Horror Stories from Horrified - Volume One (2)

T he House in Stepney Green
by Mark Lynch
The house in Stepney Green is a real house, and like no other. I used to
pass it by when I was young and wonder who lived there and what
history lay behind its gates. It stuck with me. I?ll let you decide which
house it is?
It stood behi nd a for t r ess of t r ees, bushes and dense hedges, shr oudi ng i t i n
dar k ness. All except for one single str eetlamp shining a dim light on the pathway
leading to the fr ont door. Of cour se, the house and fr ont door stood behind the
bushes so could only r eally be seen if you w er e to peek thr ough the shr ubs cover ing
the fr ont gate; w hich I did on many occasions w hile passing by. Neither I, nor
anyone else that I knew of, had ever seen a living soul leave or enter the house
pr eviously and yet, ther e always seemed to be a single light shining dimly in one of
the thir d-floor w indow s.
Having gr ow n up in Tow er Hamlets, I?d always been fascinated w ith all the old
houses and their histor y. Always questioning w hat might be going on behind the
closed door s of these illustr ious buildings. For me, ever y home car r ies the
happiness, har dships and achievements of the pr evious families. In my mind, this
didn't necessar ily mean that a place was haunted; just that the pr emises w ould still
hold the aur as in the air.
I was an only child and over the year s I developed a cur ious imagination ? a sense
of needing some slight adventur e in my life ? to make up for not having a sibling to
conver se w ith. Now that I was attending the Queen Mar y Univer sity on the Mile
End Road, w hich was just a stone's thr ow away fr om the myster ious house,
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