The House of the Dead

While on a tour across the moor of the Scottish highland, one summer noon I stopped by a grand Victorian house. Curious, I entered silently through the half-closed door, in the half-dark room a pile of antiques I could see . In the eerie stillness before I could call out, “anybody in”, the creaking wooden door closed sharply behind me. In the alarmed mind I pressed the panic button within, for with all the doors closed the way out I couldn’t find. As I shivered with the creepy feeling of being trapped, saw a faint figure approach through the misty hallway, as if floating on thin air he came into the sinister room, I saw his scalded deformed face before he turned it away. As he came near I wailed scared, “please open the door”, Icy eyes looked at me, but a single word he didn’t utter. How he opened so softly the heavy door I didn’t know, I rushed out in a breath outside in the flood of sunlight. In nearby village I queried about the man living in that house, nobody saw any hint of life coming from the house of the dead, for in the outhouse fire that took a very long time to dowse, the lone caretaker was burnt to death some two years ago. February 13, 2021 Contest : Ghost Sponsor : Julia Ward