroll. She was getting up earlier every morning and it was only around 5. The air was nippy and it was dark,so the only thing she heard were the chirping of the crickets. She bundled into her light jacket, tuck the hands in the pockets and lowered her head so she could bury her nose in the collar. February mornings were COLD!

She upped her pace to get warm. The closest habitable place was more than a mile away, so as usual, Andy avoided the next cottage and instead turned to her favorite path. It meandered to the left and disappeared in the shrubbery. Andy knew that the path would lead her to the lake. She usually circled the lake a few times and headed back to her home to get some sleep in the reassuring light of the dawn.

Andy would never admit this aloud, but she was terrified of spending the nights at her cottage. She had jerked awake many a times to hear scratches and shuffles, even sometime, a low-pitched whine. The fact that there was no one around her for miles, did nothing to reassure her. She could attribute the noises to rodents or the wind, but she didn't know what secrets the creepy old house held. 

She really didn't want to stick around to find out.

Therefore, every morning found her on this trail, burning her excess nervous energy. She would circle the lake till she got tired, the world was more awake and then groggily stumble back and catch a couple of winks.

This morning wasn't any different. Or that's what Andy thought.

It was still dark when she got to the lake, the only light provided by a waning moon. A beam fell across the placid surface of the lake. She tromped on the banks and set around her usual route.

As she resumed her walk, she saw ripples on the lake surface. There were no boats around so early in the morning. 

Could this be a really big fish?

The surface of the lake exploded with bubbles. Not the tiny ones made by the fish, but huge ones that sent out even bigger ripples. 

She froze on the spot. 

Could it be an alligator? She had never heard of one in these parts. Did they run on land? Were they fast?

The next thing she saw, was a figure rising out of the lake. Long hair covered the head and she instinctively stifled a scream.

Was it some kind of bear? A guttural noise escaped out as the figure rose out of the the lake. Her wits suddenly gathered about her and she screamed.

The figure loomed out wide and scary, with arms outstretched. She could barely ascertain that the figure was a man's. The flash of eyes under his dark hair denoted shock.

The man flailed his arms as he backed away, as wary of her and she had been of him. He must have hit something and she watched in horror as he toppled backward.

Andy hurried forward to help. She could see him flailing about to get his bearing, his feet slipping on the lake floor as he grappled thin air. She had to save him. Even if she was quite distracted by the fact that he was as naked as the day he was born.