Creepy House Repairs

       I dreamed that I was hired by an elderly woman to fix up her house. I repaired a couple of bannisters, re-hung a couple of interior doors that had been torn from their frames, and even repaired some damaged stairs. It looked like someone had broken in and carried off something very heavy, dropping it at least once on the stairs.
       Mostly I found myself re-hanging shutters, and adding latches so they could be attached and secured from the outside. When I got to the top floor, a single round room with a bed, vanity (sans mirror, the frame was there but there was no mirror) and dressing cabinet in it, I could tell it was a woman's bedroom, but judging by the long dark hair in the hairbrush, not the old woman's room. The door into the room was in the floor, and the room had eight porthole style windows. I put up the shutters, and as I was finishing the last one, the woman who lived in the room entered, or rather was pushed up into the room from below.
       She was lovely, full lipped, long dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a narrow waisted fully rounded traditional hourglass figure. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties. I showed her what I was doing, and showed her how the latches worked. She hinted that she was some sort of prisoner in this room.
       I used my drill to drill out the mounting circle for the latch of the last cover all the way through the shutter. I then showed her how to operate the latch from the inside of the shutters. (All it took was a small screw driver or square key.) I left her two keys to the shutters, one I taped to the top of a beam that ran over her vanity, and the other I told her to put in a drawer where her captor could find it. She got all teary eyed and thanked me. I made my way down out of the room and made a show of giving her one of the keys to open the shutters (without pointing out the modifications I had made.)
       I went out onto the roof to finish installing the final shutters, and to make some gutter repairs, I saw the old woman take the key away, and heard the lock being thrown on the trap door in the floor to the upper room. A few minutes later, the shutter I had rigged to open from the inside popped open. The woman waved at me, then closed the shutter and latched it. I went back up to the room and put a card in the shutter with my address and phone number on it. I then eased the shutter open and removed the window stops so the window could be opened far enough for the woman to escape.
       I looked out over the scaffolding that ran around the front and sides of the house. There were crocodiles on the side of the house. On the shore of a little pond there was a wadded up pair of coveralls, muddy, and a couple of chewed up shoes. I had a bad feeling about the rest of the job.
       I made a repair to a gutter that had been damaged by a fallen limb. The tree trimmer was there working also, it was TC. I asked him to leave a couple of thick branches just at the edge of the roof, sort of an escape route for the woman in the tower room. TC agreed and managed to trim the rest of the tree in such a way as to not make them obvious. I taped a few more cards to the roof, making a trail from the window to the tree.
       The two of us tried the tree escape route, found that it worked. We then started jumping across the scaffolding, TC making Sumo Wrestling stamping motions on each level of the scaffolding. Me checking each of my shutters on the second floor. Below the scaffolding, there were crocodiles roaming the back yard, pacing us. I knew they would attack anyone who set foot in the back yard. I found myself wishing we'd started in the back and had worked towards the front.
       The scaffolding that covered the front suddenly collapsed, and the steel pipes that connected it to the scaffolding in the back yard were pulled over the fence. That old lady was stronger than I thought. I heard the front door slam shut and the twisting of metal and creaking of wooden planks continued for a short moment in the front yard. We had to disconnect one of the scaffolding sections and tip it over and use it to make our way out of the back yard. It didn't quite reach to the fence, so I jumped out onto a high backed chair that had been stored outside.
       The chair's fabric had mostly rotted away, so it was pretty light. I was able to hop the chair around the crocodiles, who watched with great interest, but didn't attack. I was glad they were so well trained. I got the chair positioned where TC could reach it, then jumped for the fence.
       I didn't quite make it. As my foot touched the ground the crocodiles reared back to snap at me. I managed to step out after and up on the first one to lunge at me and so launch myself onto the fence by stepping off of its head. The crocodile had been so surprised by my moving towards it that it hadn't even opened its mouth as I approached. I balanced myself and walked along the top of the fence drawing the crocodiles away from TC. He jumped to the chair and then, rather than trying to leap to the fence, hopped the chair over to the fence and climbed out of the back yard.
       "I don't think the old lady is planning on paying us."
       "Shall we go find out?" I asked, more angry now than anything.
       In answer, TC pointed to the now bent and twisted remains of the scaffolding that had been in the front of the house. "Do you think she's going to know we escaped?"
       I hadn't even considered that we might still be in danger. I remembered seeing torn and muddy looking workman's clothing at the edge of the pond in the back yard and had an idea.
       TC was at least wearing a normal shirt and shorts under his coveralls. I was pretty much in a T-shirt and boxer-briefs.
       "I have another couple of overalls in the van," TC offered.
       I took a craft knife off of my belt and Made some shallow cuts on the back of my fore arm. The blood flowed faster than I thought it would, and I soaked it up with TC and my coveralls and shoes, then tossed them over the fence to the snapping crocodiles. There was ripping and growling, that moved away towards the pond in the back, then lots of splashing around.
       "I hope she's not really watching out back there, and that'll be enough to fool her if she is." I knew the house was completely shuttered and there weren't any windows left undone that I knew of.
       We snuck behind the hedge out to where TC's truck was parked. TC grabbed a couple of new coveralls out, and we dressed. I had to roll up the legs, but not the sleeves. A tow truck arrived. The driver was a little confused, he'd been told the van was abandoned. I stopped TC from sending the guy away, and suggested it might be best if the old woman saw the van being towed away. For a couple of extra bucks the tow driver allowed us to stay in the van while he collected his fee from the old woman, and drove us all away.
       I started to wonder if the woman we'd left an escape route for was like the old lady, and then I started to worry that I'd left her my address and phone number....