The House on Ash Lane

M Mehran Nobody in town went near the house on Ash Lane after dark. The windows were always dark, the garden wild, the air heavy with silence. Children dared each other to touch its rusted gate, but even the bravest sprinted away before pushing it open.

For most people, the house was just a story, a rumor to scare newcomers. But for Claire, it was a mystery she couldn’t ignore.

She was a journalist for the local paper, always chasing small-town tales, always hungry for something real. When whispers about “screams from the house” and “lights flickering at midnight” reached her desk, she knew she had to see for herself.

On a cold October evening, she set out with nothing but her notebook, flashlight, and recorder.

The gate groaned when she pushed it open, the sound slicing through the night. Weeds brushed her ankles as she walked the path, and the front door loomed taller with every step.

Inside, the air was stale, tinged with mold and something metallic—like rust… or blood. Dust cloaked the furniture, and broken picture frames lay scattered on the floor. Her flashlight beam caught glimpses: peeling wallpaper, a rocking chair that moved slightly though no one sat in it, a staircase yawning into darkness.

“Just the wind,” Claire whispered, though the house was perfectly still.

She clicked on her recorder. “October 12th. Entered the Ash Lane house at 8:47 p.m. Initial impressions: abandoned, but—”

A creak.

Claire froze. The sound had come from upstairs.

Her instincts screamed to leave, but curiosity rooted her in place. She climbed the staircase, each step groaning louder than the last. The air grew colder, her breath fogging in front of her. At the top, her flashlight flickered.

“Not now,” she muttered, shaking it. The light steadied, revealing a hallway of closed doors. She picked the nearest one and turned the handle.

The room beyond was a child’s bedroom. Faded wallpaper of stars and moons clung to the walls. A doll sat upright on the bed, its glass eyes fixed on the door. The air smelled faintly of rot.

Claire lifted her recorder again. “Evidence of a child’s room. Strange that the doll seems—”

The doll’s head turned.

Claire gasped, stumbling back. The flashlight slipped from her hand, rolling across the floor. In the shifting beam, she saw the doll rise slowly to its feet.

“No,” she whispered. “That’s not possible.”

But the doll’s tiny porcelain lips cracked open, and a child’s voice rasped: “Get out.”

The room plunged into darkness.

Claire snatched up the flashlight, her hands trembling. When she flicked it back on, the doll was gone.

Panic clawed at her chest. She bolted from the room, running blindly down the hall. Behind her, tiny footsteps pattered, faster and faster. A laugh—high-pitched, hollow—echoed down the corridor.

She burst into another room and slammed the door. Her flashlight beam landed on a cracked mirror hanging crookedly on the wall.

Her reflection stared back—only it wasn’t her.

The face in the glass was pale, eyes sunken, lips stitched shut with black thread. Its head tilted slowly, as though studying her. Then, without warning, it raised a hand and pressed it against the inside of the mirror.

Claire’s scream tore from her throat. She stumbled backward as cracks spidered across the glass. The stitched-lip reflection pushed harder, its hollow eyes fixed on her.

She spun and ran, tearing through the hall, down the stairs, toward the front door. But when she reached it, the door was gone. In its place stood a wall of rotting wood.

“No, no, no—” She clawed at it, her fingernails splitting.

The laughter returned, louder now, echoing from every direction. The walls seemed to close in, the house groaning as though alive.

Her recorder crackled in her pocket. She yanked it out, hoping to capture proof. But instead of her own voice, a child’s whisper hissed from the speaker: “She belongs to us now.”

Claire dropped the recorder, her chest heaving.

And then, silence.

When her flashlight flickered again, she found herself standing in the child’s bedroom once more. The doll was back on the bed, its porcelain head cocked at an unnatural angle.

This time, its glass eyes blinked.

The last thing Claire saw before the light died was the doll’s tiny hand reaching for hers.


---

The next morning, the townsfolk noticed something strange. The house on Ash Lane no longer looked abandoned. Its windows glowed faintly, as if someone were inside.

On the gate, hanging by a rusted chain, was a recorder. When one brave soul pressed play, a woman’s trembling voice filled the air:

“October 12th. Entered the Ash Lane house at 8:47 p.m. Initial impressions: abandoned, but…”

Then static.

No one ever saw Claire again.

And at night, if you walk past Ash Lane, you might hear her voice whispering from behind the windows, begging you to come inside.