The following episode contains descriptions of gore and psychological horror. We advise extreme caution for children under 13.

Here is an excerpt from the short story, The Kitbag by Algernon Blackwood. It is difficult to say exactly at what point fear begins when the causes of that fear are not plainly before the eyes. Impressions gather on the surface of the mind, filmed by film as ice gathers upon the surface of still water, but often so lightly that they claim no definite recognition from the consciousness. Then a point is reached where the accumulated impressions become a definite emotion and the mind realizes that something has happened.

Hi, everyone, I'm Alastair Murden, and this is the newest Spotify original from podcast Haunted Places, Ghost Stories Assister series to podcast Haunted Places. Ghost stories have arisen from every century and every corner of the world, from the streets of Victorian Whitechapel to the swamps of Bangladesh with a seated around the campfire or curled up with a pair of headphones. We return to them time and again to feel our skin crawl and our hearts race. Each week, Ghost Stories reimagines a chilling paranormal tale from one of history's most sinister storytellers told like you've never heard them before.

You can find episodes of this and other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Today's story comes from the early 20th century English author Algernon Blackwood. It captures the mounting dread one feels at the cusp of a paranormal encounter. When the shadow stands at the corner of our vision, when we can still pray that it's just a figment of our imagination before we look and see the truth that we are not alone. We have Algernon Blackwood's The Kitbag coming up.

Stay with us. My name is Johnson, and the story I'm about to tell you recounts the worst evening of my 26 years. Ironically, the few friends I have discussed it with maintain that nothing happened that night. Save for a luggage mishap. I hope to convince you otherwise. Not guilty. That was how it began with the verdict read aloud to the crowded courtroom on a dark afternoon in December. I sprang to my feet, already grinning with relief.

I was very glad to hear it, though not for the same reason as my client, the accused man such a short distance down the table, wearing an inscrutable expression. He had pale alabaster skin, coarse black hair scraped across a high forehead and dark eyes set a bit too deep into his skull. But far worse than the face of John TURC was the crimes he was accused of as the private secretary for the defense. I had been in the courtroom for every day of the proceedings.

I had listened for 10 days as the gentleman for the prosecution described his crimes in detail, how he dismembered his poor victim with no sign of remorse and then crammed her with lime into car. Ironically, John Turk's wickedness made our jobs that much easier. It was clear to everyone that he was guilty. His only chance of escaping the gallows was a plea of insanity. Personally, I would have been happy to see him hang even though my firm was representing him, but I was far less interested in the verdict than the next words out of the chief justice's mouth.

Court adjourned in no time at all. I was hurrying across the thoroughfare toward the offices of my employer to deliver the news. There was a chill in the air and a soft snow had begun to fall. This only serves to brighten my spirits further reminding me of the holiday that awaited. This time tomorrow, I would be gliding through the Alps with a set of firm skis beneath my feet. My employer, Mr. Wilbraham, was seated behind his giant barista's desk, perusing the file from next case.

He didn't look up as I entered and received the verdict with little more than a nod. Under different circumstances, I would have been put out by his lack of interest, considering that I had just devoted many sleepless nights to his case. But I attributed his lack of enthusiasm to the fact that, like the rest of us, he would have enjoyed seeing his clients hang wrapped the thing up just in time, Wilbraham said, finally putting down his quill.

You're getting away for Christmas, aren't you? The Alps, was it? That's right, I told him. There is one thing I wanted to ask you. Would you mind lending me one of your kit bags? I didn't have time to pick one up and I leave before the shops open. I'll have Henry send one over tonight, he said before I could finish then. Now get out of here before I find more work for you to do.

I had a quick dinner at the club and caught the underground back to Bloomsbury. I'd been renting a floor in an old house there, a rather cheerless place with big, drafty rooms. When I arrived, there were only a few lights on in the windows and they stared at me like eyes set in deep, dark sockets. My landlady, Mrs. Monks', was waiting for me in the hallway. She was shielding a candle with one hand and had clearly been enjoying a nightcap.

