Stuff You Should Know - The Empty House

Episode Date: October 30, 2013

It's Halloween, and Josh and Chuck are ready to creep you out with this year's spooky story, Algernon Blackwood's scary short story, The Empty House. Tune in, turn down the lights and prepare for chills to run down your spine as they read this classic bit of horror fiction. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. It's very spooky. It's Halloween. This is the holiday episode, Christmas holiday episode or my favorite two of the year. Yes. Oh yeah.

It's a tradition now. I love tradition. Yeah. Custom. Yeah. You want to explain what we do each Halloween? Yeah. We like to read a scary story for Halloween.

The first few years we read public domain scary stories, HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe. So Chuck if you'll remember last year we held a horror fiction contest. Yeah. Yeah. And we came up with the winner. There was a sweet 16. You can actually go read them on StuffYouShouldKnow.com. All 16 of them are awesome and then we had like a leg wrestling competition and the guy

who came out on top was Brett S. Arnold with his really awesome story, Sign Forever and Ever. Yeah. Thank you. Strong leg, Josh. I didn't leg wrestle. I just watched. Oh, that was me and Tracy.

Yeah. You don't remember? This is awkward. It's crazy. Like Tracy moves really fast. Yeah. And she was strangely agitated too. Like she really had something against you.

Anyway, Brett S. Arnold won Sign Forever and Ever. If you haven't heard that, go back and listen to it. It's very creepy. Jerry did some excellent sound design. But this year, we are not holding another contest, are we? No. No. Even though it was great.

That was a lot of reading. That's right. And then this year, we're back at it reading a very scary short story from the early 20th century, written by a writer named Algernon Blackwood, who is fantastic. Yeah. You get a name like Algernon Blackwood and you were born to write short story horror. Exactly. It sounds like a church of Satan or something like that.

Yeah, he probably tried both. He's a good writer. More positive than you'd think. Yeah, and this is a good one. Just to set it up, it's about a haunted house and a couple of people venturing through this haunted house. Yeah. And it's creepy as age.

It is. So we're going to get to it. Jerry's going to lay down the sound design and we're going to scare the socks off of you. That's right. Happy Halloween to you guys. Turn the lights down and here we go with the empty house by Algernon Blackwood. Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once their character

for evil. In the case of the latter, no particular feature need betray them. They may boast an open countenance and an ingenuous smile, and yet a little of their company leaves the unalterable conviction that there is something radically amiss with their being, that they are evil. Willy-nilly they seem to communicate an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts which makes those in their immediate neighborhood shrink from them as from a thing diseased. And perhaps with houses the same principle is operative, and it is the aroma of evil

deeds committed under a particular roof long after the evil doers have passed away that makes the goose flesh come and the hair rise. Something of the original passion of the evil doer and of the horror felt by his victim enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of the blood. He is terrestrikin without apparent cause. There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this particular house to bear out the tales of the horror that was said to reign within.

It was neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood, crowded into a corner of the square, and looked exactly like the houses on either side of it. It had the same number of windows as its neighbors, the same balcony overlooking the gardens, the same white steps leading up to the heavy black front door, and in the rear there was the same narrow strip of green with neat box borders running up to the wall that divided it from the backs of the adjoining houses. Only two, the number of the chimney pots on the roof was the same, the breadth and angle

of the eaves, and even the height of the dirty area railings. And yet this house in the square that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbors was a matter of fact entirely different, horribly different. Wherein lay this marked invisible difference as impossible to say? It cannot be ascribed wholly to the imagination because persons who had spent some time in the house knowing nothing of the facts had declared positively that certain rooms were so disagreeable they would rather die than enter them again, and that the atmosphere of the whole house produced in them symptoms of a genuine terror, while the series of innocent

