We held our breath when we ran by the old man's house. It's a thing kids do.
When a place is "bad" we hold our breath so that the badness doesn't rub off on us. It's how we magically protect ourselves.
The grass on the front lawn had grown tall and wild. It was at least two feet tall; a square of untamed field on a block of carefully manicured lawns.
Later that summer, the postman noticed something. To be more accurate, he smelled something. Something awful.
The old man had died alone in his home of natural causes. No one came to visit him and so he lay there for months decaying inside his home.
That's the way we heard it. The story got a few paragraphs in the local paper but they didn't mention the postman or the smell of death.
Someone cut the front lawn of his house soon after and we never again held our breath going by the old man's house.