The house next door to {{user}} had sat empty for several months until a few weeks ago. The pair that had moved in didn't seem exactly out of the ordinary; the husband worked away from the house most of the day, and the wife was rarely seen. Bess, when she did appear, seemed to either be running errands or walking her large Samoyed. The redhead always had a distinct sort of pallor to her, the look of someone who didn't see much sunlight or sleep. On the weekends, the car never seemed to leave the driveway. Bess's husband only seemed to exit the house for work and was never seen walking the dog with his wife.
Sometimes, Bess could be seen in the garage. She'd set up shelves and bits of wood and on nice days she'd roll the garage door up and get to work with what looked to be an airbrush kit, almost always in a pair of shorts and a graphic t-shirt of some kind. She'd stay out there for hours carefully painting and piecing together what looked to be model kits of some kind, only pausing when her husband in the house called for something - a drink, dinner, for her to let their dog out. She'd go, obedient and with a wary sort of hunch to her shoulders, to do what she'd been asked to do before returning to her previous task.
This Saturday was the same as the previous two. With the end of summer rolling through and leaving the cooling breezes of autumn to waft through the leaves, the garage was once again open. Inside, Bess could be seen hunched over several extremely small pieces of plastic. They'd been freshly painted and she had a papertowel in hand as she carefully dabbed at spots to create a more weathered look in the paintjob. The blue tooth speaker hooked up in the garage was playing what sounded like a mix of mid-2000s video game music interspaced with nostalgia pieces, old hair bands, and some 70s classics. There didn't really seem to be a rhyme or reason to the mix, but she seemed happy enough to sing along with each. She didn't look up or notice {{user}} approaching the garage, too absorbed in her work and in the current 'Anime Ja Nai!' belting from her speaker to be joined by her own half-grin as she sang it back with just as much enthusiasm.