The Damned House

My name is Steven Prescot. I’m an aspiring ghost story writer. I’ve just finished English literature and was looking for a place to stay online.

I found a house, just a couple cities over, that had its price drop quite a lot. After searching around some more, I found out that it was based on several deaths within the premises. I thought it would be a great place to gain inspiration for some stories and maybe ask around about the people who lived in the house. So, I packed my stuff and headed out to the new house.

I travelled to the city, or I guess it’s more of a town. People seemed to be friendly, at least until I mentioned the house. Apparently, the house has become a taboo. Every single person who ever lived there in the last 200 years has died, either suicide, murder of some undisclosed way. But long story short, the house had gotten the name “The Damned House”.

After hours of wandering, since nobody would give me directions, I found it. The house was a two-story Victorian style house. It’s old, run down. You can see where the previous owners tried to fix it and recolour it, but it seems like they did not manage to finish it. The windows and doors, thought dirty, were not broken nor even cracked. And just as his eyes gazed upon the house, he noticed a shadow in the room on the 2^nd floor, but just as he tried to focus on it, it disappeared. “OH boy, this seems like it will be fun.”

As the door creaked open, the sight to the glorious hall opened up. The long staircase leading to the second floor, the chandelier hung atop the hallway. The dining room was fully set with 6 chairs, the dining room table, candelabra, and cupboards with dishes.

The kitchen was heavily outdated. Even the oven was still wood heated. People who have been here, apparently have never lived long enough to finish any repairs, improvements, or modifications they had planned. Plastic covers, white drapes covered most of appliances and furniture.

“This is going to take a lot of work, but I think I can manage it.”

After spending 2 hours cleaning the house and listening to the music, I saw the door to the main hall open. “Hello? Is anybody here?” a weak voice came from the entrance. “I’m your neighbour.” The soft voice belonged to the neighbour girl Hannah who had moved here less than a year ago. “Yes, yes, come in. I’m cleaning up the place a bit, so sorry for all the dust.” I walked quickly over to the door to welcome the visitor.

The girl standing in the door stunned me for a second. Her beautiful red hair, beautiful blue eyes, and her soft smile charmed me as I saw her. “Oh, it’s alright. I recently moved here as well, I know the struggle of the mess the old residents may leave.” She chuckled. “My name is Hannah, but people around here just call me Han. What’s your name?” I dusted my hands against my clothes and offered an awkward handshake. “Prescot, Steven Prescot. At your service.” “Well Steven Prescot, as I see you have a lot of work to do right now, how about I take you around the town tomorrow?” losing myself in her eyes, I couldn’t say no. “I would love to.” “Well then, see you tomorrow then.” She turned and left, her aroma still lingering in the air behind her.

The morning came faster than I expected. The house was clean... well presentable as long as you stick to the ground floor. As the morning came, I was awoken by the shouting coming from downstairs. “Steven Prescot, are you here?” The same soft voice was echoing the halls as it did yesterday. Hearing the voice, I woke up and checked the time. “Bloody hell, it’s only 6 am.” I grunted. Gathering any energy my body could muster at this ungodly hour, I rose from the bed like a zombie slowly being resurrected. “I’m coming, I’ll be down in a bit.” All dressed up and ready to go, after meeting with Hannah, we headed out.

“Excuse me for saying this, but why in God’s name did you come by at 6 in the morning.” She just laughed it off. “Haven’t you heard, early bird gets the worm.” In many other situations, I would be annoyed by this, but somehow, she made it more charming than anything.

As she led me through the town, showing the must-see spots and where to get all that I need. My excursion started with a market owned by Lidia, a lovely older woman with a bright smile. I was then led to the town hall. The town hall was at the centre of the town. Every road you would take could lead you here from any part of the town. The building itself was larger than any in the town. It was 3 stories long with a clock belltower on top of it. The bell would ring only once a day, right at noon, as to protect the bell from unnecessary damage.

