A Quaint House on a Hill

In the autumn weather, the house on the hill was quite an unsettling sight to behold. The dying, yellow fields surrounding it augment the eerie feeling. The house was quite old and rundown, with boarded-up windows and a rickety old porch. The rotten planks and leaning posts make it appear that a strong gust of wind could knock the whole house over.

Will was walking down the long, winding farm lane, periodically staring up at the house as he went. The house's shutters gently swayed in the breeze, creaking and groaning with wear. He realized that he had unconsciously started walking through the field toward the house and abruptly stopped in his tracks. He looked around as leaves from the nearby treeline tumbled across the harvest field. He was utterly alone, and as the wind subsided, he was left in relative silence. Will could tell the front door was slightly ajar.

He approached the house cautiously, wondering whether the door was left open or forced open. As he got closer, it became apparent that the latter was the case. The door was partially shattered as though it was kicked outward with extreme force. Will called out hello several times, but there was no answer. He slowly pushed open the door and peeked inside. The musty smell of an old house immediately assaulted his senses. He could see that the furniture was covered in dust and cobwebs, and it looked like nobody had been in the place for years. Around the main living space off to the left of the main entryway, he noticed some bookshelves partially filled with stained anthologies, titles long obscured by the wear of time. Some cabinets with glass doors were placed around the room, filled with various curios. A couch sat in the middle of the space, awkwardly obstructing the path to the adjoining room. Will skirted past the couch and noticed the decaying remains of a stuffed animal.

Deeply unsettled by the moldy stuffed animal, he turned his attention to the rest of the room and saw a large grandfather clock in the corner. It was stopped at 3:15. Will walked over to inspect it and noticed one of the weights was missing. He looked back at the door he came in through and saw a staircase leading up to the second-floor landing. The railing was missing several slats and looked like it could collapse at any moment. Will decided not to risk going up and instead went into the adjoining room. This room appeared to be some sort of study or library based on the number of books filling every available space on shelves built into all four walls. A large desk sat in front of one of the windows, piled high with more books, papers, and other assorted knickknacks. A short-back swiveling chair sat in front of the desk. Will approached the desk and noticed a sizeable cylinder-shaped object in the center of the seat. He picked it up and was partially surprised at the weight of the cylinder; it was clearly the lost weight from the grandfather clock in the other room. Will inspected a few of the papers on the desk. Some of them were letters assigned to someone named Bart. Others were bills and lists of some kind, most of the details obstructed by a thick layer of dust and grime.

With the weight in hand, Will turned around to head back into the other room when he noticed a painting on the study's wall. The paint had started smearing in the humidity and heat. The image was of a scene at a pond, with some people in a small wooden boat. There appeared to be flowers on a nearby shoreline. This painting probably would have been very charming a few years ago, radiating a sense of tranquility. At this moment, the smearing paint and the blank stares of the people in the boat give the impression that something is wrong.

Will quickly looked away from the painting and left the study. He crept back into the living room and went to work, reattaching the clock's weight. As he worked, Will noticed a door on the far side of the room. When he finished, he walked over to it. Slowly opening it revealed a set of rickety old stairs leading into darkness. Will hesitated for a moment before deciding that he really didn't want to go down there. He turned around to leave when he heard a noise coming from upstairs. It sounded like somebody was walking around up there. Will froze in place, trying to listen for any other signs of movement but heard nothing else. After waiting for an eternity, he mustered up enough courage to start walking toward the front door again. As he crossed the living room threshold to the entryway, the weight he had just replaced in the clock fell. The noise it unleashed was incredible in comparison to the relative silence of the house. It was as if the weight splintered the wood and crashed into the clock chimes, producing an off-tune ringing. Will's heart was in his mouth as he realized the footsteps upstairs had stopped.

He turned his head to see a humanoid figure shrouded in darkness at the top of the stairs. The figure started walking down toward him, each footstep creaking against wood worn thin by age. As it got closer, Will saw that it was not quite human. It was some sort of creature with long limbs and sharp claws instead of hands or feet. Its head and face remained human-ish, staring blankly at Will with blood streaking from its hairline. As the thing made it to the halfway point of the staircase, Will realized that he had to run or he would die. He hurriedly spun around and sprinted through the shattered remains of the door. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the creature standing in the doorway, not moving. Will didn't stop running until he made it all the way back to his car.

As he sat in his car, trying to catch his breath, Will thought about what had just happened. He was sure that whatever that thing was, it wasn't human. He needed to tell somebody about what was seen, but he wasn't sure who would believe him. He decided to drive into town and find a police officer or somebody in authority that could help him figure out what was going on. As he pulled away from the farm lane, Will couldn't help but feel like something was watching him from one of the windows of the house on the hill.