The house was large and cheap. That’s why I bought it. I wasn’t thinking.
Even all these years later, I still kick myself over my impatience—over my unwillingness to just wait and buy a house of higher quality.
Ultimately, I still blame myself for what happened in that home. I could have chosen to leave. I could have done a lot of things differently, but I didn’t.
What I experienced in that house will likely stay with me until the day I die.
I graduated from high school in June of 2006. Like many kids in my grade, I hadn’t yet put together a concrete plan for my future. Unlike a fair few of the other kids in my grade, I hadn’t yet needed to worry about my future.
You see, just a few months before I graduated, my parents died. In the months the leading up to my graduation, I came to terms with it—accepted they were gone.
While I, in my teenage years, might not have had much to show in the way of financial success, they’d flourished. My mother was our town’s dentist and my father was a therapist with a PhD in Psychology. To say the least, they were good at what they did.
Now, that isn’t to say that I didn’t make money. I had a few odd jobs here and there, but nothing stuck. I wasn’t a bad kid. In fact, I’d say that, of all my friends, I was the best behaved. Maybe that’s why they did it.
When I told them that I wanted to major in English studies, they couldn’t have been prouder. My grandfather was writer, and a pretty good one at that. He was a good man, too. I respected him a great deal and looked up to him. Even these days when people ask, I always say that he was my inspiration for going into the English field.
Perhaps my parents knew that the field I wanted to major in wouldn’t yield significant financial success. Maybe that’s why they did it. Perhaps it was simply because they loved me and I was an only child. Perhaps it was because I was—and still am their son.
Maybe that’s why I was the sole heir to everything. Their house, their belongings, their savings. All of it, to me. I was over 18 when they passed, so there wasn’t a need to wait for a certain age threshold to be passed. I’d crossed over any potential line.
The inheritance was mine. I can’t remember exactly how much money I got from them, but it was a sizable chunk for a recent high school graduate. It was enough to keep me living comfortably for a few years.
It wasn’t until four years after I graduated that I decided to sell their house. Between payments for it and payments for room and board at the university I attended, it was beginning to put a strain on my mental health. Financially, however, I remained stable.
The constant payments weren't the only reason I found myself wanting out of the house, though. The longer I stayed in that home, the more and more I began to sense an endless air of hopelessness within its walls. My parents had passed away in a car accident. They were on the way home from meeting up with a family friend when a drunk driver blindsided and T-boned my father’s car.
I never did see the bodies, but that wasn’t because I chose not to. The authorities and coroners were only able to identify my parents by the I.D. cards in their wallets. The funeral was closed casket.
The nightmares were another cause for my wanting to sell the house. Every night leading up to my graduation, I’d have vivid nightmares. Scenarios of what my brain thought my parents had gone through in their final moments. I never did see when the crash would occur, though. Every time that car made contact with them, I’d jolt awake in a cold sweat. I didn’t know if my parents ever found closure, wherever they’d gone after the accident, but I did know one thing.
In the time between their deaths and my living in that new house, I never did find closure. The spirit that was the death of my parents haunted me greatly.
But it wasn’t the only thing to do that.
In September of 2010, I made the decision to finally start truly living on my own. I’d graduated from my university with a bachelor’s degree in English. I’d decided to finally become a writer like my grandfather before me.
The only problem was that writing didn’t exactly make for a great career if it didn’t immediately take off. I did not immediately take off. I’d uploaded some of my writings, mostly horror, to several sites and writing blogs. WordPress was my best friend during that time, allowing me to post many different writings all under the same blog.
Of course, none of them took off in the ways I’d hoped they would, but I was prepared for that.
I’d managed to get a job at a bank near my university. Luckily for me, they allowed me to come in part time as I was a student. During breaks and other periods of free time, I worked full-time. When I graduated and got my degree, I’d managed to keep the job at the bank and kept working and saving for the next two months.
