Cottage Creep - Chapter 6
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Tom threw on two steak, and two potatoes. He annunciated to
his secret helper. "I wish you would come out and join me. I
appreciate your work so far, but it would be better if we could
coordinate it. Besides, I want to pay you for your efforts. Besides,
I got an inch thick steak and a beer out here for you."
Still receiving no response, Tom sank into a bit of a gloom.
"Well, just fine then," he said. "I'll just eat the other steak for
dinner tonight then." He ate in silence now, studying the outside of
the house, making detailed mental notes on materials needed, and work
to be done. By the time he had finished, he had a pretty good idea
what the front of the house would need to be completed, and assumed
the rest of the outside would be need similar attention.
He returned indoors and wrote his plans down in a loose leaf
notebook he had purchased just for this purpose. Now he had more work
to do inside. He was laying out the plans to wire the house for
electricity. Since he planned to sheetrock and insulate the entire
structure, he started by pulling down the old lathing on the interior
walls in the front living area, and the downstairs bedroom he was
using. He decided to keep the old wood slats and use them for heating
this winter. He planned to purchase several cast iron stoves to join
with the old rock fireplaces already there. He had hoped to install
'Heatilator' boxes before winter but didn't feel he would have time
considering all the other work he needed to do. Besides, he had
decided to have a professional install those at a later date.
For now, his plans were to seal and insulate the old house,
and heat it with small stoves scattered around. Plans, plans and more
plans. His mind was getting cluttered with details as he worked and
looked around. He took breaks from time to time and wrote down his
thoughts, promising himself to organize it more later.
He continued working until dark and decided to return home for
the weekend to pick up his trailer. It was hard to work with
lanterns, and besides, just as on previous days, he was excessively
tired considering the work he had done and the hours he had put in.
He ate the other steak and potato, and drank a beer before crawling
sleepily into his bunk. He was asleep instantly.. and he dreamed.
It was a dream of mystery. Images danced through his mind that
meant nothing to him. They were images of odd colors and shapes, but
they repeated themselves, like in a pattern. The images seemed to
move and writhe and constantly change colors. And then they would
repeat.
By morning when he awoke, he had lost touch with the dream,
and he could remember nothing. He could only remember that the dreams
were of strange shapes and colors, and nothing more. But he felt
refreshed, and after breakfast, he packed to return home for the
weekend. He walked through the house one more time with his notebook
in hand, scribbling notes here and there before leaving out the front
door and driving away. As he did so, he felt a strange urge to stay,
to turn around and not leave.