A haunted house frightens us because home is supposed to be the place where we find refuge from the rest of the world… and so to hear that floorboard creak when no one’s there or to sense a shape out of the corner of your eye, feels like a betrayal. The idea that we’re not alone and that we’re being watched—maybe even malevolently—is a truly scary idea. Here in the U.S., there are plenty of haunted houses we can visit or even spend the night (shudder), and often, they’re places where horrific murders took place. From the LaLaurie House in New Orleans, where enslaved people were tortured, to the Massachusetts home where Lizzie Borden may have taken an ax to family members—and everything in between—you can definitely indulge in paranormal tourism if that is your jam. And the next time you walk past a certain kind of a house, its lights out and leaves rattling across its lawn, you’ll get that little shiver thinking that someone’s still inside, caught between two worlds: a ghost that can’t leave.
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