[Based on True Events]
Author's Note:
This story is inspired by true events surrounding the closure of several psychiatric institutions across Britain in the 1970s and 1980s. While the names and specific events have been changed, the unethical experimentation conducted at various facilities during this period is well-documented.
If you experience any unusual phenomena after reading this story—unexplained sounds, temperature changes, or the persistent feeling of being observed....
~The thing about real horror is that it doesn't announce itself with dramatic music or jump scares. It creeps into your life through the mundane—a creaking floorboard, a door that won't stay closed, or in Sarah Mitchell's case, a cassette tape she found in the basement of her new home.
Sarah was twenty-three, fresh out of uni with a journalism degree that was basically useless in 1987's job market. When her grandmother left her a Victorian townhouse in Leicester's old district, she thought she'd hit the jackpot. Free housing? In this economy? She'd figure out the career stuff later. First, she needed to make this dusty time capsule livable.
The house at 47 Willowbrook Lane wasn't exactly Instagram-worthy—not that Instagram existed back then, but you get the vibe. Three stories of peeling wallpaper, suspicious stains, and that particular smell old houses have, like someone mixed mothballs with regret. The neighbors kept their distance, offering tight smiles and quick nods when she moved in that October. British politeness, she figured. Or maybe they just didn't like outsiders.
It was on her third day, while clearing out the basement, that Sarah found them. Seventeen cassette tapes, neatly labeled with dates ranging from 1979 to 1986, hidden behind a false panel in the wall. The basement itself was already creepy enough—stone walls that wept moisture, a single bulb hanging from a wire, and corners that seemed to swallow light. But those tapes? They were pristine, like someone had been taking care of them.
Being a journalism major with more curiosity than sense, Sarah did what any reasonable person would do: she grabbed her grandmother's old tape player from upstairs and pressed play on the first tape.
October 15, 1979 - Tape 1
The audio quality was surprisingly clear. A man's voice, educated, probably mid-forties, with that specific Leicester accent that's not quite posh but trying to be.
"Testing, testing... Right then. This is Dr. Marcus Bellweather, and I suppose this is what you'd call an audio diary. The wife thinks I'm mad, documenting everything, but after what happened at the Pembridge Institute, I need records. Proper records. They destroyed everything else, didn't they? Burned it all. Said it was a gas leak. Gas leak, my arse. You don't seal off an entire wing for a gas leak. You don't transfer thirty-seven patients in the middle of the night for a bloody gas leak."
Sarah paused the tape. The Pembridge Institute rang a bell. She'd seen it mentioned in some of her grandmother's old newspapers. It was a psychiatric facility that closed down in the early '80s. Something about funding cuts. Nothing unusual there—Thatcher's Britain was full of closures.
She pressed play again.
"I've brought my work home. Had to. Subject 23—though I suppose I should call her Emma now, she's earned a name after all this—she's responding to the treatment in ways we never anticipated. The committee wants me to stop, says it's unethical, but they don't understand. We're so close. So bloody close to understanding what happens when you push human consciousness past its breaking point."
The tape went silent for a moment, then:
"I can hear her sometimes. Emma. Which is impossible, of course. She's still at Pembridge, locked in the observation ward. But I hear her humming that song. That goddamn song she wouldn't stop humming during the sessions. 'Lavender's blue, dilly dilly...' Christ, I need a drink."
Sarah felt her skin prickle. She'd heard someone humming that exact song two nights ago, thought it was just the pipes or something. Old houses made weird noises, right?
October 22, 1979 - Tape 2
"Day seven of home observations. I've set up recording equipment in the spare room—the one in the basement. The wife doesn't know. She wouldn't understand. The temperature drops are consistent with the Pembridge observations. Three degrees Celsius, every time, between 3:17 and 3:23 AM. I've documented twelve instances now."
His voice was different. Excited but exhausted, like someone running on coffee and obsession.
"Emma's getting stronger. Or maybe it's not Emma. Maybe it's what we let through. The committee was right about one thing—we didn't know what we were doing. Sensory deprivation, electromagnetic stimulation, psychotropic compounds... We thought we were exploring consciousness. But consciousness of what? When you strip away every sensation, every anchor to reality, what rushes in to fill the void?"
A long pause. Then, barely audible:
"She's here again. Standing in the corner. Just like at Pembridge. She's trying to tell me something but her mouth... God, what did we do to her mouth?"
Sarah's hands were shaking now. She'd been sleeping in the spare room in the basement because it was the coolest room in the house. The same room this doctor mentioned.
She checked her phone—no, wait, 1987. She checked her watch. 3:15 AM.