The money I’d made working, plus the remaining funds from my inheritance gave me a—once again—sizable chunk to spend. With my parents' house sold and my room and board no longer being *my* room and board, I figured it was finally time to look for a place to settle down.
To my complete surprise, I found a large home in the same town where I’d been working. It was no colonial, I’ll say that much. But for a single person, it was larger than anything I could have imagined. And it was cheap, too.
As for why I never asked about the price, I’ll tell you. I was a recently graduated, depressed orphan who couldn’t get his writing to take off for anything worth a damn. I wasn’t thinking clearly, so to speak. The house was cheap, it was big, and I hadn’t a thought in my head besides the two of those things when I bought it in October of 2010.
I never got to receive an official tour of the house, but that was one of the thoughts closer to the back of my mind as I explored my new home. One thing the realtor did tell me about was the basement.
“There’s a piano down there,” she said.
When I pried for more information, she actually told me more instead of being reserved like I thought she’d be.
“That’s where the previous owner died,” she told me.
“That’s why the house is so cheap. Because the previous owner never got to sell it. But, you know, someone dying in there doesn’t exactly help with jacking up the price.”
“Damaged goods,” I remember telling her.
“That’s a good way to put it,” she replied.
She never told me how the previous owner passed, or the circumstances surrounding it. Luckily, or unluckily for me, I’d find that out anyways. But not from the realtor. Just a few days after I bought the house, she disappeared completely. Didn’t go missing, I just never saw her again after that. Could never contact her.
I suppose I could have expended some more time and effort in finding her, but looking back, it didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now.
Just before she vanished, the realtor also told me about how spacious the basement was. She described making it into a study where I could write. Made sense, considering I’d told her I was an up and coming writer and all. I told her I would just turn one of the upstairs rooms into a study. I never was the biggest fan of basements, and the fact that someone had died in this one didn’t quite sit right with me. I wouldn’t be able to focus, I knew that much.
I didn’t know just yet what I’d do to implement a room such as a study in the house, but that was something I’d soon figure out.
Those first few days were ones spent getting acclimated to the new environment. The entrance door led into a large open area. In the middle of the room, a large staircase. To the left, the dining room. To the right, the kitchen. Located right next to the staircase leading upstairs to the right was the living room. And directly next to the staircase leading upstairs to the left was the door that led to the basement. I would go out of my way to avoid that door for the first few weeks I lived there.
Upstairs were several sets of rooms. Bedrooms, bathrooms, empty rooms that hadn’t yet found use. As I crept through the hallways, I began to realize that this house was not one built with just a single person in mind. It felt odd, having such a large place all to myself. But I’d bought it, so that thought was quickly swept to the back of my mind.
I searched around until I found a bedroom that I liked. Counting, there were six bedrooms, three bathrooms and three rooms that weren’t being used for anything in particular on the second floor. Neighboring the bedroom I chose was one of the said empty rooms. I decided then and there that I would make it into my study.
In addition to exploration, the first few days were spent moving all of my stuff in. The entire process ended up taking a little longer than the few days I explored for—about a week and half. It was a Friday night when I finally finished moving everything in. I’d dedicate the following Saturday to my writing.
At least, that’s what I would have done, had I not heard what came from the basement that night.
Without me realizing it, the groceries I’d bought at the beginning of the week ran out and I found myself without ingredients for a meal. I decided I’d order something and chill out in front of the TV for the night.
I finished my order and hung up the phone. I’d been pacing around the counter in the kitchen—it was an island, so I could safely circle around it without much trouble. I left the kitchen and went to the living room where my TV and PlayStation 3 were. I played some game I can’t remember the name of for the next 30 minutes while I waited for my food to arrive.
It came swiftly and quietly, the sound. Something almost imperceptible. A quiet, noticeable, solitary note.
It sounded as though someone had gone up to the piano in the basement and pressed a key.
Instinctually, I paused my game and put the controller down on my coffee table. I got up and slowly crept towards the entryway to the living room. The sound of the note had passed in the few seconds since I heard it, but the implication of it still rang out loudly in my mind.