It's come by a man from Mr. Wilbraham, sir, she said, and pointed to the kitbag on the landing. It was one of those large canvas duffel bags with a brass handle and padlock. I was a bit surprised at the sight of it, for it was quite lumpy and threadbare for the luggage of a London barrister. But it was exceptionally large and looked like it would suit my purposes quite nicely. I took the bag and continued upward. The floor directly beneath mine was vacant, which was nice as it allowed me to work late into the night without fear of waking any neighbors.

As I passed it on the stairwell, my eyes glided down the hallway. It was bare save for the shadows and a few wires for picture frames still protruding from the wall. At last I reached my own floor. The landing led directly into a short hallway with the door to my bedroom at one end and an open seating area at the other. Further on, there was a very small kitchen with little more than a sink and stove. It was admittedly a bit drab.

The floors creaked, the walls were a dingy shade of yellow, and the electric lighting was unreliable. But I had done my best to furnish it tastefully and bring some feeling of life to the place. I opened the door to my bedroom without looking and tossed the kitbag onto the floor beside my bed, then continued on to the kitchen to put on the kettle. By this point, the snow had become a heavy rain and the wind howled and rattled the window panes.

As I stared out the window in the rain, I found my mind drifting back to the trial. I pictured the face of John TURC brow furrowed, unreadable. Had he warned the same inscrutable expression when he chopped his victim to pieces, I shivered, suddenly, shaking myself from the dark thoughts. The trial was behind me, and I would soon be far from the drab, wet, grey of London.

I hummed a Christmas melody as I packed, taking no great care in what I was doing, the size of the bag meant that I could pack as much as I liked without worry. I stuffed in my coat, cap, boots and skates without much thought. I remembered that my gloves were on the mantel over the fireplace and was on my way to fetch them when I heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs. I stopped what I was doing to listen to the footsteps.

It was not uncommon to hear such sounds in a house full of lodgers, but I knew the floor below me to be unoccupied. I thought for a moment that it must be Mrs. Monks' bringing up the last post. But the steps were too heavy, despite a clear attempt to dampen themselves. Perhaps one of my downstairs neighbors had missed their floor by mistake, I thought. Sure enough, the footsteps stopped on the floor directly below mine. I stood there on the landing, waiting patiently for the visitor to retreat.

But I did not hear another sound. A shrill scream sounded behind me, and I spun around to see steam rising from the kitchen. The kettle was ready. I chuckled to myself, wondering at my foolishness how I must have looked. Standing at the banister and eavesdropping on the house like an old governess. I went to prepare my coffee and then returned to the bedroom to finish packing. The kit bag was two thirds full by this point and stood upright beside the bed like a sack of flour.

As I glanced at it in the dim light, the strangest impression came over me. The top of the bag was drooped over in such a way that the folds and shadows of the canvas took on the distinct impression of a human face.

A crease formed, a mouth, a lump served as the nose, and the brass rings stood in for eyes. On another night, I would have brushed off the impression without much thought, for who has not seen Spectre's or haunting visages in the knot of a hollow tree or the pattern of a carpet. The human mind is a treacherous thing, and when the wind howls at the proper pitch and the lights are dimmed, it will make ghosts out of whatever banal materials it has at its disposal.

But my own mind had more to work with, and most, it seemed, for the face in the bag was not just any face, but the one I was most determined to forget. From the flat four head to the cold button eyes and sharp nose. There was no mistaking that I was staring into the face of my client, the murderer, John Terk. What did I do? Faced with such an inexplicable fright, I laughed. I'm not sure if it was from the absurdity of what I had seen or from a desire to prove that I was not afraid in the slightest.

I walked out onto the landing where the light was a bit stronger and looked back into the bedroom. From this angle, I could see no eyes or mouth, but only a shabby old bag standing beside the bed.

The face had stared not from the canvas, but from my own imagination. The house creaked noisily below me. There was someone on the stairwell again determined to see who it was. I darted to the banister and looked down, but the stairwell was entirely empty. I felt deeply unsettled. Part of me wanted to ignore it and go back to my packing, but I was sure that I had heard someone moving about down there. After a moment's hesitation, I hurried down the stairs to the floor below.

