The House on the Hill

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During a thunderstorm, the hill-top house of elderly eccentric Ignatius Potter is hit by lightning. There appears to be no damage to the house, but in the days and weeks after the storm strange things start happening in or around the house:

• it is only early summer, but already plants in the garden of Potter’s house are starting to wither, brown and die as if winter was fast approaching
• dogs will not voluntarily go near the place, growling, yelping and pulling away desperately on their leashes if they are forced past the house
• at night peculiar flickering blue and violet lights can be seen through the windows of the upper floors
• Potter has not been seen at all - not that he was seen much before - but now there is neither sight nor sound of him. Various people swear that they have felt someone unseen peering round the half-drawn curtains whenever they pass the house during the day.

Possibilities

1 Potter is a latter-day Dr Frankenstein, experimenting with electricity as a means of reanimating the dead. This he did during the thunderstorm, but although his experiment succeeded, he was himself killed accidentally and the side-effects have affected plant-growth in a 15-metre radius. Now his semi-intelligent creation wanders the house alone, dully afraid of it knows not what, feeding on whatever it can find (including Potter). Ultimately hunger will drive it from the house. The flickering lights are caused by Potter’s equipment, which is still running.

2 Potter is a sorcerer who has been experimenting with magicks described in an ancient tome. At least one of his spells succeeded on the night in question, but its long-term effect has been to drive the partly-paranoid Potter now completely so.

Potter’s spell-casting has affected plant-growth around the house; the flickering lights are associated with the after-effects of Potter’s magicks. Anyone who approaches the house will be regarded as an enemy; anyone who enters it will be stalked and attacked.

3 Just before the storm Potter decided that the proximity of living plants was inimical to his health. In the middle of the night he took it into his head to spray everything in his garden with weed-killer. The lightning strike has convinced him that aliens are about to attack the Earth, and himself in particular. He has armed himself with a revolver, automatic shotgun and knife and is prepared to sell his life dearly. He knows that aliens are sneaky and quite capable of adopting human guise to take him unawares, even pretending to be people he knows quite well. The lightning strike has affected the electrics of his house, causing the flickering of the lights.

© Tony Hickie