Some said the house was haunted, others believed spirits lived there, but no one actually knew what it was. The Roberts had recently shifted there. They had a daughter and a son. These two children were young and weren’t aware of the terrible things that awaited them.

It was a lovely Sunday morning. The kids were busy in helping their mother clean the house so that they could start placing the furniture. There were cobwebs in every corner and dust everywhere, as the house had been abandoned for more than 10 years.

“Emily, can you pass me the broom?” asked Mrs Robert.

There was a knock at the door and Kevin went to see who it was. There was an old man standing at the door. He had wrinkles on his face and dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t had sleep for days.

“Get out! Get out before it’s too late!” repeated the man and ran away. Kevin had no clue about what the man was saying so he shut the door behind him.

That evening Mr and Mrs Robert were invited to attend a dinner at one of their friend’s house. They decided to leave the kids home.

“Take care kids, we’ll be home soon,” said the parents and left.

The siblings settled down on the couch to watch TV. After a little while, suddenly they startled by the sound of forks and spoons clanging. Kevin was frightened, but Emily told him it was nothing but the wind.

They both continued watching the TV when abruptly the lights went off. Emily immediately grabbed the flashlight kept on the side table and turned it on. In the meanwhile, they heard a weird honking of a car. The kids rushed outside thinking it was their parents, but there was no car in sight. However, the sound was still coming.

“Wha-What’s g-going on Em-ily?” stammered Kevin.

Emily held Kevin’s hand and got inside the house, the flashlight was still on. They decided to go in the basement and check the power switch. As the two walked towards the basement, they heard whispering — whispering from the walls. This was getting scary now, Kevin was shaking out of fear but Emily kept her nerves in control. But soon, things started to become more bizarre for the kids. They saw a silhouette on the wall and the kids screamed and rushed to the basement and shut the door hard.

Meanwhile, their parents had reached home. They were astonished to see the house in complete darkness because there was electricity in the rest of the locality. They rushed inside to see if the kids were okay.

In the basement, the scene was quite shocking to the kids. There was a setup of computers and an unusual machine and someone sitting on the chair was controlling it. The person was the same old man who had come to warn them during the day to leave the house.

The kids were taken aback to see all this and didn’t know what to do. Just then they heard their parents calling out their names, so without wasting a second, they shouted back. The parents reached the basement and saw the old man. They knew something weird must have happened. So they immediately called the police.

Meanwhile, the old man tried to run but Mr Robert held him tight and all of them tied him to the chair.

The police arrived in a few minutes and arrested the old man and upon investigation, he told, “Ten years ago, I stole a big amount from the bank and hid it in this house. When the owner came to know about it, he kicked me out of the house.

“I was so agitated and wanted to take revenge from the landlord, so I spread the rumours, that the house was haunted and equipped the basement with the instruments like this machine which created the scary noises and projected holograms so that no one wanted to live here,” he said.

The police recorded his confession and took him away. While Mr and Mrs Robert sighed and hugged the kids.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 2nd, 2019