A Horror Story | Halloween Story | Scary Story | Improve English

[Music] my name is jack collis and every word of this story is true although many people probably won't believe it these days people need a logical explanation before they believe anything if you want an explanation like that perhaps my wife laura and i just imagined everything that happened to us on that 31st of october 1893. i'll let you the reader decide when i became engaged to laura we knew we wouldn't have much money when we married i used to paint in those days and laura wrote living in town was expensive so we started looking for

a country cottage something pretty but with an inside toilet to live in after we were married we searched in newspaper advertisements for some time but all the cottages that we visited with inside toilets looked terrible and all the pretty ones had no inside toilets [Music] on our wedding day we were still homeless but on our honeymoon we found the perfect place it was in brazil a little village on a hill in the south not far from the coast we'd gone there from the seaside town where we were staying to visit the church nearby we found

a pretty cottage with a bathroom standing all alone about two miles from the village it was a long low building with flowers around it all that was left of a big old house which had once stood here we decided to rent it at once it was awfully cheap we spent the rest of our honeymoon buying old furniture from shops in the nearby market town and new curtains and chair covers from one of the big shops up in london and the place soon began to feel like home it was easy to work there i never got

tired of painting the countryside and the wonderful sky i could see through the open window and laura sat at the table and wrote about all of it and about me we found a tall old woman from the village to cook and clean for us she was tidy skilled at cooking and understood everything about gardens she also told us the old names of the places nearby and tales of robbers who'd once lived there and of ghosts who sometimes met people in the neighborhood when it was late at night she was the perfect servant for us laura

hated cooking and cleaning and i loved listening to old stories so we left mrs dorman to manage the cottage and used her old tales in stories with pictures that we sent to magazines which helped to bring in some money we had three months of married happiness and never argued then one october evening i went to visit our only neighbor dr kelly a pleasant irishman for a talk and a smoke of my pipe i left laura all smiles writing a funny magazine story about village life but when i came back i found her sitting on the

window seat crying what's the matter i asked oh jack it's mrs dorman she moaned she says she has to go before the end of the month to care for her sick niece but i don't believe her because her niece is always ill i think someone's turned her against us she seemed so strange when she spoke to me don't worry dearest i said but don't you see if she leaves none of the other villagers will want to come here and i'll have to cook and wash plates and you'll have to clean knives and forks and we

won't have time for writing or painting i'll speak to mrs dorman when she comes back i said trying to calm her down perhaps she wants more money it'll be all right let's walk up to the church the church was large and lovely and we enjoyed going there on nights when the moon was full the path to it went through a wood past two fields and round the churchyard wall it had been the old way they used to take coffins to the church for funerals there were lots of dark trees in the churchyard the church door

was a heavy wooden one and the windows were of coloured glass inside there were rows of dark wooden seats and at the eastern end there were two grey marble figures of old knights in armor one on each side lying on their tombs strangely you could always see them even if the rest of the church was nearly in darkness their names were lost in the past but the villagers said they'd been wild and terrible men and that one night in a great storm lightning had struck their big old house and destroyed it interestingly this was the

place where now our cottage stood for all that their sons gold had bought them the place in the church where they were buried looking at their hard proud marble faces it was easy to believe the story was true the church looked at its best and strangest that evening we sat down together without speaking and stared for a time at the fine stone walls around us we walked over to look at the sleeping nights then we went out and rested on the seat by the church door looking across the fields while the sun went down as

we came away we felt that even doing the cooking and cleaning ourselves wasn't really so bad when we arrived home mrs dorman had come back from the village i asked her to come into my painting room for a short talk mrs dorman i said when we were alone aren't you happy here with us oh no sir you and your dear lady have always been most kind to me aren't we paying you enough no sir i get quite enough then why don't you want to stay with us my niece is ill she said uneasily i must