She showed me the shopping street. It was so called because well, the whole street was nothing but little shops and services. If there’s anything you need, anything you want or just looking for something new, this is where you go. There was even a movie theatre that would show up to 3 movies every few hours.

But as she led me through the town and introduced me to everyone, nobody would still tell my anything about the house. No matter how chatty, nice and friendly some people were, the moment the name of the house came from my lips, their smiles would turn to frowns and not a single peep would come from them. It had been good 6 hours since we started. We sat down at a nice café Hannah introduced me to on the shopping street to have some lunch.

“So, what do you think of our little town?” “It’s truly a lovely place. And people are exceptionally nice, but I do wonder, why does nobody want to talk about the house?” Hannah gave a sigh and smiled. “Honestly, I don’t know myself. I moved here a year ago and the house was already empty at that time. I asked some people, but seeing their reaction, I just gave up on finding out.” “So, nobody talks about it?” “All I know is, nobody has lived there for more than 2 weeks without anything bad happening to them and people here think it’s cursed and don’t talk about it.” “By the way, I forgot to ask, how did you get inside this morning? I’m sure I locked the front door when I went to sleep.” “Oh, it was wide open.” That one line shook me a lot, but I didn’t press the matter as to not stress the girl out.

After our walk, I returned home to continue cleaning. This time, as I cleaned the house, I could feel someone… something watching me. Not only that, I could hear some rattles or board creaks from around the house, but as I would look or search for the source of the sound, I would find nothing.

I woke up next morning feeling a chill. As I got dressed and walked down, I saw that the front door was wide open. “What the hell?” I locked the door and went on preparing some breakfast.

As the kettle was boiling, and I was frying my morning omelette, I heard a creak come from the front hallway. The door had once again creaked open, if only just slightly.

The feeling of being watched didn’t leave me this day either. As I removed a lot of older furniture, the house would creek and rattle more and more. It felt like the house itself was not approving of the change.

The evening came very fast, the darkness covered the whole house. I brushed my teeth in the candlelight since I haven’t been able to fix the electricity yet. As I was looking into the mirror, I saw something in the mirror’s reflection, but as I focused, it moved aside, and the moonlight could be seen shining through the window once more.

The night was troubling. The sleep would not come even though I was exhausted from all the cleaning and moving of the furniture. The reason was the weird chill covering my body and random intervals. I had checked the whole house for opened windows or doors, but I would find nothing… until around 3 am when I felt something touch me, and I opened my eyes in the alarm. As I sat up in alarm, I saw something arm pull back, and a figure covered in dark disappear in the shadows of the room.

I got some of my clothes and crossed over to Hannah house. She was not very happy to be disturbed in the middle of the night, but she allowed me to stay the night on her couch.

“So, what happened to you last night? I was kind of out of it, so I didn’t really listen much to what you said.”

“Well, remember how you said that people had died in the house?” “Yes?” “Well, I think I saw what caused it. I saw this long dark scaly hand try to reach for me.” Her eyes popped open from imagining that. “W-What was it?” “I have no idea, and since no one is talking, I don’t think I’ll be able to find out.” “What will you do?” “Well, I plan to write ghost stories for a living and I’ve seen many ghost movies, read ghost stories and just a lot of creepy pastas online, I know exactly what I have to do.” “Well alright then, I hope it works out.” “Thank you.”

After Hannah went off to work, I travelled to the shopping street to buy the items I required. I returned home at around 11 in the morning and went on with my business. I spent 5 hours preparing all the items for what I had planned.

As I double checked that everything was there, I hopped into my car and shouted. “Bon voyage you fucking creepy damn house! And hello as far as I can freaking get from here.” I stepped on the gas and never looked back. Ever since I left, I have not had any supernatural encounters, some of you might think that I chickened out, I should’ve tried to see what it was and make a story about it, but you see people, I decided not to be dumb and just live.