The Haunted House

The tale is a old one. I'm sure you've heard it, or at least some variation on the theme. A happy family living life blissfully unaware of all the dark horrors that hide in the shadows. The purest of families the most loving of parents and the children adoring. It makes thier descent into hell all the more poignant yes? Oh you know how it goes, Peter Perfect comes home one day and decides his wife’s head would look better in the fridge, and that the best thing he could do for little Johhny and Peggy Sue is buried them alive in the garden. Of-course the man's insanity is only temporary and upon awaking from his wild demure he realizes what he has done, well...

Its said you could hear his scream for ten blocks. And after discovering you've murdered your whole family suicide doesn't quite seem to satisfy your need for punishment now would it? So With a most original stroke of ingenuity the man decides that the death he deserves is to be a slow one. A very slow one. And so he proceeds to eat his own fingers. One by one. Using the bloody stumps where his hand used to be to raise his foot to his mouth the man has toes for desert before bleeding to death with bits of carpet fluff stuck to his stumps.

And born from the steaming guts of this grisly episode is the annal of 'The haunted house'. They say the tortured souls of the family haunt it still, trapped forever in their own horror.

Several years later the house might be sold on. The new owners settle in as if the horror of the past was all but a child's nightmare. A foolish story to scare kids at bedtime. All is well until....poof... they disappear. How unusual mutter the authorities. More years will pass before the house sees another family. They'll settle in with bright eyed optimism twinkling in their eyes all good morning and have a nice day until that is...poof... This is most irregular all will agree. Perhaps its best to leave the house to its despair. The house is boarded up and left to rot. Its boards warp the paint peels the windows break and the shutters swing. Now it was beginning to look like the monster it truly was. No more families for this place of ruin. This palace of pain. This monastery of misery. It was left alone to its sorrow. Some say you can hear weeping from within if you are brave enough to approach. Few are. Grown ups simply avoid the place altogether lest it shatters their delicate pretences about the nature of the world. Instinctively drawing away and shrugging it off as nonsense like a child covering its ears and singing to drown out the sound of a nagging parent.

Children as well all know cling to no such pretences. They tend to take things at face value: Santa comes at Christmas; the Easter bunny at Easter and that house, that house is most certainly fucking haunted. And what could be more enticing to a curious child than a terrible ghost. It was the ultimate forbidden closet. The ultimate dare. And so they set off to explore. Disappearing into the devils gloom of the haunted house to add their cries to those already inside. For years the kids had been disappearing. Groups of 2 or 3 at a time. The community was aghast. Who was stealing their children....and the house could not be ignored forever.

It was to be searched. The desperate went first. The parents who's grief had shattered that age old defence against the dark arts – denial. So with eyes open (wide open) they ventured into that hellish abode to look for sweet little Michael George and innocent little Mary Olivia. Entered to add their screams to those already inside.

By now enough people had disappeared to attract some serious attention. The police were searching block by block house by house until they came to that terrible front step that belonged to that terrible house. In they went, mindful of their duty, in to to that forsaken house to add their screams to those inside. Now when a police officer goes missing to police tend to snap out of their just another day reverie and pay attention. Fingers were pointed orders were snapped and experts were consulted. Eventually the long finger of the law settled of a dilapidate house on the edge of town. Swat teams were organised snipers made ready and reporters had gathered. The mystery of the haunted house was about to be unravelled – or so it seemed.


The swat team were good. Very good, fast accurate, strong, brave and just. The door swung open just before the battering ram hit. Flash bangs were tossed inside, the swat team entered in perfect formation....to add their screams to those already inside. There was an awed silence as the crowd waited, and it that silence if you were to listen very closely could be heard the screams of legion of souls trapped within the haunted house.

People were frightened now, there was after all only so much nonsense you could deny until your own reality becomes the nonsense and the nonsense becomes the truth. They were wrapped in it now, this cold truth. It clung to the whole street like a dirty fevered sweat.

'Science!' they cried 'Science will save us!' So came the scientists in their droves, eager to dismiss this 'mass hysteria' that had so gripped the small town. For a while it seemed that sanity would be returned to the small town in the guise of white coats and cool rationality. This cool rationality was not to remain for very long however.

It was twilight when the sent the cam bot in to the haunted house. The sky was a deep purple and the creatures of the night were stirring. A made shit ramp had been mad so the cam bot could traverse the porch steps a ten foot rod was extended with a robotic hand on the end to turn the haunted handle on the haunted door. Before the robotic hand could grasp the handle the door slowly creaked open. The scientists coughed and shuffled their papers around. Cam bot edged for ward beaming his images directly to the surveillance base. The scientists huddle around the screens ready to apply their cold rationality to whatever phenomenon they were about witness.

Cam bot entered the gloom and activated night vision. The faint wailing sound was dismissed as electrical disturbance. Cam bot made its way down the hall. High levels of sulphur detected. Turned the corner to enter the kitchen. Unusual radiation fluctuations detected. Cam bot stopped at the kitchen door its lens adjusting for a wide angle view.

There was silence at the surveillance HQ as the live images streamed in. No one spoke. The scene before them was difficult to comprehend. The kitchen was full. Full of the missing people. Police officer stood side by side with parents and children all standing perfectly still. On their face was a fixed smile, but from their eyes poured all the pain and anguish of loss. The mad glint of people who no longer know what they fear, only that they do. Tears rolled down every smiling face. That was when the cool rationality of the scientists started to give way to something a bit more....clammy.

A rational man turned away to vomit. The Cam bot continued into the centre of the kitchen and found sitting the table the ethereal figures of the long dead family. At the table sat Peter perfect and his loving family. Their faces a mirror of their guests. Eyes that screamed horror fixed above broad welcoming grins. Peter turned and looked directly into the Cam Bot's lens. Madness and horror swirled threaded through with chaos and pain.... the man had hell in his eyes. The screen went static. The signal to Cam Bot was lost.... and Peter Perfect had hell In his eyes.