leave before the end of the month but your niece has been ill since we arrived a long uncomfortable silence followed i broke it can't you stay for another week no sir i must go by thursday but perhaps i can come back to you next week i was now sure all she wanted was a short holiday but why must you leave this week i asked she looked nervous and went on slowly they say sir that this was a big house in the old days and that many strange dark things happened here the owners when young men

loved nothing better than attacking robbing and killing both men and women on land and sea they were dangerous men sir and no one stood up against them so year by year they went from bad to worse in the end their terrible crimes against nature and all the deaths of the poor little children from the villages nearby brought the lightning down from the sky to destroy them i was pleased that laura wasn't in the room with us she was always nervous and i felt that these old stories would perhaps make our house less dear to her

tell me more mrs dorman i said please i'm not like lots of young people these days who laugh at strange things like that this was true in a way i loved her stories although i didn't really believe them well sir she began in a low voice perhaps you've seen the two figures in the church you mean the knights i said cheerfully i mean those two bodies man size in marble they say that at halloween those two bodies sit up and get off their tombs and that as the church clock strikes eleven they walk in their

marble out of the church door over the graves and along the path and where do they go i asked interestedly they come back here to their house sir and if anyone meets them well what happens i asked but i couldn't get another word from her although she warned me lock the house early on halloween sir and make the sign of the cross over the door and windows but who was here at halloween last year no one sir the lady who owned the house only stayed in the summer and always went to london a full month

before the night i'm sorry to bring trouble to you and your lady but my niece is ill and i must go on thursday she decided she would go and that nothing we could say would stop her i didn't tell laura the tale of the figures that walked in their marble i didn't want to upset her this was i felt different from mrs dorman's other stories and i didn't want to talk about it until the day was passed i was painting a picture of laura in front of the window all that week and while i worked

on it i couldn't stop thinking about the tale of the two nights on thursday mrs dorman left saying to laura as she went don't go out too much madam and if there's anything i can do for you next week i'll be happy to help from that i understood she wished to come back after halloween though to the end she continued with the story of her sick niece thursday went well laura cooked a lovely dinner and i washed the knives forks and plates not too badly afterwards soon friday came and it's what happened then that this

story is really about [Music] everything that happened on that day is burned into my memory and i'll tell the story as clearly as i can i got up early i remember and had just managed to light the kitchen fire when my lovely wife came running downstairs as bright as that clear october morning we enjoyed making breakfast together and washing the plates and knives afterwards we cleaned and tied it all morning and then had cold meat and coffee for lunch laura seemed if possible even sweeter than usual and the walk that we took together that afternoon

was the happiest time of my life when we'd watched the sun go down and the evening mist thicken in the fields we came back to the house silently hand in hand you're sad dearest i said as we sat down together in our little sitting room yes i am she replied or a little uneasy i don't think i'm very well i've shivered two or three times since we came in and it isn't cold in here is it you haven't caught a cold from the mist have you i asked her worriedly i don't think so she said

then she added suddenly jack do you ever feel something evil's going to happen no i smiled i don't believe in that kind of thing i do she went on the night my father died i knew it although he was far away in the north of scotland we sat watching the fire for some time in silence in the end she jumped up and kissed me suddenly don't worry about me she said i'm better now what a baby i am let's play some music together so we spent a happy hour or two at the piano at about

half past 10 i felt i needed my pipe laura looked so white i felt it would be awful to smoke inside so i said i'll take my pipe outside i'll come too not tonight dearest go to bed you look really tired i kissed her and was turning to go when she threw her arms round my neck and held me close saying i never want to let you go don't stay out too long i won't i walked slowly out of the front door leaving it unlocked what a night it was the sky was full of dark

clouds hurrying by and a thin mist covered the stars the moon swam high up sometimes disappearing behind the fast-moving cloud river and sometimes shining down on the trees which waved slowly and noiselessly below there was a strange grey light that night which shone over all the earth i walked up and down everything was silent the wind was so high in the sky even the dead leaves on the path were still and quiet across the fields i could see the church tower standing black against the sky i heard the church bell striking it was eleven o'clock

