Wisps of could like filmy, darting thoughts were being blown across the moon. Bootfalls echoed on the solid floors through my labyrinth and an unseen force zigzagged down the hallways. It was so cold condensation on the marble floors tuned to ice patches. The dead girl had a neat round hole in her forehead and her hair was fanned over a sludgy discharge I took to be abandoned brains. It was more hideous than the dark nether World of subterrene mystery. Before trying any of the black archways for steps leading away from the body, I cast my beam of light about the stone-flagged floor. As I walked slowly about it suddenly occurred to me that there could be a crude trap-door leading down to some still deeper region of horror. Kneeling by one, I worked at it with my hands, and found that with extreme difficulty I could budge it. At my touch the moaning beneath ascended to a louder key, and only with vast trepidation did I preserved in the lifting of the heavy stone. A gust of bone chilling cold air now rose up from below, and my head reeled dizzily as I laid back the slab and turned my torch upon the exposed square yard of gaping blackness. As light shone down, the wailing changed suddenly to a series of horrible yelps; in conjunction with which there came again that sound of blind, futile scrambling and slippery thumping. I trembled with fear, unwilling to imagine what noxious thing might be lurking in the bowels of my mansion, but in a moment mustered up the courage to peer even further downward at arm’s length to see what might lie below. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

For a moment I could distinguish nothing but the cold darkness; and then I saw something dark was leaping clumsily and frantically up and down at the bottom of the narrow shaft, which mut have been from thirty to forty feet below the stone floor where I lay. The torch shook in my hand, but I looked again to see what manner of living creature might be immured there in the darkness of that great unnatural cavern. Nevertheless, to my amazement, I clearly saw a woman standing at the bottom of the chasm, near a well. Thinking that she was a caretaker who had been locked in by mistake, and worried that she might stumble in the semidarkness, I called out to her, “Wait, darling, do not move until I can reach you.” Itook my eyes off her for a moment and quickly moved my torch ahead of me. However, I found myself alone; she had vanished into thin air from her spot well within the nave of the cavern. Unnerved, I ran to the entrance door and found it firmly locked. Then a knock came at the door. Not a sustained pounding like someone petitioning for entry, but a thud as if something had accidentally been bumped against the other side of the mahogany. Outlines and entities of power and symbolism and suggestion were frightfully on my sensitive perspective amongst the whispers of terrible hints and unnamable realities. Wind whining around the slightly warped door, someone having a coughing fit many floors above, distant shots. There was another knock. A dead face appeared. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

In the dark this one had empty eye sockets and a constantly chattering mouth. Around its ragged neck was hung a knotted scarf. Become of my nervous coordination, I dropped the torch from my hand. Screaming and screaming, I realized no one would ever have recognized the horror I was experiencing; and though I could not rise to my feet, I crawled desperately away over the damp stones. Tearing my hands on the rough, loose stones, I slowly came to myself in the utter blackness. Stricken and unnerved in the abysmal blackness and horror, a cold wind, causing a tremendous chill. The dead till queued. A figure struggled out of the dark. It was naked. A skeleton held together by strips of muscle that looked like wet cowhide. The dead were just standing in line, stretching down the cavern. Could a ghost actually touch me? Hurt me? Were they planning to take e with them to the other World? I grabbed for something, anything. My shoe slipped on icy stone and I fell badly, my hip slamming a hard edge. A girl who stepped out of the dark scrambled toward me, a huge portion of her head dryly gone. My lungs hurt from the frozen air, and I coughed steam. Unmindful of the dangers of the ice, I made for the light of the doorway. As I bolting for the door, the dead all started to edge closer. Without pausing for a breath, pushing the doors together, I shut the bolt. There was nothing else I could do. The World went dark. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