Could someone have been down there? I would have noticed if someone had broken into my house and gone into the basement. Or maybe I wouldn’t have. Someone could have made their way in while I was playing games in the living room.
As I thought more about the potential of someone who wasn’t me being in the home, more too did my heart rate quicken. It beat rapidly in my chest, like a drum designed to let me know when I was afraid. In that moment, I was afraid.
I did my best to steel my nerves, and I left the living room. I almost wished that whatever made the sound continued to do so. In that case, at the very least, I’d know it was down there and not up here with me.
But no such noise came, and I was left staring at the basement door in terrified, silent anticipation. My hand hovered over the door knob, my mind still debating on just what could be down there. In addition to the deluge of thoughts about what could have pressed that piano key, another began to form.
*What if it wants to hurt me?*
I removed my hand from the door knob, my heart rate decreasing ever so slightly. Why had I even considered going down into that room without means to defend myself? On the one hand, I mentally kicked myself for even thinking of it. On the other hand, what if I was overthinking it? Maybe it was just the piano settling. It could have been rats or some other rodent down there messing around with things. I had to be overthinking things. I had to be.
I was about to turn and go into the kitchen to get a knife when I heard my doorbell ring. Completely forgetting that I’d ordered food a half hour earlier, the sharp, loud sound of the doorbell scared the hell out of me. In the same instant, a wave of relief washed over me like the tides on a beach. There was someone else here now.
At least, now there was someone besides who might have been in the basement.
I swiftly exited the kitchen and opened up the door. I wanted to speak about what happened, but that wasn’t the kind of burden I wanted to put on the shoulders of a delivery boy. I gave him the money for the food, got my meal and we wished each other a good night.
I turned around and looked at the doorway leading into the living room and the door to the dining room. If anything similar to what had just happened to me occurred, I wasn’t so sure how it would go a second time. I didn’t want to eat in silence—if there were other loud noises, I wouldn’t be able to hear the piano.
I sat down and put a movie on. I turned the volume up to a level that probably wasn’t good for my ears, but if it meant I didn’t have to risk hearing the piano again, I’d take it.
I made the decision to turn the movie off and go to bed right after eating. I’d completely ruled out the fact that I was exhausted and possibly hearing things. Perhaps there was no piano playing entity in the basement. Perhaps I was just tired, and my sleep deprived brain was making things up. That had to be it. I would get a good night of sleep and things would be fine the next day.
I brushed my teeth, put my headphones in and did my best to go to sleep. As it would unexpectedly turn out, I managed to get to sleep. And relatively quickly at that.
The problem was that I didn’t *stay* asleep.
I remember it vividly, even to this day. I awoke with a start. For a second, I wasn’t even aware of the location in which I sat. I looked around and came to familiarity with my surroundings. I was in my bedroom, in my house, and something had just woken me up for some reason. I questioned the cause for my wakefulness.
I didn’t need to go to the bathroom, there wasn’t an unexpected guest in my room, and my music hadn’t gotten so loud as to rouse me. In fact, it became apparent to me that I’d forgotten to plug my phone in, as it was dead. I fumbled around in the darkness and plugged it in.
I tried to speak, but found my mouth too dry to do so. Maybe that was what woke me up, an unyielding thirst. I got up and exited my bedroom. The bathroom I wanted to use was about a 30 second walk from my room. I’d hoped that I would be quick enough, and that nothing would happen in the 30 seconds between my exiting of my room and the entering of the bathroom. I’d hoped in vain.
I made it to the bathroom, but I never made it inside the bathroom. I reached to open the door, my hand hovering over the knob, when an all too familiar noise came from downstairs. From the basement. This time, it was even more difficult to make out, yet somehow, I managed still to hear it.
A single, sharp piano note. Then, following it, a cacophony.
