Meanwhile, at a local haunted house...

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…