My heart was beating so hard, I thought it would jump right of my bosom and splatter on the floor. A black silhouette emerged through the fog, walking toward me out of a tunnel in the wall. There was no fluidity in the movements. I did not know what to do; I wanted desperately to run away. Although this was an exhilarating experience, it was horrifying. At an unnatural velocity, the apparition bolted towards me. Her eyes were blue and her face all pink and white like a blossom. She was humming an old Danish song as she crossed the open space. I was so consumed with terror as the blood washed out from under her onto the floor. Violently, she raked her razor-sharp fingers down my face. I cast my eyes to the asunder, as ear-piercing squeals echoed through my mansion. An icy thrill of dread ran down my spine and I began to hyperventilate. With the furious and unappeased physical hunger in her eyes, she feasted on my soul and cast a spell over me. With a roar like a lion, she said “I want you to die!”  I could not tell whether her breath was as hot as fire or as cold as ice.  “You will not kill me,” I replied calmly. “You will leave my house at once!” “Your life is worth nothing,” the apparition said. “My Lord Lucifer rules here. Or in his absence, me. I doubt your God will stretch out His hand to save your soul. I have lost my children, all six of them dead by the plague, but you grieve so greatly over one baby.” “I know the pain you are suffering.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

 The apparition looked at me for a long while, assessing my worth. My breath had quickened; my hands were suddenly clammy. With her arms outstretched as if crucified, her flimsy robe billowed and swayed with the currents, and her black hair spread outward in Gorgonian tresses, as she sunk back into the wall in a black gulf of chaos from which it was called. Trembling and terribly affair, I fled up the stairs. My breathing was laboured, its sound harsh in the moonlit bedroom. I forced calmness upon myself, steading my breaths with concentrated effort. My hand gently soothed the skin over my heart. I sank back on my bed, as my heaving chest gradually subsided, staring at emptiness. Through this horror of imminent death, I felt an arm encircle my throat from behind. I struggled as I was dragged backward, but my efforts were feeble. For one brief and peculiarly lucid moment, I was in another time—an instant of déjà vu—fighting weakly, as a rough hand was pulling at me, lifting me. The cold night air rushing over me. Other hands clutched at my clothes, cruelly pinching the flesh beneath. I was rising, being hauled over the bed. As I was being drawn toward the ceiling, something scraped against my back and then I was lying on the mahogany floor. My head light with dizziness. I was convulsed by a coughing fit as I tried to sit upright. I forced myself to stand, feeling someone helping me, but not knowing whom. Using the wall for support, I pushed myself up. I was still weak, still trembling, and I sat on my bed, resting my elbows on knees, face buried in my hands. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

A ray of moonlight shone on the stairs. It pierced the blackness, shifting the atmosphere. Silence was heavy and the emptiness a dark void. No one was around. Cold air surrounded me, causing me to shiver. A bloodcurdling scream echoed off the walls, causing my heart to pound in my chest. Although it was a cherished place, a curious labyrinth of treasured things, my home held a fresh note of terror for me. I knew the heritage of evil lore it masked, and with this knowledge my vision ran riot in queer new ways. Something was constantly watching at a door to see if it were dark enough to venture forth. It could go wherever the darkness reached, but light would always send it fleeing. It is said that the some enlist the Demon’s service, he gives them in exchange his pledge for honours, riches, and carnal pleasures. Often, the pact is formal, and sometimes, verbal, and there are even instances of a signed document. However, in every case, except for mine, it is usually voluntary. The usual initiation into these foul mysteries is through some secret society at an assembly of which the neophyte bounds oneself with terrific oaths and blasphemy to service all evil. However, there are cases which can only be explained by the materialization of dark intelligence who received a bond from the worshipper. On me a curse had fallen in a paroxysm of wrath, and terror, and the fear of death, black phantoms haunted me. Grief filled me as I thought of my beloved husband and baby.  It is perhaps a strange quirk of fate that they both died violently long before their time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Darkness and a thick silence filled the room, the sliver of moonlight was gone. Doom seemed imminent. If was as if my living had unleashed the fury of the wraiths. Suddenly I heard a pounding on the wall, eventually circling the room and causing me a great fright. As I began to look around, I saw smoke rising to the ceiling, and shaping itself into a human form. Its face was twisting and writhing. Although the candlelight was dim, I could see the dead leaves strewn through her wet hair. She let out an angry shriek. Blood from her open wounds dripped onto the floor. My heart pounded and awful feelings were swarming inside of me. Suddenly, I found myself groping about in an almost black space. All I could see were short, faint, horizontal streaks of blueish light. Whenever I moved, I stumbled over something, and at each noise there would come a sort of answering sound from above—a vague stirring, mixed with the cautious sliding of wood on wood. Before my eyes, a kaleidoscopic range of phantasmal images played, all of them dissolving at intervals into the picture of vast, unplumbed abyss of night. I screamed loudly and ran recklessly out of the room, tripping and bruising myself at every turn. A rising wind blew out most of the candles, so that the scene grew threateningly dark. Stumbling blindly across the lightless hall, there was a nightmare flight through a vast cobweb nave whose ghostly arches reached up to realms of leering shadow. Restless and curious sounds could be heard throughout Llanada Villa. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

