
On a moonless night, deep in the majestic fields of Llanada Villa, far out in the pasture, where the cattle were grazing in peace, the howl of the wind whistled through the trees as the light in the distance broke through the darkness. As I stood around the crackling fire, the room went dead silent. I could not shake the feeling that there was a malevolent force lurking in the background, biding its time, waiting for the opportunity to strike. It was a great puzzle to me where it could have stood. Chilling memories started to resurface. I ventured deeper into my home, searching for clues and signs of the morbid presence. The air grew colder, and a faint whisper echoed, “You have chosen a dangerous path.” Shadows from the chambers came alive, coalescing into sinister forms. One malevolent force pass through the wall. It was an utterly grotesque and nightmarish creature. It snarled and lunged at me. I looked drowsily about the hall. It was curious that it looked unusually wider, but seemed to contract in length and had grown proportionately higher. This suffocating and wicked force almost overwhelmed me. However, I channeled my inner fortitude against this fierce creature and it recoiled into a wavering form. The other horrors intensified their haunting, pouring every ounce of their will into spreading darkness and fear. An ancient evil had been awakened from the depths of hell, vowing to make me pay for meddling with demonic forces that had laid dormant for centuries. There was superstition of this Babylonish farm house when I purchased it. A legend that there was a nasty entity on the loose weaking havoc. When I purchased the farmhouse, there was a curious stillness—even lifelessness—to this area. As the house and barn came into view, it seemed that a black pall hung overhead. The property was made in 1560, and the former owner practiced secret and wicked arts, and had sold his soul to Satan. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

As I arrived at the 13th room on the second floor, work of some kind was evidently going on inside it, for as I neared the door I could hear footsteps and voices, or a voice within. During the few seconds in which I halted to make sure of the number, the footsteps ceased, seemingly very near the door, and I was a little startled at hearing a quick hissing breathing as of a person in strong excitement. This was vexatious. I walked on passed this room, afraid of what could be on the other side of the door. As I opened the door to another room, the light from the gasolier was behind me, and I could see my own shadow clearly cast on a dead wall. Quickly slamming the door and looking suspiciously about, there was no question of the presence. Just then, a very hard blow struck on my breast which caused great pain in my stomach and amazement in my head. However, I caught sight of no person near me. I walked half a mile across my mansion from the aforesaid room, I was taken speechless for some short time. My chambermaid did ask me several questions and desired me that if I could not speak I should hold up my hand, which I did. And immediately I could speak as well as ever. Walking up to the third floor, there I received another blow on my breast which caused much pain, so that I fell to the floor. And when I did come to my feet, to my understanding I saw a woman coming towards me, but did not know who it was. The chambermaid could not see her. After that, I went to the Daisy Bedroom without any further molestation, but after I laid in bed, I was pinched and nipped by something invisible for some time. To say I looked alarmed is a gross understatement. It seemed impossible to account for such a disrespectful act. I was as terrified as I would have been if confronted by a man-eating tiger. My house was now invaded by shadows that slid along the walls and floor, even the ceiling, and then disappeared Sometimes they were blobs, sometimes they had vaguely human shapes. Sometime they slid into cupboards and closets. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

The next morning, I had the carpenters open a passageway into the thirteenth room on the second floor. A could of dust dispersed and settled, the carpenters were able to peer inside and see the content. “They found,” says Mr. Hasen, “below it a rounded hollow place in the floor, wherein were two or three bodies had plainly been smothered by smoke; and, what is to me more curious, at the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the anatomy or skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the bones, having some remains of black hair, which was pronounced by those that examined it to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for a period of forty years.” The parlour concealed behind the dead wall had a very nice paper on the walls, bright pink lamps, a well stuffed sofa and matching armchairs, a low, walnut table, some valuable oil on canvas paintings and a fireplace. There were also some peculiar items: a small black cast iron cauldron, large black iron candlesticks covered in wax drippings and other curious objects. Seeking reassurance that nothing was disturbed, I have the men repair the dead wall, and took this as a sign that I was expanding the east wing of the mansion too much, and needed to work on the south. Mr. Hansen added in an undertone, “No need to worry.” “Have you supped lately?” I asked Mr. Hansen. “I have a nice piece of ham in the icehouse, and I can have the cook fry that with eggs, in no time at all.” “That’s very kind of you Mrs. Winchester, but really…” “Mr. Hasen, let him to a little cooking for you,” I pleaded. “He does not get much opportunity.” “If you’re sure it will be no trouble,” Mr. Hansen replied. “Trouble!” I said. “You take it easy and have a meal with a glass of something rich.” Mr. Hansen and his crew departed from the kitchen. I was left alone with an embarrassing interest on my hands. This was followed by two weeks of thick fog—so thick no one could see in front of their faces. It delayed construction on the exterior of my home for a bit. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

