A Collection of Scary Stories, Rituals, and Urban Legends

☽ | You're Not Afraid

Dear Reader,

At the corner of Winter and Broad there is an abandoned house. Go into that house. The front door is closed but unlocked. Nobody lives inside, not even homeless people would dare stay in a place like that for more than a night. When you go in, you will hear the whispers. Don't listen to what they say because they have more than just "a way with words." They say things that your heart dreads. Things like, "I can see you. I can hear your thoughts in my mind. I'm going to use your secrets to ruin your life. The longer you stay here, the more I know." It may not seem compelling now, I mean, why listen to some cocky little disembodied voices right? You're not afraid.

No. Ignore the voices. There will be a lamp on inside. It's always on so you shouldn't worry about being able to see. The room inside is left precisely as it was. The table is still set for a meal, there are still six sets of silverware, six dishes and six crisply folded napkins situated at regular intervals about the table. The chair at the head of the table remains askew as though someone had stood up from it and left the room in a hurry. There are still old envelopes sitting in the fireplace waiting to be lit, addressed to the man of the house. There are still two tall candles plugged into their sticks, hardly used with droplets of wax paralyzed along their sides, their wicks blackened but still long. There is still a child's toy truck lying on its side on the elegant oriental rug and a copy of Little Women is splayed on the seat cushion of the armchair, folded back at the spine. Someone's reading glasses sit upside down on top of a newspaper from August 1923 and two broad yellow needles are tangled in the sleeve of a sweater. It's as though the people who lived here are merely absent and could be back any minute. You might not think so if you were to enter the kitchen, which I would not advise. Still, you're not afraid, right?

Disregard the voices. Disregard the state of this, what once was someone's home. Don't go in the kitchen. No. Take to the stairs. Be careful, for the owner of the toy truck on the first floor may have left one or two of his building blocks, one with a crimson letter A, the other with a viridian letter G, sitting on one of the steps. Ascend to the top of the stairs where you'll pass the window as you round the banister and face the hallway. Do not open the burgundy velvet curtain even if you notice the tips of the shoes sticking out at the bottom. No you ought to completely disregard them. Not that you're scared. There's really not much of a view anyway. The voices will continue to whisper to you with their outlandish threats but you ought to simply proceed down the hallway.

You might look through the first door on your right, if you so desired. It will be ajar. The room is just a small one with an unmade twin bed, a couple of bookcases and a small desk with a typewriter on it. The beginning of a thesis on the Great War may still be sitting in the shaft. A small alarm clock that, if twisted twice, will be set to 7:30am sits on the bedside table and all of the clothes in the closet are meticulously hung, side by side, like uniform soldiers. There really isn't much to see. Still it's better than if you were to open the door on your left. The one with the broad wooden letters nailed to the door reading "Sam." Nor would I suggest that as you take a step or two down the hallway that you open the door on your right with its own wooden letters, these delicate and italicized reading "Beth." The door across from Beth's room is the bathroom, which you might use if you absolutely couldn't repress your bladder any longer and you didn't mind doing your business as voices whisper absurdities into your ears. Just don't pull aside the shower curtain to peer into the claw-footed tub. Not that you're afraid.

It's best if you just continue forward. You could glance into the last door on the left but all you'd find there is a king sized four poster and a vintage vanity mirror with some pearls strewn across the floor. Just don't look in the closet. Not that you're afraid. And neither are you afraid of opening the last door on the right. It's just better if you didn't. You wouldn't want to see what was sitting in the rocking chair on the far side of the room between an ironing board and another four poster.