I was in my youngest of my young years, not even in kindergarten, when my dog, my nana, and my brother Mason would walk alongside me through the town of Exeter. As always, we would stroll our typical loop.

We would meander by the vicious barking dog by the former shoe mill.

That wouldn’t scare me.

We would hear the swift, rattling train blare its ferocious, ear-splitting horn.

That wouldn't scare me.

This tiny blue house by the ancient graveyard, however, was really the most frightening sight of them all. To add to it, the ancient graveyard was filled with towering trees that seemed to try and reach out and grab you. It would give me goosebumps.  Every time we passed, my nana would tell us of a little old lady that resided in the small one room house. Each time the story was told chills would crawl up my back. After the first telling of this story, I began imagining what the aged lady and her house looked like, especially the interior, the part I could not see. I became so focused on her and her house that it even become a new, recurring feature in my nightmares. I can vividly remember being kept awake all night, frantic as I imagined the little old lady creeping around in the darkness of my forest green room. The only way I would’ve fallen asleep would have been from pure exhaustion. Yet I still woke up every dew-laden morning and strolled around Exeter, even after the stories told by my nana of the house by the graveyard.

But I think what scared me even more than the stories was when the elderly lady died. Of course, this brought on another onslaught of nightmares, which definitely wasn’t good for my health. I had known that the little old lady had died by the fact that the claustrophobic, baby blue, tealish house on Railroad Ave had been bulldozed.  Shortly after, it was replaced by a sizable, two-story modern duplex constructed on where the little old lady's house had stood, abutting the aged graveyard. Though this house was definitely located in a prime location for the town of Exeter, within walking distance of pretty much anything you could ever possibly need, you still couldn’t pay me any sum of money to reside there.

Now every day when I cruise by on the bus, I am reminded of this story and still feel the chills creep up my back. I  will always feel sorry for whatever family had decided to move in, on top of the little old ladies house. Who knows what supernatural things they have to deal with?