The dim light of my own apartment was nothing compared to the darkness that awaited me. The layout was unfamiliar, a long hallway leading to three bedrooms. I opened the door to each one slowly, but found no one. It was unfurnished as I'd expected. There were not even curtains to hide behind, but my eyes lingered over every corner and shadow, my ears strained for any sound of the patter I'd heard before. But there was nothing but the wind howling angrily outside.

I returned to the stairwell and called down to Mrs. Monks', asking if she had been up looking for me. There was no response. The house was asleep. Defeated, I headed back up. This holiday can't come soon enough, I muttered to myself as I climbed the stairs, a curious feeling of dread had settled over me that I could not seem to dismiss by envisioning white slopes. I was halfway up when my breath caught in my throat out of the corner of my eye.

I had seen the distinct outline of a figure at the top of the stairs. Someone had just entered my apartment. Coming up, the kit bag continues. Now back to the story. I stood on the stairwell, not moving or even breathing, I had just glimpsed a shadowy figure enter my apartment. I stood there for the space of several minutes, eyeing the long shadows cast by the banister and listening to the wind. I must have hesitated for only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

I gathered my courage and hurried up the rest of the way. There was no one on the landing. I started to head toward the sitting room where the light was strongest. Then the wood boards of the floor groaned behind me and I heard a sound that set my teeth on edge. It was a shuffling, scraping sound like someone with a limp moving very quickly. Someone had just started from the stairs where I had just been standing into my bedroom.

It was at that moment that I crossed the line that I had been gradually approaching for much of the evening between nervousness and true fear. My legs felt weak and sluggish so that every movement required great effort and focus. I knew that the only thing to do was to face this thing head on, to force it from the shadows of my mind into the light of reality.

I will do my body back under my control and walk toward my bedroom, hands clenched stiffly on either side, who's there? I called in a voice that was unnecessarily loud. Is that you, Mrs. Monks'? I knew, of course, that it was not. But it seemed like the only reasonable thing to say. I entered the bedroom to find nothing out of place.

The kitbag stood beside the bed where I left it. I saw the curtains sway and my heart froze. I dashed forward, ripped them aside and came face to face with the rain streaked window. My back was now exposed to the room. I spun around half, expecting to see my intruder lunging toward me with a knife.

But there was still no one. Now I was desperate to get out of the room, away from the horrible sound. I dashed back for the door. As I crossed the center of the room, something caught my legs. I stumbled and nearly fell.

I had tripped over the kitbag, which was very odd because only a moment earlier it had been on the other side of the bed, closer to the bath, whereas now it was in the middle of the room. As I looked at the bag in the dim light, I saw something move behind it. It was a human head and face there only for an instant before it dipped down, disappearing behind the lip of the kitbag. Someone was crouching behind it.

Before I could react, I heard a drawn out sigh.

I felt a scream bubbling up inside my throat. Who is there? I whispered, but no one responded. I had to look to see for myself and confirm what I had just glimpsed.

I stepped around the bag circling all the way around, but there was no one behind it. I took another look at the bag and noticed its bulging sides. The most horrible thoughts sprang to my mind. What if they were inside the bag itself? I threw open the latch to look inside the kit bag held only my belongings, my skates and boots and clothes. There was, however, something I had not noticed before in my haste to pack a dark crimson streak that ran up the inside of the bag.

It was a blood stain without warning, the kit bag lurched away from me, the screen that had been bottling up inside me all night came tearing out.

I fell back against the door, accidentally knocking it shut as I flailed against the wall to pull myself up, my hand caught against the electric switch and the lights in the room switched off, plunging me into darkness. I had passed from the realm of acute fear into outright terror. One thought possessed me get out. I pulled at the doorknob trying desperately to open it. But the coat I had hung there earlier got in the way and I found myself entangled in its sleeves behind me.

I heard a sound that I could only imagine was the kitbag being dragged or perhaps dragging itself across the floor. Then that horrible sigh sounded again from right beside me. My hand found the switch for the briefest instant, I wondered if it would be better not to see as long as it was dark, a small part of me could still reasoned it all away as a bout of nerves, the result of working myself to the bone on a particularly grisly case.