tenants who had tried to live in it had been forced to decamp at the shortest possible notice was indeed little less than a scandal of the town. When Shorthouse arrived to pay a weekend visit to his Aunt Julia in her house on the seafront at the other end of town, he found her charged to the brim with mystery and excitement. He had only received her telegram that morning, and he had come anticipating boredom. But the moment he touched her hand and kissed her apple skin wrinkled cheek, he caught the first wave of her electrical condition. The impression deepened when he learned that there were to be no other visitors, and that

he had been telegraphed for with a very special object. Something was in the wind, and the something would doubtless bear fruit, for this elderly spinster aunt with a mania for psychical research had brains as well as willpower, and by hooker by crook she usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon after tea when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along the seafront in the dusk. I've got the keys, she announced in a delighted yet half-awesome voice. Got them till Monday.

The keys of the bathing machine, or...? He asked innocently, looking from the sea to the town, nothing brought her so quickly to the point as feigning stupidity. Neither, she whispered, I've got the keys of the haunted house in the square, and I'm going there to-night. Shorthouse was conscious of the slightest possible tremor down his back. He dropped his teasing tone, something in her voice and manner thrilled him. She was in earnest.

But you can't go alone. He began. That's why I wired for you, she said with decision. He turned to look at her. The ugly, line-ending, magical face was alive with excitement. There was the glow of genuine enthusiasm round it like a halo, the eyes shone. He caught another wave of her excitement and a second tremor, more marked than the first, accompanied it.

St. Julia, he said politely, thanks awfully. I should not dare to go quite alone. She went on, raising her voice. But with you, I should enjoy it immensely. You're afraid of nothing, I know. Thanks so much, he said again. There is anything likely to happen? A great deal has happened, she whispered, though it's been most cleverly hushed up.

Three tenants have come and gone in the last few months, and the house is said to be empty for good now. In spite of himself, Short House became interested. His aunt was so very much an earnest. The house is very old indeed. She went on. And the story, an unpleasant one, dates a long way back. It has to do with a murder committed by a jealous, stable man who had some affair with

a servant in the house. One night he managed to secrete himself in the cellar, and when everyone was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servants' quarters, chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come to the rescue, threw her bodily over the bannisters into the hall below. And the stable man? Was caught, I believe, and hanged for murder. But it all happened a century ago, and I've not been able to get more details of the

story. Short House now felt his interest thoroughly aroused, but, though he was not particularly nervous for himself, he hesitated a little on his aunt's account. On one condition, he said at length, nothing will prevent my going, she said firmly, but I may as well hear your condition. That you guarantee your power of self-control if anything really horrible happens. I mean that you're sure you won't get too frightened. Jim, she said scornfully, I'm not young, I know, nor are my nerves, but with you I should

be afraid of nothing in the world. This of course settled it, for Short House had no pretensions to being other than a very ordinary young man, and an appeal to his vanity was irresistible. He agreed to go. Instinctively, by a sort of subconscious preparation, he kept himself in his forces well in hand the whole evening, compelling an accumulative reserve of control by that nameless inward process of gradually putting all the emotions away and turning the key upon them. A process difficult to describe but wonderfully effective, as all men who have lived through

severe trials of the inner man well understand. Later it stood him in good stead. But it was not until half past ten when they stood in the hall, well in the glare of friendly lamps and still surrounded by comforting human influences, that he had to make the first call upon the store of collected strength. Four, once the door was closed, and he saw the deserted silent streets stretching away white in the moonlight before them, it came to him clearly that the real test that night would be in dealing with two fears instead of one.

He would have to carry his aunt's fear as well as his own, and as he glanced down at her spink-like countenance and realized that it might assume no pleasant aspect in a rush of real terror, he felt satisfied with only one thing in the whole adventure, that he had confidence in his own will and power to stand against any shock that might come. Okay, little recap here. Got a dude in his aunt checking out this haunted house that she has the keys to. Yep. Apparently a guy killed a lady there years before.

