The Animals Oneshots

~Alan Price~

'This House is Haunted By the Echo of Your Last Goodbye...'

[An AU where Alan is a (handsome ;D) ghost and the reader stumbles into a haunted house. Takes place around 1902. This is based entirely off of the creepy old jazz tune in the video featured above. I recommend listening to it]

The sun was setting just to the west, the hazy orange and golden colors faded away as the darkness and coolness of the night took over. An eeiry layer of mist spread throughout the forest, giving it a haunted atmosphere. Almost like something would jump out at you and scare the living daylights out of you.

You were in the forest, alone, and with nothing to protect you except for a basket of food that you held close to your chest. The woods at night was known for being dark, mysterious, and murderous. Often those who came in at night ended up getting lost or never seen again. Some of them came out just fine, and others came out with odd injuries, and some injuries not so serious. There was said to be all sorts of dangerous people here hiding out in the woods. Former criminals who just couldn't stand prison life often ran off into the woods, and never came back.

But you weren't scared. That's why you took the route of going through the forest instead of hoping onto a fancy horse pulled coach. After all it was expensive, and you worked at a string factory where you didn't get much pay. It would be best to save your money anyway.

As you strolled down the old, worn dirt path, you noticed that there was a sign on a tree. Part of it was covered in shriveled up vines, and the paint on it was slowly being chipped off. Even fungus was growing on the right corner of it. Wrinking your nose, you ripped the vines off of the sign to look at it.

In the most cliché wording possible, the sign read;

'Beware travelers, the abode up ahead is not one to seek out or to live in. For angry spirits live in there, and they would be all too glad to have a tasty snack of a lost traveler...'

Huh, you thought to youself, How strange. Why would a sign be that long? And why would spirits be in that house, They aren't real after all.

You made a quick (and stupid) decision of continuing down the path to this mysterious house. If the woods was anything like people said it was, you wouldn't want to be out there. Being in a so called "haunted house" couldn't be all that bad anyway. It would give you shelter for the night. 

You started down the winding, overgrown path to the house, and tried not to trip on any vegetation.

An owl hooted loudly and swooped down over your head, making you let out a loud scream. You dropped your basket of food and ran as fast as you could down the path, narrowly missing low tree branches that threatened to smack you hard in the face. Your heart rate quickened with each step you took, and your breath became shorter and shorter the longer you ran. 

Just when you thought the house was non-existent, it appeared in front of you.

The house was Victorian gothic styled and stood at least four stories tall. Two tower-like parts of the building stood out, with the windows on them fogged up with cobwebs. The colors of the brooding house was a neutral shade of purple mixed in with a dark grey color. The shingles on the roof of the house were black and hardly stable. Some of them were laying off to the side or directly on top of each other where they shouldn't have been, or were on the ground. Small sprouts of trees were on the roof, and vines crawled up the left side of the house.

There was a large porch in front of the door. Remains of rotting screens that sheltered the once enclosed porch was still there, but not many of them were. The porch boards were a sickly shade of moldy green and black. A few of them were missing. The rails that lined the porch started out strong at the entryway, then as they went off towards the side, each one seemed to be drooping over into the overgrown bushes below.