• Snapping their heads up at once, Alex and Cletus looked at each other briefly before slowly turning their eyes toward the basement door. Alex sat his mug down on the table as quietly as he could, as if the slightest clink of ceramic against hard plastic might scare away whatever had caused the thud from before. Slipping out of his chair, he crept over to the basement door to press his ear against it. "You sure you wanna be doin' that, boy?" Cletus called out to him quietly, not having moved from his own chair. He had a tone of worry in his voice. Alex just smirked, waving a hand at him dismissively. Staring at the floor tiles, he strained his ears, but heard nothing else from the basement.

    "Whatever made that sound, it's quieted down now.. Can't hear anything."

    Alex couldn't hear anything from the kitchen, either. Growing slightly worried, he looked up at Cletus who was staring over Alex's shoulder in mute terror. Alex tensed immediately and turned around slowly to face something even more frightening than the living doll in his nightmares. She was six-foot-three, and had wild white hair that shot out of her head in all directions. She almost always wore a tattered robe over her stained flannel nightgown, and threadbare fuzzy slippers. She was broad like a quarterback, muscular for a sixty-something woman, and had wild sunken-in eyes. She was the epitome of the phrase 'old hag'.

    At the time she was holding a rolled-up newspaper in her hand, and didn't waste any time in thwacking Alex over the head with it. "Didn't I tell you not to go pokin' yer no where it doesn't belong, faerie boy?!" Her voice as usual was high-pitched and grating, causing him to cringe as much as the whack to the head. "I'm sorry ma'am. I heard a noise.." It was always a bad idea to mention the noises. The woman's face contorted in such a way that it looked unbelievably uglier than before. "There ain't no noises! Yer prob'ly hallucinatin' things! I know you take drugs, all you city queer-boys do-- Hey! Where you goin'?!"

    Alex was already halfway up the stairs, his head bowed. He listened to the woman rant a little more then yell at Cletus for not putting the lid back on the jar of jelly tightly enough. He felt a pang of guilt for poor Cletus, who he'd left behind to recieve her wrath. Alex was tired. Both physically and mentally. The woman always had a way of draining him to the point of wanting to do nothing but nap, just like his mother always had. He didn't care that he hadn't even been up an hour. He was already asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.