A century ago. And it sounds like this short house guy is handsome and brave. Yes. And I'm the aunt. You're the aunt. Okay. All right, here we go. Slowly they walk through the empty streets of the town, a bright autumn moon silvered

the roofs, casting deep shadows. There was no breath of wind, and the trees in the formal gardens by the sea front watched them silently as they passed along. To his aunt's occasional remarks, Short House made no reply, realizing that she was simply surrounding herself with the mental buffers, saying ordinary things to prevent herself thinking of extraordinary things. Few windows showed lights, and from scarcely a single chimney came smoker sparks. Short House had already begun to notice everything, even the smallest details.

Presently they stopped at the street corner and looked up at the name on the side of the house, full in the moonlight, and with one accord, but without remark, turned into the square and crossed over to the side of it that lay in shadow. The number of the house is thirteen, whispered a voice set aside, and neither of them made the obvious reference, but passed across the broad sheet of moonlight and began to march up the pavement in silence. It was about halfway up the square that Short House felt an arm, slipped quietly but significantly into his own, and knew then that their adventure had begun in earnest, and that his companion

was already yielding, imperceptibly to the influences against them, she needed support. And a few people are picturing Josh and I, arm in arm, and Josh wearing a dress, then you're right on the money. It's like a gray wig with a bun. Yeah, this is Anthony Perkins and mom. A few minutes later, they stopped before a tall narrow house that rose before them into the night, ugly in shape and painted a dingy white, shudderless windows without blinds, layered down upon them, shining here and there in the moonlight.

There were weather streaks in the wall and cracks in the paint, and the balcony bulged out from the first floor a little unnaturally. But beyond this generally forlorn appearance of an unoccupied house, there was nothing at first sight to single out this particular mansion for the evil character it had most certainly acquired. Taking a look over their shoulders to make sure they had not been followed, they went boldly up the steps and stood against the huge black door that fronted them forbiddingly. But the first wave of nervousness snows now upon them, and Shorthouse fumbled a long time

with a key before he could fit it into the lock at all. For a moment, if truth were told, they both hoped it would not open, for they were a prey to various unpleasant emotions as they stood there on the threshold of their ghostly adventure. Shorthouse, shuffling with a key and hampered by the steady weight on his arm, certainly felt the solemnity of the moment. It was as if the whole world, for all experience, seemed at that instant concentrated in his own consciousness, were listening to the grating noise of that key. A stray pup of wind wandering down the empty street woke a momentary rustling in the trees

behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key was the only sound audible, and at last it turned in the lock, and the heavy door swung open and revealed a yawning gulf of darkness beyond. With a last glance at the moonlit square, they passed quickly in, and the door slammed behind them with a roar that echoed prodigiously through empty halls and passages. But instantly, with the echoes, another sound made itself heard, and Aunt Julia leaned suddenly so heavily upon him that he had to take a step backwards to save himself from falling. A man had coughed close beside them, so close that it seemed they must have been actually

by his side in the darkness. With the possibility of practical jokes in his mind, Shorthouse at once swung his heavy stick in the direction of the sound, but it meant nothing more than solid air. He heard his aunt give a little gasp beside him. There's someone here, she whispered. I heard him. Be quiet! He said sternly.

It was nothing but the noise of the front door. Oh, get a light quick, she added, as her nephew fumbling with a box of matches opened it upside down and let them fall with a rattle onto the stone floor. The sound, however, was not repeated, and there was no evidence of retreating footsteps. In another minute they had a candle burning, using an empty end of a cigar case as a holder. And when the first flare had died down, he held the impromptu lamp aloft and surveyed the scene. And it was dreary enough in all conscience, for there is nothing more desolate in all

the abodes of men than an unfurnished house, dimly lit, silent and forsaken, and yet tenanted by rumor with the memories of evil and violent histories. They were standing in a wide hallway, on their left was the open door of a spacious dining room, and in front of the hall ran, ever narrowing into a long dark passage that led apparently to the top of the kitchen stairs. The broad, uncarpeted staircase rose in a suite before them, everywhere draped in shadows, except for a single spot about half way up, where the moonlight came in through the window, and fell in a bright patch on the boards.