The wind gusted outside, thudded against the door and the windows like something trying to break in. What uncertainty there may be in apparitions I know not. The wind came shrieking in, eddying drafts of icy air. I could see sharp and threatening shadows around the room. Night pressed through the windows. I felt very alone in the World. For a moment I was suspended in a trance-like state, and then vigorously gained a clear head. The shrieking rose again for two or three seconds, then fell back to a muted whine. I kept on standing on the landing, chills racing up and down my back, listening to that black wind scream and scream around me. Feeling the cold sharp edge of it cut into my bare flesh, cut straight to the bone. Just like the blade of a knife. Then the thing happened. A voice was rising to a thin treble scream, when suddenly it was shut off with an almost mechanical click. I half fancied that some obscure telepathic wave of mental force was impeding on me. I felt, infinitely more horrible. A face appeared beside me and it was twisted almost unrecognizably for a moment, while through the whole body there passed a shivering motion—as if all the bones, organs, muscles, nerves, and glands were readjusting themselves to a radically different posture, set of stresses, and general personality. Just where the supreme horror lay, I could not for my life tell; yet there swept over me such a swamping wave of sickness and repulsion—such a freezing, petrifying sense of utter alienage and abnormality—that my grasp of consciousness grew feeble and uncertain. The figure beside me seemed less like a human being. It was ore like some monstrous intrusion from the pits of hell—some damnable, utterly accursed focus of unknow and malign satanic forces. I had faltered only a moment, but before another moment was over my, I was sure this was spectral evidence. It was terrible real and convincing. Someone must have appealed to the doctrine of that Devil and caused him to appear. But who could have been trafficking with the Devil? #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

The dusk was now very thick, so I could not see much of his face. The blaze of his eyes, though, was phenomenal; and I knew that this apparition was now in a queerly energized state. I felt heavier and heavier. My home was filled with nightmarish beings and hideous monsters, and blood-drenched landscapes. The being did not speak, and in my inexplicable horror I was glad he did not. As the room started to clean, in the lights of the gasolier, I saw his firmly set mouth, and shivered at the his soulless eyes, which look beyond time. There was certainly something unnatural and diabolic in them, and I felt the sinister element all the more because of the wild ravings I had been hearing in my home for weeks. This man was a stranger—an intrusion of some sort from the black abyss in the thirteenth room. He did not speak until the room grew dark, and when he did, his voice seemed utterly unfamiliar. It was deep, firm, and very decisive, while its accent and pronunciation were rather disturbing. There was something grim, basic, pervasive and extremely evil in his tone. “I hope you’ll forget my attacks, Mrs. Winchester,” he was saying. “I guess you can excuse such things. I’m enormously grateful, of course, for being invited into your home. I hall take a rest from now on—you probably wont’s see me for some time, and you needn’t blame your servants for disturbing me.” This was a bit queer, but it is very simple. There were certain Indian relics in the dark abyss in that room. Standing stones, a sword and several small knives with queer markings etched on the blades, tarnished and pitted silver goblets, pieces of white chalk, and chunks of incense that had lost most of their scent. Also, a marble statue of a fierce looking angel wielding a shield and sword, and stepping on the head of what looked like a demon. With every moment my feeling of elusive cosmic horror increased, till at length I was in a virtual delirium. The next two months were full of rumours, people spoke of seeing devils more and more in my home with a new energized state. I felt an infinitely deep horror which I could not explain. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5


Over the years, Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester has become one of the best-loved figures in architecture and in the paranormal World. People who walk by on the sidewalks always gawked at the mansion. Some star, some laugh, some comment on how beautiful it is, other make rude jokes, and few glance and flee in horror. Every night when The Winchester Mystery House is closed, tour guides often report that they have seen shadows slinking into the house. As one tour guided was leaving the living room, he saw a darting green movement from the corner of his eye. It was a vague shape about three feet tall. With it a feeling of nausea swept over him, and passed. He assumed it was a trick of light, and something he had eaten at lunch had upset his stomach. As he was opening the door to leave, as though an ice pick had been stabbed in his brain, a voice whispered, “I don’t like plants, and I don’t like you.” The voice was so startling that it made him stagger back. He put his hand to the side of his head. “Where did that come from?” he wondered. After that, however, he avoided spending time in the front parlor.

Whenever he had to pass through it, he hurried along. Always, a fog-like shape darted out of view. The room remained cold after that, colder than the rest of the house. It had a forbidding atmosphere, as though a hostile presence had taken over. While giving a tour, the guests gazes fell on the painting hanging from the wall, some thought it was of Mrs. Winchester and froze, looks of uncertainty and astonishment on their faces. One woman rubbed her arms as though cold. The tour guide then said, “I have a great idea, why don’t we move into the Grand Ballroom, one of the best-preserved rooms in the house?” As they gathered up, the tour guide saw the green blob, then it disappeared. The tour guide emphasized that he was not in the habit of engaging in flights of fancy and did not wish to be regarded as one with mediumistic powers who regularly received supernatural visitations; nor was he suffering from any problems of the nervous system that would make his susceptible to delusions. Later, he also stressed the point that he had been in perfect health on the night of the materialization and had not been suffering from weariness nor fatigue. The ghost, he added, did not appear wispy or cloaked in a traditional sheet. The figure appeared lifelike, natural, and so solid that it had blocked light from the fireplace. After the aforementioned experience, there was no question in his mind that ghost do exist. However, the fireplaces have not been used in over 100 years.

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