I stopped dead in my tracks and listened closely. I found that my heart had begun to race again, and quickly. Once more did it thump in my chest like a drum. I breathed heavily. I went to grab the knob of the bathroom door, this time not to get in, but out of necessity. My legs felt weak and I wasn’t sure if they alone would keep me standing. My hand shook fiercely as I attempted to grip the knob.
A cacophony wasn’t the right word to describe what I was hearing. It was a proper piece, I know that much now. Years later, after a painstakingly long process of searching, I did end up finding out just what was being played on that piano.
Whatever—or whoever was down there—was playing *Suicide in an Airplane* by Leo Ornstein. I believe now that what caused me to feel such a monumental sense of fear in that moment was the combination of not knowing if I was alone in a big house in the dark and the disconcerting nature of the piece. The irregular beats of the piano coupled with the dissonance the song gave made for a headache of an experience. A fear-stricken, mind-numbingly horrifying experience.
I found rather quickly in the moment that my thirst wasn’t so much of an issue anymore. I’d also found that the strength in my legs had returned, if only long enough to carry me back to my room. I slammed the door behind me and locked it. That was one of the things I was happy about regarding the house; the doors had locks. I got back in bed, put my headphones in and tried to drown out the sounds of the piano from two floors down.
I wasn’t sure exactly what point I managed to fall back asleep at. All I know is that when I woke up, the sun was peeing through my curtains and my headphones were out. I could slightly hear the music that was playing from them. What I couldn’t hear, however, was the sound of the piano. *Thank God,* I thought.
I got up and went out into the hallway. Nothing.
I went downstairs and into the kitchen. My first thought going in was of how thirsty I felt. After fully filling up a cup of water, I drank it quickly and set it in the sink. I was about to open up the refrigerator to get something to eat when I remembered my lack of groceries.
*Shower and then shop it is*, I thought.
I went upstairs, gathered some clothes, and I took a shower. For the rest of the time I was in the house during the morning, I didn’t hear any noises. Not noises that weren’t the house settling, anyways.
I realized as I was going to leave that I didn’t have proper grocery bags. Another item on the list. I cleaned the glass I’d used and made my way back out of the kitchen. For as long as I kept up the routine, I tried to ignore the basement door. It was like the eye of a deity—even if I couldn’t see it, I was well aware of its presence and it couldn’t be avoided forever.
I steeled my nerves once more and looked at it. It was just a simple wooden door with a brass knob and a lock. *Nothing to be afraid of*, I thought, *nothing at all*. I walked up to the door and found my hand hovering over the knob. It was the strangest thing, it almost felt like I was being drawn to it. I moved my hand up quickly and locked the basement door. If whatever was potentially in there wanted out, it would have to exert some effort. But that wouldn’t happen, because there couldn’t have been anything in that basement.
How naïve I was.
I opened up the front door and walked out to my car. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the wind, while present, wasn’t “obnoxious,” as one of my friends would later describe worse weather. Being that it was Autumn too, it wasn’t terribly cold, and it wasn’t terribly warm either. A balance was struck with the temperature and all I found myself needing for outside gear was a light coat, that which I had.
As I left my driveway and began to make my way to the store, I began to think about the events of the previous night again. I told myself that what happened couldn’t have been real—I was dead-tired and I was hearing things. I say all of this because that’s what I thought. I thought that it just had to be me because there was no way it could have been anything else. Not in my mind.
I thought the house couldn’t possibly be haunted. I thought there couldn’t be anyone but me living in there. I thought it was just me. It had to have just been me.
I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and continued driving. Before I had time to think about anything else, I’d already pulled into the parking lot of the store. I wanted to make my trip to the grocery store quick, so I didn’t meander. I went only to the aisles and areas where the items I needed were.
20 minutes later, and I was out of the store. I quickly made my way back home and put the groceries away. After I finished putting the groceries away, I went to check the basement door.
*Still locked*.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That surprised me, considering I’d come to the conclusion that there shouldn’t have been anything to worry about regarding that downstairs room. As I stood in front of the basement door, I checked my phone.
