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Bad things happen in the mansion down the road. That was something every human and good-for-nothing drone knew. It didn't matter what or who you were, something unfortunate would happen. People whispered of a haunting, or curse – something that had been intentionally forced onto the wretched place to ensure it's residents would suffer.
Bad things happened in the mansion down the road. Eventually that phrase was whispered so much it circled back to it's origin – and from up the road, people could hear that girl, the one who'd always stop by the scrapyard to pick up strays, laugh so hard that the mansion shook. Because it was true. The phrase "bad things" sounded awfully treacherous, but it was mere misfortune in reality. Simple inconveniences. The power would go out, storms would hit at the worst times, the place creaked in the night whenever she tried to sneak out. She had always blamed it on its age, and they had always blamed her rowdiness on hers.
She had always wondered, though, where they had gotten the idea that it was such a terrible place.
"Bad things happen in the mansion down the road," they laughed as they watched an enraged mother chase her mess of a daughter out the house and into the garden. Glimpses of the people there, just like this, made them wonder why they ever thought it was so bad at all.
"Bad things happen in the mansion down the road," they said in a hushed whisper to one another, carrying the message along as they watched people hurriedly evacuate from what outsiders recognized as the dining hall. They could hear screaming from inside. They never saw the girl leave.
"Bad things happen in the mansion down the road." There was nobody left to whisper about, but they didn't know that. If they did, they wouldn't care. Nowadays, there was no laughter, no mischief, not even a scream like the last time they had ever seen signs of life there.
But occasionally, they saw a flash of yellow behind the abandoned Manor's windows.