House Number Three

There was something strange about House Number 3, and it's not anything to do with the numbering of it. The house is sitting in between house Number 14 and Number 15. The number (3) was written on a rectangular wooden board and hung on a short chain to the rusted chain-link fence. First-time visitors may not see that as out of place.

Not until they notice the next house is 14 and one before number 3 is 15. Then, they might think that may be a mistake from the painter as he would have omitted the digit (1) while writing 13. Again, such an assumption is shattered as you could see House Number Three, in words, written boldly in black on the faded brick wall of the house.


It was a two-storey building. It is a big house with a bigger space within which is mostly lawns which are now overrun by weeds. You could tell the house must have once been a thing of beauty, owned by a wealthy person with a taste for the big and the beautiful. But at the moment, it looks abandoned with all the lawn's grasses overgrown leaving only the cemented footpath free of weeds.

Whenever I pass this house, I have this feeling of being watched. On that day, against my better judgment, I decided to turn around and confirm. Just as I turned, a curtain was drawn hastily over one of the windows of the room on the last floor. Could it be my imagination playing tricks on me?

I learned that the house was abandoned and uninhabited ever since the owner died with the family in a fatal road accident some years ago. The owner, Mr. Robert, was an unscrupulous businessman. He made much of his money by running a loan shark business with other side business that included gambling, and extortion.

Although his death was tragic, the news came as a relief to many poor families who used their lands as collateral to loans they took which some are unable to pay back due to the outrageous interests he charges. The story had it that Mr. Robert did not die on the spot, but his wife and kid did.

He died on the third day, but before his death, a young nurse attending to him said he whispered something to her that both confused and puzzled her. He whispered this, "They will never find them alive." The nurse had heard people say all sorts of things as they are coming off anesthesia. But Robert was not on any form of a hallucinogenic drug. She put it to delirium as he was in great pain from a partially severed foot.

I continued on my way home and with time forgot the house, with its creepy window watcher, as I fight for some peace in this unkind world. It is ironic how fighting for peace and dying to live is a phrase a lot of people like to use to express themselves. Can we use a bad thing to get a good thing? The world is indeed a strange place and with each passing day gets stranger.

I found myself on that street again and immediately thought of the house. I approached the location with trepidation. "Don't be such a chicken it's only an abandoned old house!" I thought to myself as a way to bolster my failing courage.


Finally, I looked up when I got to number three, and there was no house in sight! I erroneously thought the house had disappeared. A closer look revealed that it had fallen.

Not surprising as I remembered the heavy thunderstorm sometime in the week that destroyed a lot of houses and electric utility poles.





It must have been the cause of this collapse. I later confirmed that was the cause and I breathed a sigh of relief. No more creepy house.


Some weeks later the local government brought in some bulldozer to level the house as the still standing section of the house as it might constituent a danger to anyone that may go there. Two days into the clearing, the bulldozer encountered a cemented section that looks like a vault. When it was pushed down something that looks like the skeletons of three human beings were found. A rusted chain held the three of them together. It was later confirmed to be humans. There is still an ongoing investigation to ascertain the identities of these three unfortunate individuals. I have no hope it would be solved.


To this day, I still have a phobia for house numbered three. Are you living in House Number Three?

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^{This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.}

^{All images are courtesy of pixabay.com}

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@greenrun ... still running :)