The shaft of light shed a faint radiance above and below it, lending to the objects within its reach amidst the outline that was infinitely more suggestive and ghostly than complete darkness. Filtered moonlight always seems to paint faces on the surrounding gloom, and his short house peered up into the well of darkness and thought of the countless empty rooms and passages in the upper part of the house, he caught himself longing again for the safety of the moonlit square, or the cozy bright drawing room they had left an hour before. Then realizing that these thoughts were dangerous, he thrust them away again, and summoned all his energy for concentration on the present.

"'Ant Julia,' he said aloud severely, "'we must now go through the house from top to bottom and make a thorough search.' The echoes of his voice died away slowly all over the building, and in the intense silence that followed he turned to look at her. In the candlelight he saw that her face was already ghastly pale, but she dropped his arm for a moment and said in a whisper, stepping close in front of him, "'I agree. We must be sure there's no one hiding.

That's the first thing.' She spoke with evident effort, and he looked at her with admiration. "'You feel quite sure of yourself? It's not too late.' "'I think so,' she whispered, her eyes shifting nervously toward shadows behind. "'Quite sure. Only one thing.' "'What's that?'

"'You must never leave me alone for an instant.'" As long as you understand that any sound or appearance that must be investigated at once for to hesitate means to admit fear, that is fatal. "'Agreed,' she said, a little shakily, after a moment's hesitation. "'I'll try.' Arm in arm, short house holding the dripping candle in the stick, while his aunt carried the cloak over her shoulders. Because of utter comedy to all but themselves, they began a systematic search.

Stealthily, walking on tiptoe, and shading the candle lest it should betray their presence through the shutterless windows, they went first into the big dining-room. There was not a stick of furniture to be seen. Bare walls, ugly mantelpieces, and empty greats stared at them. Everything they felt resented their intrusion, watching them, as it were, with veiled eyes. Whispers followed them. Those flitted noiselessly to the right and left. Something seemed ever at their back, watching, waiting an opportunity to do them injury.

There was the inevitable sense that operations which went on when the room was empty had been temporarily suspended till they were well out of way again. The whole dark interior of the old building seemed to become a malignant presence that rose up, warning them to desist and mine their own business. Every moment, the strains on the nerves increased. So you hear what's going on now, I mean like they're in this house, empty, it's dark, and yet they both have this impression that they are not alone, that this house is watching them and resents their intrusion.

Yeah, and the aunt is clearly a burden, I should just point that out. Yeah, but she's like, you know, really trying to hang in there. I know it's her idea, let's give her credit. Out of the gloomy dining room, they passed through large folding doors into a sort of library or smoking room, wrapped equally in silence, darkness, and dust. And from this they regained the hall near the top of the back stairs. Here a pitch black tunnel opened before them into the lower regions and it must be confessed. They hesitated, but only for a minute.

With the worst of the night still to come, it was essential to turn from nothing. Aunt Julius stumbled at the top of the dark descent, ill lit by the flickering candle, and even short house felt that at least half the decision go out of his legs. Come on, he said preemptorily, and his voice ran on and lost itself in the dark empty spaces below. I'm coming, she faltered, catching his arm with unnecessary violence. They went a little unsteadily down the stone steps, a cold damp air meeting them in the face, close and malodorous.

The kitchen, into which the stairs led along a narrow passage, was large with a lofty ceiling. Several doors opened out of it, some into cupboards with empty jars still standing on the shelves, and others into horrible little ghostly back offices, each colder and less inviting than the last. Black beetles scurried over the floor, and once, when they knocked against the deal table standing in the corner, something about the size of a cat jumped down with a rush and fled scampering across the stone floor into the darkness. Everywhere there was a sense of recent occupation, an impression of sadness and gloom.

