The Old House and the Specter

The pale apparition swirls in on night mist. It envelopes her body, then breathes out its kiss. Cold to her cheek as the fog to the shore; She utters a sigh then sleeps deeply once more. She’s new to the house, uninformed, unaware. But soon sleep will not come for she’ll sense it is there. Soft scuffs on the staircase, strange sounds in the hall. Doors opening and closing, pale face on the wall. Something behind her: she’ll turn now aware. The cold then surrounds her, first taste of despair. The house knows her panic. The house knows what’s there. What lurks in the hallways, haunts bedroom and stair. The house is aware of the present . . the past: Knows happiness here in its walls cannot last. The old house remembers the lives through the years. The pain and the sorrow; the sadness, the tears. It creaks in the darkness recalling such woe, Of year upon year empty lives growing old. Of dreams never realized and youth gone awry. Of death without warning . . spilled blood left to dry. The house wants to warn her, “Get out while you can. This thing that now haunts was a strange, evil man. A man with no conscience; a man without hope, Who murdered his family then died by the rope.” But death could not stop him returning from hell: Five years in the future, dead child in the well. Then another new owner deceased on the stair. His wife dead of fright in her soft, easy chair. And the time added up along with the dead. The old house became empty, forlorn, full of dread. Long years in the passing, house silent and grim. No hope for the future as 'it' waited within. But tales of the hauntings grew thin though the years. A new owner then entered, unaware of old fears. Threw open the curtains to let in the sun; For the house a new chapter had surely begun. But the house bides its time, for it knows 'he' is there, With his festering hate and such wanton despair. It watches and listens as the terror begins, And it knows it must act, or he'll kill once again. So it waits for a night when the owners not home. Just the house and the specter are there all alone. And comes the hard time the house faces the fact; The hour is here to rise up . . to react. A window slides open, as if on its own. Then a breeze enters in, ever gently it’s blown. And a thin gauzy curtain flutters soft like a sigh, Nearing ever so moth like, a gas lamp nearby. The inferno erupts climbing woodwork and pane. It roars up the walls; this malevolent flame. Then spreads to the hallway burning evil one's lair And consumes all it touches, both bedroom and stair. And the shrieks that were heard by the gathering outside, Was the house as it withered, combusted, then died. Of the tenants who'd perished so far in the past; The old house had made certain, they would now be the last. And a weed covered hillock is all that remains, Of the house and its memories . . of the sorrow and pain. With an evil dammed specter that lurks as before, Guarding over an empire which is present no more. And on that last day when the Lord calls us home; The specter must stay and guard his old bone. He'll not be allowed all that venom to quell. He will never know heaven, for he’s made his own hell.