The Rose Bush

There is a house on Cherry Lane, and it’s quite a sight. It’s the largest house in town, with ten bedrooms and eight bathrooms. It’s been there for ages, sitting vacant. It once was the place to be seen. Now, people are terrified of the property. Town folk won’t go near the mansion anymore.

From a distance, the house looks like a Gothic Cathedral. It’s grand and picturesque with its stone towers. On closer inspection, the overgrown auburn grass and the brambling bushes overwhelm the property, and the once pristine stained-glass windows are laden with cracks. Pieces of the roof have concaved as other pieces of the house remains untouched by the elements. People often wonder why this beautiful house sits abandoned. Myth has it that, when it was inhabited, some pretty horrific events took place there. The story of the house has become somewhat of a local legend.

Many years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Dawson resided in the house on Cherry Lane. They were the perfect couple, with him being the high school quarterback and her head cheerleader. They were two people that everyone believed were tailor-made for each other. They indeed appeared to fit together seamlessly. By the time they were married, the town had thought the Dawson’s were the epidemy of the perfect relationship. He loved her more than life itself, and she was loyal to a fault.

Naturally, everyone believed they would always be together until death do them part. It appeared the couple would stand by each other’s side no matter what the occurrence. Even after Mr. Dawson’s accident, when he lost one of his eyes, and it was replaced with an artificial blue glass one, and he was bedridden for months. Mrs. Dawson remained by his side as a devoted wife, caring for his every need. Their love seemed unbreakable, even through tragedy, or so it appeared.

Shortly before the accident, they built their dream house on Cherry Lane. A multi-million-dollar estate on acres of rolling hills. They wanted a large house so they could expand their family and have as many children as Mr. Dawson wanted. Their lives appeared to be like that from a fairytale. A beautiful princess saved and transported to the land of wealth and riches by her handsome, rugged prince. But appearances can be deceiving.

Mr. Dawson, a wealthy man, enjoyed his scotch. He enjoyed it so much that he drank it to excess. Maybe to forget his troubles, perhaps to forget his accident but it’s said that he came home drunk almost every Friday night. His drinking was a well-known town topic. No one ever thought much of it, though, and no one ever knew what transpired when he went home. No, his home on Cherry Lane held all the secrets, and so did Mrs. Dawson.

Mr. Dawson had somewhat of a fiery temper, and little things would send him into fits of rage. His anger mixed with his love of scotch was not the right combination for his devoted wife. Because every night, he came home from the bar, the quintessential power couple would argue. Maybe the arguments would begin over something simple, but they always ended violently. No one ever witnessed a fight, but they heard them. Often, the neighbors would gossip about the blood-curdling screams coming from the house on Cherry Lane, like those from a horror movie. Subsequently, after the arguments, the neighbors would often see glimpses of bruises on Mrs. Dawson’s body. After their arguments, she would only be seen in long sleeve shirts for days, even in the hot summer months. However, not one of the neighbors ever said anything, probably because they didn’t want to get involved.

Like clockwork, on any given Saturday, the neighbors would see Mr. Dawson carrying a bouquet of roses to his dear wife. The roses represented his apology for his behavior the previous night, they assumed. Mrs. Dawson always graciously accepted the roses, and it appeared that she continued to forgive her husband for his destructive behavior.

One beautiful spring day, the neighbors assembled and began to gossip about the neighborhood. A few of them mentioned that they hadn’t seen Mr. Dawson for a while, nor had they heard any fights between the husband and wife recently. As they discussed, some of the neighbors noticed Mrs. Dawson in her garden. She was planting a rose bush. One of them approached her and asked what she was doing. She explained that Mr. Dawson left to visit family in the South. And she was planting the rose bush to guide him home. The bush represented their devoted love for one another. Time moved on, and soon people forgot about the Dawson’s. Mrs. Dawson moved, and the rose bush continued to grow.

After some time, the rose bush began to take on, what others deem, a life of its own. It became overgrown and crept into the rest of the yard. Its thorns created a tangled web, that to some, formed a man’s face. It’s rumored that the roots would tremble and shake at night. And the neighbors swore they could hear the same blood-curdling screams that mimicked the Dawson’s fights. These noises emanated from the side of the mansion, where the rose bush resided. This led to speculation that the house was haunted, and the haunting had something to do with the rose bush. The house became known as possessed.

One day, the town’s mayor became tired of the gossip. To prove the house was not haunted, he assembled a team of men to go over and investigate. The group decided to dig under the rose bush, thinking it was the root of this legend.

Once, dug it appeared to be an average plant. However, one of the mayor’s team found something. After a section of the bush was uprooted, he discovered something very unusual in the dirt. A frosty blue glass eye lay in the soil starring at them all. Of course, this discovery only perpetuated the legend.

To this day, the Dawson house is abandoned. It’s reported that Mr. Dawson never went to visit his family. It’s rumored he didn’t even have family in the South. Some say he never made it off the premises. Nothing is known of Mrs. Dawson. The house on Cherry Lane is still thought to be possessed by Mr. Dawson’s ghost, and the remnants of the rose bush continue to grow.