Leaving the main kitchen, they went toward the scullery. The door was standing ajar, and as they pushed it open to its full extent, Aunt Julia uttered a piercing scream, which she instantly tried to stifle by placing her hand over her mouth. For a second short house stood stock still, catching his breath. He felt as if his spine had suddenly become hollow, and someone had filled it with particles of ice. Facing them, directly in their way between the doorposts, stood the figure of a woman. She had disheveled hair, and wildly staring eyes, and her face was terrified and white

as death. She stood there motionless for the space of a single second, then the candle flickered and she was gone, gone utterly, and the door framed nothing but empty darkness. Only the beastly jumping candlelight, he said quickly in a voice that sounded like someone else's and was only half under control. Come on, Aunt, there's nothing there. He dragged her forward, with a clattering of feet and a great appearance of boldness they went on, but over his body the skin mood as if crawling ants covered it, and he knew

by the weight on his arm that he was supplying the force of locomotion for two. The scullery was cold, bare, and empty, more like a large prison cell than anything else. They went round it, tried the door into the yard, and the windows, but found them all fast and securely. His aunt moved beside him like a person in a dream. Her eyes were tightly shut, and she seemed merely to follow the pressure of his arm. Her courage filled him with amazement. The same time she noticed that a certain odd change had come over her face, a change which

somehow evaded his powers of analysis. There's nothing here, Auntie. He replied aloud quickly, Let's go upstairs and see the rest of the house. Then we'll choose a room to wait up in. She followed him obediently, keeping close to a side, and they locked the kitchen door behind them. It was a relief to get up again, and the hall there was more light than before, for the moon had traveled a little further down the stairs.

Cautiously they began to go up into the dark vault of the upper house, the boards creaking under their weight. On the first floor they found the large double-drawing rooms, a search of which revealed nothing. Here also was no sign of furniture or recent occupancy, nothing but dust and neglect and shadows. They opened the big folding doors between front and back drawing rooms, and then came out again to the landing and went upstairs. They had not gone up more than a dozen steps when they both simultaneously stopped to listen,

looking into each other's eyes with a new apprehension across the flickering candle-plane. From the room they had left, hardly ten seconds before, came the sound of doors quietly closing. It was beyond all question, they heard the booming noise that accompanies the shutting of heavy doors, followed by the sharp catching of the latch. We must go back and see, said Shorthouse briefly, in a low tone, and turning to go downstairs again. Somehow, she managed to drag after him, her feet catching in her dress, her face livid. When they entered the front drawing room it was plain that the folding doors had been

closed, half a minute before, without hesitation Shorthouse opened them. He almost expected to see someone facing him in the back room, but only darkness and cold air met him. They went through both rooms finding nothing unusual. They tried in every way to make the doors close of themselves, but there was not wind enough even to set the candle-flame flickering. The doors would not move without strong pressure, all was silent as the grave. Undeniably the rooms were utterly empty, and the house utterly still.

Its beginning whispered a voice at his elbow which he hardly recognized as his aunts. He nodded acquiescence, taking out his watch to note the time. It was fifteen minutes before midnight. He made the entry of exactly what had occurred in his notebook, setting the candle in its case upon the floor in order to do so. It took a moment or two to balance it safely against the wall. And Julia always declared that at this moment she was not actually watching him, but had turned her head toward the inner room, where she fancied she had heard something moving.

But at any rate, both positively agreed that there came a sound of rushing heat, heavy and very swift, and the next instant the candle was out. But to Shorthouse himself had come more than this, and he had always thanked his fortunate stars that it came to him alone and not to his aunt too. There, as he rose from the stooping position of balancing the candle, and before it was actually extinguished, a face thrust itself forward so close to his own that he could almost have touched it with his lips. It was a face working with passion, a man's face, dark with thick features and angry,

savage eyes. It belonged to a common man, and it was evil in its ordinary, normal expression no doubt. But as he saw it, alive with intense aggressive emotion, it was malignant in a terrible human countenance. There was no movement of the air, nothing but the sound of rushing feet, stocking their muffled feet, the apparition of the face, and the almost simultaneous extinguishing of the candle. All right, so the S is hitting the fan, the poopoo is hitting the fan at this point.

