A Haunting on the Hill

by Elizabeth Hand

Hill House neither sleeps nor dreams. Shrouded within its overgrown lawns and sprawling woodlands, the long shadows of mountains and ancient oaks, Hill House watches. Hill House waits.

She raised her hand, which held a knife with a long blade. Not a kitchen knife but a hunting knife. Without a sound, she began to run toward my car, her eyes wide with fury.

When you’re confronted with something deeply strange or obviously implausible in a book or movie or painting, you know it means something. It’s a symbol, a clue. A warning.

all writers talk to themselves. Especially playwrights. It’s an occupational hazard. With all those voices in your head, you long to hear the words.

What the hell? I checked the dashboard clock: 10:17. Last time I’d looked, it had been 6:30. Was the clock broken? But why would both my phone and the car clock show the same wrong time?

how are u so casual about this

“The woman whose husband built the place was killed when her carriage ran into a tree. That was in 1880. Then another woman was killed about sixty years ago when her car ran into the same tree. Same thing happened again with another woman in the eighties. They finally cut the tree down.”

“Haunted houses never have cell reception.” Nisa turned to face Stevie. “That’s how you know they’re haunted.”

lol

Our show,” he corrected himself, catching a glimpse of my face in the rearview mirror. “Holly’s show.” “Our show,” Nisa repeated, and stuck in her earbuds.

let her have this bro

It had been months since Nisa and Stevie had hooked up. Holly never knew, of course, and Nisa intended to keep it that way.

HELLO

People think that old ballads are about love, but really, they’re about blood.

I think Satan ate my phone.”

“If it’s not the site of an ax murder, it’s structural problems. What it really means is, the house is haunted.”

She wasn’t going to let herself be gaslighted by an old ugly house.

Nisa picked up a lipstick and opened it, reddish-black in a long gold tube. The name made her laugh—Hemogoblin. She put some on, just the tiniest smidge. Older women shouldn’t wear dark lipstick, anyway, it aged them.

She wondered if Amanda would notice she was wearing her lipstick.

weird

its mouth parted in what, in a human, would be a mocking smile.

hell no

“He’s a demon. He doesn’t get scared.” “So tap into that. You’re a demon in a big spooky house—you should feel right at home.” “I do.” He glanced around: a wild thing released from its cage, measuring the threat and opportunities of its new surroundings. He turned back to me and nodded. “That’s what scares me.”

This is a lost place, he thought, and felt a growing, profound unease. Despair lapped at the walls and floors of Hill House like fetid, rising water: anyone who stayed here might drown. The others might not feel how it fed off their rancor and petty resentments, like a battery being recharged, but he did.

Stevie was such a beautiful freak, mused Nisa. You could see why that guy preyed on him when he was a kid.

what the fuck

The hallway felt contagious—if she touched the walls the sickness would get into her. Stevie might already have caught it.

Here it felt like it was always the middle of the night, and not in a good way. Shadows groped at the ceiling high above them. And where did those shadows come from, if there were no windows?

I tried to reply. Fleshy fingers thrust into my mouth, and I gagged. Nisa called out again and this time I grunted a reply. “

felt my horror recede.

how the fuck can you relax after someone just fingered ya mouth