Excerpt: The End of Normal

With its foundation laid in October of 1976, the Gablefront-style Andrews house had existed easily a decade longer than any of the other, newer dwellings on Fighting Tiger Lane (formerly Crepe Myrtle Street). It stood proudly at the top of its cul de sac – a two-story giant watching over a score of quaint, single-story bungalows from the late eighties.
As neighborhood legend had it, the roundabout was once the original owners' private drive. The Andrews had allegedly sold the drive to the city of Katy after a terrible tragedy that burdened the family with a laundry list of funeral-related expenses. When the last Andrews entered her convalescent retirement at Sacred Mother Home for the Aged, the house went on the market. It's paltry return barely payed for the matron's burial – somewhere on the property.
Year after year, seniors from the nearby Katy High School dared freshmen to approach the house's wrought-iron front gate with a burning black candle in hand. The frightened children were to recite the words, “Little old Andrews – little old lady, I know where your children are.” It was said that ghostly orbs of blue light would then appear over the old woman's grave, and she would materialize – summoned from the other side to grant the children a single wish. Of course, these requests required carefully considered, as the little old lady Andrews was in life a crafty and evil witch. She would twist any wish to the detriment of those who would disturb her – especially if she could kill the offending mortals in the process.
The legend of Old Lady Andrews first made it to print in the special “Haunted Halloween” 1987 edition of Paranormal Planet Press. Originally a spooky-story contest entry written by Texas Journalist would-be Julian Cartain, the article was hacked down to filler length, grouped with a handful of letters to the editor, and stuck in the back pages of the floundering magazine. The story so moved and frightened one young boy that it inspired him to pursue paranormal investigation into his adulthood.