Yeah, he almost, he could have kissed this ghost. Yeah, and they've seen what possibly is a stable man. An angry man. And maybe even the woman he murdered. Maybe so. And there's cats. It's always scary. We hope it's a cat.

It was something to size, but can't. Yet they're still in here. Here we go. In spite of himself, Shorthouse uttered a little cry, nearly losing his balance as his aunt clung to him with her whole weight in one moment of real uncontrollable terror. She made no sound, but simply seized him bodily. Fortunately, however, she had seen nothing, but had only heard the rushing feet. For her control returned almost at once, and he was able to disentangle himself and strike

a match. The shadows ran away on all sides before the glare, and his aunt stooped down and groped for the cigar case with a precious candle. Then they discovered that the candle had not been blown out at all. It had been crushed out. The wick was pressed down into the wax, which was flattened as if by some smooth, heavy instrument. How his companions so quickly overcame her terror, Shorthouse never properly understood,

but his admiration for her self-control increased tenfold, and at that same time served to feed his own dying flame, for which he was undeniably grateful. Equally inexplicable to him was the evidence of physical force they had just witnessed. He at once suppressed the memories of stories he had heard of, physical mediums in their dangerous phenomena, for if these were true, and either his aunt or himself was unwittingly a physical medium, it meant that they were simply aiding to focus the forces of a haunted house already charged to the brim. It was like walking with unprotected lamps among uncovered stores of gunpowder.

So with as little reflection as possible, he simply relit the candle and went up to the next floor. The arm in his trembled, it is true, and his own tread was often uncertain. But they went on with thoroughness, and after a search revealing nothing, they climbed the last flight of stairs to the top floor of all. Here they found a perfect nest of small servants' rooms, with broken pieces of furniture, dirty cane-bottom chairs, chest of drawers, cracked mirrors, and decrepit bedsteads. The room had low sloping ceilings, already hung here and there with cobwebs, small windows,

and badly plastered walls, a depressing and dismal region which they were glad to leave behind. It was on the stroke of midnight when they entered a small room on the third floor, close to the top of the stairs, and arranged to make themselves comfortable for the remainder of their adventure. It was absolutely bare and was said to be the room, then used as a clothes closet, into which the infuriated groom had chased his victim and finally caught her. Outside, across the narrow landing, began the stairs leading up to the floor above,

and the servants' quarters where they had just searched. In spite of the chilliness of the night, there was something in the air of this room that cried out for an open window. But there was more than this. Shorthouse could only describe it by saying that he felt less master of himself here than in any other part of the house. There was something that acted directly on his nerves, tiring the resolution, and feebling the will.

He was conscious of this result before he had been in the room five minutes, and it was just in the short time that they stayed there that he suffered the wholesale depletion of his vital forces, which was, for himself, the chief horror of the whole experience. They put the candle on the floor of the cupboard, leaving the door a few inches ajar so that there was no glare to confuse the eyes and no shadow to shift about on walls and ceiling. Then they spread the cloak on the floor and sat down to wait with their backs against the wall. Shorthouse was within two feet of the door onto the landing.

His position commanded a good view of the main staircase leading down into the darkness and also of the beginning of the servant's stairs going to the floor above. The heavy stick lay beside him within easy reach. The moon was now high above the house. Through the open window they could see the comforting stars like friendly eyes watching in the sky. One by one the clocks of the town struck midnight, and when the sounds died away, the deep silence of a windless night fell again over everything.

Only the boom of the sea, far away in legubrius, filled the air with hollow murmurs. Legubrius, near big trouble. Undeclared he didn't say deletrius. Inside the house the silence became awful, awful, he thought, because any minute now it might be broken by sounds of portending terror. The strain of waiting told more and more severely on the nerves. They talked in whispers when they talked at all, for their voices aloud sounded queer and unnatural.

