The house stood atop a hill overlooking the town, an imposing three-story Victorian mansion that had clearly seen better days. Its paint was faded and peeling, its windows were cracked and foggy, and a musty smell emanated from within. The locals whispered that it was haunted, though few dared set foot on the overgrown grounds.

John had never believed in ghosts or any other supernatural nonsense, but even he felt a chill down his spine as he pushed open the creaking wrought iron gate and started up the weed-choked path. He clutched his backpack tighter, steeling his nerves. His brother James had dared him to spend the night here, alone. Despite John’s apprehension, he refused to back down from the challenge. He was no coward.

The massive front door groaned open with the squeal of rusted hinges. John’s footsteps echoed through the cavernous foyer as he explored the first floor, flipping light switches to no avail. The power had long since been shut off. He switched on his flashlight and swept the beam over his surroundings. The wallpaper was faded and peeling, the hardwood floors scuffed and worn. An inch of dust covered every surface that hadn’t already rotted away. He sneezed, the sound bursting through the heavy silence like a clap of thunder.

John set up camp in the least dilapidated of the drawing rooms, laying out his sleeping bag on the bare wooden floor. He ate a cold meal from a can as he studied his surroundings. An ancient piano occupied one corner, missing several keys. Above it hung a portrait of a severe-looking man with unsettling dark eyes. Those eyes seemed to follow John as he moved around the room. An involuntary shudder ran through him.

As night deepened, the creaks and groans of the old house grew louder. John lay huddled in his sleeping bag, straining his ears anxiously. The wind moaned outside like an anguished spirit. Floorboards squeaked overhead as if footsteps paced across them. At one point he thought he heard faint music, the discordant plinking of the piano in the drawing room.

“It’s just your imagination,” John muttered to himself. But he couldn’t deny the prickle of fear creeping up his spine.

Exhaustion finally outweighed anxiety and John fell into a fitful sleep. Some time later he awoke with a start, his heart hammering. Something had disturbed him, a noise or a presence. He lay frozen, every sense straining into the darkness.

Then he saw it. A pale, writhing mist drifting across the drawing room. It pooled thickest around the piano, twisting into almost human shapes before dissolving again. John fumbled for his flashlight with trembling hands. As the beam pierced the mist it let out an unearthly shriek and contracted into a tight ball next to the piano.

In the flashlight’s glare John could see that the mist had formed the shape of an old man in antiquated clothes, his features sunken and cadaverous. His dark eyes bored into John’s. When he spoke, his voice echoed as if from the bottom of a deep well.

“You don’t belong here, boy,” the apparition rasped. “You cannot comprehend the dark legacy that permeates these walls, the lingering stench of evil that infects this place to its rotten core.”

John tried to scramble backward but his sleeping bag entangled his legs, trapping him. He opened his mouth to scream but only a whimper emerged.

The ghost’s lips twisted into a cruel approximation of a grin.

“Such delicious fear,” it taunted. “But it’s not your terror I crave. There is one who must return here to face their rightful judgment, one who cannot evade their fate forever…”

The spirit’s bony fingers caressed the piano keys in a sinister melody. As the music reached a crescendo the very walls seemed to tremble and cry out in anguish and fury. Thunder crashed outside and lightning split the night sky, illuminating the ghost’s wild-eyed rictus grin for an instant before he faded away like mist in the wind.

John didn’t stop running until he was five blocks from the house. As he sprinted down the hill gasping for breath, he promised himself he would never step foot in that godforsaken mansion again. Whatever malevolent legacy haunted it could claim someone else. His brush with the paranormal was over.

But even as John collapsed on his own safe, warm bed, his mind echoed with the ghost’s ominous words: “There is one who must return…one who cannot evade their fate forever.” A nightmarish vision flashed through his mind of the spirit lying in wait within those decaying walls, thirsting for a vengeance long overdue. John shivered, suddenly feeling very sorry for whoever that poor soul might be.

Feature Photo by Arianna Tavaglione