It was still mid-morning, so I decided I’d do something for myself. I knew I wasn’t going to get any writing done, so I opted to go to the library instead. If I couldn’t write to entertain myself, then I’d just consume what someone else took the time to make.
I left the house once more and, within a few minutes, found myself on the road going into town again. I hadn’t yet decided what I would read when I arrived, but as I pulled into the parking lot of the library, it came to me.
*Read a history book*.
Learning about the history of the town I lived in was something I’d been planning on doing for a while, but I could never find the time. That Saturday, I had the time. And I was going to use it.
I found that I was running into some problems rather quickly. What I was hoping to find was a catch-all history book. Something that included events of all kinds from the beginning of the town until the moment the book was published and I read it. Once more, my problem was that there was no such book. I was busy scanning and flipping through the books in the history section when one of the library workers came up to me.
“Are you having trouble finding a certain book?” she asked.
I turned to her. “I am, actually. General history?”
“Sorry, no,” she said. “But we’re getting those types of books in pretty soon. Within the month, actually.”
I was stuck for something to say. If I couldn’t acquire knowledge about the town as a whole, then maybe I could find some info on a smaller scale. Almost as if my previous thoughts had opened the door and invited it, the next thought barged into my head.
*The house. The basement. Ask about the houses*.
“What do you have on the houses in this town?” I asked, looking at her.
Her face shifted to one of worry, to one of curiosity, to one of realization.
“We have one book, actually,” she said, getting up. “It isn’t here on the floor, though. Want me to get it for you?”
“I’d appreciate it, thank you,” I replied.
She left and I went to stand by the table at which I planned to sit and read. As I stood, several thoughts flooded through my head. I wondered if I would find out anything regarding the sounds I heard. I began to wonder if it really was my imagination. I didn’t know what results reading the book would yield, but as the librarian brought and handed it over to me with a simple “enjoy!”, I knew I’d get some form of answers.
I sat down at the table and began to flip through the book. I first checked the date on the book. To my surprise, it had been published only a year prior to when I read it.
I skimmed the pages that had writings of when the first houses were built in the town, writings of the materials and types of houses built, and examples of notable events that occurred within some of the houses.
An ache struck my chest as I flipped to a page about two-thirds of the way through the book. I flipped to the next page and found a picture of the current house I was living in, albeit a lot older—technically younger—looking. I looked near the bottom of the page and found that the house had been built years before I moved into it—about six to be exact. Another thing I noted was the fates of the occupants in the house.
According to witness testimonies and police reports as well as information disclosed by the constantly changing realtors, every single time the house was occupied, it was by a single person. The first owner of the house was not mentally stable, as I came to find out. The first owner of the house was reported to have hanged themselves in an upstairs bedroom. The house no longer had an owner, and was therefore put up for sale. This happened in late 2004.
The next owner of the house took their own life as well. But they didn’t do it because of mental instability. Not mental instability that wasn’t already pre-established, anyways. They didn’t do it because they were depressed. They did it because, according to neighbors and close friends, in the final few days before they ended their life, they reported seeing scattered visions of a hanging man in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
I wasn’t sure why they chose the method they chose, of all the ways. This individual chose to drown themselves in one of the upstairs bathrooms. The house once again went on sale, no one the wiser to what was happening within the walls. This occurred in mid 2005.
The next owner of the house reportedly displayed similar behaviors to the previous one. Madness, paranoia, anxiety and a never ending stream of fear. They shot themselves in the kitchen. According to one of their friends, the only thing they were saying leading up to their death was something about someone drowning in the bathroom. But, when they attempted to show it to someone else, it was like the drowned individual had never been there in the first place. This particular owner passed in early 2006.
The next owner, as I suspected, complained about seeing visions in their kitchen of a woman shooting herself. The sight itself wasn’t what drove the next owner to poison their own food and eat it. No, what drove them to end their own life in such a gruesome manner was the constant ear-ringing gunshots they heard. Just hours before they took their own life, they’d had a friend over. The friend left because the owner was frantically asking “you can’t hear that?”
