Demonic Stories [Book 2]

5 - |vanished in smoke|

|Story 5| [Narrated by Emory G.]

I swear by all that is Holy that this is true: In 1998, I worked for a company that had purchased an entire neighbourhood of Victorian homes to renovate and resell. Every home for a two block radius was empty except for the one that I lived in; which was near completion and was going to used as a model.

One Sunday afternoon, I was almost out of cigarettes and decided to walk to a corner store a few blocks away. Bear in mind that this was a Sunday, there were no workmen around, all of the homes were vacant, and the entire area was deserted. I had only walked about one block, and was walking looking down at the side walk lost in thought when a few feet ahead of me I heard a voice say "excuse me Sir, but may I have a cigarette?" Before I even looked up, I was astonished that anybody was even around but what I saw astonished me even more. Standing there was an ancient black lady not more than five feet tall. She was small and frail and dressed head to toe in black, her dress was high necked and went down to the ground and it was made of some type of crepe material. She had on a small pillbox hat with a veil hanging from it covering her face.

I was speechless but managed to say "certainly" as I offered a cigarette to her tiny outstretched hand. I lit my lighter and she lifted the veil to reveal an oval face extensively wrinkled and old. Her eyes focused only on the flame as she bent forward to light the cigarette and as she inhaled it she said "Oh thank you this is so good". I turned away to continue my walk when it occurred to me that I still had a few cigarettes left in my pack; being that I was going to buy more, I turned back to her in order to give her those. However, the only thing remaining was the smoke from her cigarette.