 Horror/Scary: February 16, 2022 Issue [#11212] |
This week: Haunted Houses Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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“Nothing ever likes to die--not even a room.”
― Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man
“Because you trust your house, right? It's your house. It protects you from the world and, even more important, all the people out there. It sees you naked every day. It knows your sins. It's the only place where you are your true self. So when that gets corrupted, when that becomes haunted, that's terrifying.”
― J.W. Ocker, Twelve Nights at Rotter House
“Neither of us had lived in a house since we were kids; apartments, it turns out, are very different things, psychologically. Houses—especially old and creaky houses—are individuals, somehow; their fronts are faces, their closets are pants pockets.”
― Ben Dolnick
“Dear Miranda Silver,
This house is bigger than you know! There are extra floors, with lots of people in them. They are looking people. They look at you, and they never move. We do not like them. We do not like this house, and we are glad to be going away. This is the end of our letter.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching
“In the dark behind the glare of the television, like a mannequin behind it, I could see a silhouette and it wasn’t moving. It was maybe six foot high with its shoulders hunched and I blinked to make sure it was real. The TV fuzzed grey and white and black and I had a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow away. “Rory” I whispered. Clawing out gently beneath the duvet cover, reaching for his hand. But I couldn’t find it. And he didn’t answer.”
― Kate Chisman, Creep
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Haunted Houses
The house was odd, not odd because of who lived in it, but odd the way you can sense something's not quite right about a place. It slumped down like a tired old man in an overgrowth of weeds and ferns that wove their spidery webs together into a green embroidery of cascading bougainvillea, laurels, palms, and fragrant eucalyptuses. I had hoped that all it really needed was a bit of repair and a new coat of paint, but the way the house sagged, it appeared as though paint would simply slide off. There had been an earthquake way back when, and looking at the place from the roadside, it seemed to squat upon its foundation like a hungry ogre patiently hiding in the bushes and waiting to be fed.
Inside it was huge, filled with rooms within rooms, and each equipped with mysterious little dwarf doors that led into crawlspaces secreted in the walls. It was behind one such door, I discovered while exploring, that I found a long-forgotten cigar box buried beneath a pile of cobwebs and a skin of dust.
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The house was a huge, rambling wreck, with fancy gingerbread around the eaves, windows and railings. But storms had weathered the paint and ripped shingles from the roof. Where shutters still survived, they hung at a slant by a single mounting. I noticed the front-porch steps sagged, and there were gaps in the railing. Half the windows were haphazardly boarded shut, but the others were without protection and shattered. And the moonlight revealed shards of glass like transparent teeth biting at the empty blackness where stones had been pitched through. In spite of its shabby condition, the Granson place did not have the air of a ruin; in fact, it didn't appear empty at all, as did many decrepit buildings; somehow it seemed vital, alive. If a house could be said to have a human attitude, an emotional aspect, then this house was angry, very angry . . . furious, in fact.
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Locks are used to keep things out, but they are also used to keep things in. The burning question is . . . what lies behind the door?
Keys open such locks, if someone is fortunate, or, as the case may be, unfortunate enough to find them. Someone like little Shyla Stone, on her way home from school, who wasn’t even thinking about doors with locks, or even the keys that opened them, until she saw a glint of gold beneath the undergrowth of a neglected old hedge that wrapped around the infamous Hanson House. Bitten by the worm of curiosity, she quickly bent down and snatched it up.
“2-1-4,” she read aloud, and then her gaze slowly lifted from the key toward the deserted two-story house that hunched behind the hedge.
The Hanson House returned an indifferent glare as it sagged upon its foundation like a decrepit old geezer. The eaves of the long forgotten wood-shingled roof drooped down heavily over the dark brooding eyes of the upper-most story. Even in the light of day, the dusty, hollow windows of the lower floor seemed to gape open like hungry black mouths waiting to be fed. Leading up to the house were two white-washed pillars that framed a set of large double-doors. Upon one of the pillars was the number, '214'.
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Ghost Stories
| |  | A Dark Night (13+)
Some things are better left in the dark, unspoken of. Welcome to Hell, enjoy your stay.
#2209777 by Casthavian  |
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DEAD LETTERS
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