Did I really want to dispel that fantasy? But it was too late. I had already pressed it. Light flooded the room. The murderer, John TURC, was stooped over the kitbag, examining its contents. The site of the man's pale face in the harsh electric light brought the reality of the last 10 days back with startling clarity. I remembered at once the testimony I had tried so hard to forget how John TURC had chopped his female victim into pieces, then covered her body with lime and buried it inside of a kitbag by hand, found the doorknob.

But before I could turn it, John Turk's face lifted and his eyes met mine. The strained sigh lifted from his lips, forming words.

I don't remember much of what happened next, I know that I managed to get the door open. I suspect that in my mad scramble to escape, I fell back into the landing and hit my head. When I finally opened my eyes, the gray light of dawn was creeping through the windows and I was staring into the face of Mrs. Monks'. What are you sleeping out here in the landing for? She exclaimed. I do hope you're not ill. There's an urgent gentlemen to see you there, waiting seven o'clock.

Yet the urgent gentleman turned out to be Mr. Williams man. He apologized and explained that there had been a horrible mix up. Henry must have seen that bag from the trial and Mr. Williams office and assumed it was the one intended for you. When Mr. Wilbraham saw that his own kit bag was still at home this morning, he asked why it hadn't been delivered yet. They realized straight away they must have sent you the one from the murder trial.

Oh, I said, not meeting his eyes. I was still trying to work out what had really happened last night had it all been a dream or my imagination, after all.

Mr. Williams man presented me with the new kitbag, which, while not quite as spacious, was in far better shape than the one I'd received. I let him into the bedroom, but did not follow him inside. All seems to be in order. He called from inside the room. Perhaps you could unpack it for me, I suggested, for I still feared what I might see if I stepped through the doorway. I heard the man unpacking for several minutes, and then he emerged carrying the canvas bag under one arm.

I thank the man for bringing over the new kitbag. He gave me an odd look and then said, Beg pardon, sir, but knowing your interest in the Turk case, I thought you'd like to know what's happened. Yes, I said slowly, though part of me certainly did not want to know what had happened.

John Turk killed himself last night, the man said eagerly, immediately upon his release with poison. I stared at the man, rather dumbfounded and. What time was that, I finally asked, right about 10:00 o'clock, I'd say, immediately upon his release, and that's not all he left a note for. Mr. Wilbraham said he'd be much obliged if they'd bury him like the woman he murdered inside his old kit bag.

First published by the Pall Mall magazine in December of 1998, Algernon Blackwood's The Kitbag is a classic in some ways rudimentary ghost story. Following a single character through a terrifying evening at home, Blackwood relies on atmosphere and sensory details to create an acute sense of mounting dread. His vivid descriptions of the sounds inside a drafty old house on a cold December night immerse us in the horror of a paranormal encounter. The experience is simultaneously alien and all too familiar for who among us has not seen shadows move at the corner of their vision or heard mysterious sounds in the dead of night.

It's times like these when we're tempted to pull our heads beneath the blankets, when we wonder if we have the courage to turn on the light. While Algernon Blackwood was a master at creating fear, his stories contained a deeper purpose. He described his writing in a letter to a friend saying, My fundamental interest, I suppose, is science and proofs of other powers that lie hidden in a soul. I believe it possible for our consciousness to change and grow, and that with this change we may become aware of a new universe.

Like many of his stories, the Kitbag offers a window into a universe beyond our understanding, a world where the dead are not truly gone, where violent crimes echo through time, and where something as banal as a piece of travel luggage can transport us to the brink of abject terror. Thanks again for tuning in to haunted places, ghost stories. We'll be back on Thursday with a new episode. You can find more episodes of Ghost Stories and all other podcast originals for free on Spotify.

See you on the other side. Haunted Places Ghost Stories was created by Max Cutler and is podcast studio's original. It is executive produced by Max Cutler Sound designed by Kerry Murphy with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Erin Larson. This episode of Haunted Places Ghost Stories was written by Andrew Kealoha with writing assistants by Greg Castro. Andrew Cole. I'm Alastair Murden.