You Sure this is it?" I said. "It looks empty.""Empty? No way, there's loads of shit in there," worm replied

Let [the wife] guard, as much as possible, against a gloomy and moody disposition, which causes her to move about with the silence and cloudiness of a spectre; for who likes to dwell in a haunted house?

I turned to him and he reached for my hand. It would have been easier to walk away. But the wind still blew around us and the house still stood.

Our divorce was an optical illusion, surely, because I am often still there, in my old home with my family. I can so easily fool myself, even without a scope, a lens, a patch of sky to measure my trauma, my blues, my perspective or my period of mourning. Suspension of disbelief can be a very real kind of haunting.

Lily?” She couldn’t see his face, but she knew his eyes were on her. She could feel them. A beat passed. Then another. He flicked the flashlight on, his eyes zooming in on her mouth. “Don’t suppose you’re scared enough of the dark to leave.” She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’re planning on leaving me on my own.” A smile, then, “You might cheat.” He tugged their linked hands and leaned the slightest bit closer. “True,” she breathed, mirroring his movement. “I wouldn’t trust you if our roles were reversed.” Inches from his face, she admired the curve of his top lip. “What are you doing, Black?” “I think,” he whispered back, his warm breath fanning over her lips, “I’m going to have to kiss you, McIntire.

Lily?”She couldn’t see his face, but she knew his eyes were on her. She could feel them. A beat passed. Then another. He flicked the flashlight on, his eyes zooming in on her mouth. “Don’t suppose you’re scared enough of the dark to leave.” She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’re planning on leaving me on my own.” A smile, then, “You might cheat.” He tugged their linked hands and leaned the slightest bit closer. “True,” she breathed, mirroring his movement. “I wouldn’t trust you if our roles were reversed.” Inches from his face, she admired the curve of his top lip. “What are you doing, Black?” “I think,” he whispered back, his warm breath fanning over her lips, “I’m going to have to kiss you, McIntire.

You’re killing me in this proper little suit,” he said, skating a heated look over her shirt. “My place or yours?” She swallowed thickly, the hand against his chest beginning to sweat. “I-I’m busy.” “You’re gonna be,” he said, smiling. “Need to know what bed you’re gonna be in, though. Bringing my A game.” “Don’t you think—?” “About you underneath me? Only every other minute. Now answer me, or else I’ll throw you on the nearest desk.” Heat burst onto her cheeks. He noticed. “Oh, really?” He smiled down at her.

Say my name.""No." She tipped her head up, her breath sawing out of her lungs. “Don’t stop, please.” He languidly stroked her. “I won’t stop, but I won’t take you there unless you say it.” Her voice locked in her throat. He stroked into her again at the same time giving her the pressure she desired with his thumb. “I have all night.

He drew in an answering breath, and she waited to hear the quip, the joke, the dab of levity for the most intense moment they’d ever shared. But he only dropped his head into the crook of her neck and laid his mouth over her leaping pulse as they found their unhurried rhythm in the dark.

This is good,” he told her.
She gave him a slow blink. “You like wine?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“You strike me as a beer-from-the-can kind of guy.”
“I am.”

Whatever you say, sweetheart.” He sent her a wink, a devilish one, the same one he no doubt used to sear the panties off his dates.

You coming or not?" he repeated impatiently.I was going to say no. But then, glancing at the curtains, I thought, it's probably no more spooky out there in that cemetery than it is here in my own bedroom!

There had stood a great house in the centre of the gardens, where now was left only that fragment of ruin. This house had been empty for a great while; years before his—the ancient man's—birth. It was a place shunned by the people of the village, as it had been shunned by their fathers before them. There were many things said about it, and all were of evil. No one ever went near it, either by day or night. In the village it was a synonym of all that is unholy and dreadful.

As she walked to the stairway, he pulled her back with a light tug on her shoulder. "They're responding to you now." Turning to face him, she said, "Responding to me? What did I say?" "The hallway was full of them. When you said we were going downstairs to eat, they started filing down the stairs." "They all took the stairs?" Eddie nodded, his shining, gifted eyes watching the ghostly procession. He said, "They don't want to be far from you, Jess. And I'm not entire sure it's well intentioned." "Come to use," the voices whispered.

Buried and burned. Never find them. Never. Buried and buried.

It's this place. Whatever darkness came to the island, it's here to stay. Stick around long enough and it gets inside your skin, into your cells, like an infection.

Jessica's hand flew to her mouth. If she had any doubt, the next entry settled it. She read on, cool beads of sweat trickling down the back of her neck, hardly daring to breathe as the black heart of Ormsby Island came closer and closer into focus.

The stinging slap against her cheek whipped her head sideways. Her hand reflexively went to her burning face. "I told you no," Tobe said, barely above a whisper. Daphne had no words. He'd never so much as hinted at touching her in anger before. She now understood what stunned speechless meant.

I have a new nickname for Dottie. She's now the Crazy Whisperer.

