The Empty House

Certain houses, like certain people, somehow manage to show right away that they
are evil. In the case of people, no special feature needs to give them away; they
may have an open face and a friendly smile; and yet, spending a little time with
them leaves a strong feeling that something is deeply wrong with them: that they
5 are evil. Whether you want to or not, they seem to give off a feeling of secret and
bad thoughts which makes those around them pull away as if from something
diseased.

And perhaps, with houses, the same thing happens. Maybe it's the feeling left
behind by evil things done in that house, long after the people who did them are
10 gone, that gives you goosebumps and makes your hair stand on end. Something
of the strong feelings of the person who did the evil, and the fear felt by the victim,
enters the heart of the innocent person watching, and they suddenly feel nervous,
their skin crawls, and their blood feels cold. They feel afraid without knowing why.

There was clearly nothing in how this house looked on the outside to support the
15 scary stories told about it. It wasn’t lonely or messy. It stood in a corner of the
square, and looked exactly like the houses next to it. It had the same number of
windows as its neighbours, the same balcony looking over the gardens; the same
white steps leading up to the heavy black front door; and, at the back, there was
the same narrow patch of grass, with neat box-shaped plants, running up to the
20 wall that separated it from the backs of the next houses. Even the number of
chimneys on the roof looked the same, the shape of the roof edge; and even the
height of the dirty iron fence.

And yet this house in the square, which looked just like its fifty ugly neighbours,
was actually completely different – terribly different.

25 Where this clear but invisible difference came from is impossible to say. It can’t be
blamed just on imagination, because people who had stayed in the house, not
knowing anything about it, had clearly said that some rooms felt so unpleasant they
would rather die than go back in, and that the feeling of the whole house gave them
real fear, while the number of innocent renters who had tried to live there and had
30 to leave very quickly, was almost a scandal in the town.

When Shorthouse arrived to visit his Aunt Julia at her small house by the sea on
the other side of the town, he found her full of mystery and excitement. He had only
received her letter that morning, and he had come expecting to be bored; but the
moment he shook her hand, he felt her excited energy. The feeling grew stronger
35 when he learned that no other guests were coming, and that she had sent the letter
to him for a very special reason.

Something was going on, and that ‘something’ would probably turn into something
big, because this elderly aunt, who was very interested in ghost stories and strange
events, had both cleverness and strong will, and by hook or crook, she usually got

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40 what she wanted. She told him the news soon after tea, when she walked close to
him as they slowly walked along the sea-front in the evening.

"I’ve got the keys," she said in a happy, but slightly serious voice. "Got them till
Monday!"

"The keys of the bathing machine, or — ?" he asked playfully, looking from the sea
45 to the town. Pretending not to understand always made her get to the point faster.

"Neither," she whispered. "I’ve got the keys of the haunted house in the square —
and I’m going there tonight."

Shorthouse felt the smallest shiver run down his back. He stopped joking.
Something in her voice and the way she spoke gave him a thrill. She was serious.

50 "But you can’t go alone—" he began.

"That’s why I sent the letter to you," she said firmly.

Adapted from The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood

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