Almost in tears and bewildered, I work up to the loud and echoing howls of the winds and cries of tortured spirit.  Irregular and active shadows were all around, whispering, unquiet creatures. The back of my head was sore. It was a shock to discover a painful golf-ball contusion lurking out of my skull. Whatever hit me was hard enough to knock me out cold. The progress of the spirits was a slow spiral; first they circled from above, casting light over the complex, but that left too many darks unprobed; then they went in at the deep end and moved methodically through the labyrinth, weaving between pillars and walls, stumbling through furniture. A dead man barged out of the morning room, shouldering doors apart, wading through chip and dale chairs and tables, roaring and slavering. I got up, walked across the foyer, and unbarred the doors. When all the bolts were loose, I flung the doors back and stood aside. However, they fiercely slammed shut. In a worse state of shivers than before, I walked smartly through the foyer, lite a candle, and carefully shut the door. Beginning to have inklings from infectious nerves, oh, I cannot tell you have desolate it was! And horribly threatening, too. First peering out as I opened the door, and fancying that a shadow, or more than a shadow—but it made no sound—passed from before me to one side as I came out into the passage. “It is alright,” I whispered to myself—whispering seemed the proper tone, and I went back to my sitting room. It was half-past ten. I looked out the window: there was a brilliant full moon—the Paschal moon. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

I felt I was, as I have never felt it at another time under observation. Specially was it so when I passed out the first floor into a narrow path with many doors. The eternal whisper of Llanada Villa just above me, and the abyss in front. Yet in all this quiet, an acute, an acrid consciousness of a restrained hostility very near me, like a wolf on a leash that might be let go at any moment. The moonlight fell through the skylights. And there, right in front of me, was a kneeling figure of a man with extremely dark eyes in a pale face. There were footsteps in the hall, and at one point the steps went up the stairs and walked around overhead, but not a soul could be seen. In the near distance, the cry of night birds; a screech owl; the murmurous wind.  I shivered. Cries were strangled. The blood-stained marble floor was painfully cold. Why was I drawn to see what I had no wish to see?  I placed my hands against my mouth to keep from crying out in horror. My knee had gone weak. Moonlight slanting through the latticed windows on the eastern side of the house. Breathing quickly, shallowly. Thinking No! No! I did not see anything! I am just a widow, do not hurt me. I had sunk to the floor to hide like a terrified child. Waking them sometime later, confused, still anxious. I discovered comfort from being in the Diamond Hall. The ceiling was unnaturally high and shrouded in chandeliers hung as if floating in gloom; the room was so large that it appeared without walls; as if melting out into the shadows. All nature was hushed as in the aftermath of a terrible vision. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5

The Winchester Mystery House

Some very unaccountable things have occasionally happened in this said house. A caretaker had been greatly terrified by the apparition of a woman, and he declared that he had heard some extraordinary sounds in the night; but little or no attention was paid to his statements. About December, 1890, however, Mrs. Winchester and her staff were alarmed by terrific noises heard in every room, even in the daytime. Upon going up stairs and stamping on the floor in any of the rooms, say five or six times, the sound would be repeated instantly, but louder, and generally more in number and the vibrations of the board caused by these repeated sounds could be sensibly felt through the soles of one’s boots, whilst dust was thrown up with such velocity, and in such quantity, as to affect the eyes. There were two rooms in the house in which the females who slept in them were dreadfully beaten by invisible agency. Mrs. Winchester stated that she herself heard more than two hundred blows given in the course of a night, and she could compare them to nothing but a strong man striking with all his force, with a closed fist, on the bed. Those blows left great soreness, and visible marks.

Mrs. Winchester saw swelling, at least as big as a turkey’s egg, on the cheek of Blanche, one of the chambermaids, who voluntarily made oath that she was alone in bed when she received the blows from an invisible hand. Two carpenters also swore voluntarily before Mrs. Winchester, that they were so beaten as to experience a peculiar kind of numbness, and were sore for many days after. Their shrieks while being beaten were too terrible, it is averred, to have been counterfeited. Mrs. Winchester deposed that one night that after the light had been put out, and it had been quiet about half an hour, a large iron candlestick began to move rapidly about the room. Mrs. Winchester could hear no footsteps, but while in the act of attempting to use the “annunciator,” the candlestick was violently thrown at her head, which narrowly missed.

Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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