The Problem with Today’s Youth

She knocked politely on the door and waited. Something move in the peripheral of her right eye, but when she turned her head to look, nothing was there.

“Hello,” the woman said as she opened the door, “You must be Amelia, here about the maid job.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, come on in. My name is Helen and my husband, whose up stairs, is Don. He’ll be joining us in a minute or so,” the woman stated.

Amelia followed her into the parlor and sat where Helen gestured  for her to sit. She didn’t expect the house to have so many rooms.

“Tea?” Helen offered.

Amelia smiled, “Yes, please.”

From above she heard footsteps move across the ceiling, creaking floorboards gave way to the softer patter of walking on carpet as Don moved towards the stairs. He seemed much, much to young for her, Amelia noticed.

After a few minutes of general conversation, the trio got down to business. Helen wanted to know about Amelia’s experience and references.

“Oh, don’t worry child,” Helen said. “There are 33 rooms to this old mansion and we use only four, so cleaning after us isn’t as daunting as you may think.”

By the end of the hour, the couple hired the young woman. Don helped her move her few things into the back bedroom, beyond the kitchen and dining room.

After they finished, he took her on a tour of the property, pointing out the family crypt and the old tobacco barn, now in severe disrepair. “Many a tale has come up through the generations about spirits and hoo-doo from that falling down building,” he offered.

Inside, it was Helen who offered the tour. She took Amelia to nearly every room in the home, save for one: “That one is off-limits. Not even Don or I go in there.”

Amelia looked at the door as they walked past it. Her curiosity was instantly piqued by the locked door.

For nearly three weeks, Amelia did her chores as scheduled. She dusted, swept, mopped, washed their clothes and folded the laundry as well as laundered the linen on a daily basis before remaking the beds.

“All in all,” she wrote in her diary, “This isn’t a bad job. The pay is good and I have the free range of the kitchen, so food isn’t a worry. However, I’m still wondering about what’s behind that door upstairs.”

It wasn’t but the following day that Helen and Don left the house for a trip into town, leaving Amelia alone for the first time. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Amelia watched them drive away down the long gravel road that led out to the paved road. She set the broom aside that she’d been using to sweep the front porch.

Quickly, she moved upstairs to the room deemed off-limits. The knob moved easily as she turned it and pushed in the door.

The room was empty of furniture. In fact it was devoid of paint, wallpaper or carpet.

The walls and the floors were hard wood, rough grained, and darkened as if by age. Seeing that there was nothing to be seen, Amelia turned to leave, but found herself unable because of an unseen force preventing her from stepping through the doorway.

Amelia rushed at the door, only to bounce backwards and onto the floor. She tried opening the shuttered windows, but they refused to budge.

Then she heard her employers’ vehicle as it rattled and bumped it’s way up the long drive to the front porch. Her heart sunk and she instantly felt sick as she listened to the sound of their footsteps coming into the front hall and then up the stairs.

“Finally!” Helen said as she stood in front of the door to the forbidden room.

“What did I tell you, my dear,” Don added. “All we needed to do was leave for a bit and she’d trap herself.”

“Wait…what’s going on,” Amelia wanted to know, “How come I can’t get out of here.”

“You and I are going to transfer souls,” Helen stated with a smile.

“You’re crazy, old woman,” Amelia cried.

“Maybe,” Helen replied with a laugh. “But maybe you’re the one that’s crazy.”

“I don’t understand?” questioned a panicked Amelia.

Don stood in the doorway, “Do you think a young man with such a fine body as mine is going to find sexual pleasure with the old, worn out body that Helen is living in?”

“You’re both crazy!” Amelia shouted.

“No,” he answered, “I’m simply young again — and soon Helen will be, too – thanks to you. And I must say, your body is quite thrilling to look at – I can’t wait to make love to it.”

Amelia backed away from the door as she gagged and threw up. Feeling weak in the knees, she dropped to the floor and began sobbing breathlessly.

She cried so hard, that she failed to see the shadow as it crossed from one corner of the room to the other, then behind her. And as Amelia began to find it harder and harder to breathe, she heard Helen call out to Don, “That’s the problem with today’s youth.”

“What is, my dear?” Don asked.

“They don’t listen to their elders,” Helen chuckled.