My Own Experience in a Haunted House

Every town has that haunted house worth writing an essay about. Old. Gloomy. Creepy. It sits amongst trees that are dead, standing over an overgrown yard. Shutters swing in the breeze, hanging on by rusted hinges. The paint has chipped away. More shingles lie amongst the weeds than on the roof. At least one window is broken. Dark clouds always seem to hover over the house, situated on a dead end street. And then there are the stories. A man went mad and murdered his whole family in the house. One night, the house suffered a fire and a baby died in it. On and on, with a tragic death at the center. Because then come the other stories. Go there at night and you can hear screams coming from the house! People who stay in the house to hear the cries of an infant and smell smoke at night.

The house fascinates me. It always has, ever since I was a child and first heard the stories. It is another October month. Time to collect the odd stories about the house. I swear there are more each year. And all are different. They fascinates me. But yet it saddens me at the same time. Why? Because I don’t have a story of my own. I have never experienced anything paranormal with the house. And it’s not for lack of trying. I ride by the house every day and look for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. I’d use a Ouija board but they are banned by the Catholic Church. This year is different though. I am an adult this year. No curfews. And a camera. I am going to conduct my own little investigation. Perhaps I’ll have my own story this year to tell. And that’s why I’m standing in the front yard, shaking. I am trying to gather the courage to enter the house. My hand encircles the cold brass knob and I turn it. The door creaks open and I tiptoe inside. Inside, it smells musty. Everything creaks.

My breathing quickens as I continue inside. I want to get upstairs as the stories all center on the second floor. Should there be anything in this house, I know I’ll find it there. The stairs squeak underneath me. I held my breath with each step. Mostly in fear. Once I reach the landing, I walk down the hallway. A dirty and tattered rug covers the wooden boards. My heart beating faster and faster. If something is in this house, I doubt it won’t hear me. I stopped before a door, if I remember correctly, this is the most haunted room. Well, depends on which legend you believe: the man killed his children in this room or where the baby died in the fire. So I am guaranteed to see something in here if the house is actually haunted.

The door opens, I shined my flashlight in, checking for anything that may jump out at me. Nothing. I enter the room. Disappointment floods me as I realize it is a normal room. Sure, it needs a good cleaning, but it still just a room. A rusted bed frame sat in the middle of the room, a dress by the window and a day bed under the broken window and a rocking chair. I step in and double check the room. The only other thing in the room is a closet. One door is missing and the other hanging off. If I blow hard enough, I can knock it off. Once I am sure there is nothing else in the room, I place the camera on the windowsill. I sit in the chair with a recorder. Time to begin. “If anyone is here, I mean you no harm. Please give me a sign you are here. I just want to tell your story.” And so I wait. Relaxing when I identify the source as something outside or the house settling. Three hours later and nothing has come out. I need to go home. I paused, looking at the house. Its secrets remain just that for now.

Works Cited

1. Bader, C. (2014). Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture. NYU Press.
2. Dickey, C. (2016). Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places. Penguin Books.
3. Hargrove, R. (2013). The Haunted House: A True Ghost Story. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
4. Holzer, H. (2017). Ghosts: True Encounters from the World Beyond. Black Dog & Leventhal.
5. Klinger, L. (2014). The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft. Liveright Publishing Corporation.
6. Michell, J., & Rickard, R. (Eds.). (2016). Paranormality: Why We Believe the Impossible. Overlook Press.
7. Radford, B., & Nickell, J. (2012). The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead. Prometheus Books.
8. Randles, J., & Hough, P. (2016). The Paranormal, the new guide to understanding and working with the unexplained. Watkins Media Limited.
9. Tucker, E. (2016). Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses. University Press of Mississippi.
10. Underwood, P. (2013). Haunted London. Amberley Publishing.

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