The old boarding house at the edge of town had been abandoned for decades, but on Halloween night, its broken windows glowed faintly with candlelight. A group of friends dared each other to enter, whispering warnings not to loiter too long inside. The locals said the place didn’t just stand empty—it waited.
Creaking doors gave way to halls coated in dust, where wallpaper peeled like skin. Their flashlights stuttered, throwing nervous shadows against the walls. Every step echoed back louder than it should, as if something unseen was following close behind.
“Don’t linger,” one girl muttered. “They say the spirits here haunt anyone who stays past midnight.”
Her words sank into silence, broken only by the distant sound of footsteps. The group froze. One by one, they turned their lights toward the staircase, where nothing stood but darkness. Yet the sound persisted—slow, deliberate, dragging across warped wood.
They should have run, but curiosity kept them rooted. The air thickened, sour with mold and something metallic, like old blood. From upstairs, a voice called their names, each one perfectly mimicked, though none of them had spoken.
“Let’s go,” someone whispered, but when they spun toward the door, it had shut silently behind them. Locked.
The candlelight upstairs flared, and for an instant, a figure stood framed in its glow—a woman, skeletal and smiling, eyes hollow but watching. She lifted a finger to her lips and whispered, Stay.
The friends bolted, shoving at windows until one gave way. They scrambled out, gasping in the cold night. Behind them, the house groaned like it was disappointed.
The next morning, townsfolk swore they saw silhouettes still loitering in the windows—figures that looked just like the children who had entered. And when the parents searched for them, they found the real bodies, pale and lifeless, still locked inside.
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