It was one thing to talk about ghosts, quite another to have them messing around with things in the physical world.

She fished a gum wrapper and pen from her bag and wrote down her number. "I'd like to stay friends with you and Jason. That's my cell number. You can call me any time you want, except at two-thirty-six in the morning." Alice cocked her head. "How come I can't call you at two-thirty-six/" "I need that minute to sleep," Jessica said, smiling.

Which grave are we in?" she said. "The oldest." She felt Eddie's puzzlement. "That can't be possible. He looks like he was just buried." "There must be something at work in the chemistry of the island that's preserving his body. It's like the incorruptibles, bodies that weren't preserved in any special way that don't decay. Catholic saints like Bernadette and Padre Pio are said not to have decomposed even though they died a long, long time ago. Environmental factors can cause a kind of mummification." Jessica said, or thought, "This is bizarre. I'm getting a lesson on mummification while in the coffin of a dead man.

You told us this place was haunted. How haunted is it?"Paul cast a quick glance at the house. "I'm not sure. When they found the bodies twenty years ago, the place became off-limits. That was horror enough. There were whispers of strange stuff going on before then, but no one is alive who could verify a thing. Somehow, an urban legend grew about the whole island. "Don't go near haunted Ormsby Island. They say a reporter went out alone one night just after the mass murder had been discovered and never came back. Since anyone who had committed the murders was either dead or gone at that point, it had to be the island itself that offed the reporter. Mitch, Ormsby Island isn't even on most maps of Charleston Harbor. Locals will turn away the moment you even say its name.

Yeah, I get it. I'll be cool as a well digger's ass." He jumped when the front door slammed shut, the harsh bang echoing around the trees. Mitch shook his head. "That well digger must be working in a hot spring.

Before they knew it, Ormsby Island would become a paranormal attraction like Waverly Hills or Houghton Mansion or the Whaley House. The place would be crawling with people anxious to catch a ghost on camera or audio.

These were the things we would never notice were missing.

The diamonds glinted under the glare of the chandelier and they looked like a thousand spider eyes

The chandelier was wearing on its rubber support and the crack at the side of the ceiling hold was getting bigger. “One day that’s going to fall on us and spear you through the heart,” he said. I turned to kiss him on the shoulder and closed my eyes.

In the dark behind the glare of the television, like a mannequin behind it, I could see a silhouette and it wasn’t moving. It was maybe six foot high with its shoulders hunched and I blinked to make sure it was real. The TV fuzzed grey and white and black and I had a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow away. “Rory” I whispered. Clawing out gently beneath the duvet cover, reaching for his hand. But I couldn’t find it. And he didn’t answer.

The scratching came from the attic. At night, when Rory turned out the light I would lie awake and wait for it to skit, skit, skit lightly across the floorboards above our heads and down behind the water pipes.

Every small town has at least one house the children whisper about; the type of house that has always been abandoned; where the once pristine white paint has faded to a grimy gray; where the windows are boarded, and the lawn never grows; where children hold their breath and close their eyes as they pass by. A house that sounds like it contains an army of whispering spirits when the wind whistles through the nearby trees.In the town of Blackwood, that house could be found on Creep Street. It had stood there as long as he could remember.

Joey glanced at his alarm clock and saw it was just before midnight. His eyes drifted to his bookshelf. Lined up in a row, in the order of their publication, were all of the Spook Boys books, a series of kids’ books about two adventurous brothers who were constantly getting into mischief as they explored haunted houses and spooky old castles, or tried to solve mysteries involving missing diamonds or stolen paintings. Joey envied the characters in those books—he wanted his own life to be made up of such exciting, implausible adventures. But maybe his imagination had gotten carried away. Maybe his mind, saturated with such fictional tales, was more than willing to play tricks on him when it came to houses like the one on Creep Street.

He asked, looking at her dark-rimmed eyes, "You do not sleep?"She shivered. "No. I do not want to sleep any more. I sleep too much already. It is so cold, where Quincy sends me in my sleep. Deep into the house, farther in, not into the house we see. It is as if that house were a face, and when you see a face you can't see the brain or the thoughts of the person behind it. And it is so strange - the house inside the house."********"How is it strange - this that you call the house inside the house?"She said vaguely, her eyes growing glassy, "Strange. Shapes change, and sizes. The rooms are different: bigger and blacker and longer and the shadows are full of things. Creatures - or sometimes the rooms get smaller, fewer, and the furnishings change and change, like the scenes in a kaleidoscope, and I see the people in the portraits walking about in them.

Galton was a world renowned anthropologist back in the nineteenth century, though he was a big overshadowed by his cousin, Charles Darwin.

She cursed under her breath. Eddie watched the EBs react, the younger ones recoiling with silent gasps. "Better watch your language. There are children present. I think you're freaking them out." "Sure, I'm the one freaking them out.

The air in the room was so cold, the exposed flesh of his face felt like ice. "I'll be the first person to get frostbite in a house sleeping several feet from a roaring fire.