The Shunned House

A narrator describes a long-abandoned Providence house that local memory links to an abnormal number of illnesses and early deaths. Together with an antiquarian relative he examines records, neighborhood lore, and the building itself—noting damp cellars, phosphorescent fungal growths, and an odd whitish deposit on the floor—to reconstruct a generations-long blight. Their investigation combines archival digging and careful physical inspection, leading to a direct encounter with a formless, parasitic horror rooted beneath the structure; the account emphasizes brooding atmosphere, the slow corrosion of body and mind, and the collision of empirical inquiry with uncanny dread as they attempt to halt the malign influence.