Gothic Short Stories

It was a cold stormy night. The house was still. I was lying in bed when I heard a series of knocks at the door. As I descended the stairs the knocks were getting louder and louder. I thought to myself, "Who could be at the door this late at night?" When I opened the door there was a tall man dressed all in black. He smelled of fish and looked like he just walked out of a mud pit. He was having car troubles and needed to use the phone. I invited him in and told him that the phone was down the hall in the living room. Instead of calling the tow truck he called his friend, George, to come pick him up. I invited him to have a cup of coffee and some cookies while he waited for his friend to pick him up. We talked for about an hour when there

Burnt homes, flipped cars, destroyed shops were scattered. The uncertainty that had left her earlier returned at full force as they seemed to move away from the populated area. After about another ten minutes of driving, they came to a stop. ‘At be twenty doll’rs the old cab grunted out. Liana gave the grumpy old man the money and exited the car with her things. In front of her stood a gloomy, run-down ill maintained two story house. The house looked abandoned as if it held no life. The doors and windows were covered in a thick layer of dust. The window panels look rotten and ready to fall off at the slightest hint of a strong wind, ivy cling to the outer wall of the house. The land surrounding the house was filled with unkempt undergrowth.Liana urged herself forward and came to a halt in front of the dirty covered door. Taking a deep breath she reached out and knocked on the

As she stands at the entrance debating weather to go down or to see if the light will flicker off on its own she’s reminded by the tales her brother used to tell of the women who strives in the dark, cold basement. Gently she starts to ascend the steep, concrete, dusty stairs, feeling her way on the rough, stone walls to the light. Getting further and further away from the warm. bright hall the hair on the back of her neck stands, as the loud click of the door echoes behind her.

Rain hit my head, raced down my face and back. We trudged through the mud, sinking in our boots feet deep. All we could see was our breathe, all we could hear was the wind slapping against the trees, rain hitting, and our boots squishing in the mud. We expected the weather to be like this, the weather channel had been going crazy all week about a storm passing through our way around 5 pm today. Just as predicted the rain became heavier, fog thicker, and sky darker. But our search group did not give up; we had been searching months for the beloved missing girl named Emma Barrett in the Elliott State Forest in Oregon. She was last scene heading into the forest with her parents on a Tuesday afternoon for a hike, hours

The author develops the comparison of Ushers mind and house. For examples, the narrator describes the house, when saying, “Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work” (Poe, 6). The author also develops the imagery of the house when stating “old wood-work which has rotted for long years” (Poe, 6) By illustrating the houses condition, the reader can understand the condition of the Usher family, and how it has been rotting and crumbling. In comparison, the reader can compare the physical appearance of the house to Ushers mind, when the narrator says, “He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses” (Poe, 9) Both Usher and the house are fading, so the reader can assume that they are somehow connected

Though the plot, readers are kept involved by hearing the mother’s thoughts, almost enticing the reader to answer questions that come to mind such as what the reader might have done, or thoughts of one’s own conflicts and questionable directions that were taken. The conflict continues throughout the tale and has several points of crisis during Emily’s nineteen years, which in itself is interesting since her mother, the storyteller, was nineteen at the original time when she became a single mother. Building up to one of the major climaxes, her mother and step-father left her alone while they go out for the evening, and upon returning find the door open and the clock broken on the floor because Emily thought the clock had talked. Once again, Emily, being left alone the night her sister, Susan was born, thought the clock spoke. She then fell ill all week and was thought to be hallucinating.

The stone remains cold from decades of freezing winter nights as it sat neglected andunwanted. The couches is decorated in a faded flaming pattern of roses. The musty smell continues into the library. Shelves of forgotten novels line the fourwalls, and a large window is strategically placed between two of the shelves. The lights hangingfrom the ceiling are dimmed, and the melodic ringing of wind could be heard. Bodies crowdtogether in the small room, and all heads gaze at one single item. The television growls awarning, but it is set up in the form of a welcome to the hotel. Above the shelves sit manyknickknacks: a beat up camera, adusty music box, a rickety old fortune telling machine, andeven a vintage girl’s doll sits on the wall with beady eyes staring down at me. I gaze at my oldfriends. Their presence adds a hype to the idea of what awaits. The television blanks out and thefamiliar spike in my heartbeat comes, and there goes the lightning right on queue. The creek ofthe door is heard over the rumbling of voices, when a bright light blinds my vision for a quicksecond. A heated breeze flocks into the room from the shadowy corridor. The empty smell of steam surrounds, and it caresses my arms the further into the room Igo. The cold brick walls brush against my arms as families rush past me. The concrete floorchanges into a steel bridge. Over the railing, the boilers cascade down to the floor standing talland rusted. The smell of oil and steel disgustingly mix. The sound of my feet clattering againstthe steel reverberates around the room. The bridge splits into two and leads the newcomers intoan aloof. I remember, in the end it doesn’t matter; however, I am pulled to the right. The redboilers line the path as it slowly descends. The clatter of footsteps follows, and the steam in theroom thickens, crushing me. I turn to the elephant in the room. A steely service elevator door threatens the room in amagnificent haze of power. Above the powerful door

