The House On Hanging Lane

The House On Hanging Hill.

Every town has one. The house that everyone avoids. It always has a questionable history; no one really knows if the tales are true, but they're told all the same. This particular house, in this particular town has the darkest and most mysterious tale of them all. Now like the rest of them, the truth to this tale is also questionable, but it's thrilling all the same. This particular house sits in the farthest corner of town. All its glory can be observed on a cold winter morning. The type of cold that turns your breath into mist, the cold that numbs your nose, all the way to your toes. When the days are short and dark. Then, this house shows it's dark, twisted colours. The house itself is an old Victorian styled manor, now overrun with weeds and tangled bushes. The leaves on the trees that frame this house glisten with rain droplets, the green of the leaves dull from winter touch. The once beautiful manor is covered with vines and ivy that snake up the sides of the house. The roof is plagued by moss and missing tiles. The path leading to the door is riddled with cracks and weeds poking through. The windows are bordered up with chipped waterlogged wooden planks. The houses rusty, high wrought iron fence gates the house from the outside world. The black paint on walls is peeling off and chipped. The black dead soil the house is built on is marked with lies, death and misery. It stands alone at the end of the street with no name, so it goes under a name it's earned over the years. The house on Hanging Lane.

People say many things about this house. Being a small town, rumours spread fast. Kids used to dare each other to get the closest to the house and throw rocks. But now everybody avoids it. Kids say they've seen figures in the trees around the house. People say they've heard footsteps while they've been there alone. They say they've heard shrieks from inside the house, screams so blood curdling it will stop you in your tracks. Raise the hair on the back of your neck and give you goosebumps all over. But the most popular tale, is the story of the brave soul who dared to step foot inside. The poor soul who never came out. The story of Benjamin Wells, the twenty-eight year old accountant who was never seen again after 1993. Let me tell you his story...

Benjamin was born in 1965. He grew up in Mississippi and craved a small town, humble life. When he was 19 after graduating from school he moved to the small town where this house is. He didn't go to college, he avoided crowds and decided to stick to smaller scenes. After moving to this town he set up his own accounting firm and did the accounts of the local towns folk. He did this for 8 years never venturing to the house, until the night of his mysterious vanishing. The story goes that after closing on one cold damp night, he locked up shop and walked home. His home wasn't far from the house. The rain drizzled down as his footsteps splashed on the wet street. His glasses were flecked with rain. The icy breeze ripped through his jacket and stung his nostrils. Being a straight edge man, he didn't believe in ghosts or the supernatural. He wanted to confront the house that had caused terror in this small town. That was a fatal thought. The horrors in that house took Benjamin as their own. The next morning he was found hanging by the neck from the top floor balcony. The townsfolk say after dark on a cold winters night you can hear Ben's screams for help inside the house. Others say you'll see his lifeless body, riddled with decay still hanging from the bannisters. This tale is mostly told by older siblings to scare their little brothers and sisters, or by parents to stop kids going near it at night. It never told as a factually sound story. Little do the towns people know just how true it is. All stories come from a kernel of truth...

Aside from the tales told about the House on Hangings Lane, the dark, twisted, little known past is the most enthralling. If you asked someone about the house, apart from the ghost stories, they'll tell you it was built by an old craftsman in the early 1900s. Nothing more nothing less. It is unknown where this depiction of haunting comes from, aside from its less than appealing exterior. What they don't tell you, or rather, what they don't know, is the true nature of this house and its owner... Dr. Clauberg was a German doctor who lived in this town from 1903 until his mysterious death in 1942. He took the local townspeople in as patients. From cough remedies to organ surgery Dr. Clauberg did it all. However he himself was mentally unstable. He was the most sadistic and inhuman person to ever come across. He had a passion for taxidermy which covered all surfaces of his manor. It was believed that his surgeries that promised to cure his patients, were in fact means to perform taxidermy on humans. In the basement of this house if you dared to venture, you might find countless bodies, transformed into everlasting figures as a reminder of his twisted hobbies. Dr. Clauberg lived alone for his entire life, and if a patient ever crossed his doorstep, they were lucky to leave. For those who he did not preserve, Dr. Clauberg performed medical experimentation. Transplanting organs, limbs and trying all sorts of experimental drugs. Those who did not survive were buried in his back garden, their decaying bodies plaguing the soil. For those who did, they were locked up and observed. This went on until his untimely death. At age 63, the barbaric doctor no longer terrorised the patients of this town. They story goes he hung himself from the top story balcony. Why? Well that's the greatest mystery of all. What could possess the man who embodied evil, to end his own life?

The house remains the same since his death. Who knows whether the house contains Dr. Claubergs barbaric tools and human taxidermy. Whether the garden contains hundreds of decaying bodies. Is the house really haunted?

Why don't you go and have look inside...