Hell House

by Richard Matheson

coping

shallow

spigot

hose.

He’d have to remember to put in a brighter bulb. The one overhead was either deficient in wattage or covered with grime; probably both.

straddled

contorted.

dazedly.

curtailment

groggily

budge.

wedged

batter

scowled.

slithering

premonition,

wits

gruel

tinkling

ministering

slouched

At last she was still. Minutes passed. Fischer began to shiver. Coldness was starting to gather between them, rising slowly like ice water, until he felt as though he were submerged to the waist in it.

pang

She removed the hollowed book so quickly that it slipped from her fingers and thudded on the rug, the photographs scattering. She sank to her knees and started looking at them one by one. She licked her upper lip unconsciously. She stared at a photograph of the two women lying on the great hall table, performing mutual cunnilingus. The room seemed to get hotter and hotter.

For some strange reason, the house did not seem frightening to her. Further proof that alcohol was just the thing, she thought.

glimmer,

fleeting

She smiled. She’d never felt so fuzzy in her life. She closed her eyes. I’m floating, said her mind. Father and daughter, drunks forever.

Snickering,

As she started toward the table, the room was nebulous around her, and she had the vague impression it was filled with people standing just beyond the limits of her vision. That’s imagination, said her mind. All there is in here is mindless energy.

derision

languorous

scalded

thwart

evanescent,

malingering

tottered

bayoneted

sutured.

dismay,

hastened

Then he’d reached the archway and was frozen there, staring into the great hall with a stunned expression,

absolving

sheen

Are you happy? she thought, the words rising unexpectedly to the surface of consciousness.

The dim illumination of the wall lights barely held the darkness at bay.

the pages began to turn so rapidly that they became a blur of movement.

rabid.

probed.

In an instant, she lay petrified, heartbeat staggering as she gasped at what was lying on her. It was the figure of a corpse, its face in an advanced state of decomposition.