13 Haunted Houses by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weird House Press
Published: 2022-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

27 FALSHAM STREET

by Tony Richards

What a hole! was Ian Coster’s first thought. I’m supposed to live in here?

But he didn’t see he had much choice. He couldn’t afford anything better than this.

His gaze went around the room, and that didn’t take very long. It was a narrow, perfectly rectangular room, some twelve feet long by eight feet wide. And there were only three items of furniture in view—a wooden single bed, a tall thin wardrobe of a different-colored wood, and what looked like a chair from someone’s dining set.

The window was a sash one with the glass speckled and smeared. The carpet made a crunching noise when you stepped onto it like you had just stepped on a Brillo pad. And the walls were a mottled brownish color as if somebody had been chain smoking here for several years.

“We don’t take social security,” Mavda pointed out, the burly janitor who’d let him in. “What work you do?”

And when he replied catering, she nodded knowingly.

“Yes, we get a lot of such in here.”

The really odd thing was that this place—27 Falsham Street—was in a very decent, central part of town. South Kensington, with Hyde Park a few minutes’ walk away, several big museums nearby, the Albert Hall accessible on foot. A lot of wealthy people lived here, their expensive cars parked up and down the curbs. But then Ian didn’t come from London and so didn’t know this basic truth... a respectable façade can hide some quite unpleasant secrets.

From the outside, this five story house looked not too different than the rest. But some time back, whoever owned it had had it divided into dozens of small rented rooms. The toilet and the bathroom were both down the hall. The flights of stairs had no carpet at all, and there were very few lights coming up. He’d noticed several flies as well. A pair of them were circling this room’s one electric bulb.

Try looking on the bright side, Ian thought. It’s in the heart of town, and I need that for work. The rent is low, in London terms at least. And I’ll finally be sleeping in a proper bed.

Ever since he’d moved down here from York, he had been sleeping on the couches of his friends.

One of the two flies he’d noticed started buzzing in toward his face. He batted it away with the back of his hand.

“Okay, I’ll take it,” he told Mavda.

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