The temperature dropped.
Not gradually, but all at once, like stepping into a freezer. Her breath came out in white puffs. The tape player kept going, but the doctor's voice was different now. Panicked.
"She won't stop looking at me. Those eyes... We removed them in Session 17. I know we did. I have the documentation. But she's looking at me with eyes that aren't there and I can see... I can see what's behind them. Oh Christ, I can see it moving."
The tape screeched—that horrible sound of magnetic ribbon being twisted—and then a different voice came through. Younger. Female. Singing.
"Lavender's blue, dilly dilly... Lavender's green... When I am king, dilly dilly... You shall be queen..."
Sarah yanked the headphones off, but the singing continued. Not from the tape player. From the corner of the room. From the exact corner where shadows seemed too thick, too dark.
She grabbed the tape player and ran upstairs, taking the steps three at a time, her heart hammering against her ribs. The front door wouldn't budge. The windows were painted shut—had they always been painted shut? The singing followed her, soft and wrong, like someone trying to remember how vocal cords worked.
November 3, 1979 - Tape 5
Sarah didn't want to play more tapes, but she needed answers. She'd been trapped in the house for three hours before the door suddenly opened on its own, as if it had never been stuck. She'd spent the rest of the night at a shitty hotel, trying to convince herself she'd imagined it all. Carbon monoxide hallucination, maybe. Sleep deprivation. Anything rational.
But the tapes were real. And in the harsh light of morning, with three cups of coffee and every light in the house turned on, she played the fifth tape.
"The committee is dead. All of them. The police are calling it a murder-suicide. Dr. Harriet Wells apparently killed the other six members before hanging herself. The note she left just said 'She won't stop singing.' But I know better. Emma never left Pembridge. Her body is still there, in the morgue. I've seen it. What's here... what followed me home... it's something else. Something that wore Emma like a suit until it didn't need her anymore."
The doctor's voice was hollow now. Defeated.
"I've researched the history of this house. 47 Willowbrook Lane. Built in 1823 on the site of an old plague pit. The Victorians who lived here reported strange incidents. Voices. Cold spots. Objects moving. They sealed the basement in 1891 after a child went missing down there. Found her three days later. Alive but... wrong. She wouldn't stop singing nursery rhymes, even after they sewed her mouth shut."
Sarah's coffee mug shattered. She hadn't dropped it. It just... shattered. Coffee spread across the table like blood.
"I think the house was always the real experiment. Pembridge was just where we found the key. Emma was just the door. And now something's come through. It feeds on observation. On being witnessed. The more you document it, the more real it becomes. These tapes... Christ, these tapes are making it stronger."
November 15, 1979 - Tape 8
Two weeks had passed in the recordings. The doctor sounded different now. Calm. Too calm.
"I understand now. It's not malevolent. It's just... hungry. It exists in the spaces between seconds, in the corner of your eye, in the words you forget as soon as you speak them. It needs anchors to this reality. The tapes. The recordings. The observations. Every time someone listens, it gets a little more solid. A little more here."
Sarah wanted to stop listening, but she couldn't. It was like the words were hooks, pulling her deeper.
"My wife left yesterday. Packed her things while I was recording and just... left. Found a note: 'I can't compete with a ghost.' But Emma's not a ghost. Ghosts are echoes of something that was. This is an echo of something that will be. Something that's learning how to exist by watching us. By wearing our skins and speaking with our voices."
A door creaked on the recording. Footsteps. Bare feet on wood.
"She's coming down the stairs. Every night, 3:23 AM. The same path. The same seventeen steps. I've counted. Always seventeen. Even though there are only fourteen stairs."
Sarah counted the stairs to her basement. Fourteen.
"I see her properly now. After forty-three recordings, she's complete enough to see. She looks like Emma, mostly. But the proportions are wrong. Arms too long. Neck that bends in too many places. And the singing... God, the singing never stops. Even when her mouth is closed, even when her throat is still, the singing continues. It comes from inside. From the hollow spaces where organs should be."
Static filled the tape for thirty seconds. Then:
"I'm going to join her. It's the only way to understand. The only way to complete the experiment. If you're listening to this... I'm sorry. You're part of it now. Every time you hear these words, you make her stronger. Every time you think about her, she thinks about you. And once she knows you're listening... she never stops singing for you."
The tape clicked off.
Sarah sat in perfect silence for exactly six seconds. Then she heard it.
Footsteps. On the stairs.
She counted.
One. Two. Three...
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
The basement had fourteen steps. She'd counted. She was sure.
The door opened.