A chilliness not altogether due to the night air invaded the room and made them cold. The influences against them, whatever these might be, were slowly robbing them of self-confidence and the power of decisive action. Their forces were on the wane, and the possibility of real fear took on a new and terrible meaning. He began to tremble for the elderly woman by his side, whose pluck could hardly save her beyond a certain extent. He heard the blood singing in his veins. It sometimes seemed so loud that he fancied it prevented his hearing properly, certain

other sounds that were beginning very faintly to make themselves audible in the depths of the house. Every time he fastened his attention on the sounds, they instantly ceased. They certainly came no nearer. Yet he could not rid himself of the idea that movement was going on somewhere in the lower regions of the house. The drawing-room floor, where the doors had been so strangely closed, seemed too near. The sounds were further off than that.

He thought of the great kitchen with the scurrying black beetles and of the dismal little scullery. But somehow or other, they did not seem to come from there, either. Surely they were not outside the house. Then, suddenly, the truth flashed into his mind, and for the space of a minute he felt as if his blood had stopped flowing and turned to ice. The sounds were not downstairs at all. They were upstairs—upstairs, somewhere among those horrid gloomy little servants-rooms, with their bits of broken furniture, low ceilings and cramped windows.

Where the victim had first been disturbed and stopped her to death. In the moment he discovered where the sounds were, he began to hear them more clearly. It was the sound of feet moving stealthily along the passage overhead, in and out among the rooms and past the furniture. He turned quickly to steal a glance at the motionless figure seated beside him, to note whether she had shared his discovery. The faint candlelight coming through the crack in the covered door threw her strongly marked face into a vivid relief against the white of the wall.

But it was something else that made him catch his breath and stare again. An extraordinary something had come into her face, and seemed to spread over her features like a mask. It smoothed out the deep lines and drew the skin everywhere a little tighter, so that the wrinkles disappeared. It brought into the face, with the sole exception of the old eyes, an appearance of youth, and almost of childhood. He stared in speechless amazement, amazement that was dangerously near to horror.

It was his aunt's face indeed, but it was her face of forty years ago, the vacant, innocent face of a girl. He had heard stories of that strange effect of terror which could wipe a human countenance clean of other emotions, obliterating all previous expressions, but he had never realized that it could be literally true, or could mean anything so simply horrible as what he now saw. Where the dreadful signature of overmastering fear was written plainly in that utter vacancy of the girlish face beside him, and when, feeling his intense gaze, she turned to look

at him, he instinctively closed his eyes tightly to shut out the sight. Yet when he turned a minute later, his feelings well in hand, he saw to his intense relief another expression. His aunt was smiling, and though the face was deathly white, the awful veil had lifted and the normal look was returning. Nothing wrong was all he could think of to say at the moment, and the answer was eloquent, coming from such an old woman. I feel cold, and a little frightened.

She whispered. He offered to close the window, but she seized hold of him and begged him not to leave her side even for an instant. It's upstairs, I know. She whispered with an odd half laugh. But I can't possibly go up. But Shorthouse thought otherwise, knowing that in action lay their best hope of self-control. She took the brandy flask and poured out a glass of neat spirit, stiff enough to help

anybody over anything. That's a good move. She swallowed it with a little shiver. His only idea now was to get out of the house before her collapse became inevitable, but this could not safely be done by turning tail and running from the enemy. And action was no longer possible. Every minute he was growing less master of himself, and desperate aggressive measures were imperative without further delay.

Moreover, the action must be taken towards the enemy, not away from it. The climax, if necessary and unavoidable, would have to be faced boldly. He could do it now, but in ten minutes he might not have the force left to act for himself, much less for both. Upstairs the sounds were, meanwhile, becoming louder and closer, accompanied by the occasional creaking of the boards. One was moving stealthily about, stumbling now and then awkwardly against the furniture, waiting a few moments to allow the tremendous dose of spirits to produce its effect.