Suddenly, one of several doors burst open and a dark-haired, dark-suited man barreled out. The lights from the room behind him illuminated his staggered steps. He stumbled to a full stop in front of me. Blood pooled around his knees, pouring like syrup from a gunshot wound in his chest. A dark, cloudy aura of death was surrounding him. I moved back into the shadows. There was a sick, cold certainty that my World was falling into darkness. A hem of shadow had reached my corner of the globe, and without some miracle, without some direct intervention by a wrathful God, this curse would wreak an irrevocable change on my life. I began to pray for a miracle. Wails of pain and horror had penetrated my sanctum, the cries of human suffering echoed through my mind. Uneasy, I returned to the fourth floor. The hallway was empty and dark except for a pale shaft of moonlight slanting through the skylight. Sudden terror tightened along the back of my neck. As I looked out the window, I saw a dark, rangy figure creeping on the lawn, slinking from shadow to shadow then fading into darkness. I tried to say a requiem prayer, but grief-racked my mind and I had lost the words. Beyond the locked door, a faint squeak came from somewhere along the hall. It could have been anything—the wind in the attic, the house settling, but it was long and drawn out; high pitched. Almost like a door opening. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

I dropped to my knees and froze, hands folded in prayer, listening for it again. However, there was nothing but silence. Then there was a rhythmic shuffle in the hall, approaching the door. With my heart pounding frantically against the inner wall of my chest, I rose to my feet and stepped close to the door, listening with my ear almost touching the wood. As if a wave of icy air had penetrated the wood, I felt a sudden chill. A curious sensation came over me. I felt that I was in the presence of something not of this World; something that scientists could neither weigh, measure, nor analyze; of the laws of whose being we know so little, that our imagination has absolutely limitless range. Opening the door, the conviction stealing upon me, that there, before my eyes, was evidence of an existence without the body of a World which, though unseen, unfelt, unknown, might be only near, but absolutely about with me always. How long the figure stood thus, with myself gazing on it in an almost breathless expectancy, I knew not. At last, it moved aside, all but its hand vanishing from my sight; and growing each instant more transparent, relinquished its pointing attitude, seemed to return towards the figure, and with a little waving gesture as of farewell, disappeared as if hidden by folds of drapery. For some time, I could only feel distress and anxiety. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

Somewhere in the house a door crashed. Faint scratching noises, like fingernails clawing at stone, came from inside the walls. My hand shook as I fumbled in the darkness for the doorknob. My fingers caressed the cold metal, and I felt joy race through me. A cold hand crossed over my own and squeezed. The pain was immediate and intense, silencing the scream that begged to be released from my throat. As I stood there for a long time, frozen in my tracks, I could not breathe. I was so startled. I began to see strange sights before my eyes. A large, opaque body darkened the window. Never before had the presence of evil so poignantly oppressed me. Later, I must have dropped asleep, for it was out of a phantasmal chaos that my mind leaped when the night grew hideous with shrieks beyond anything in my former experience or imagination. In the shrieking the inmost soul of human fear and agony clawed hopelessly and insanely in my sanity. Demonic rumblings of thunder shook my mansion. I built a small fire in the living room and waited for the full fury of the storm to hit. Sipping tea, I listened, transfixed, to the wind howling. Pounding torrents of rain, driven by gale force winds, hammered the house. A bolt of lightning struck a tree not fifty feet away. I leapt back, almost falling. Picking up my sleeping dog, I retreated to the safety of my library. I warmed myself before the library fireplace. As I stared vacantly into the fire, a horrible sense of despondency settled over me. I was alone—for the first time in my life—utterly alone. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

The Winchester Mystery House

When a medium visited The Winchester Mystery House in 2007, he walked up the stairs, stopped and turned around—hate was in his eyes. His left hand became strangely stiff, and he had a feeling that someone was murdered here. The minute he got to the top of the stairs, he was seized with fear. He blundered into other rooms before he could get his bearings. He was really scared. “I feel a great tragedy here,” he said, “especially on the staircase where the landing is. I feel an agonizing screaming. In the room directly above this, there is a complete turmoil. A very beautiful woman, I feel, also a man, and I feel there’s been a death here, a death by violence. The woman is fighting for her mentality. The person who is dead in this apartment is the man.” Sometimes a ghost reattaches himself to the last refuge he had on the Earth plane, even though the body may expire elsewhere, and instantly returns to that place, never to leave it again.

Please 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/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/