English: The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) is a short silent horror film adaptation of the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (TV special) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ghosts are a favorite subject of almost everyone I know. People who even pretend that these things do not exist are not an exception as they too pay considerable amount of attention when a ghost story is being narrated nearby. I am neutral in this… explorations of the supernatural. I have told my friends about some experiences (almost always in return for something equally wonderful and thrilling) I had during my lone journeys. Only this time (three days ago) it was too real even for me to believe.
Imagine a 473 year old house: okay… not exactly a house but an existing small portion of it. Everything else was demolished in an attempt to stop a fire, sometime in the 18th Century. The house belongs to my family even though the claim can be legal from many other branches of the same family existing all over the state. So, last year we decided to register an organization to bring all the branches together to revive the ties. Some of us (my parents, exactly) live close enough to have the house and the plot checked all the time. A massive cleaning up was launched and soon the place was ready for the meeting. I made myself absent from all this by citing my PhD as a reason, as I always do.
But this time, I was caught. Three days ago was the second annual meeting. A day before that I was told to go there and oversee the preparations. I obliged thinking that I might be able to click some photos for FB. The house is a small structure with lots of wood and tile used. The bricks used are actually baked in the old fashion, the small bricks with its muddy brown color… the doors are small but the verandah is wide enough for me to lie down for a nap. I walked around a bit and clicked some photos and when it became extremely humid, I sat down near a tree and slept. My father was supposed to come and pick me up at 6PM but he was entertaining some unexpected guests, an information which came through phone. So, I was alone in the house with all the workers left after the work. Darkness had settled and the house was never ever connected to electricity because by the time electricity came to the village, the house no longer needed it.
The worst thing about human psychology is that you think about the creepiest things when you are in the creepiest place. I was no exception as I started fighting off the rushing of images from all the horror movies I have watched in my long career as a film buff. I think a little background story about the house might help you understand the sort of shit I was in. Legend has it that the house was uninhabitable because of a curse; a curse that the eldest of women could go mad in there. My grandmother had heard in her childhood stories of horror related to this household – like a woman’s body being found from the well (which wasn’t even 200 yards from the tree I was sitting under), an unidentified man spotted in the house 75 years ago who (apparently) vanished inside the house when cornered by the villagers, cries of pain and suffering emanating from the house heard even in the road running not too far, wandering villagers witnessing light and strange noises etc. Even though I heard all these things a good 15 years ago, the memories became suddenly clear as I started getting the feeling that I wasn’t alone there. My phone had started making the ‘I’m-going to-die-soon’ noise too. Suddenly something fell down inside the room where some vessels were kept for the next day’s use. Soon, it became a huge banging where stuff fell on stuff and all I could do was jump up from my sitting position to look around frantically. I didn’t feel like running because it was dark and I wasn’t feeling confident about running a good 500 yards to the road through a trail flanked by huge trees. I clearly heard the noise of a door creaking and few minutes later a small broken tile from the roof fell off after sliding for a while. Then, there was sudden silence for a good 5 minutes at the end of which a breeze began doing rounds. Old bloody windows moved. I knew that I hadn’t died because I could still hear my heart pounding against my chest. I stood in that position, immobilized for a good 10 minutes before I saw the flash lights in a distance. My father came, with an apologetic face, accompanied by a distant cousin of his who was actually enjoying the first look of the house. I was soaked in sweat and my Dad was engaged in showing off the guest where exactly the rest of the house was situated.
I skipped the next day’s meeting.
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- Ghosts and stuff (minkyweasel.com)
