Threshold — 1: Estate Sale

At an estate sale, Owen buys an antique Colt .45 in poor condition. At home, he begins the process of cleaning up the revolver.

With nothing better planned for the day, Owen decided to take the short drive to eat lunch at the downtown City Square Café. On the way from his cabin just outside of the Crotherly’s township limits, the Estate Sale sign at the end of a long graveled drive caught his attention.

He had time to stop there for a while if he wanted to avoid the worst of the lunch crowd.

He pulled down the long drive, which ended in front of a three-story house. Not quite a mansion, it still would have been extremely expensive in its time. It appeared disheveled and grim now.

Owen was surprised he’d never been aware of its presence. Nowadays, what probably amounted to depression kept him mostly home and to himself. In another city, in what seemed like another life to him now, his wife and son had died in a fiery car crash coming back from the doctor’s office. Tim had been diagnosed with some rare disease that Owen still couldn’t pronounce properly, and he needed twice-a-week treatments to hold it at bay.

In the numbing aftermath of the accident, Owen decided that he had to get away. The life insurance had…