The friend only wanted to get help for the owner, but it was too late. By the time the friend returned with others and some help, the owner had taken their own life via poison. This happened in 2007.
The last and most recent owner came up next. I was technically the most recent owner of the house, but this listed all owners who’d taken their own life. The previous owner before me, who bought the house in 2008, and was a master piano player, complained about hearing and seeing things in the dining room.
What surprised me the most about this particular owner was the amount of time they stayed in the house for. Every other owner stayed in the house for, at most, a year. This owner only lived in the house for three months.
As was customary with every other owner, she, around two months into living in the house, began to complain about the sounds and sights in the dining room. According to friends and family, this woman would play the piano in an attempt to cope with her problems.
Reading the next passage, I was saddened to find that the problems were too much for her. Too much, as were the problems for everyone else.
She was found by her mother in the early hours of the morning, hunched over the piano, two deep gashes in her wrists. Next to her, streaked with blood, was a note. The full contents weren’t laid out on the page, but the last part was. It scared me.
*I can’t handle it anymore. The man in the dining room, he’s poisoning himself. He’s killing himself and I can’t handle it. I can’t handle the sounds. I can’t handle the visions. Therapy won’t help. Nothing helps. I think I’m going to do it today. I think I’m going to get myself some proper help. I just wish I could come to terms with what’s happening to me.*
I set the book down and closed it. I felt hot. I’d began to sweat a little, but I knew that was due to my increasing heart rate as well as the increasing pressure of the stress on my mind. Everyone who had owned that house before me ended their lives. Ended their lives after seeing and hearing visions of those who came before them.
I felt dizzy and I got up from the table. I began to walk slowly towards the exit of the library. I needed some air. It looked to be getting dark outside.
*What the hell?*
The thought quickly vanished from my mind. I needed to see what time it was. I went to get my phone out of my pocket and I mentally kicked myself.
My phone wasn’t in my pocket.
I started moving faster. I had to check and see if it was in my car. As I unlocked the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat, I looked around.
I mentally kicked myself again and slammed the door before punching the steering wheel multiple times. I’d left my cellphone at home. I was going to have to go back and get it.
I didn’t want to go anywhere near that house at this point. If the pattern were to continue repeating itself, I’d end up going mad and I would take my own life. I didn’t want that.
I didn’t want to die.
I drove a little faster than I should have, but through some force of sheer luck, I didn’t get pulled over once. Though, maybe I should have. I pulled into my driveway and found the house to be dark. This didn’t scare me too badly, as I hadn’t turned any of them on before I left. What did scare me was when I walked in and found the basement door to be unlocked and opened.
What the hell had happened in here for it to be open? Was it a ghost? Could a ghost physically interact with something? At that point, I had many questions, but all I wanted to do was get my phone and get out of there.
I sprinted upstairs to my room and found my phone. I grabbed it, but had to question the manner in which I’d found it. My phone was set right in the middle of my bed, screen down, my headphones wrapped up nicely right next to them. Paying it just enough mind to think about it later, I grabbed both and turned around to leave my room when I heard it. This time, the sound rang out uninhibited and unabated.
Once more, the haunting, dissonant sound of Leo Ornstein’s *Suicide in an Airplane* rang out from the basement. I froze in place and remained that way for a few seconds. The disjointed, arrhythmic melody was beautifully terrifying. It took me a good few seconds to realize the effect it was having on me. I broke out of my trance and bounded for the stairs. Reaching the base of the steps, I turned to face the basement door.
Still, to this day, I regret doing what I did next. I had not a single reason to go investigate the door. I didn’t have a reason to be any more curious than I’d been hours, days before. I had no reason to do what I did next, yet, in those following seconds, I found myself making quick strides toward the basement door. I found myself on the third step of the staircase when I stopped.