already i turned to go into the cottage but the night held me i couldn't go back into our warm rooms just yet i decided to walk over to the church i felt in a strange way i should offer up my thanks there for my faithful loving wife i imagined then our long sweet life together as i walked slowly along the edge of the wood a sound from among the trees broke the stillness of the night i could clearly hear footsteps that echoed mine it's probably a villager looking for fallen branches for their fire or hoping

to catch some forest animal under cover of darkness i thought but he really should learn to step more lightly i turned into the wood now the footsteps seemed to come from the path behind me it must be an echo i said to myself soon i was crossing the churchyard i stopped for a while at the seat where laura and i had watched the sun go down then i saw the church door was open i felt bad about not closing it well on our last visit for we were the only people who came there except on

sundays then suddenly i remembered this was the day and the hour when the villagers believed the shapes in man-sized marble began to walk i knew i had to go into the church i planned to tell mrs dorman i'd seen the nights there at 11 o'clock on halloween and that her tale was just a crazy story nothing more when i walked inside everything was in darkness as i went towards the eastern end of the church it seemed strangely larger then the moon came out and showed me the reason the man-sized marble bodies were gone was i

going crazy i went forward and put my hand out to touch the flat tops of the tombs had someone stolen them a sudden nameless fear filled my heart and i shivered something unbelievably evil was going to happen i knew i ran from the church biting my lip to stop myself from screaming i hurried across the fields towards the light that shone from our cottage window suddenly a black figure jumped out of the blackness in front of me i ran towards it crazily shouting get out of my way but a hand took my arm and held

it strongly the big irish doctor shook me repeatedly hey there he cried let me go i shouted you don't understand the marble figures have gone from the church he laughed long and loud at that [Laughter] you've been listening to too many old village tales he said i've seen the empty tombs i tell you look come with me i'm going over to old palmers his daughter's ill we can stop at the church on the way and you can show me what you think you saw all right i said he still held my arm as we entered

the church and walked to the eastern end of it i had my eyes closed i knew that the figures wouldn't be there i heard kelly strike a match here they are said the doctor as large as life i opened my eyes and by the light of kelly's match i saw the two shapes lying in their marble on the tombs thank you i said perhaps it was a trick of the light or perhaps i've been working too hard i can't understand it i was sure they were gone i know just don't let your thoughts run away

with you he was looking closely at the figure on the right whose stony face was the most evil and deadly will you look at that he said pointing the hand on this one's broken he was right but i was sure that the last time laura and i had been there it had been perfect perhaps someone was trying to steal them he said calmly that still doesn't explain what i thought i saw too much painting and too much of your old pipe explains that he laughed let's go i said feeling a little better my wife will

be worried come and have a glass of whiskey with me we'll drink to logical explanations and to hell with ghosts all right it's late i'll go to old palmers in the morning he replied perhaps he thought that i needed his help more than palmer's daughter so talking of different explanations for ghosts we walked back to our cottage as we came nearer i saw the light shining out of the front door the sitting room door was open too had laura gone out come in i said and dr kelly followed me into the sitting room it was

brightly lit by candles all over the place light i remembered was laura's answer to nervousness poor girl i thought i'd been so stupid to leave her but where was she [Music] then i turned to the open window and saw her had she gone there to watch for me and what had come into the room behind her to what had she turned with her face full of horror my poor wife had she thought it was my footsteps she'd heard as she turned to meet what she'd fallen back across a table by the window and her body

lay half on it and half on the window seat her head was thrown back her long untied hair was touching the carpet her lips were poured back from her teeth and her eyes were wide open in fear they saw nothing now what had they seen last the doctor moved towards her but i pushed him to one side and ran to her crying it's all right laura you're safe now her soft body fell against mine i held her and kissed her calling her dear name again and again laura laura laura but i think i knew already

laura that she was dead both her hands were closed in one of them she held something very strongly when i was quite sure she was dead and that nothing mattered anymore i let dr kelly open that hand to see what it held it was a gray marble finger [Music] you