And knowing this would last but a short time under the circumstances, Shorthouse then quietly got on his feet, saying in a determined voice, Now Aunt Julia, we'll go upstairs and find out what all this noise is about. You must come too. That's what we agreed. So he's gotten a little whiskey in his belly. Yeah, he's a little drunk. And he's like, get your butt up here.

You drug me into this. Yeah. Brandy saves the day again. He picked up his stick and went to the cupboard for the candle. A limp form rose shakily beside him, breathing hard, and he heard a voice say very faintly something about being ready to come. The woman's courage amazed him. It was so much greater than his own.

And as they advanced, holding aloft the dripping candle, some subtle force exhaled from this trembling white-faced old woman at his side that was the true source of his inspiration. It held something really great that shamed him and gave him the support without which he would have proved far less equal to the occasion. They crossed the dark landing, avoiding with their eyes the deep black space over the banisters. Then they began to mount the narrow staircase to meet the sounds which minute by minute grew louder and nearer. About halfway up the stairs, Aunt Julia stumbled and short house turned a catcher by the arm.

And just at that moment, there came a terrific crash in the servant's corridor overhead. It was instantly followed by a shrill, agonized scream that was a cry of terror and a cry for help melted into one. Before they could move aside or go down a single step, someone came rushing along the passage overhead, blundering horribly, racing madly at full speed three steps at a time down the very staircase where they stood. The steps were light and uncertain, but close behind them sounded the heavier tread of another person and the staircase seemed to shake.

Short house and his companion just had time to flatten themselves against the wall when the jumble of flying steps was upon them and two persons with the slightest possible interval between them dashed past at full speed. There was a perfect whirlwind of sound breaking in upon the midnight silence of the empty building. The two runners, pursuer in pursuit, had passed clean through them where they stood and already worth a thud the boards below had received the first one, then the other. Yet they had seen absolutely nothing, not a hand or an arm or a face or even a shred

of flying clothing. Then came a second's pause. Then the first one, the lighter of the two, obviously the pursued one, ran with uncertain footsteps into the little room where short house and his aunt had just left, the heavier one followed. There was a sound of stuffling, gasping and smothered screaming and then out on the landing came the step of a single person treading waddley. A dead silence followed for the space of half a minute and then was heard a rushing sound

through the air. It was followed by a dull crashing thud in the depths of the house below on the stone floor of the hall. Another silence reigned after, nothing moved, the flame of the candle was steady. It had been steady the whole time and the air had been undisturbed by any movement whatsoever. Palsied with terror, Aunt Julia, without waiting for her companion, began fumbling her way downstairs. She was crying gently to herself, and when short house put his arm round her and half

carried her he felt that she was trembling like a leaf. He went into the little room and picked up the cloak from the floor and arm in arm walking very slowly without speaking a word or looking once behind them. They marched down the three flights into the hall. In the hall they saw nothing, but the whole way down the stairs they were conscious that someone followed them, step by step. When they went faster it was left behind, and when they went more slowly it caught them up.

But never once did they look behind to see, and at each turning of the staircase they lowered their eyes for fear of the following horror they might see upon the stairs above. With trembling hands, short house opened the front door, and they walked out into the moonlight and drew a deep breath of the cool night air blowing in from the sea. Wow, it made it out. Yeah, and it sounds like the stable man threw the girl over the banister once again. I have a feeling he does that every night. Do you think so?

Or at the very least on the anniversary of the night of the murder. Yeah. In the how it goes to work. Yeah, creepy stuff. Good stuff. Good one. Congratulations. Congratulations to you too, sir.

Jerry. You're a fine short house. Jerry can't wait to, and you're a fine aunt, aunt. And leaf shaky lady. Yeah, sure. Jerry can't wait to hear the sound design. It's always a treat for us. Yeah, and everyone out there, if you like this, Algernon Blackwood has a lot of other

good stuff. Yeah. And have a really happy Halloween. Yeah, be safe out there. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the all new 2014 Toyota Corolla. You're ready to travel in 2023, and since 1981, Gate 1 travel has been providing more of the world for less.

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