I stared down the mouth of darkness, Leo Ornstein’s haunting piano piece ringing out from the unknown piano player. Except, I knew who it was. I knew that, down in the basement, the previous owner of the house awaited me with open, bloody arms. In the short time I was living in that house, I hadn’t even thought of going into the basement. Just never occurred to me.
I’d never considered going in prior to that night, but just then, something, some strange thing was drawing me to it. Still, I fought the urge. I hadn’t gone down before, and I wouldn’t be going down now.
Steeling myself, I turned around and began to make my way back up the stairs. Just before my foot left the first step, the door slammed. It could have been the wind, it could have been any force of nature. It could have just been the way the door worked. But I knew what really happened.
It wasn’t the wind that closed the door.
The door itself slammed with so much ferocity and force that it blindsided me. I expected to take it and be fine. I’d just have to open the door and then I’d be free. But that’s not what happened. No, the door hit me in the face with such a level of force that I couldn’t do anything but stand there, take it, and fall.
And fall I did. All the way down the stairs. I hadn’t received any life threatening injuries on my fall, but I knew that, should I make it out of the basement, I’d have some bruises on my body the next day. Bruises, however, were near the bottom of the list of things I needed to worry about in that moment.
Clearly now, I could hear the haunting melody being played from the piano. This time, it almost ached. It felt as though excruciating levels of pressure were being applied to the insides of my ears. My eardrums felt like they were going to *burst*.
I groaned, searching for ground to prop myself up on. The cold, concrete floor of the basement did nothing to soothe my pain inflicted from the fall. I’d landed back-up with my stomach pressing against the floor.
Gathering all the strength I could manage, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. The kind of phone I had at the time didn’t have a flashlight, so I had to use the actual screen as a light source. I was mostly using it to look for something, anything I could use to get out of there. However, out of curiosity, and the need to know what was making the noise, I raised the phone up and in the direction of where I imagined the piano noises to be coming from. It was a shot in the dark, as I felt like the sounds were coming from every direction. A maelstrom of discordant, sharp piano notes.
I tried to mentally brace myself for what I would see when the light landed on the piano, but no amount of nerve-steeling or mental shielding could have prepared me for what I saw.
There, sitting on the piano bench, gaping wrist wounds weeping blood onto the floor, was the pianist that’d haunted me for the last couple of days. She whipped blood over the pristine white keys of the piano and the surrounding area as she played with a fervor unbecoming of a suffered spirit forever destined to remain in this accursed house.
I tried to stifle the scream I knew was coming, but it was no use. This wasn’t something I could just look at and then not care about for the rest of my day. Until that point in my life, I had not experienced one thing that equaled a fraction of the unbridled, primal fear I was feeling in my gut. It felt as though someone had dropped an ice cold rock in the pit of my stomach.
She must have noticed the light on her, because a short time after I had bathed her in it, she stopped playing the piano. Without warning, without anything that could have indicated that she was to stop. She halted, completely and quietly. Her face was the first thing I saw, as she turned to look me dead in the eyes.
The pit in my stomach grew larger and I felt something catch in my throat. Whether it was my fight-or-flight kicking in, I didn’t know. What I was aware of, however, was the increasingly quick rate at which my heart began to beat. I felt waves of fear wash over me again and again.
Then, she got up from the bench. The sounds of bare feet slapping against wet, bloody concrete terrified me, but as she approached closer and closer, something else came to me. The fear remained in my body as strong as it had ever been, and hopefully as strong as it would ever be. But there was something else. A sudden surge of energy, a burst. Something I could use. Something that would help me get out of that basement and out of that damned house.
I used that burst of energy to get up and turn around. Just before I made it to the stairs, I felt her grab my arm. I was about to whirl around and try to get her off of me when the physical properties of blood did all the work for me. Just as fast as she’d managed to grip onto my forearm, the slippery blood caused her to lose her grip and I escaped from her bloody, one handed grasp.
