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Speaker 1: The Spook House by Ambrose Bierce, on the road leading

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north from Manchester and eastern Kentucky to Boonville, twenty miles away,

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stood in eighteen sixty two a wooden plantation house of

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somewhat better quality than most of the dwellings in that region.

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The house was destroyed by fire in the year following,

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probably by some stragglers from the retreating column of General

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George W. Morgan when he was driven from Cumberland Gap

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to the Ohio River by General Kirby Smith. At the

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time of its destruction, it had for four or five

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years been vacant. The fields about it were overgrown with brambles,

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the fences gone, Even the few negro quarters and out

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houses generally fallen partly into ruin by neglect and pillage.

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For the negroes and poor whites of the vicinity found

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in the building and fences an abundant supply of fuel,

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of which they availed themselves without hesitation, openly and by daylight,

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by daylight alone after nightfall, no human being except passing

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strangers ever went near the place. It was known as

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the spook House, that it was tenanted by evil spirits, visible,

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audible and active no one in all that region doubted

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any more than he doubted what he was told of

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Sundays by the traveling preacher. Its owner's opinion of the

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matter was unknown. He and his family had disappeared one night,

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and no trace of them had ever been found. They

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left everything household goods, clothing, provisions, the horses in the stable,

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the cows in the field, the negroes in the quarters.

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All as it stood, nothing was missing except a man,

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a woman, three girls, a boy, and a babe. It

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was not altogether surprising that a plantation where seven human

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beings could be simultaneously effaced and nobody the wiser, should

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be under some suspicion. One night in June eighteen fifty nine,

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two citizens of Frankfort, Colonel J. C. Mc cardell, a lawyer,

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and Judge Myron Vay of the State Militia, were driving

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from Booneville to Manchester. Their business was so important that

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they decided to press on despite the darkness and the

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mutterings of an approaching storm, which eventually broke upon them

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just as they arrived opposite the spook House. The lightning

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was so incessant that they easily found their way through

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the gateway and into a shed, where they hitched and

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unharnessed their team. They then went to the house through

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the rain and knocked at all the doors without getting

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any response, attributing this to the continuous uproar of the thunder,

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they pushed at one of the doors, which yielded. They

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entered without further ceremony, and closed the door. That instant

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they were in darkness and silence. Not a gleam of

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the lightning's unceasing blaze penetrated the windows or crevices, Not

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a whisper of the awful tumult without reached them. There

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it was as if they had suddenly been stricken, blind

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and deaf, and mac Cardle afterwards said that for a

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moment he believed himself to have been killed by a

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stroke of lightning as he crossed the threshold. The rest

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of this adventure can as well be related in his

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own words from the Frankfort Advocate of August sixth, eighteen

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seventy six. When I had somewhat recovered from the dazing

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effect of the transition from uproar to silence, my first

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impulse was to reopen the door which I had closed,

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and from the knob of which I was not conscious

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of having removed my hand. I felt it distinctly still

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in the clasp of my fingers. My notion was to ascertain,

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by stepping again into the storm, whether I had been

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deprived of sight and hearing. I turned the door knob

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and pulled open the door. It led into another room.

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This apartment was suffused with a faint greenish light, the

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source of which I could not determine, making everything distinctly visible.

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Though nothing was sharply defined everything I say, but in truth,

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the only objects within the blank stone walls of that

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room were human corpses. In number, they were perhaps eight

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or ten. It may well be understood that I did

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not truly count them. They were of different ages, or

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rather sizes, from infancy up, and of both sexes. All

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were prostrate on the floor, excepting one, apparently a young woman,

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who sat up her back supported by an angle of

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the wall. A babe was clasped in the arms of

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another and older woman. A half grown lad lay face

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downward across the legs of a full bearded man. One

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or two were nearly naked, and the hand of a

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young girl held the fragment of a gown which she

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had torn open at the breast. The bodies were in

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various stages of decay, all greatly shrunken in face and figure.

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Some were but little more than skeletons. While I stood

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stupefied with horror at this ghastly spectacle, and still holding

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open the door, by some unaccountable perversity, my attention was

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diverted from the shocking scene and concerned itself with trifles

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and details. Perhaps my mind, with an instinct of self preservation,

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sought relief in matters which would relax its dangerous tension.

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Among other things, I observed that the door that I

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was holding open was of heavy iron plates, riveted equi

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distant from one another, and from the top and bottom.

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Three strong bolts protruded from the beveled edge. I turned

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the knob and they were retracted. Flush with the edge,

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released it and they shot out. It was a spring lock.

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On the inside there was no knob, nor any kind

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of projection, a smooth surface of iron. While noting these

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things with an interest and attention which it now astonishes

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me to recall, I felt myself thrust aside and judge

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they whom in the intensity and vicissitudes of my feelings

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I had altogether forgotten. Pushed by me into the room.

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For God's sake, I cried, do not go in there,

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Let us get out of this dreadful place. He gave

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no heed to my entreaties, But as fearless a gentleman

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as lived in all the South, walked quickly to the

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center of the room, knelt beside one of the bodies

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for a closer examination, and tenderly raised its blackened and

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shriveled head in his hands. A strong, disagreeable odor came

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through the doorway, completely overpowering me. My senses reeled, I

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felt myself falling, and in clutching at the edge of

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the door for support, pushed it shut with a sharp click.

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I remember no more. Six weeks later I recovered my

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reason in a hotel at Manchester, whither I had been

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taken by strain the next day. For all these weeks

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I had suffered from a nervous fever attended with constant delirium.

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I had been found lying in the road several miles

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away from the house. But how I had escaped from

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it to get there I never knew. On recovery or

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as soon as my physicians permitted me to talk. I

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inquired the fate of Judge Vay, whom to quiet me

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as I now know they represented as well, and at

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home no one believed a word of my story, and

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who can wonder and who can imagine my grief? When

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arriving at my home in Frankfort two months later, I

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learned that Judge Fay had never been heard of since

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that night. I then regretted bitterly the pride which, since

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the first few days after the recovery of my reason,

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had forbidden me to repeat my discredited story and insist

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upon its truth. With all that afterward occurred the examination

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of the house, the failure to find any room corresponding

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to that which I have described, the attempt to have

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me adjudged insane, and my triumph over my accusers. The

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readers of The Advocate are familiar. After all these years,

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I am still confident that excavations which I have neither

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the legal right to undertake nor the wealth to make,

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would disclose the secret of the disappearance of my unhappy friend,

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and possibly of the former occupants and owners of the

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deserted and now destroyed house. I do not despair of

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yet bringing about such a search, and it is a

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source of deep grief to me that it has been

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delayed by the undeserved hostility and unwise incredulity of the

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family and friends of the late Judge Vay. Colonel mac

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Cardle died in Frankfort on the thirteenth day of December

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in the year eighteen seventy nine, and of the spook

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House