HalloweenWriting Day 7: Haunted House
((I kind of like this one.))
The house on the corner of the street was not haunted in the traditional sense that the people of the town thought it was. It didn’t seem right, and to them that was enough. No one had lived in it in so long no one could really tell when the last tenant had been there. The house next to it, which had an adjoining wall like all the city houses, could not hold an occupant for more than a few months. Had the house not been on the corner and had a house on the other side, I suspect it would be just the same.
In my eighteen years living in the house across the street from the most haunted house in the city, I had witnessed at least forty families move into the house next to it although it felt more like 4,000. I’d tried to ask one of the families who had only stayed in the house for a week about it, but my grandfather had scolded me and took me inside before the family could answer. They hadn’t really stopped to even listen to my question now that I look back on it. I was about twelve at the time.
After that encounter I had asked anyone I could what was wrong with the house. It didn’t look menacing. It had a dark grey stonework, white shutters that looked well maintained for a house no one lived in, short steps up to the ornamental white door and a nice black wrought iron fence around the front of it. There was a large rectangular window above the door that had a black curtain that had never been pulled aside. I could not understand why anyone would be afraid to live in the house, let alone next door to it.
Everyone I asked told me something different. “A madman killed an entire family in the basement,” one person told me. “A mother killed her children in the tub,” was another. “A father killed his entire family before killing himself.” I had heard every story that someone could possibly have for ghosts except one old lady who lived near the school I went to at the time.
She lived alone, an old school teacher from what she told me. She was in her eighties at the time, white poofy hair and bone thin with her dark skin like tanned leather pulled taut against her bones. She set me down in an old chair, the kind that has little brass bits in the end of the armrests and had a high back to it. She gave me some cookies, a glass of milk and perhaps the closest thing I would get to a real answer.
“Why are you asking about that house child?” she asked me after I had eaten a few cookies. I gulped down some milk and thought it over.
“Because no one will give me a real answer. Everyone says something different,” I came up with finally. The old woman waved her hand.
“Pah. Like they know anything. Using their imaginations is all they’s doing. You really wanna know?” I nodded. She leaned in closer, I could see her eyes behind her dark glasses, and realized she was blind.
“Yes.”
“It’s Death’s house. With a capital D.” She sat back, looking proud of herself. “The reaper himself.” I said nothing and ate another cookie slowly. Neither of us said anything else. Eventually I decided it was time to leave, and thanked her for the cookies. “Oh don’t you worry about it.” As I started down the steps she called out to me.
“Yes Ma’am?” She disappeared from the doorway and came back a few minutes later with an old silver chain with a crow or raven hanging from it. I started to say that I couldn’t possibly take it, but she shushed me before I could even get the second word out.
“If you plan to keep snoopin’, that least I can do is give ya this.” I took it from her reluctantly. “Go ahead, put it on.” I did so, and when I looked up to ask her what it was for, she had already shut the door. I mulled over what she had told me on my way home, the bird bouncing against my chest inside my shirt. When I made it home, another family was packing up and running out of the house, leaving the door wide open before driving off.
I looked around once before running into the house. I had attempted to get into Death’s house more than once, but the door was always firmly locked and I never tried the house next door since it was always filled with activity. Inside there was still furniture, although I wasn’t sure if it was pre furnished or the people had left theirs when they left.
I explored the house a for a good hour or so before leaving, making sure to keep the door unlocked as I left. I had not heard or seen anything unusual save for a few creaks or knocks when I moved on some of the floors or stairs. I had found a key and took it with me and over the course of the next year and half I explored the house whenever a family had just left. Once I had even spent the night in it, having told my parents I was spending the night with a friend. I started to hear noises when I wasn’t moving around the house. Knocks from the shared walls of Death’s house, what I thought were voices, and once I thought I heard a scream.
It was somewhat disturbing, but I had not experienced anything that would warrant the terrified looks families had when they were racing to leave the house. Then one day, I found an old key inside a closet in the main bedroom. It was the kind in old movies and I knew it was to the house next door. I didn’t use it right away though. My parents had started noticing what I was doing and I wasn’t allowed to leave the house unless it was for school for some time, but they never found the old key.
I should have been scared when I finally had the opportunity to use it. My parents had left for the weekend and I was left alone having assured them I would not go inside the house. I of course ignored them the minute they left and raced over. The key seemed heavier when I put into the lock and there was a ear shattering crashing noise when I finally turned it. I thought there had been an accident and swivelled on my feet to look behind me, but the street was empty.
I slipped inside the massive white door, closing it carefully behind me. The building was empty. There was no furniture, and oddly no dust flew around when I opened the curtains next to the door. There were two stairs, one on the left going up, and one on the right going down. The one on the left had a sliver of light shining on the top step, and so I went up first and looked around the second floor leaving the dark steps leading down for later.
I let the light in through the big window and shadows began to dance around. I felt suddenly cold. I rubbed my arms, but it was getting colder and colder. Voices, barely whispers, were coming from everywhere. I heard a deep breathing behind me and instinctively grabbed at the necklace I still wore under my shirt. The breathing didn’t stop, but somehow felt less menacing. I still did not turn around but I heard a soft voice, like the sound of a hand running along fabric.
“It is not for the living to know the nature of Death,” it said. There was a long pause and I saw the shadows in front of me part and long shadow take their place. “But if you wish to know, you shall.” I could feel my heart beating heavily against my hand that was holding the necklace and then it slowed…
After that I don’t remember much. There were voices. Men, women, young, old. It’s hard to remember what they all said. When my parents came home Monday morning they told me they knew where I had gone and found the door to Death’s house open. I was on the bottom step, the light pouring in through the window and shining just behind me. I was muttering quickly but neither had known what I was saying. In my hands was a large leather book.
I may not remember what the voices had said to me, but they were written down and in that book… In that book are names. With each name is a date, and sometimes a gruesome tale of how they died. Some notes about things they regretted, what they wanted their loved ones to know… I keep that book beside my bed. There are a few names crossed off on it now. There are few people who received some closure. And there is one person who knows the nature of Death.