December 1, 1979 - Tape 12
Sarah didn't remember playing the twelfth tape. She woke up in the basement, the tape player next to her, her fingers covered in dust and something else. Something that looked like very old blood.
The doctor's voice was different now. Younger. Or maybe older. It was hard to tell.
"Day... I've lost count. Time works differently now. Since I joined her. Since I understood. We're conducting new experiments. The living are so limited, aren't they? Bound by physics. By biology. By the cruel joke of linear time. But here, in the spaces between... here we can really explore what consciousness means."
Sarah tried to stand but her legs wouldn't work properly. They bent in the wrong places. When had that started?
"Subject 47 is responding well to observation. Young woman. Journalist. Strong sense of curiosity. She's been listening to the tapes in sequence, just as predicted. The neural pathways are already adapting. She'll be ready soon."
Subject 47. Sarah's house number. Was he talking about... her?
"The beauty of the experiment is its recursion. Each listener becomes a transmitter. Each observer becomes observed. The tapes spread. Digital copies now, in your time. Podcasts. YouTube videos. Creepypastas. Every retelling makes us stronger. Every listener adds to the network."
The voice laughed. It sounded like breaking glass.
"You're probably wondering if you're going mad, Subject 47. If this is real. But that's the wrong question. The question is: when did it become real? When you played the first tape? When you moved into the house? When your grandmother died here, alone, surrounded by these recordings? Or was it always real, waiting for someone with just the right frequency of thought to tune in?"
Sarah's grandmother. She'd died in this house. The lawyers said it was peaceful, in her sleep. But now Sarah remembered something else. The funeral director's strange comment about her expression. "It looked like she was... singing."
December 15, 1979 - Tape 15
"The transformation is nearly complete. Subject 47 has been listening for... how long now? Time is soup here. Thick soup. Full of memories that haven't happened yet. She's starting to see the truth. The walls aren't walls. They're skin. Old skin. The house breathes because it has to. It's been holding its breath for so long."
Sarah could feel it now. The house inhaling and exhaling. The walls pulsing slightly. How had she never noticed?
"Emma wants to meet you properly. Not the shadow Emma you've been seeing. The real one. The one we made. The one we unmade. She's been practicing her song just for you. Your grandmother taught it to her. They became such good friends in those last days. Singing together. Harmonizing. You can harmonize too, can't you, Sarah?"
He knew her name. But these tapes were from 1979. Years before she was born.
"Oh, did you think these recordings were from the past? How quaint. How limited. We record from all times now. Past, present, future—it's all the same frequency if you know how to tune it. Your grandmother is here with us. She's been waiting for you. She has so much to show you."
The singing started again. But this time, Sarah recognized the voice. It was her grandmother's, but wrong. Like someone had taken her voice and stretched it over a frame that didn't quite fit.
"Sarah, dear... come to the basement. Come to the real basement. Not the one you think you know. The one behind the wall. Behind the tapes. Where we kept the good subjects. Where we keep them still."
Sarah's body moved without her permission. Her legs, bending in those impossible angles, carried her to the wall where she'd found the tapes. Her fingers, too long now, far too long, found the edges of another panel.
It opened.
The smell hit her first. Formaldehyde and something sweeter. Rot that had been interrupted, preserved at just the wrong moment. The room beyond was larger than it should be. The basement was only so big, but this room extended far beyond the house's foundation. The walls were lined with gurneys. Dozens of them.
On each gurney was a body. Or part of one. Some were missing pieces—eyes, tongues, hands. Others had extra pieces, grafted on with rough stitches. They were all humming.
In the center of the room was a chair. Your grandmother's chair, Sarah's mind supplied, though she didn't know how she knew that. It was medical equipment pretending to be furniture, all straps and electrodes and stains that could have been rust or could have been something else.
"Sit," her grandmother's voice said from everywhere and nowhere. "It's time for your first session. Dr. Bellweather is so excited to meet you properly. He's been preparing your treatment for forty-three years. Or was it yesterday? Time is soup, remember?"
Sarah sat. She didn't want to, but choice had become another limited human concept she was leaving behind. The straps tightened themselves. The electrodes found their positions on her skull, her temples, her throat.
"Now," Dr. Bellweather's voice said, and she could see him now, standing in the corner. He looked exactly like he sounded, except for the parts that were missing. And the parts that had been added. And the way he moved like a marionette with too many strings.
"Let's begin with a simple baseline. Sing for us, Sarah. Sing the song Emma taught your grandmother. The song your grandmother taught you. The song you've always known."
