I know how you got here.
At least, I can hazard an educated guess, based on my own
experiences.
You and your idiot friends learned about this little house,
a ways off the beaten path but still easy enough to find if you bother to look
for it. You heard that nobody’d lived here for years, and when you dug around
for more information you heard about the murders that took place here, too long
ago for anyone who might remember firsthand to still be around to ask about.
They dared you to spend the night in the “haunted” house,
and you agreed, and now here you are.
I know this, or can guess it, because that’s what happened
to me.
I wasn’t murdered here, that wasn’t me. The family that was
is still around, somewhere, but I’m just some guy, who’s idiot friends once
dared him to spend the night here, who found the ghost and, petrified by its
ghastly visage, panicked and ran for the door, only to find it locked upon my
arrival.
I pounded on the door, screamed in fear and agony and, after
what seemed like a dozen lifetimes spent lost in a terror that I’m sure must’ve
at some point driven me insane, sank to the floor, my heart giving out from
overwork as the world slowly, finally, went black around me.
I died in front of that door, and when my friends returned for
me in the morning, they found my body there, mouth still frozen in silent
scream, cold and dead and very, very pale.
Yes, as pale as you’re looking right now.
And in a moment you too will, no doubt, break for the door
and find it shut to you, and as you throw yourself, over and over again,
against it in a desperate and futile attempt to find your way to freedom, I
want you to know, I’ll feel no pleasure at my victory. It will bring me no joy.
No, in fact I’ll feel tremendous guilt at the role I play in
scaring you to death, guilt that, were I not already deceased, would no doubt
haunt me to the grave.
But there’s nothing I can do about that. I haunt this place,
and you entered it, and such is the way of these things. I could no more let
you pass the night here unimpeded than the family could let me loose when I
came here so long ago.
I wish I could make you understand, this isn’t personal. It’s
just what I am now, appalling though it is, and much though I’d like to I’m not
capable of going against my fundamental nature.
Of course, are any of us?
No matter. I can explain all of this to you afterward, once
your body has ceased and you’ve calmed down a little. We have all the time in
the world for conversation, after all, we’re going to be here together a very
long time.
Once you’ve passed over, I’ll introduce you to the others,
too. They’re anxious to meet you, it’s been so long since anyone’s ventured
inside this house, we’d worried that the legends surrounding it had finally warned
people off for good.
We’d missed the visitors.
That’s part of why we’re so glad you’re here.
You’re sure to add a little life to the place…
