‘Beep! Beep!’ Lindsey Whitlock watched as the massive moving truck back out of her driveway of her new house in Wilmette, Illinois. Lindsey is a 24 year old nurse who recently graduated from the University of Illinois and just purchased her first house. It’s a scaled down, cute home in an elderly neighborhood. It’s not the most typical neighborhood, but it’s all she could afford.

Lindsey needed to go to the local grocery store because her college food collection was getting scarce. She drove her white Toyota Prius to The Fresh Market, the local grocery store. Lindsey stocked up on the necessities, and had to get the beautiful white daisies to liven up her new home.

Lindsey went home, put her food away, and realized her college roommate had accidentally taken her favorite vase.

“Oh well,” Lindsey said to her cat, Shakespeare. “We’ll buy one later, huh?”

The next day Lindsey decides to go for a jog around the neighborhood but it gets interrupted because she notices her neighbor having a garage sale.

“Hi! My name is Lindsey Whitlock, I just moved into the house down the road.”

“Hi Lindsey. I’m Gladys Davidson.” Gladys answered in a sweet old voice. They then chatted for a couple minutes about Lindsey’s college and Gladys’ grandchildren. Lindsey wandered around the sale for a bit and noticed a beautiful, blue vase with green detailing.

“Oh my gosh, this vase is gorgeous! The daisies I just bought will look great in this! How much do you want for it?”

“Oh, that old thing? There is a couple cracks and scratches in it. Take it for free. I’ve wanted that out of my house for ages.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” Lindsey took the vase and left.

“Have a nice day!”

Lindsey sauntered back to her house, with her new vase in her hands.

“Hi Shakespeare!” She said to her cat as she was greeted at the front door.

Lindsey filled the vase with a small amount of water, put the daisies in and set the vase on the mantel about her fireplace.

A few hours later, Lindsey’s tabby cat, Shakespeare jumped on the mantle and his long, orange, tail swished, knocking the vase over.

“MEEAOOW!!” Shakespeare screamed.

“Shakespeare! My new vase!”

“Meow.” He responded quietly.

Shakespeare was okay but her new vase was not. The green and blue vase had shattered into what looked like a million tiny shards.

Lindsey went to pick up the mess on her floor until she noticed something very frightening.

“What… the…”

Lindsey stood in shock as she stared at the mess of broken vase, water, flowers, and ashes.

Ashes?

She shrieked like a banshee and ran out of her house faster than a cheetah.

“Gladys.” She whispered to herself once she calmed down and quit running.

Lindsey darted to Gladys’ house with a vengeance. She pounded on the old wooden door and there was no answer. Still no answer thirty seconds later.

She stumbled into Gladys’ house anyway and saw Gladys sat lazily on a blue and white checkered tapestry chair.

“G… Gladys…?” Lindsey asked wearily.

It didn’t look like she was breathing.

Lindsey tapped her on the shoulder.

“Gladys?”

“HUUUHH?” Gladys exuberantly gasped.

“GLADYS! Are you okay? What happened?” Lindsey bellowed.

“W…i…lliamm…” she murmured.

“William? What?” Lindsey asked in a panicked matter all while she dialed 911 on her phone.

“I’m sorry Lindsey. Keep them. Keep them Lindsey.” Gladys whispered as she was running more and more out of breath.

“Please…”

Gladys stopped breathing. Lindsey couldn’t take it. She staggered out of the house and clumsily ran down the road to her own house.

She stared attentively as the coroners carried Gladys away.

The next couple of days Lindsey had been getting very bad luck. Her kitchen caught on fire, she lost her job as the hospital, and worst of all, Shakespeare escaped and got hit by a car. He died.

Lindsey had been so shaken up and busy since Gladys’ death that she had been to frightened to clean up the ashes so they’re still there.

All the sudden Lindsey remembered what Gladys’ had said to her before her death.

“Keep them… William… I’m sorry… keep them.”

Keep… the ashes?

Lindsey went to her laptop and typed in ‘William ashes bad luck.’

She clicked the first link and read about a man named William who was cursed, and once he was cremated, his ashes were then cursed. Whoever inherits the ashes then gets very bad luck and if you give them away, you die.

Lindsey freaked out. She started crying, well bawling, and was panicked to pick up the ashes. She swept them into a jar and she thought that maybe if she just got rid of the ashes and didn’t give it to someone, that she’d be okay. Lindsey drove the 30 minute drive from her house to Lake Michigan. Lindsey took the jar and threw it into the lake. She prayed to God that no one would pick it up.

“Please, please, please let no one pick it up.”

She hoped as she went back to her car.

“Stay close. Tommy! Don’t go too far!”

“Okay Mommy.”

Oh no

Lindsey turned around and saw the little, maybe eight year old boy, hurtling towards the jar.

“No! Don’t pick that up!”

But it was too late. The jar was in his hands.

Lindsey loathed herself. How could that little boy live with bad luck? What has she done?

Her thoughts were cut short because she started to lose her breath.

She couldn’t breathe.