Hell House

by Richard Matheson

“How can I convince you, either way?” He was compelled to say it. “By giving me facts,” Deutsch answered irritably. “Where am I to find them? I’m a physicist. In the twenty years I’ve studied parapsychology, I’ve yet to—” “If they exist,” Deutsch interrupted, “you’ll find them in the only place on earth I know of where survival has yet to be refuted. The Belasco house in Maine.” “Hell House?” Something glittered in the old man’s eyes. “Hell House,” he said.

The worst haunted house in the world threatened her less than being alone.

“An alternative far more interesting, albeit far more complex and demanding; namely, the subliminal self, that vast, concealed expanse of the human personality which, iceberglike, inheres beneath the so-called threshold of consciousness.

‘His teeth are those of a carnivore. When he bares them in a smile, it gives one the impression of an animal snarling. His face is white, for he despises the sun, eschews the out-of-doors. He has astonishingly green eyes, which seem to possess an inner light of their own. His forehead is broad, his hair and short-trimmed beard jet black. Despite his handsomeness, his is a frightening visage, the face of some demon who has taken on a human aspect’ “ “Whose description is that?” asked Barrett. “His second wife’s. She committed suicide here in 1927.”

Yet, always, behind the mask—the face that Hell House had created—cowered the boy; wanting to flee, but incapable of doing so; wanting love, but finding only license.

Perfect love casteth out fear. And suddenly despite everything, he felt a sickened pity for the figure standing there before him. “God help you, Belasco,” he said. The figure vanished. For a long time they could hear a screaming, as of someone falling down into a bottomless pit, the sound fading slowly, until the chapel was still.