As I bounded up the basement stairs, I didn’t think of whether she’d be able to get out or not, but that was far from the most important thing on my mind. I reached the top of the stairs and opened the door. To my surprise, it wasn’t locked, but I wasn’t going to complain. I slammed it behind me with enough force to send small cracks through the door and cause it to splinter slightly.
I wasn’t taking any time to rest. I sprinted to the kitchen, grabbed a dish towel, turned the stove on, and lit the dish towel ablaze. I made my way back out to the main area and threw the flaming rag. Just then, I heard the basement door crash open, but I was already running through the open front doorway.
Now, the sounds of the piano weren’t anywhere to be found. As I got in and started my car, I found the reason for that.
Looking through the open front door, I could just barely make it out. But I knew what I was looking at. Dripping blood onto the floor, smile on her face, was the woman playing the piano. As the spreading flames licked at the stairs and the doorframe of the basement, she turned around and began to walk back down the stairs. Behind her, the door slammed and the flames began lapping at it more fiercely.
I didn’t care about that, though. I cared about getting away from that house as quickly as possible. And as far away as possible. I didn’t want a thing to do with that place anymore. As a matter of fact, I decided that night that I didn’t want anything to do with that town in general. As I drove, I remembered the blood she’d gotten on me. I went to find something to wipe it off on when I actually got a good look at my arm.
There was nothing on it but a slowly forming bruise from my fall. I accepted it and kept my eyes on the road.
I’m not sure how long I drove for, only that I ended up in Davenport, Iowa, nearly 24 hours later. I checked into a shitty motel and watched the news in Vermont for a few minutes. They’d covered the burning down of that house from late in the night until right then when I watched it. Strangely enough, they treated it as though it was an accident. It wasn’t, but I suppose there wasn’t any evidence left to say otherwise.
After a good night’s sleep, I decided to actually look around town for a bit.
I eventually got acclimated to the town of Davenport, Iowa. I got a decent job, coincidentally, at another bank. I managed to save up enough and buy another house, albeit years after the event. The new house was a lot smaller than the previous one. Or is, I suppose, since I still live there. When I bought said house, it was under the specific condition that it did *not* have a basement.
Another thing I was worried about was living alone, but as of eight and three years ago, 2018 and 2023, I don’t have to worry about that anymore.
It’s just me, my wife, and our daughter in this house now. I work, spend time with my family, and I write when I can. It’s a good life, one I never thought I’d have. It certainly wasn’t what I was thinking about in that basement. But I don’t willingly think about the basement or that house anymore. Not willingly.
I’ve never told my wife about the Suicide House or the phantom piano player, and I don’t think I plan on doing so. Not for a while, at least. Maybe I’ll tell her and my daughter when she’s older. We’re living a good life, and I don’t want to tarnish that.
It’s not all perfect, though.
You see, I may have physically escaped the house, but even 16 years later, the memories of what happened in that place still plague me. I still dream about my parents and the car crash they got in, but they aren’t the only ones.
I dream about the man that hanged himself in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I dream about the woman who drowned herself in an upstairs bathroom. I dream of the woman who shot herself in the kitchen. I dream of the man who poisoned himself in the dining room. And I always dream about the woman in the basement who carved into her wrists the wounds of death. I dream of every single one.
They don’t scare me, not as much as they did anymore. They may not have come to terms with their lives and the subsequent ending of those lives, but I have.
Call me selfish, call me whatever you want, but that’s the truth. Still do I dream about the occupants of that house, but I don’t run in fear. I comfort them, tell them that it wasn’t their fault, that I care.
The house is gone, but the memories remain. The dreams, I can deal with those. But, there’s something else that happens to me. It isn’t nightly, but it happens just frequently enough that there’s consistency in its occurrence.
Sometimes, I’ll wake up real early in the morning. I don’t know what causes me to awaken, but every time, without fail, I go downstairs.
If the house is quiet, and I concentrate hard enough, I can just barely hear it.
Somewhere below me, I can faintly hear the haunting, dissonant chords of Leo Ornstein’s *Suicide in an Airplane*.
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