The house exhibits “heavily lightsome style of the seventies,” (451) At the time of its construction, it was the best around, envied by all, mighty and beautiful. Built by slaves just after the civil war its the embodiment of privilege and tradition. In recent years it is seen as an outdated eyesore. The townspeople just as curious in modern day as in the past wondering what lies behind the grim exterior of the home. They get close to the home when the stench of Homer rotting causes need for lime to be put outside of the house. Nevertheless, it isn't until Emily dies that the people get to satisfy their curiosity and witness the insanity that went on within that home. The house symbolizes time not just for the house, but Emily as well. When Emily was young, men sought after and desired her. Emily was gorgeous and as always, bold. Over the years, she changed, her physical

The Victorian home stood alone amidst acres of fields and thickets. Rain poured down intermittently, and clouds covered the entire grey scene. It was October, and a dreary day in Southampton.

The house was pictured as tall and thin, created from abundant greystones, overwhelming my senses. With just my luck, my phobia of fury furious bats surrounding the gates had ferociously flew past me. As I had pushed the heavy gates open, the touch of the bare iron bars, as cold as ice, had covered my hands completely. As I had stepped foot into the house, I could shortly smell a trite scent coming from the rotting wood, along with estranged aromas coming from the small vents through the basement walls. I could also hear the shutters rattling mysteriously from a distance, the floorboards creaking in tune to my footsteps, leading me to the corridor that had been covered in cobwebs. In addition to this, I could hear the indeterminate voices off into the distance, clearly audible. Just then I had saw someone rushing inside one of the doors. The door had creaked ominously on its rusty hinges, as it slowly opened, driving my inner claustrophobia insane. It might have even been the same person who I had heard the footsteps of earlier. In that moment I had thought to myself, “Who else could be inside? Was it Brittany, maybe Claire? I had shivered with frightfulness for a few moments, until I had then decided to follow the person. Slowly, I had entered the room directly behind me. The bedroom curtains had been shivering with the cold breeze that had been entering the room. Just when I thought I had it right, the dim light of the moon had flickered, and the mysterious person had darted away. Thinking more of it, it could have just been my imagination. The room I had entered was an impetuous mess, like someone had decided to tear it apart in an act of violence. Through the cold iron bars, I could see the sky gently clearing up. I could finally see the moon, a distant lantern in the night sky. I looked at my watch, already ten minutes to eight. As I continued to go from

The smell was so awful that the towns people did not want to enter Mrs. Emily's house. Her house "had once been white" and it turned into a faded gray. Lastly her bad was full of decomposed body parts and bones. It was like he was laying in bed with her every night.

The floorboards creaked and groaned beneath me as I stumbled through the door to this house that sat on the edge of town. It had lain forlorn for at least a year now, a curtain of moss and debris littered the lawn and porch, the interior of the house was surprisingly in good shape, victorian-era furniture covered by a veil of dust sat by the grand fireplace, the kitchen still had appliances such as a stove, fridge, and microwave. In a place like this, you would think that someone would have broken in and took this stuff to sell or pawn. I walk slowly up the grand staircase, praying that the floorboards wouldn’t crumble beneath me as I trekked to the top. I finally reach the top and let out a sigh of relief, my breath fogs in front of me and

A morbid melancholy stole over me. Anxiety gnawed at my heart. I was a living corpse. There was a feeling of chill in the air every day as I felt. I faked illness so as not to go to school. Despair hangs heavy in the stifling air. It was a dreary day for me , cold and without sunshine. I dread people and always avoid people. The door was locked from the inside. A cold grey light crept under the curtains. The windows were secured with locks and bars. The room felt cold and sterile.The flowers faded for want of water. A single lamp was suspended from the ceiling. The clock ticked louder and louder in a quiet room. I regarded the room as a refuge from the outside

I stalked them, even though the thick clouds formed by my shorter, quicker breaths and the ghostly paleness of my sheathing made me yearn to be in a different place. I ended up glancing at rotting walls that were a mere ghostly silhouette of previous existence. It shuddered on the hill, wishing that the sunlight would come to warm the emptiness within. The golden rays revealed the occupancy of ghosts that arose from the untrodden front door steps, as silent as the grave. The windows stared back at me, as if daring me to enter this skeletal statue. The door stood wide open, teasing me to take a look inside and beyond the murderous flickering of the porch light. Suddenly, a gunshot cracked into the air as loud as thunder but without the rawness of a

It was cold. As I walked up towards the white house, I noticed this because hedges on the driveway were frozen with ice. The visible fog that surrounded the farmhouse let in ghostly light, which hit the world the way a flashlight beam would hit the inside of a darkened room if water were it’s medium. One would say the air was smudged, as it blurred the vision so. The shadows, so blurred and so faded, contrasted well with the off-white sides of the old house. The paint had been peeling for quite some time without repair and created monstrous, long shadows on the wall in this sunrise. My stomach rumbled as I walked; I had forgotten my lunch.