Haunted Houses

I come across many people in this life...and for some, they feel about me the way they feel about haunted houses.

Creeped out, scared by the chill that courses through them when they think about them. Yet, thrilled, and maybe even a little fascinated, but meant only to be experienced in sporadic doses...

Those eerie, intricately carved gargoyles, woven into the old, worn, stone facade. Staring down at them with their maniacal grins. Forever mistaken for evil, when really they are only meant as protection. Those weathered, shuttered, randomly broken windows that allude to bygone days of glory and beauty and grace. The overgrown flora that masks much of it's many repaired cracks and natural imperfections. It's very presence wielding a disconcertingly soothing effect in it's solidity and consistency, despite it's seemingly neglected appearance.

Drawing their attention and thoughts time and again like a moth to a flame, yet repelling them just the same, and no matter how many times they pass this unchanging house, they're compelled to stop. Even if it's just for a second or two and gaze at the disturbing oddity before them and wonder to themselves.

What kinds of secrets do those walls keep?

How badly would they terrify, yet exhilarate?

What might it be like to wander freely inside?

Would they feel comforted and safe by the strong, oak banisters they grasp, white-knuckled, as they ascend the now creaky, but once grand, staircase it inevitably possesses?

Would they still be able to feel the velvety, soft richness in the remnants of water damaged wallpaper as they slowly trace their fingertips lightly across it's barely recognizable pattern?

What priceless and long forgotten antiques hide beneath those originally pristine, white covers, now sooty and gray with age?

What might they see in the eyes of the painted portraits of former residents that still hang, dusty and askew, on it's cracked, plastered walls?

Would it make them feel alive, if only momentarily?
Only in moments, of course, because no one can really be expected to live in a haunted house, can they?

The bogeyman isn't real, everyone knows that.
BUT..."what if?"
What if he really does exist?
What if he really does reside, ever lurking, in those deeply shadowed interiors?
He might just trap them inside.
Or worse...
He might just steal their soul if they linger too long.

Gripped in fear, their trance finally broken by the realization of their pounding pulse and moistened palms. Spurring their feet into a near run, but not before a final glimpse over their shoulder at the house that they will inevitably return to again and again, yet never enter...