Sarah opened her mouth. She didn't know the words, had never heard them before, but they came anyway:
"Lavender's blue, dilly dilly... Lavender's dead... When I am nothing, dilly dilly... You'll lose your head..."
January 1, 1980 - Final Tape
The last tape was different. The label was in Sarah's handwriting, though she didn't remember writing it. The date was impossible—January 1, 1980. Tomorrow. Yesterday. Now.
She played it.
Her own voice came through the speakers, but older. Decades older. Or younger. Time was soup.
"Hello, Subject 48. Yes, you. The one listening to this. The one who found these tapes after the Mitchell family tragedy. Oh, haven't heard about that yet? You will. Tomorrow's newspaper. Or yesterday's. 'Young Woman Found in Basement, Apparent Suicide, Body Showed Signs of Extreme Medical Experimentation.' They'll blame drugs. They always do."
The voice laughed. It sounded like Sarah. Exactly like Sarah. If Sarah had spent forty years singing in the dark.
"But you're curious, aren't you? You want to understand what happened here. What really happened. So you'll play the tapes. You'll listen to Dr. Bellweather's experiments. You'll hear about Emma. You'll count the steps—seventeen, always seventeen, even though there are only fourteen. And slowly, so slowly you won't even notice, you'll become part of the experiment."
Static. Breathing. Was it coming from the recording or from behind her?
"The beautiful thing about the truth is that it doesn't care if you believe it. It just is. And the truth is, we're not done. We're never done. Each listener adds their frequency to our choir. Each observer becomes observed. The house at 47 Willowbrook Lane is just one node in a network that spans... well, that would spoil the surprise."
"You're probably thinking you can stop listening. Destroy the tapes. Burn the house. But you're already infected. The song is already in your head. 'Lavender's blue, dilly dilly...' See? You're humming it now. You'll hum it in your sleep. You'll hum it in the shower. You'll hum it until your mouth forgets how to make other sounds."
Sarah realized she was humming. When had she started?
"The tapes will replicate. They always do. Someone will find them. Someone will digitize them. Someone will share them, thinking they're helping, thinking they're warning others. But every share is a spore. Every listen is a root taking hold. We're not a haunting. We're an evolution. And you're already changing."
"Check your fingers, Subject 48. Are they the right length? Check the stairs to your basement. Count them. Count them again. Different number each time, isn't it? That's because you're starting to see the truth. Reality isn't fixed. It's negotiable. And we've been negotiating for forty-three years."
The recording paused. Then, in perfect stereo, from the tape and from directly behind her:
"Welcome to the experiment. Day one of your observation begins... now."
Sarah turned around. The basement was full of people. Or things that used to be people. They all had their mouths open, but the singing came from somewhere deeper. From the spaces where souls should be.
Her grandmother stepped forward, her body moving wrong, like someone puppeting meat.
"Oh, Sarah dear. You're finally ready. Dr. Bellweather has such plans for you. Such wonderful, terrible plans. You're going to help us spread. Every person who reads your story, every person who hears about the tapes, they'll come looking. And they'll find them. Different houses. Different cities. But the same seventeen steps. The same song. The same hunger to understand what happens when you push human consciousness past its breaking point."
Sarah tried to scream, but only singing came out.
"Lavender's blue, dilly dilly..."
Epilogue: The Listing
From RightMove.co.uk, Posted October 15, 2024:
For Sale: 47 Willowbrook Lane, Leicester
Victorian Townhouse - £450,000
Charming period property with original features throughout. Three bedrooms, two reception rooms, spacious basement perfect for conversion. Some modernization required. Previous owner relocated overseas suddenly—quick sale desired.
Viewing highly recommended.
Note from estate agent: Some historical artifacts in basement, including vintage recording equipment and tapes. Fascinating piece of local history! Previous owner was researching the old Pembridge Institute for a documentary that was never completed. All materials included in sale.
The basement has seventeen steps. We've counted them carefully.
Several times.
The number never changes.
Trust us.
The tapes from 47 Willowbrook Lane have been digitized and uploaded to various paranormal research forums. At current count, they have been downloaded 47,000 times. Users report experiencing unusual phenomena after listening: unexplained cold spots, the sound of distant singing, and stairs that seem to have different numbers of steps each time they're counted.
The house remains on the market. Every viewing is attended. No one ever makes an offer.
They all ask about the tapes instead.
The estate agent always smiles and says they're included in the sale. Free of charge. Would you like to take them now? Just to listen? Just to understand?
The cycle continues.
Subject 49 has been identified.
Are you still reading?
Still curious?
The tapes are waiting.