Short horror stories

The old house stood silent, its windows like vacant eyes watching the street. Inside, the new owner, a young woman with a vibrant spirit, hummed a tune as she began the arduous task of stripping wallpaper. Her boyfriend, elsewhere in the house, was already dismantling kitchen cabinets, oblivious to the strange patterns emerging from beneath the layers of floral print.

Peeling back a particularly stubborn corner, she noticed something odd—a faded inscription on the plaster beneath. A name, followed by a date. She shrugged it off, attributing it to a previous owner's quirky habit, and moved to the next room, the rhythmic scrape of the wallpaper steamer a lonely sound in the cavernous space. Little did she know, each peel brought her closer to a revelation far more grotesque than she could ever imagine.